Household Administration, Its Place in the Higher Education of Women
General
Household Administration, Its Place in the Higher Education of Women
Home economics; Women -- Education
Taking the latter question first: it is indisputable that an enormous
proportion of our commerce and manufactures is concerned with food and
with articles required for the home. But things for the home are made to
be dealt with and used by women. In so far as science comes in and
modifies this material it is imperative that women should be placed in a
position, not only to know what are the essentials for life, but also to
criticise and estimate accurately that which is offered to them as
scientific improvement. For we need, in this connection also, to
remember that science can only be fought by science--that is, by
knowledge belonging to the same plane.
We have now in part answered our former question. What we need is a
central or basal science to which--for practical purposes and in regard
to its practical application--the work done in other sciences can be
brought to be accepted, or rejected, or modified. This central science
can, in the very nature of things, be none other than biology: the
science, that is, which gives an account of the functions and
inter-relations and structure of all living things, and deduces
therefrom those principles which, in a rather loose way, we speak of as
the laws of life.
It would, we think, be a very happy turn of affairs if, not all, but
some of that genius, which is now spending itself in the research for
fresh facts, could be diverted to the work of correlating with one
another facts already known, and bringing all those that are appropriate
to be grouped as it were in order of service around biology.
But perhaps not less important than this is what we may call the
practical synthetic work of women in their households. There are,
indeed, two circumstances which would give the ordinary woman of average
intelligence, if she were but adequately instructed, some advantage, so
far as the service of mankind goes, over even the most brilliant man of
genius. The first is the vantage-ground of her position in the home--at
the very point, that is, where so many sciences thrust themselves up
together to the surface of actual life--where in some way or other,
however roughly, they have to be correlated, compared, their different
claims adjusted. The second is the natural inclination of the womanly
mind towards synthesis rather than analysis, towards practice rather
than theory.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account