Part 4 (2/2)
The work of the aid societies is by no means confined to finding homes. It aids parents to find truant children, it gives outings in the summer season, it shelters homeless mothers with their children, it administers aid in time of sickness. In industrial schools it teaches children to help themselves by training them in such practical arts as carpentry, caning chairs, printing, cooking, dressmaking, and millinery.
Efficient oversight and management, together with co-operation among child-saving agencies, is a present need. A national welfare bureau is a decided step in advance. Prevention of neglect and cruelty in the homes of the children themselves is the immediate goal of all constructive effort. The education of public opinion to demand universal consideration for child life is the ultimate aim.
READING REFERENCES
MANGOLD: _Problems of Child Welfare_, pages 166-184, 271-341.
CLOPPER: _Child Labor in the City Street._
MCKEEVER: _Training the Boy_, pages 203-213.
MCKEEVER: _Farm Boys and Girls_, pages 26-36.
LEE: _Constructive and Preventive Philanthropy_, pages 123-184.
FOLKS: _Care of Dest.i.tute and Neglected Children._
CHAPTER VIII
HOME ECONOMICS
64. =The Economic Function of the Home.=--Up to this point the domestic function of the family has been under consideration. Marriage and parenthood must hold first place, because they are fundamental to the family and to the welfare of the race. But the family has an economic as well as a domestic function. The primitive instinct of hunger finds satisfaction in the home, and economic needs are supplied in clothing, shelter, and bodily comforts. Production, distribution, and consumption are all a part of the life of the farm. Domestic economy is the foundation of all economics, and the family on the farm presents the fundamental principles and phenomena that belong to the science of economics as it presents the fundamentals of sociology. The hunger for food demands satisfaction even more insistently than the mating instinct. Birds must eat while they woo each other and build their nests, and when the nest is full of helpless young both parents find their time occupied in foraging for food. Similarly, when human mating is over and the family hearth is built, and especially when children have entered into the home life, the main occupation of man and wife is to provide maintenance for the family. The need of food, clothing, and shelter is common to the race. The requirements of the family determine largely both the amount and the kind of work that is done to meet them. However broad and elevated may be the interests of the modern gentleman and his cultured wife, they cannot forget that the physical needs of their family are as insistent as those of the unrefined day laborer.
65. =Primitive Economics.=--In primitive times the family provided everything for itself. In forest and field man and woman foraged for food, cooked it at the camp-fire that they made, and rested under a temporary shelter. If they required clothing they robbed the wild beasts of their hide and fur or wove an ap.r.o.n of vegetable fibre.
Physical wants were few and required comparatively little labor. In the pastoral stage the flocks and herds provided food and clothing.
Under the patriarchal system the woman was the economic slave. She was goatherd and milkmaid, fire-tender and cook, tailor and tent-maker. It was she who coaxed the grains to grow in the first cultivated field, and experimented with the first kitchen garden. She was the dependable field-hand for the sowing and reaping, when agriculture became the princ.i.p.al means of subsistence. But woman's position has steadily improved. She is no longer the slave but the helper. The peasant woman of Europe still works in the fields, but American women long ago confined themselves to indoor tasks, except in the gathering of special crops like cotton and cranberries. Home economics have taught the advantage of division of labor and co-operation.
66. =Division of Labor.=--Because of greater fitness for the heavy labor of the field and barn, the man and his sons naturally became the agriculturists and stock-breeders as civilization improved. It was man's function to produce the raw material for home manufacture. He ploughed and fertilized the soil, planted the various seeds, cultivated the growing crops, and gathered in the harvest. It was his task to perform the rougher part of preparing the raw material for use. He threshed the wheat and barley on the thres.h.i.+ng-floor and ground the corn at the mill, and then turned over the product to his wife. He bred animals for dairy or market, milked his cows, sheared his sheep, and butchered his hogs and beeves; it was her task to turn then to the household's use. She learned how to take the wheat and corn, the beef and pork, and to prepare healthful and appetizing meals for the household; she practised making b.u.t.ter and cheese for home use and exchange. She took the flax and wool and spun and wove them into cloth, and with her needle fas.h.i.+oned garments for every member of the household and furnis.h.i.+ngs for the common home. She kept clean and tidy the home and its manufacturing tools.
When field labor was slack the man improved the opportunity to fas.h.i.+on the plough and the horseshoe at the forge, to build the boat or the cart in the shop, to hew store or cut timber for building or firewood, to erect a mill for sawing lumber or grinding grain. Similarly the woman used her spare time in knitting and mending, and if time and strength permitted added to her duties the care of the poultry-house.
67. =The Servant of the Household.=--Long before civilization had advanced the household included servants. When wars broke out the victor found himself possessed of human spoil. With pa.s.sion unrestrained, he killed the man or woman who had come under his power, but when reason had a chance to modify emotion he decided that it was more sensible to save his captives alive and to work them as his slaves. The men could satisfy his economic interest, the women his s.e.x desire. The men were useful in the field, the women in the house.
Ancient material prosperity was built on the slave system of industry.
The remarkable culture of Athens was possible because the citizens, free from the necessity of labor, enjoyed ample leisure. Lords and ladies could live in their mediaeval castles and practise chivalry with each other, because peasants slaved for them in the fields without pay. Slowly the servant cla.s.s improved its status. Slaves became serfs and serfs became free peasants, but the relation of master and servant based on mutual service lasted for many centuries.
The time came when it was profitable for both parties to deal on a money basis, and the workman began to know the meaning of independence. The actual relation of master and servant remained about the same, for the workman was still dependent upon his employer. It took him a long time to learn to think much for himself, and he did not know how to find employment outside of the community or even the household where he had grown up. In the growing democracy of England, and more fully in America, the workman learned to negotiate for himself as a free man, and even to become himself a freeholder of land.
68. =Hired Labor on the Farm.=--In the process of production in doors and out it was impossible on a large farm for the independent farmer and his wife to get on alone. There must be help in the cultivation of many acres and in the care of cattle and sheep. There must be a.s.sistance in the home when the birth and care of children brought an added burden to the housewife. Later the growing boys and girls could have their ch.o.r.es and thus add their contribution to the co-operative household, but for a time at least success on the farm depended on the hired laborer. Husband and wife became directors of industry as well as laborers themselves. In the busy summer season it was necessary to employ one or more a.s.sistants in the field, less often indoors, and the employee became for a time a member of the family. Often a neighbor performed the function of farm a.s.sistant, and as such stood on the same level as his employer; there was no servant cla.s.s or servant problem, except the occasional shortage of laborers. Young men and women were glad of an opportunity to earn a little money and to save it in antic.i.p.ation of the time when they would set up farming in homes of their own. The spirit and practice of co-operation dignified the employment in which all were engaged.
69. =Co-operation.=--The control of the manufacturing industry on a large scale by corporations makes hearty co-operation between the employing group and the employees difficult, but on the farm the personal relations of the persons engaged made it easy and natural.
The art of working together as well as living together was an achievement of the home, at first beginning unconsciously, but later with a definite purpose. The practice of co-operation is a continual object-lesson to the children, as they become conscious of the mutual dependence of each and all. The farmer has no time to do the small tasks, and so the boy must do the ch.o.r.es. There is a limit to the strength of the mother, and so the daughter or housemaid must supplement her labors. Without the grain and vegetables the housewife cannot provide the meals, but the man is equally dependent upon the woman for the preparation of the food. Without the care and industry of the parents through the helpless years of childhood, the children could not win in the struggle for existence. Nor is it merely an economic matter, but health and happiness depend upon the mutual consideration and helpfulness of every member of the household.
70. =Economic Independence of the Farm.=--Until well into the nineteenth century the American farm household provided for most of its own economic needs. A country store, helped out if necessary by an occasional visit to town, supplied the few goods that were not produced at home. Economic wants were simple and means of purchase were not abundant. On the other hand, most of the products of the farm were consumed there. In the prevailing extensive agriculture the returns per acre were not great, methods of efficiency were not known or were given little attention, families were large and children and farm-hands enjoyed good appet.i.tes, and production and consumption tended to equalize themselves. In the process of the home manufacture of clothing it was difficult to keep the family provided with the necessary comforts; there was no thought of laying by a surplus beyond the antic.i.p.ated needs of the family and provision for the wedding store of marriageable daughters.
The distribution of any acc.u.mulated surplus was effected by the simplest mechanism of exchange. If the supply of young cattle was large or the wood-lot furnished more firewood than was needed, the product was bartered for seed corn or hay. There was swapping of horses by the men or of fruit or vegetable preserves by the women.
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