Chapter II: Preface

Certain definite ideals have been constantly in mind in the preparation of the present volume, among these the following:

To write a handbook that is so definite, concrete, and clear that the least experienced person of average intelligence will find it practical.

To bring directly to those who have opportunity to use it,—the home-makers, present and prospective,—some of the wealth of present knowledge in biology, dietetics, hygiene, domestic efficiency, child psychology, education, that is stored in the laboratories, research reports, medical records, technical journals, and educational classics, translating these from the obscure tongue of technical language into the clearer speech of daily life.

To furnish a guide to more technical or detailed consideration of each subject.

To present fundamental principles and facts rather than mere rule of thumb procedure, so that the reader may act intelligently and make intelligent variations.

Not to compromise on half-way procedure that merely prevents disaster, but to make clear the means to greatest personal efficiency and social power.

To keep a progressive yet reserved attitude between conservative and radical theories.

To bring the spirit of sympathy and humanness, of love and child-nature and poetry into the teaching of home-making.

To lighten the burden and enlighten the minds and hearts of earnest young people so that with joy and satisfaction they may essay and find the home and family life that their hearts desire.

Froebel outlined, nearly a century ago, a thorough, practical training course for young women, preparatory to home-making or to vocational work as teachers or mothers’ assistants. At Pestalozzi-Froebel House in Berlin, half a century ago, under the administration of Frau Shrader and Miss Annette Schepel, such a course was organized. Echoes of it to-day are found in the German secondary schools and special schools for girls. The same idea spread to England a quarter of a century ago, and there to-day a score of special schools, and some girls’ high schools, provide such a training.

In America, the School of Mothercraft was opened in New York City in December, 1911, to work out experimentally a training course for educated young women.[1] Here has been developed a comprehensive, human, practical course including domestic science and art, and the care and training of babies and little children. The students work in a home atmosphere, under home conditions, using the household for their practice work, caring for the resident babies and children, educating and training them in the course of the day’s régime, and receiving their own training in personality and technique as well as in theory. Extension classes have been maintained for young mothers, brides, and engaged young women.

It is work with young women and the children in the School of Mothercraft that has made possible the preparation of the present volume.

No book can take the place of the living teacher. No amount of discussion of theory can be a substitute for experience. Yet experience, without sound principles, is also of minor value. Any book presupposes a modicum of common sense and rational judgment in its readers.

In a volume of such limited compass only a few significant principles can be presented, and some of the important elementary facts and technique that more technical books may overlook. The present volume aims only to be an introduction to the many phases of home-making, child care, and child training, to furnish something of vision for these responsibilities, and a guide for further study.

No book can be a substitute for the personal advice of the physician, the hygienist, the psychologist, and the teacher. The reader of any book on applied science may easily make the mistake of interpreting statements out of proportion to their significance, or of misunderstanding directions so that they even become misleading. Only discussion with the living teacher will discover and correct such errors.

The reader must be open-minded to new discoveries, new theories, new methods. At the present time, as never before, extensive researches are being made in biology, hygiene, dietetics, child psychology, and pedagogy. Important discoveries as revolutionary as the discovery of the circulation of the blood, radio-activity, the cellular basis of life, may be made at any future time.

In the present volume no attempt has been made to present controversial points of view, but a consistently constructive régime and programme has been given. The novice in any art must first learn to work constructively and rather dogmatically, until he has learned to apply one set of principles efficiently. Then he may begin to modify details according to some rational principle, instead of by mere whim, and to compare his method with other possibilities. The basis and the special authorities for the régime here presented will be found in the final chapter on bibliography.

JULY, 1916. MARY L. READ.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The word “mothercraft” was coined by the author to express the comprehensive scope of the training. The word has since come into use in England in a narrower sense, including merely infant care. It is hoped that in America the use of the word may be retained in its larger significance.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The author begs to acknowledge indebtedness and gratitude to many who have participated in the making of the book.

To the Messrs. Macmillan Co., Ginn Company, F. A. Stokes Co., and D. Appleton & Co., for permission to quote from their publications; to the American Medical Association Press and Dr. Roland G. Freeman for use of the graphs on growth; to Mr. William S. Bailey and The Nurse Studio for many of the photographs taken specially for this work.

Especially the author begs to tender sincere thanks for many criticisms, suggestions, and reviewing of manuscript to Dr. David Starr Jordan, Dr. William F. Snow, Professors Rudolph M. Binder, Willystine Goodsell, Robert M. Yerkes, and Mr. Paul Popenoe, on the sections dealing with the home and the family; to Dr. Josephine H. Kenyon for sections on maternity and infancy, Drs. Henry I. Bowditch, William Shannon, and William H. Burnham, for sections on hygiene and growth; to physicians and nurses at Battle Creek Sanitarium for assistance in the sections on nursing and nutrition; to Dr. William H. Park for revising data on communicable diseases, and to Professors Henry C. Sherman and Mary S. Rose for suggestions and for unpublished data on nutrition. Mrs. Anna Martin Crocker and Miss Sunnyve Carlsen have kindly given literary assistance. Helpful suggestions on the reading list have been furnished by science teachers of Horace Mann, Ethical Culture, Francis Parker, and the University of Chicago Elementary Schools. Miss Helen O. Rider and Miss Mary Scott Allen have rendered invaluable aid in criticism and clerical details. To the many others who have furnished technical data or read portions of the manuscript, the author here expresses thanks. Finally, the author would gratefully acknowledge the unfailing patience and kindly encouragement of the publishers. For such errors as may be found the author alone is responsible. Criticisms or suggestions from readers, which may improve the helpfulness or accuracy of the Manual, will be gratefully received.

MARY L. READ.

JULY, 1916.

CONTENTS

PAGE
INTRODUCTION vii