Vocational Guidance for Girls | Page 6

drudgery, but no voice is raised to show her that it may

be made something else. With the advent of vocational guidance,
vocational training of necessity follows close behind. And with
vocational training must come a proper appreciation, among the other
businesses of life, of this "business of being a woman."
Must we then educate the girl to be a homemaker, and keep her out of
the industrial life which has claimed her so swiftly and in which she
has found so much of her emancipation? No, we could not, if we would,
keep her from the outside life. We must rather recognize her double
vocation and, difficult though it seem, must educate her for both phases
of her "business." She will be not only the better woman, but the better
worker, because of the very breadth of her vocational horizon.
Training for homemaking, then, must go hand in hand with training for
some phase of industrial life. Vocational guides must consider not only
inclination and temperament, but physical condition and the supply and
demand of the industrial world. They will consider the girl not merely
as an industrial worker, but as a potential homemaker. They will,
therefore, also study the effect of various vocations upon homemaking
capabilities.
How then shall the teaching of this double vocation be approached?
How shall we, as teachers of girls, make them capable of becoming
homemakers? How shall we make them see that homemaking and the
world's work may go hand in hand, so that they will desire in time to
turn from their industrial service to the later and better destiny of
making a home? This book offers its contribution toward answering
these questions.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Ida M. Tarbell, The Business of Being a Woman.]
[Footnote 2: Lester F. Ward, Pure Sociology.]

CHAPTER II

THE IDEAL HOME
That we may understand, and to some extent formulate, the problem
which we would have girls trained to solve, we must of necessity study
homes. What must girls know in order to be successful homemakers?
A historical survey of the home leads us to the conclusion that although
times have changed, and homes have changed, and indeed all outward
conditions have changed, the spiritual ideal of home is no different
from what it has always been. The home is the seat of family life. Its
one object is the making of healthy, wise, happy, satisfied, useful, and
efficient people. The home is essentially a spiritual factory, whether or
not it is to remain to any degree whatever a material one. "Home will
become an atmosphere, a 'condition in which,' rather than 'a place
where,'" says Nearing in his Woman and Social Progress. "The home is
a factory to make citizenship in," writes Mrs. Bruère.
But although this spiritual significance of home has always existed, we
are sometimes inclined to overlook the fact. Because conditions have
changed, and because our external ideals of home have changed and are
still changing, we fail to see that the foundation of home life is still
unchanged.
"I sometimes think that many women don't consciously know why they
are running their homes," says Mrs. Frederick, author of The New
Housekeeping. We might add that many of those who do know, or
think they know, are struggling to attain to purely trivial or
fundamentally wrong ideals. It seems wise, then, for us to face at the
outset the question "What is the ideal home?"
[Illustration: Copyright by Keystone View Co. An attractive living
room in which there is that atmosphere of peace so conducive to a
happy family life]
Laying aside all preconceived notions, and remembering that changes
are coming fast in these days, let us look for the ideals which may be
common to all homes, in city or country, among rich or poor.

[Illustration: Photograph by Brown Bros. A well-arranged kitchen
forms an important part of the smoothly running mechanism of the
ideal home]
First of all, the home must be comfortable, and its whole atmosphere
must be that of peace. In no other way can the tension of modern life be
overcome. This implies order and cleanliness, beauty, warmth, light,
and air; but it implies far more. It means a home planned for the people
who will occupy it, and so planned that father's needs, and mother's,
and the children's, will all be met. What does each member of the
family require of the house? A place to live in. And that means far more
than eating and sleeping and having a place for one's clothes. There
must be not only a place for everything, but a place for everybody in
the ideal house. The boys who wish to dabble in electricity, the girls
who wish to entertain their friends in their own way, the tired father
who wishes to