Chapter X. Conclusions and Recommendations

1. As compared with the traditional fields established in the higher educational world, home economics has had a very brief time in which to isolate and to create subject matter, to devise organizations, train staffs, and formulate purposes in terms of a college standard that has itself been revolutionized during the past 15 years.

2. There are four main tendencies or conceptions in interpretation of home economics purposes:

(a) The development of handicraft skill in the operation of home keeping. No institution to-day admits that the major objective of its home economics work is that of developing handicraft skill in the operations of home keeping.

(b) The development of home managers capable of handling the labor, the financing, and the social relationships that arise in the family unit. The statements of objectives by home economics departments show that more than two-thirds of the statements are determined by desire to provide education that will serve the purposes revealed by more or less conscious and thoroughgoing analysis of the family. Women are increasingly seeking and finding interests that are more closely related to other institutional and social groupings than to the homes which they maintain, and there would seem to be no reason why the other individual interests and abilities of women should be submerged in the family unit.

(c) Preparation for specific gainful employment.-All the 42 institutions that describe their home economics objectives include in one form or another statements of objectives in terms of gainful employment-teaching, dietetics, extension service, institutional management, journalism, and business concerned with the buying, selling, or servicing of products used in homes. It should be fairly obvious that these employment objectives are not fully determined and can not be determined by analysis of family and home activity and relationships.

(d) The objective of combined scientific and social education.This objective may be described as one that attempts to combine scientific and social education by utilizing as a medium and incentive

the activities and relationships that arise from home and family life. In so far as this is a just statement of a definite home economics objective it requires solution of practical problems and experimental procedures that may well be of greater significance in higher education than the mere segregation of another area of educational endeavor. The processes that will be required if this problem is to be solved in the field of home economics will result in the creation of new subject matter, in new treatment of old subjects, and in daring experimental combinations of methods and courses.

3. The organization of home economics in the institutions tends to reflect and to determine to a considerable degree the conceptions of home economics objectives that are dominant in the land-grant colleges as a group.

There are in the land-grant institutions four types of assignment that reflect institutional conceptions of home economics objectives: (1) Assignment of home economics to the college of arts and sciences; (2) assignment to the college of education; (3) assignment to the college of agriculture; and (4) assignment to a position coordinate with the traditional major divisions in university organization.

(a) Retention of home economics in the college of arts and sciences tends to restrict the development of new and wider home economics objectives, since administrative control is centered in an educational position that is unlikely to devote a large degree of vigor and initiative to the special development of this field.

(b) Assignment of the home economics work to schools of education becomes inappropriate as women in increasing numbers enter occupations other than teaching. If all home economics work is conducted by this major division the practice is not in harmony with the relations that exist between other subject-matter fields and the school of education. On the other hand, it is just as much out of harmony with accepted principles of institutional organization to assign home economics teacher-training exclusively to a major division other than the school of education when a well-developed school of education exists in the institution.

Practice in the land-grant college with reference to the relationships that the home economics units bear to home economics teacher training shows considerable variety and indicates frequent departure from sound principles of organization.

(c) Affiliation of home economics work with the college of agriculture has provided opportunity in many instances for rather free development. Further evidence also points in this direction, since many of the home economics units still in colleges of agriculture are well developed and exercise a degree of autonomy far in excess of the self-control permitted to other subject-matter departments.

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(d) When home economics instruction is conceived in terms of utilizing subject matter derived from home and family relationships as a medium for a combined humanistic and scientific college education it is entirely logical to set up an independent major division of home economics coordinate with the other schools and colleges of the institution. The tendency to make the home economics unit an independent one is in some instances a conventional notion of what is needed rather than an indication that home economics objectives are such as to require separate control.

4. Failure to articulate all home economics instruction, extension, and research through the head of home economics resident instruction is likely to result in undesirable duplication and a variety of standards within the institution.

5. When home economics matters must pass through a number of subordinate administrative heads before reaching the president it is relatively safe to assume that the immediate heads of home economies work may frequently be compelled to modify their objectives and activities in accordance with policies and attitudes determined primarily upon grounds other than those of development of home economics purposes.

6. Representation of the home economics units on the governing faculty bodies is so limited that a query may well be raised concerning the reasons for this situation. On the other hand, there is a somewhat liberal representation of home economics teachers upon institutional standing committees. That home economics should be represented so frequently on the curriculum committee, one of the most important institutional committees, is testimony by a large number of institutions that the home economics staff is recognized as having a contribution to make.

The facilities and the restrictions that are due to the formal position of home economics in the institutional organization serve to promote or to limit definition and attainment of objectives, but aggressive and competent home economics leadership or sympathetic administrative impetus may secure for home economics an organization of such size and of such character as to attain very advanced objectives even though its apparent position in the organization as a whole indicates restricted purposes.

7. In a number of the land-grant colleges multiplication of departments has proceeded at a rate not justified by the size of staff and by the academic ranking given to staff members. As presented in the reports from the institutions the internal organization of home economics units throws very little light upon the suitability of the exist ing organization to the attainment of any specific type of objective. Internal organization needs readjustment for the definite purpose of

adapting organization machinery to the accomplishment of a very well-defined purpose.

8. Home economics is establishing its subject-matter field in the esteem of other areas of college instruction. Expansion of the service that home economics can render to other divisions of the institution depends upon the degree of success attained in efforts to establish new and more thoroughgoing analyses of relationships and combinations of home economics subjects.

9. It is significant that among a group of persons engaged in the direction of education that depends upon homemaking for its incentive, so small a number have had experience in the fundamental relationship of marriage. It is desirable that institutional and State restrictions upon the employment of married women be removed wherever they exist and that an adjustment of home economics instruction especially be made in order that women actually responsible for their own homes may more easily be employed upon a part-time basis.

10. It is of special interest that in 41 institutions only 25 persons on the undergraduate staff are reported as having the doctor's degree. Inasmuch as the Ph. D. is the most commonly recognized badge of scholarship and of academic respectability, home economics, and institutional administrations may well take measures to employ new members with the doctor's degree or to encourage study while in service which will enable present members of the home economics staff to obtain the Ph. D.

11. In view of the paucity of the Ph. D.'s among the members of home economics staffs, it would appear probable that the graduate work in home economics is upon the master's degree level in most of the land-grant colleges.

12. A serious deficiency in the academic training of home economics staffs becomes evident when it is realized that almost half of the persons employed in this division hold no degree higher than the bachelor's. The proportion of the home economics staff whose highest degree is the bachelor's should be greatly reduced and employment of persons without any academic degree should be confined. to a few specialized fields in which degree training is seldom afforded and is even less frequently desirable.

13. Home economics needs scholarly material both in the scientific and social aspects of its work. An increase in the value of interpretative material of more or less popular type is also desirable. It should be one function of college home economics staffs to take the leadership in providing publications of both types.

14. In 43 of the institutions reporting the head of home economics is directly responsible for recommending new appointments. If the character of these selections is inferior or superior to the standards

prevailing in the institution as a whole the responsibility rests largely with the home economics unit itself, except as the unit may be restricted or aided by salary scales that compare unfavorably or favor. ably with those of other divisions.

15. The principles or policies that have actually operated with reference to the promotion of home economics staff members in the landgrant institutions should be those that operate for the institutions as a whole.

16. Several theories seem to be applied in the land-grant colleges with reference to the basis of payment of women members of the staffs: (1) The principle of equal work and equal rank demand equal pay for men and women; (2) adjustment of pay to the financial needs of staff members which results in a lower range for women who are unmarried; and (3) determination of pay upon the basis of training and creative activity. Whatever theoretical approval may be given to the first of these principles and whatever the arguments that may be advanced against the second, it is difficult to disprove that institutional management upon the basis of the third method has not resulted in the lower present actual standard.

17. It is evident that a study should be made in each institution of the actual duties performed in order that a reorganization and a reassignment of administrative detail may be made which will not only prevent waste but which will release the time of trained administrative personnel for the more important phases of staff management.

18. Among the most important features of institutional management of the staff is the provision made for maintenance and improvement of faculty quality by means of attendance at professional meetings, study while in service, and leaves for graduate work elsewhere. These matters are of special significance for the home economics unit in view of the need for research experience and development of higher standards of staff training.

19. The home economics staff in land-grant institutions during the past five years has had a very large turnover. Factors operative are the low salaries paid, slow promotion, the increased interest of commercial firms in the home economics trained woman, offering larger salaries to successful people; marriage, which must always make fairly large inroads where the staff is composed to any considerable extent of young women; and the competition among colleges for persons who have proved their worth. Constructive staff management might easily reduce the effect of some of these factors.

20. The head of home economics is in 40 institutions responsible. for recommending the purchase of new books in her field. It should be noted in this connection that unless full advantage of this opportunity is taken by the head of the home economics unit, responsibility