Mrs. E. H. Belknap, a progressive rural teacher near Jefferson, Oregon, said in a recent letter: "We learn how a cow can be fed and cared for, so as to produce the greatest amount of butter fat. That is well, but we regard it of far more value for the boy to go home, apply the knowledge learned, and produce the butter fat. He is now worth something to the world, and able to turn his education into dollars and cents at any time. The girl takes the book, and reads how to make butter. She goes home, tends the milk, churns, and makes the butter, learns how really to do the work. She has called the attention of the entire family to the amount and quality of her butter obtained from proper feeding and handling of the cow by the boy."
And yet it is said that nothing can be done in the small school in domestic science because there is no equipment. In every home there is ideal equipment if we mean the equipment the children are to use. If we are preparing for life, why not use the equipment we must use in life? Best of all, in using the home laboratory there is an immediate purpose. None of us can get much out of an exercise when it is done just for an exercise. There is the dinner to be cooked, the bed to be made, the ironing to be done; somebody must do it. And the dinner, the bed, and the ironing are to be put to the test by some one who sees real values. There is no doubt that one of the things schools most lack is purpose.
It might be said that to stimulate a child to want to do things is only half the problem. "If children do things without expert instruction they may do them wrong, and thus get a faulty habit." But I think more than half of the problem is solved when we create the desire to do a thing. The greatest fault of present-day education is that we constantly try to teach a child how to do a thing without his desiring to do it, or even knowing the reason for doing it. On the other hand, I once knew a country girl who had never seen a domestic science equipment, and who lived in a community where there was no one housekeeper especially noted; yet with her strong desire to be a fine housekeeper she learned something good from each neighbor, and for excellent results, and for economy of time and material, her daily practice would put the average domestic science teacher to disadvantage. However I am not arguing that domestic science should not be taught at school; I certainly believe it should. But I do claim that it is worth while, and is absolutely necessary, first to create the desire to _do_ the things that are to be _taught_. To do things without a purpose is like trying to eat without an appetite.