An experiment in home education

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I'lSBESIIiiWldlllll'

SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
LIBRARY

EDUCATION

BOOK PURCHASE

FUND

STANFORD V^p/ UNIVERSITY
LIBRARIES

AN EXPERIMENT IN
HOME EDUCATION

BY

Mr. and Mrs. George Wallingeord Noyes, ..

• « •

* • »

• • •

» • •

ONEIDA, NEW YORK, U. S. A.

1914

1d_

7&^

7

• •

• • • •

• « .

• «•

Copyright, 1914. by
Mr. and Mrs. George Wallingford Noyet

c

AN -.'EXPERIMENT IN
H6MiS-:EDUCATI0N

• • • •• •

• • • •,

DURING the yeVr^'.i91t: and 1912, through
much alternation of tneCyry'^nd experience,
we groped our way into a plan of hoine-.making,
that seemed to us to possess a higlt -"oi^jler pf
educational and economic value. In Aprif, l-9i2/> ;
we commenced an experimental test of our plan.* .•*'
As time has passed, and the success of our ex-
periment has become apparent, we have talked
about it with leading educators and economists.
Recently there have been references to it in the
public press, and we have received many in-
quiries. We are therefore stating briefly in this
paper the purpose of our home experiment, and
its results to the present time.

Educational Advantages of the Home

Many thinkers have recognized that in cer-
tain respects the home has a natural educational
advantage over the school, and that in order to
attain the best results the home, as well as the
school, must play its part.

One educational advantage of the home is in
the cultivation of a habit of industry. The
school with its trained instructors and more com-
plete equipment is strong in theory and tech-
nique, but, lacking the pressure of need, it is

(3)

apt to foster a dilettante attitude toward work.
The training received in the home is primarily
determined by actual need, arid' js put to im-
mediate use. Along with ft*^ the stimulation
of useful achievement;- aiid right ideas of the
value and dignity of work.

Another educational advantage of the home

* -

is in jthfexultlvation of altruism. The tendency of
.the Sthdol system is mainly individualistic. In
/• 'rthe school the child himself is the center of
• interest. The teachers, the buildings, the equip-
ment exist for his benefit. The course of in-^
struction aims chiefly at preparing him for:
competition with his fellows. But in everjr'i
rightly organized home the child is not the cen-
ter, but a subordinate part. Moreover the
urgent needs of the home, especially where no
servants are employed, make constant appeals
to altruism, and provide ideal conditions for
putting it constantly into practice.

A third educational advantage of the home is
in the teaching of religion. The essence of
religion is an intent on the part of the individual
to subordinate himself to the society of which
Christ is Head ; and the aim of religious educa-
tion is to build up gradually in the mind of the^
child, to be ready formed against the time when
his own developing nature will demand an ideal,
the elements of this supreme intent. To ac-
complish this there must be depth and unity of

(4)

• •

• - •

• •

••••-'•

• ^»

conviction, the influence of example, and freedom
of expression. With respect to all these condi-
tions the home has a natural superiority over
the school.

The school is strong in teaching technique,
but weak in teaching industry; strong in culti-
vating individuality, but weak in cultivating
altruism; strong in perfecting the powers, but
weak in perfecting the intent; in a word, strong
in providing sharp tools, but weak in the building
of character. In all these points where the school
is weak, the home is naturally strong.

Work an Essential Factor

These natural educational advantages of the
home all flow either directly or indirectly from
the need of bringing the children into the work.
Two or three generations ago, when the country
was poor and the industrial system crude, this
need was nearly universal. But in recent years
the progress of large-scale production by factory
and farm has greatly narrowed the field of home
industry, and in prosperous homes where ser-
vants are employed the need for bringing the
children into the work has been almost entirely
taken away. These new conditions have re-
sulted in a serious educational loss, especially in
the families of the prosperous class.

The Purpose of Our Experiment

In view of these facts we set before ourselves
the purpose of adapting our home to modem

(5)

conditions, so as to bring out again and devckr
to the utmost the natural superiority of the home
in the sphere of character-building.

Saving ike Work for Education

In order to realize this purix)se the fiisi
requisite was to rescue from the hireling system
a sufficient amount of work to serve as a home
industry. At first we thought that a compro-
mise might be efiFected, letting one of our two
servants go, and reserving a special area of work
for education. But as long as even one servani
resided in the house, the children rebelled
against work. We found that the systems of
hired and voluntary service did not work wdl
side by side. There was a psychological re-
pugnance between them, just as there was be-
tween slave and free labor; and as slavery in the
South nearly drove out free labor, so hired
service in our house tended to paralyze volun-
tary service. It became then a question of
dispensing entirely with hired servants residing
in the house, and restricting hired service by the
hour to such small proportions as would not
paralyze voluntary work by the family.

Next came the problem of bringing the
necessary work of the house within the compass
of the family without over-burdening any
member. To accomplish this we applied to our
house the so-called "long-stroke small-bore"

(6)

principle, increasing as far as possible the labor-
saving equipment and reducing as far as possible
the necessary work. Fortunately our house was
small, and a projected wing was of course
abandoned. Then we introduced the following
labor-saving mechanical equipment:

Items Approx.

Cost

Connection with a central steam-heating
plant about two hundred yards dis-
tant, thus getting rid of the care of a
furnace, banishing coal and ashes from
the basement, and making more room . $ 800

Soft water cistern of extra large capacity,
electric pump for pumping the water to
an attic tank, supplying unlimited soft
water, both hot and cold, all over the
house 300

Stationary electric vacuum cleaner of
large size in the basement, with stand-
pipe from basement to attic, and hose
connections on all floors 300

Electric kitchen range 50

Fireless cooker 16

Electric dishwasher, hotel size, with
capacity of about seven hundred pieces
per hour 210

Extra dishes and silverware, to permit

dishwashing once in two days ... 85

Double-deck wheel tray 11

Total 31772

(7)

By referring to the accompanying diagram
and photographs it will be seen that the plan of
the kitchen, pantry, dining-room and porch has
been designed with the aim of securing maximum
efficiency. One side of the kitchen has in it
everything relating to the preparation of food:
electric range with utensils, fireless cooker,
vegetable sink, pantry, work-table. Because of
no heat or dust the pantry has no door, and open
shelves to a large extent take the place of cup-
boards. Thus a person standing in the central
space can reach everything required in the prep-
aration of food with a minimum of effort. The
other side of the kitchen has in it everything
used in cleaning up after a meal: dish-washer,
utensils for dishwashing, shelves for dishes,
wheel tray; and the lines of travel from the
dining-room or porch to the dishwashing de-
partment do not cross the space reserved for
the preparation of food. The porch adjoining
the kitchen is used in summer as an outdoor
dining-room. As it is completely screened no
screen door, which would interfere with free
passage between kitchen and porch, is needed.

A very considerable practical help, though
by no means necessary to the success of the plan,
is the fact that our house is situated within two
hundred yards of a Club Restaurant, where in
emergencies we can obtain our meals. We

(8)

regularly go to this restaurant for our Sunday
dinner.

Duties Must Be Made Attractive

An essential part of the plan is to make all
the duties of the home as attractive and whole-
some as possible. The fact that the vacuum
cleaner, electric range, and dishwasher reduce
dust, heat and drudgery, is as important as the
fact that they expedite the work. It is a for-
tunate circumstance that transportation, which
by means of an automobile can be made attrac-
tive, is such a large element in the necessary
work of the home.

The walls of our kitchen are of Keene cement,
tinted the color of sunlight, and the woodwork
is finished in white enamel. The windows are
large, and the ventilation perfect. It is in fact
fully as attractive as any room in the house.

An important factor in making work attrac-
tive is working with others. Work done alone
is often drudgery, when the same work done by
storm in "bees" is attractive. Association of
the family puts into housework some of the es-
prit de corps that makes business so irresistibly
attractive.

Operating Expenses

The cost of running the house and providing
the table varies so much with the varying cir-
cumstances and desires of diflFerent families, that

(9)

It is difficult to present any comparisons which
are of much value. The increased cost for
interest on investment, and for repairs and de-
preciation, is more than offset by the saving in
the wages and waste of servants, and our records
show that the expense of the new plan is some-
what less than the old. This is allowing nothing
for the educational value of the new plan. If
an allowance is made of the amount which any
family would gladly pay to a school for the
domestic science training alone, to say nothing
of the moral and spiritual results, the compari-
son in favor of the new plan would be over-
whelming.

Objections

It might be objected that with a servantless
house the father and mother would find it more
difficult to leave home. Our experience has
been the reverse. Whenever we have occasion
to leave home, we secure the services of a
trained nurse competent to care for the children
and manage the house. We give her the option
of getting the meals at home with the help of
the children, or going to the Club Restaurant.
As a matter of fact the efficiency and attrac-
tiveness of the kitchen are such that the nurse has
always elected to have the meals at home.

Some one will say: Do not the children
break, spill, and injure a great deal in the process
of learning? We answer: Yes, at the outset;

(10)

but they very quickly learn to avoid it. And
after all what higher use can these material
things be put to than cultivating skill, endur-
ance, efficiency, and a spirit of service for use in
adult life ? People are willing to pay large sums
for artificial education in schools. Why not
spend a little in the form of breakage for real
education in the home?

Again some might think that a child for
health's sake ought to spend all his time aside
from school out-of-doors. They forget that one
of the most vital factors in health, along with
good food, fresh air, and sleep, is the sense of
achievement. To be driven out-of-doors for
health's sake with nothing to do may be actually
depressing to the health; while useful activity
a part of the day in the house is stimulating and
beneficial. A child who helps in the house ac-
cording to the plan proposed has plenty of time
left for out-of-doors, and after work is done there
is greater zest, and therefore greater benefit in
play.

Another objector will ask: Does not the
domestic training of the children in addition to
the regular house work with no servants to help
throw a heavy burden on the mother? We
answer: No. The burden is minimized by the
enormous efficiency of the mechanical equip-
ment, and by the co-operation of the other
members of the family. It is also growing

(II)

steadily less, since the children are all the time
gaining in the power and will to help. Besides
the extra burden is far more than offset by the
improvement in health which is almost certain
to result from the plan.

To some perhaps the need of co-operation on
the part of the father would seem an objection.
To us, however, this is another mark of the Tight-
ness of the plan. One reason why the home is so
backward in its development is the fact that the
father has not in the past co-operated enough.
With the help of highly trained specialists he has
marvelously organized the factory and the office,
but too often he has left the mother with the
help only of ignorant servants to fight a losing
battle against the appalling complexities of the
home. In the factory and office money is spent
like water for labor-saving machinery; in the
home nearly every process is still done labor-
iously by hand. In the factory and office the
work is so arranged that the father can take
regular vacations; in the home utter chaos
reigns, if the mother steps out from under even
for a day. The results of this lack of co-opera-
tion are seen in the numberless mothers who are
broken down and discouraged at the time of life
when they ought to be in the prime of health and
power. The home needs the benefit of the
father's training and experience; and it is sur-
prising how little co-operation on his part is re-

(14)

quired to bring into the home the esprit de corps
that makes work attractive, and the scientific
management that makes work efficient.

The experiment described in the foregoing
pages has been in operation in our family for two
and a half years, and the results thus far have
more than justified our expectations. Not only
have the more obvious results been attained, but
as time has passed many incidental advantages
have appeared.

Practical Training

No one could question the value of the
practical training which is provided by this plan.
The children accommodate themselves as a
matter of course to the exigencies of a servantless
home, the amount of compulsion required being
no more than is necessary to prepare for life.
The pressure of actual need gives to the work the
highest degree of utility. To occupy the chil-
dren with "busy-work" and hire the real work
done is feeding the children on skim-milk and
giving to hirelings the rich cream. Our little
daughter of four, while enthusiastically polishing
teaspoons on the porch one day, called out to
every passing playmate: "Oh! Come and see
me! I am doing real work!" We have been
told that the domestic science department in
our universities is seriously hampered by the
fact that both faculty and students are conscious

(IS)

that the work is "make-believe." This skim-
milk diet of "busy-work" instead of real work
causes much of the difl&culty in profitably and
happily occupying children at home. It causes
many parents to turn helplessly to summer
camps and summer schools as a means of caring
for their boys and girls during vacations. They
are blind to the fact that the home itself holds
by far the greater resources. They throw away
the precious opportunity vacations offer to in-
crease comradeship with their children.

This training in the practical affairs of life
must be begun early, if it is to be successful.
Parents sometimes tell us that their daughters
have no taste for cooking, and cannot be drawn
into it. The reason in most cases is that the
psychologic moment for imparting that particu-
lar training has been allowed to slip by unim-
proved. A child that is in the stage of making
mud-pies will jump at the chance to make a real
cake, and will take patiently a great deal of
showing. The "sand-bed" age is the time for
beginning practice in cooking.

One valuable effect of early training in in-
dustry is a true appreciation of labor saving.
If the spilling of a pitcher of cream means only
extra work for a servant, a child will go obliviously
to school without learning the lesson of greater
carefulness; but if the child knows what the
occurrence means in terms of work, there will be

(i6)

definite improvement from that day forth. In
a family with sons instead of daughters the
training would naturally take a different form,
but in any case it would be exactly what
was needed to prepare the children to be in
adult life not consumers merely, but producers.

Effect on Health

The simplicity and regularity of life rendered
necessary on this plan work in the direction of
better health for the entire family. Time would
fail for preparation of elaborate courses and rich
desserts, and accordingly a simple, wholesome
diet must be the rule; and the succession of
necessary duties compels regularity of life. In a
prosperous home with servants simplicity and
regularity of life are not necessary, and the
difficulty of providing these healthful conditions
in their homes parents have often given as a
reason for sending their children away at a
tender age to boarding-schools.

Many persons lacking manual work take up
sport as a duty. The resulting benefit to health
is less than half what it should be. The manual
work of a servantless home gives all the exercise
needed for health, and allows sport to be sought
for sport's sake. On this plan work and sport
each on its own account contributes to the health.

The alternation of manual and mental work
results in a well-balanced life. How many f ami-

(17)

lies one sees in which the mother, struggling
with spiritual and mental perplexities, is driven
into neurasthenia, while the physical labor in-
tended by nature as a healthful counterpoise is
performed by servants. On the plan proposed
the manual and mental work counterbalance each
other, and each contributes its share of benefit
to the health.

Cultivation of Altruism

A servantless home of the kind suggested
tends to cultivate altruism by a constant appeal
to the spirit of service. The work required is for
the urgent needs of the home, and the motive is
not primarily the perfection of the child's
powers, but the helping of others. To acquire
the habit of regarding the feelings and wishes of
others takes practice, the same as any other
habit. Could a person play the Chromatic
Fantasy and Fugue of Bach without practice
from childhood ? Yet too often a boy is handed
his university diploma, and told that he must be
a public-spirited citizen, when up to that moment
all his practice has been building up selfishness.
Food, clothing, a beautiful home, recreation,
travel, schooling, all have come to him through the
efforts of others, and nothing has been required
of him in return. When he finally enters upon
his career the world expects him to be public-
spirited, and makes no more allowance for lack of

(i8)

practice in public spirit than wind and water do
for lack of practice in swimming.

Then, too, this plan appeals to altruism in its
most natural form, which is a regard for the
feelings and wishes of those whom we love. If
our immediate wants are ministered to by ser-
vants, who are paid for their pains, there is small
chance for altruistic feelings to develop. Under
the servant regime our children gave little heed
to accidents which caused extra work: the ser-
vant was there to attend to it, and she was paid
for the trouble. But under the new regime,
when one of the children tore her dress just as
she was starting for school, she said: "Oh,
Mother! Save the porch for me to do after
school!" She sensed the extra work made nec-
essary by the accident, and wanted to be sure
that it would not fall on her mother.

A child who grows up under the servant sys-
tem often unconsciously develops a mercenary,
anti-social feeling toward servants and the
laboring class in general. Almost unavoidably he
forms wrong ideas of caste, sets up in imagina-
tion a false aristocracy based on money and leisure,
and is cut off from sympathy with the toiling
masses. In a servantless home there is a common
bond with all who are doing the world's work.

One incidental advantage of the "long-stroke
small-bore" house is that each child must share a
room with a brother or a sister. This means

(19)

constant practice in altruism. The child who
occupies a room alone, with master-pieces of
art on the walls, with a perfectly appointed bath-
room adjoining, with every touch of comfort
that wealth can give, is a beggar compared with
the little girl who shares a room with her sister,
and is learning to make self-sacrificing adjust-
ments of desires to those of another.

Moral Muscle

Not long ago in one of our larger universities
three students within two weeks committed
suicide. The cause was probably a lack of
practice in meeting difficulties, which sooner
or later are sure to come in every life. A youth
who has never been trained in childhood to meet
heroically whatever situation life presents is
suddenly brought face to face with some great
sorrow, disappointment, or responsibility. His
will collapses, and he tries to evade the inevita-
ble. A child who bears his part in a servantless
home is getting daily practice from babyhood in
meeting and overcoming life's difl5culties, and
the moral muscle thus acquired will carry him
triumphantly through the inevitable struggles of
later life.

Religious Education

We have found that a servantless home lends
itself in an unexpected manner to religious educa-
tion. We had tried various plans for effecting

(20)

* « *

v..

• • •

• •.

• • ■
• • •

• • ••

» > • •

• •

the daily study of the Bible, but for one reason
or another all had failed. A session of Bible
study at the breakfast table, with the "de-
structive listening" of a maid waiting to put the
dining-room in order, was certainly not held
under ideal conditions; and a session at any
other time meant artificial assembling, and the
overcoming of inertia. After the servants left
and we came into the complete possession of our
own home, we easily fell into the way of taking
a few minutes each morning after breakfast for
reading the Bible. In these studies we are care-
ful to follow the spirit of the occasion. Some-
times after a very brief reading we will separate
with no discussion. At other times a question
will be asked by one of the children, which will
lead us to close the Bible, and devote an hour
to discussion. In this way some of the stum-
bling-blocks to faith are being removed, and a
religious conception of life is being formed in
the minds of our children.

Formation of Right Ideals

The plan proposed helps in the formation of
right ideals. Instruction given once a week at
Sunday-school and church often quickly fades
away, partly because it is not spontaneously
sought, and partly because it is not sufficiently
correlated with action. For the same reason
much of the formal instruction given in the

(21)

ordinary home amounts to little. If you should
say to yourself: "Tomorrow morning at nine
o'clock I will sit down with my children, and
give them correct ideas about dancing," the
chances are ten to one that little impression
would be made. But if you are spending
several hours each day associating with your
children in the duties and pleasures of the home,
you will find numberless occasions when the true
ideals of life can be given in response to their own
spontaneous seeking. The daily and hourly
needs and contacts of a servantless home provide
unsurpassed conditions for imparting truth at
the psychologic moment — the moment when it is
desired, asked for, and imperatively needed for
immediate use. Truth imparted under these
conditions enters directly into a child's ideals,
and is woven permanently into his character.

Solves the Servant Problem

Another happy, though quite incidental re-
sult of this way of living is its solution of the
servant problem. Occasionally in conversation
with friends we are reminded that the servant
problem is still chronic in most families of the
prosperous class; otherwise we should hardly
know that such a problem existed. With proper
treatment machinery never answers back, and
never goes on strike. Nor is it ever so happy, so
to speak, as when performing its appointed task.

(22)

Constant practice in work brings increase of
faculty, and less dread of emergencies ; while in a
family with servants there is deterioration of
faculty and consequent dependence more and
more abject. In a servantless home there is no
haunting fear that the servants may leave. The
life of the family is not constantly followed by
envious eyes, irate voices, and discontented
looks. The conscience is not disturbed by the
lurking thought that elegance and leisure based
on labor requited by social degradation is un-
ethical. Yet if the house is highly organized and
equipped, it is like the little silver cask which
"Mr. Wind" gave to "John Peter" in the story:
Struck with the magic wand of service, its
treasures open, and all reasonable wants are
joyfully and efficiently ministered to by the tiny
elves Electricity and Machinery.

Strengthens the Family

Providing for the needs of their children is in
the order of nature a common bond between
parents. But in artificial homes where the
physical needs of the children are attended to by
servants, and their educational needs are indis-
criminately placed upon the school, this common
bond is to a large extent lost. What wonder
then that in such homes the father and mother
after a few years often begin to draw apart!
The purpose of developing the natural educa-

(23)

tional advantages of the home gives to the father
and mother an absorbing common interest, and
thus adds strength to the family.

To say in conclusion that the type of home
we have described is a happy home is merely to
repeat in a word what has already been said.
There is some sacrifice in leisure and luxury,
which can well be spared; there is a gain in edu-
cation, health, and economic efficiency, which
are indispensable. That the net result must be
an increase of happiness is self-evident. Every
home that sacrifices non-essentials for the sake
of education has in it a source of happiness as
permanent as the need for improvement of
character.

(24)

Th« Morrill PiMB, Fnttoa, N- T.

To avoid fiae, thii boob dntdd be returaal o
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