and parents, and natural aptitude as well as community needs will
dictate the choice of their life work.

That this ideal family is far removed from many families of our
acquaintance merely proves the necessity of training for more
efficient homemaking, and indeed for a better conception of homemaking
ideals and problems. If we are to teach our girls and our boys to be
homemakers, we must consider carefully what they need to know. If we
are to counteract the tendencies of the past two or three decades away
from homemaking as a vocation, we must show the true value of the
homemaker to the community, and the opportunities which domestic life
presents to the scientifically trained mind.

Education for homemaking necessarily implies teachers who are trained
for homemaking instruction; and we may pause here to notice that no
homemaking course in normal school or college can be sufficient to
give the teacher true knowledge of ideal homes. She must have seen
such homes, or those which approximate the ideal. Perhaps she has
grown up in such a home. More probably she has not. If not, it must
then necessarily follow that the lower have been the ideals in the
home where the teacher had her training, the more she should see of
other homes, and especially of good homes. Her whole outlook may be
changed by such contact; and with her outlook, her teaching; and with
her teaching, her influence.

If all girls grew up in ideal homes, it seems probable that homemaking
would appeal to them quite naturally as the ultimate vocation. Indeed,
we know that many girls feel this natural drawing, in spite of most
unlovely conditions in their childhood homes. The task of mother,
teacher, and vocational counselor (who may be either) in this matter