The Home Vs. The School

Editor Argus: - A woruan j ers while reading the article in last week's Argus, in regard to having cooking and sewing taught as a special branch in our public schools. ! wonder if the children of Ann Ar)or had no mothers. If they have mothers why are not these things taught at home? A mother's first and highest duty should be to teach ïer daughters the habits of industry and thrift and all the cardinal virtues which lie at the foundation of our ïomes. It is folly to suppose that anything learned bya child at school can make up for the loss of the mothers training at home. The children are already taken too much from the home, while the mothers are rushing with speed to educational clubs, sewing school, charitable union, Political Equality club, lectures, etc., ad-infinitum. I meet them upon every street, at all hours of the day, rushing breathlessly away, making haste to be wise. But is it wisdom? Is there not also a large amount of mis-applied charity in Ann Arbor making garments to sell at half cost to people who are abundantly able to pay what a thing is worth, teaching children to sew whose mothers are perfectly capable of teaching them at home? Is it not true that all this tends to encourage idleness and shiftless methods in the younger generation? Have we not had enough of this nonsease, feeding the vanity of a few idle women by helping them to increase our pauperism by taking away the independence of our future men and women? If it is true that cooking and sewing must be taught in our schools, is there not something radically wrong in our home life? Is it not the part of wisdom to halt a moment or two and try to find out "where we are at?" The nurture of the Christian home supersedes all else, and when mothers let go this anchor, then are we in deep water indeed. This is what a woman thought while spending a few months' in Ann Arbor and being greatly amused at seeing the "wheelá go round."