when taken in moderate quantities, no food is properly digested when taken in excess.

Question-At what age would you begin to feed a child meat?

Miss Conley-The first thing I would give a child in addition to milk is beef juice, that is between the age of one and two years. After the child is three years old give him a small piece of beef or chicken.

Question-What do you think of a lunch of bread and milk for children?

Miss Conley-It is a very good food. Children would be healthier if they ate more bread and milk than they do. Grown people do not need milk. Milk is a food, a nutritious food, and when we add milk to our meal we should take that into consideration and count it as a food.

Question-Would whole wheat well cooked be a good substitute for bread?

Miss Conley-It would be a monotonous diet. You mean eaten as a breakfast food?

The Lady-Yes, but for the child's lunch, if he would eat it properly.

Miss Conley-If the bran coats are not removed from the wheat it would be hard for the child to digest. A man working out of doors can digest foods made from coarser flour, flour that contains the bran coats, but one must have a very strong, vigorous digestive apparatus before her system can take care of it. That is the difference between the whole wheat and fancy patent flours. If you can thoroughly digest the whole wheat so as to get all the nutrition out of it, then the bran coats that are left act as a stimulant to the intestines, but if a person who works indoors, at office work, would eat whole wheat bread he would not get as much nutrition out of it as he would from bread made from fancy patent flour. His system could not thoroughly digest it. It is not what we eat, but what we digest, that makes us strong.

Question-Do you believe in pampering the stomach with all these patent foods, these breakfast foods? Don't you think it wise to consult the tastes of each individual person? Do you think it is right to force a child to eat things that are distasteful to him just because you think it is good for his health?

Miss Conley - Sometimes the taste of children is consulted so much that they do not care to eat anything that is provided for them. If away from home, however, where their individual taste is not consulted, they eat everything set before them. They should not be allowed to become so critical of food -it is hard for them later on. As to patent breakfast foods predigested: if you eat things already digested, soon you will not be able to digest anything. If you tie up your arm for a certain length of time it becomes weak, the muscles shrivel and you cannot use it. So with the stomach, it becomes stronger by working. I do not believe in predigested foods. One is advertised to contain 10 times as much available nutrition to the pound as a pound of meat or wheat or oats; four teaspoons contain so much nutrition that it equals in nutritive value the average meal. This is absurd. If it is made from wheat, it can contain nothing more than what is in wheat; if made from oats, it can contain nothing more than is found in oats; and if it is a mixture, it can contain nothing more than the average nutrition of the ingredients. No chemist under the sun can concentrate any known food so that you can get the amount needed for nutrition from a little pellet. If you could, your digestive apparatus, from disuse, would become atrophied. Do not let any food company insult your intelligence. If they put such claims on their packages, do not buy their foods.

I want to talk to you just a little while on some of the other things that are necessary to make our homes healthful. There has been considerable said about some of these things, about sunlight and fresh air and restful conditions. The average child who has enough fresh air, enough sleep, enough exercise and simple food stands a very good show of growing up well, hearty and strong, but all these four things are equally necessary. It isn't simply a matter of food alone. We cannot handle our systems the way a man does his automobile, prepare it and store it to run for so many hours, or for so many miles, and then let it rest and store it again. We have to take our nourishment and sunlight and water at stated intervals, and we call water among the foods, not especially on account of its nourishing properties, but because it is so very valuable for us in several ways. We should drink a great deal of water. There are three ways by which it is eliminated: it passes through the kidneys, skin and lungs. The average person does not drink enough water. To drink water the first thing in the morning before we have eaten anything at all is a very good thing; some drink it hot and some cold. The hot must be brought down to the temperature of the stomach and the cold up to the temperature of the stomach, so whichever is the most agreeable is the most desirable. To drink at least a pint of water every morning the first thing on arising will be found an excellent thing for most persons. Besides the amount of water we take as liquid, we get a great deal in our foods. Scarcely any of the foods we use are without water, so we do take a great deal in that way; but we require considerable outside of the food. Very many times we hear it said that people should not drink water with their meals. The usual cause for that is because if we drink water while we are eating we are very apt to use it to wash down the food in the mouth. If we masticate our food completely and thoroughly, then there is no objec

tion to using water, but it is only when it does away with part of the work of digestion in the mouth and the thorough chewing of the food that the water is objectionable that is used at a meal. Water is a very valuable thing, so far as our health is concerned, keeping the system thoroughly flushed and clean.

The Value of Sleep.

A

Sleep is another one of the things that is very needful, much more needful with the growing child who uses all of his energies during the day. child is scarcely ever still. We do not need to say anything about children getting plenty of exercise, because they will get it, and it always seems perfectly absurd to have grown people tell children to keep still-that is not what they were made for. If the place where they are is not suitable for their play and exercise, there should be some other place for them where they can get the strength and development nature intended for them. A young child needs a good deal of sleep. Many of our children sit up too late at night altogether, and where it is possible for children to sleep late in the morning, if they are not feeling well, it certainly is desirable. If a child is worn out in the morning the chances are either that the ventilation has been very poor, or the child has not had sleep enoughchildren vary-some require more than others, just as we find other things vary with the grown people. We can scarcely make a mistake in having children go to bed too early when they are young, and this habit of allowing them to sit up till nine, ten and eleven at night is certainly a very harmful one for the child.

Relation of Amusement to Health.

The matter of amusement and recreation has something to do with our health. I use those two words, because our amusements are not always recreation. I think it was a German person who made the remark at one time that the American people make harder

work of having a good time than any people they knew. We take our pleasure so seriously; we go through so much effort to have a good time. When we speak about recreation we mean something that is going to give us a chance to think and consider other matters than we are used to considering. Recreation to be truly valuable to us gives us something that is restful or amusing or diverting without tiring or exhausting us. When we go to any amusement and are worn out afterwards, it is of very little benefit to us, but recreation is something to take us out of ourselves and out of our everyday lives and give us variety. As it has been said before, in regard to the work in the home, when we understand how to do it right, to do it in the best and simplest way possible; to get the best results with the least amount of effort, then we have time for these other things.

I was quite amused at a comment I heard the other day. There was a couple walking ahead of me, a gentleman overtook them and said: "Where are you going?" The first gentleman said: "O, my wife is going up to the cooking school and I think she had better stay away, for it takes every cent I earn now to pay for our provisions." He seemed to think if she knew more about it it would cost more, instead of realizing when we know more we can do better and have less expense. Such people do not look at it correctly. It is worth while to know these things. There is nothing so extravagant as ignorance, or so economical as knowledge.

Young People Should Be Taught How to Live.

One of the curious things about this subject of Domestic Science is the way some people understand it. Only last year I was invited to speak before a woman's club, before the Domestic Science department. They handed me a calendar with the meetings previous for the year. There was one day which was devoted to domestic science, there was one other day devoted to the serving of lunches, and the rest of the topics were in regard to art in Egypt and Greece. I did not quite understand it, we do not always see through these things, so I asked the ladies how

it happened. They said they had domestic science in two days and were through with it. They were the most progressive people I think I ever happened to meet. We do not think we can learn domestic science in two weeks, or two months, or two years. We are always learning new things. This domestic science means just as much in our living as anything we can possibly study.

Another curious thing about our education is that while we are teaching our young people how to make a living, we do not teach them how to live! We do not teach them anything about taking care of themselves, or making homes for themselves, or making them comfortable or sanitary. I find as a rule, women are very much afraid of scientific terms; they prefer to take their science in homeopathic doses. We feel it best to avoid terms or words that are not perfectly plain. The science is there, even if we are doing nothing more than making a loaf of bread. The science is back of it all the time, and when we understand these principles we are able to apply them to our benefit. We have time for other things when we do our work intelligently.

This matter of rest is something especially needful for the average housewife. A man has more variety in his work in a certain way. A woman has a great deal more variety in the number of things she does, in the kinds of things, but her work is apt to be in a. circle. It is right there in the home. The average man thinks a woman only has to stay home and do the work, that she has an easy time, but after all, what does this work mean? It means knowing something about the furnishing and care of our homes, about the lighting, the heating and ventilating, the clothing that we wear, how to care for it, to mend it, to wash and iron, to turn and make over, and patch and darn, and all of that sort of thing. All that is but a part of what a woman has to do. They say there is one thing a woman can do that a man cannot do, and that is two things at a time, and the average woman can do half a dozen without any trouble; but in order to do them well we must understand how to get the best results. When we are using our brains and our hearts, we

appreciate the dignity of labor. No work is drudgery that we do with interest. Even if we are scrubbing the kitchen floor, if we do it well, it is just as much a matter of art as anything we can do. But when we leave our hearts out of it, our interest out of it, when we do it because we have to do it, then it is drudgery.

Furnishing the Home.

Our homes are pre-eminently for ourselves, why should we turn them into show rooms that our neighbors may come and copy? And that is what we do too many times. We furnish our homes just as other people furnish theirs, just what everybody else has, we have to have too. We are simply imitators when we are willing to do that sort of thing, when we are willing to get in a rut, when we use heavy, upholstered furniture and use things that make our work harder and are detrimental in every way to our health. To have things simple, to have our homes furnished in such a way that we may care for them easily, is something that means a great deal so far as our health is concerned. We think too little about the healthful condition of our homes and too much about superficial appearance. When a tenant goes into a house, he first assures himself arrangements are all right so far as legal conditions are concerned. If a man buys a home he wants to be sure the title is clear. He doesn't find out whether the sanitary conditions are right. There is nothing to assure us that we may keep healthy if we live in dust and bad sanitary conditions, have miserable plumbing, poor ventilation, or in a home located where other things are harmful. Very likely one of the reasons why we do not consider these dangers is because when disease comes to us through such causes as I have mentioned it comes gradually. It is the most insidious form of disease. It begins in this way: We get up in the morning and we feel all tired out; we have no life for our work; we had a poor night's rest. We go about our work in a listless, half-hearted fashion, the whole family talks about the system being run down. We think we are going to have nervous prostration. We should take that warning and find out what is the cause-that there is

something wrong in the home when we have that feeling. If we are getting the fresh air we should, we are not apt to feel like that when morning comes. The first essential of a home, I should say, is pure air. That is the one thing we simply must have in order to have the right conditions of health, and when people talk about ventilation, we hear a great deal said about letting in the fresh air, but we sometimes forget we must let out the foul air. We have a draft of fresh air come into the room and no chance to get rid of the foul air. It is the strangest thing that people who are as intelligent as the American people are, who talk as much about education as we do, and yet will breathe the same air over and over again. At two of the Farmers' Institutes I have been to this winter I have been in rooms where the windows were nailed up for the winter. Now, think of people sleeping under such conditions as that! Where we have no chance to change the air, and this in hotels where we have different people using the same rooms night after night! It is not very much to the credit of the intelligence of the people who will do such things as that. People are afraid of night air! They seem to have an idea that night air is harmful, and we must shut in the day air because we get so fond of it we use it over and over again; we are not willing to part with it, we have become so attached to it.

Another thing we are apt to overlook, and that is that cold air is not necessarily pure air. A great many people sleep in cold bedrooms, thinking if bedrooms are not warm that is all that is necessary. Cold air may be just exactly as impure as warm air; and it is the fresh outside air, it is the change of air, we are after, and not the temperature. It may be all right to sleep in cold bedrooms, but I do not believe it ever did anybody any good to have to dress and undress in a cold room, and especially children. They are not noted for their rapidity in dressing, and when a small child is 15 or 20 minutes, or perhaps half an hour, getting into his clothes in a room where the temperature is down to 40 or 50, he runs a chance of getting chilled. He never should sit around on a cold floor after getting out of a warm

warm

bed. Children should have a place in which to dress and undress, however cold the bedrooms may be.

We believe thoroughly in airing the bedrooms the first thing in the morning. When the weather is extremely cold, we do not have to have the window open quite so much, there is always some air comes through the walls and wood work, so we need not have so much of the direct fresh air. In the morning we air the bedroom very thoroughly. How about our sitting and living room, where we sat all the evening, then put out the lights, closed the room and went to bed? All that air stays there all night long, and it is the first air we breathe in the morning when we go in there, and yet I venture to say that not one woman in a hundred has thought to air that room the last thing at night. It may be a little more expensive as regards fuel, and I will admit that it is, to do so much airing of our homes, because we must be careful always after we have a thorough airing to immediately warm the room again. People. must not go into a cool room and sit down to rest, because we feel the cold so much more if we are still. It costs so much less, though, for doctor's bills, and is so much better so far as our general health is concerned, that we can well afford to spend this for fuel. If our homes are not comfortable, we are going to pay for it in more than the health of the family. The home should be a comfortable, enjoyable place, a place where we can do pretty much as we like, always considering the comfort of others. We entertain our friends, have a good time and let the young people come in and enjoy themselves. If they cannot have their friends and entertain them there, they will find some place where they can, and we cannot afford to send our young people somewhere else for their pleasures. At home is the place where they are supposed to have the best time of all, but too often it is only a place to sleep and eat.

When we put double windows on, we should remember that we are shutting out the air, and unless there is something that is movable we are not going to get the ventilation we should. We see little places in some windows about a foot square to let the air in. If a storm window is put on hinges so it

can be swung out, then we can ventilate all right. In airing our bedrooms, we are very apt to forget about airing the closets, that the closet has the clothes hanging in it, and I regret to say it often has the soiled clothes in it. That is a very poor place for soiled clothes, but even if nothing is hanging in the closet but the clothes we have been wearing during the day, that closet must be thoroughly aired. A woman will come home from a shopping trip and she will take up her dress skirt and shake it in her bedroom. Where is all that dust going? Really, I would rather leave it on the skirt than scatter it around the room, for we are not half so apt to get it into our system. Dust that is not disturbed is not going to do much harm. I heard one woman say she disliked dust so much that she always let it alone.

Did you ever stop to think of how the average person goes about the dusting of a room? After raising all the dust from the carpet with her broom, she goes around with a feather duster and waves it around and shakes the dust from one place to another and then from that place around to another. When she is through, she has moved nearly all of the dust, but she has not got rid of any of it. She has exercised it a little bit, but she has wasted her own time and strength. She had better be sitting out in the sunshine getting fresh air. The only way to dust is to get rid of the dust; to wipe it off from the furniture, 'and we do not want upholstered furniture, that collects it so dreadfully. When we take the dust off it should be removed with a damp cloth. A cloth that is very slightly moistened with kerosene is one of the most satisfactory things a housewife can use. Kerosene or a damp cloth will take up the dust on the cloth, and then we may remove that dust. Dust should be burned after sweeping, it should be disposed of, and we are not doing much good when we are throwing it out in the air. I am not going to talk about germs, but we all know something about the dangers of dust and how much it means to us; so the fewer things we have that collect dust the simpler our work is going to be in taking care of the home.

I presume to some of you, the idea of not having any curtains in the win