I now come to the subjects grouped together under the classification of ‘domestic economy.’  These differ only in detail in their application to town and country.  To these subjects the Department attaches great importance.  In the industrial life of manufacturing towns I am persuaded that far too little thought has been given to this element of industrial efficiency.  From a purely economic point of view a saving in the worker’s income due to superior housewifery is equivalent to an increase in his earnings; but, morally, the superior thrift is, of course, immensely more important.  “Without economy,” says Dr. Johnson, “none can be rich, and with it few can be poor,” and the education which only increases the productiveness of labour and neglects the principles of wise spending will place us at a disadvantage in the great industrial struggle.  When we come to consider domestic economy as an agency for improving the conditions of the peasant home, not only by thrift, but by increasing the general attractiveness of home life, the introduction of a sound system of domestic economy teaching becomes not only important, but vital.

The establishment of such a system and the task of making it operative and effective in the country is beset with difficulties.  The teacher difficulty confronts us again, and also that of making pupils and their parents understand that there are other objects in domestic training than that of qualifying for domestic service.  A corps of instructresses in domestic economy is, however, already abroad throughout the country, nearly all the County Councils having already appointed them.  Some of these teachers, who have made the best contributions towards the as yet only partially determined question of the ultimate aim and present possibilities of a course of instruction in hygiene, laundry work, cookery, the management of children, sewing, and so forth, have told me that the demand in rural districts seems to be chiefly for the class of instruction which may lead to success in town life.  I have heard of a class of girls in a Connaught village who would not be content with knowing the accomplishments of a farmer’s wife until they had learned how to make asparagus soup and cook sweetbreads.  No doubt they had read of the way things are done in the kitchens of the great.  This tendency should never be encouraged, but neither can it always be inflexibly repressed without endangering the main objects of the class.

Women teachers of poultry-keeping, dairying, domestic science and kindred subjects are trained at the Munster Institute, Cork, and the School of Domestic Economy, Kildare Street, Dublin, both of which have been equipped to meet the needs of the new programme.  The want of teachers, and not any lack of interest on the part of the country, has alone prevented all the counties from adopting schemes for encouraging improvement in all these branches of work.  I may add that more than one hundred and fifty of these qualified teachers are now at work under County Committees.