28.

CHAT WITH THE EDITOR

(Reprinted from "Changing Times"--Herb Brown, Editor)

"In most school systems, girls get something called home economics, and boys get something called manual train- ing or shop or industrial arts. Technically, the girls could take shop, and the boys could take home economics, but prevailing opinion among both the parents and the kids is that this would not be quite right. Girls are supposed to grow up to be ladies, and it is regarded as unladylike to be able to swing a hammer competently. Boys grow up to be men, and men presumably lose some manliness if they know how to sew on a button.

"What nonsense!

Girls in fact grow up and get mar- ried or have a career, or both, and most of them in any e- vent will have to cope with putting up a curtain rod and oiling the vacuum cleaner and understanding a little about all the modern "laborsaving" household devices that keep getting busted. And men will find that the course of life (and surely true love) will run more smoothly if they know how to fry an egg and make a bed and do a load of laundry. "Our schools might well find time to run every boy through the fundamentals of home economics and every girl through the fundementals of shop. Then, occasionally, wo- men could handle the plumbing and men could arrange the flowers. Cant prove it, but suspect the whole world would thus be better, in a million tiny ways, and isn't this what we 're all for?"