A Study of the Rural Home on the Small Income in Utah

• Main Author: Huber, Thelma
• Format: Others
• Published: DigitalCommons@USU 1931
• Online Access: http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/etd/1573; http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2572&context=etd

It was early in the life of primitive man that he felt the need of a home to protect and shelter his family. This home, if he lived in the tropics, was a tree house or if he happened to be a mountaineer, a cave. In either case it consisted of one room only, where all the activities of the fmaily group took place. From this very primitive home we have a gradual evolution taking place until we have some of the convenient, well planned homes of today. They not only afford protection and shelter, but it is here that the child receives his first lessons in health, citizenship, and opportunities for self-expression. The effect of the home on the child is told by Ilse Forest, "Bad housing is a serious limitation upon the educational possibilities of the home with regard to the pre-school child; poor sanitary conditions directly endanger his physical health. Overcrowding, at best, encourages poor habits of living; at worst, it endangers morality; and it cannot fail to do some damage from the standpoint of hygeine". The influence of the home on its members cannot be overemphasized. "No external feature of man's life is more important to his growth in character and comfort than is his home," writes R. E. Thompson.