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spiritual laws that regulate all relationships---a realization of
the true values and how to achieve them; 2) a most practical and
thorough training in every necessary phase of home economics for
intelligent and successful entrance upon responsibilities of wife-
hood, home-making, motherhood; and 3) such specialized courses as
we find ourselves in position to excel in women's vocation and
professional training.
Specifically, I hope to have available for girls entering
this coming fall a special Secretarial course of highest standards,
preparing girls to become top-flight secretaries to important
executives---a full four year course which will offer a special
degree in this major. Preliminary plans are laid. This course and
the year of its inauguration is contingent on sufficient
enrollment, but inquiries and applications now arriving indicate
that girls enrolling this fall may start this course, getting
foundational liberal arts subjects preparatory to technical
training the freshman year, then entering intensified technical
training in the major beginning the second year.
But career or business life regardless, every girl should
have the thorough, practical domestic science course which is my
personal and special purpose to create here. I know of no college
which offers the type of course I have in mind. In this, again, we
are pioneering---blazing new trails. It seems to me that being a
really intelligent, successful and happy wife, home-maker and
mother is becoming a lost art.
It's difficult now, while this course is still in the
"idea" stage, to describe it so as to capture the fancy and arouse
the enthusiasm of the prospective student. An illustration or two
might help to convey what I mean. Today I heard a woman remark to
another about a third: "Mrs. X doesn't seem to be a healthy woman.
Strange, isn't it---she's a splendid person, and so well educated,
too."
But what's strange about it? What is there in popular
education today that teaches one how to be and remain healthy?
Such courses as are taught along lines of hygiene, physiology, and
what is called "physical education," scarcely touch on the real
laws of health. Even the overwhelming majority of physicians know
almost nothing about it. As a physician and surgeon remarked to
me, "We doctors have been kept so busy giving medicine to people
already sick we haven't had time to make a study of health". They
have studied sickness and disease, not health---drugs, medicines,
and surgery, not foods, sunshine and exercise.
But a small number of prominent doctors have made
specialized study along this line, and they agree that about 90% of
ill health comes from improper diet. Ignorance of this one thing
can, and usually does, cause irritability, a bad disposition,
laziness, fear and worry, and many social handicaps in addition to
most of the modern diseases and sicknesses of this day. Is
education which leaves the college graduate ignorant of this basic
need for a happy and successful life a well-rounded, practical, and
complete education?