2 Ellen M. Richards [Sept. 



She had the constructive power of the engineer and a remarkable 

 ability to achieve. She was a leader of women and of men. An 

 authority of the highest order, she was placed on committees and 

 in consultation with the foremost men in the country on questions 

 of sanitation. 



Mrs. Richards possessed the rare gift of vision. Her mind 

 penetrated into conditions, enabhng her to understand and foresee 

 situations apparently closed to others having the same opportunity. 

 Twenty-five years ago she foresaw the parts that sanitary science 

 and preventive medicine were to play in the work of our educational 

 institutions, — dreams which only the past few years have converted 

 into actuahties. It was this same prophetic vision which made her 

 reahze the urgent need of scientific and sanitary training for women 

 in Order that they might be able effectively and intelHgently to carry 

 on their work. 



This training which she believed to be a necessity she chose to 

 call Domestic Engineering, and it may be said that Mrs. Richards 

 in demanding that women should have an intelligent understanding 

 of the laws which governed their lives, has done more for their 

 so called " emancipation " than any movement originated for that 

 avowed purpose. She realized that the era for thoughtful, compre- 

 hensive work by women was at band, and she stimulated and en- 

 couraged them in their efforts to this end. Speaking to a body of 

 women, she once said : " We are trying to adapt ourselves to 

 changed conditions. Do not let any one frighten or browbeat you 

 oitt of that Position." In originating, furthering, and leading the 

 movement for Home Economics, Mrs. Richards sounded a call that 

 will be heard around the world. 



Her plea to all workers, men and women alike, was for effi- 

 ciency, and the care, thoroughness and effectiveness of her own 

 labors were an example of her teaching. It was the quality in 

 Mrs. Richards which won for her the place of an undisputed author- 

 ity. She believed it to be essential both for a proper grade of 

 work and for the moral development of the individual. To use 

 her own words : " The inner sense of ineffectiveness is the unrecog- 

 nized cause of the restless discontent so prevalent to-day. No 

 person who is accomplishing something, seeing it grow under his 

 hands to what it was in thought, is discontented." 



