COLLEGE WOMEN AND THE NEW SCIENCE. 689 



of fourteen and another for girls of eight to ten, a mothers' cooking 

 class in the homes, besides classes in sewing. In fact, in all the 

 settlements this work with the mothers and children, and through 

 them for the homes, is one of the most important. 



One young college woman. Miss Alberta Thomas, of the domestic 

 science department of Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, has had the needs of 

 students who wish to board themselves particularly in mind, and 

 has invented an oven upon the principle of the Aladdin oven, which 

 she declares that a housekeeper could improvise with boxes from the 

 grocers. The long cooking necessary makes the food easy to digest 

 and cheap pieces of meat palatable, and also makes possible the leav- 

 ing of puddings, meats, and vegetables many hours without attention, 

 which is so valuable to the student who is often away many hours at 

 a time. She has lately been experimenting with various menus for 

 breakfast, luncheon, and dinner which will be appetizing, contain the 

 necessary amount of nutriment, and give the student but little 

 trouble to prepare, and which can be supplied for one dollar and a 

 half per week. 



Not long ago Mrs. Eliza R. Sunderland, a Ph. D. from Michigan 

 University and a Unitarian minister of great ability, reminded her 

 large audience of women that their chief interests must, in the ma- 

 jority of cases, ever center about the home; that women are the 

 natural home makers, and that any system of education which lost 

 sight of this fact was incomplete. 



Thus, by addressing popular audiences, by writing magazine 

 articles and books, by demonstration lectures upon the science and art 

 of cookery, by teaching the subject in high schools, grammar schools, 

 and colleges, by the establishment of depots for the sale of scien- 

 tifically prepared as well as savory food, by practically demonstrating 

 her knowledge in different ways in the homes of her poor neighbors 

 in connection with college settlements, by working upon practical 

 problems connected with domestic science in strong committees con- 

 nected with education associations and branches of the Association 

 of Collegiate Alumnse, and in many other ways do we find the col- 

 lege woman working in the field of domestic science, reaching thou- 

 sands of homes and home makers. All her intellectual training, 

 which it has been feared might divert her energies from home duties 

 which by nature and opportunity she is especially fitted to discharge, 

 has but made her the more eager to discharge them, but with a new 

 and different interest, along better lines thought out as a natural con- 

 sequence of her new opportunities. 



We are getting beyond the day when instinct and Providence 

 were expected to do duty for definite knowledge and special training 

 in the business of home making. The college woman is giving us 



VOL. LIII. — 47 



