FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 137 



courtesy. We become like what we admire. I would have music and 

 science. In science I would make destinction between work done by the 

 college man and the college woman, not in botany, physics, but in chem- 

 istry. I would demand chemistry applied to domestic problems. It 

 should be the chemistry of food. At the Michigan Agricultural College 

 girls are now analyzing nutritive values of certain foods. There should 

 be the chemistry of digestion, and all this training in chemistry aiming 

 toward healthier, better nourished bodies. 



There should be in this college course teaching in sanitation, hygiene, 

 anatomy and biology, the science of reproduction. ^>tatistics show that 

 this training may be taken without injui'y to a girl's health if she is 

 judicious and has had any training in self-control in her home as to the 

 indirect teaching. There is a resulting firmness, clearness of mind, ac- 

 curacy, mental balance that goes to the making of a strong woman. 



THE ADVANTAGES OF COLLEGE TRAINING. 



(1) The college-trained woman has learned many hard lessons — not 

 only how to get on with more or less distant neighbors, but with the girl 

 next room who may annoy her in many ways. (2) The college-trained 

 woman has ^earned to spend her time wisely. She has been cultivating 

 wise judgment that may serve her in future emergencies. (3) She has 

 gained a knowledge of her own powers, and limitations; she is surer of 

 herself. 



There is the training of the moral nature, the building of character 

 inevitable in college training. Truth, honor, self-sacrifice, feeling for 

 justice grow partly through public opinion. There are a hundred calls 

 upon a girl's generosity and these warm-hearted girls respond graciously. 

 In homesickness, loneliness, sorrows, joys, there is ample field for cultiva- 

 tion of these traits. 



Why should women have this finer, higher development? Because as 

 another college woman has put it, woman has the eternal commission of 

 God to carry on His work — creation and education. Because most of 

 the children today are taught by women; because whatever women's 

 power may or may not be in politics she is making the ideals of our 

 American citizens and saying whether they shall be clean and pure and 

 above reproach. It depends upon the "skilled labor," the training of 

 women who are to be teachers and home-makers and mothers what the 

 standard of life is to be. 



DISCUSSION. 

 LED BY MISS JESSIE H. SMITH, PONTIAC. 



Any person physically, mentally and spiritually healthy wishes to live happily 

 that life which is useful to themselves and others. The attainment of such a life 

 of happiness and usefulness depends to a large extent on the realization of the best 

 training for one's chosen life work. Notice, I say the best, for that training is not 

 the best nor of permanent value which fails to teach how to live happily, and that 

 with the least possible loss of nerve energy.. In other words, I believe that loss 

 of nervous energy is largely due to lack of proper training. 



On account of our complicated civilization today we are mutually dependent 

 upon one another. The isolation of the home, which we read of in medieval his- 

 tory, has been destroyed. The comfort or discomfort of one family is inextricably 

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