TEE CHEMIST IN CONSERVATION 303 



Her price is far above rubies. 



Her children arise up and call her blessed; 



Her husband also^ and he praiseth her. 



In common with other large universities we are doing our best 

 for the young men, preparing them for the professions or the business 

 to which they will be called — physicians, lawyers, dentists, engineers, 

 chemists, accountants — fitting them to aid in the conservation of mate- 

 rial resources, of liberty and of life. 



When we are asked regarding our stewardship of the young women 

 a discreet silence may be the safest reply. We are giving them disci- 

 plinary studies, a general education in subjects interesting alike to man 

 or woman, an opportunity to develop the social instincts, to gain by 

 association with educated people, and to become more at ease in society. 

 But we look in vain for a careful training in the field where woman 

 should be supreme, an opportunity for any detailed study of chemistry 

 with the related sections of physics, bacteriology and physiology, as 

 applied to food and diet, disinfection and disease, particularly diseases 

 of children, general prophylaxis, sanitary construction, the disposal of 

 wastes, and the manifold other problems of the home. As homekeeper 

 much of the financial success of the average family will depend upon 

 her. Where is she getting the instruction? Most men are only in- 

 directly interested in such problems and therefore if woman can not, or 

 will not, solve them they will be unsuccessfully met. It is true that 

 most of them are merely applications of scientific principles, and that 

 somewhere in the university these principles are taught. Yet nowhere 

 are they correlated to make a systematic course for this large propor- 

 tion of our students. The men of the University of Iowa may make 

 good husbands, but, as a rule, they will not be able dieticians; the 

 women may make the best of wives but, in that case, the university can 

 claim but a small part of the credit for it. The University of Iowa is 

 missing its great opportunity. 



In all this I am not pleading for the special training of teachers and 

 experts ; only for aid in the conservation which shall supply our needs, 

 through the symmetrical development of our students and their best 

 preparation for their life-work. 



I have spoken of a few of the means used by science to conserve 

 our resources, but they are typical of hundreds of others carried on all 

 over the world by thousands of men with chemical training and work- 

 ing by scientific methods. From this present activity we can look 

 ahead and predict some of the tasks next to be accomplished. Were 

 the time sufficient, it would be interesting to discuss them — the prob- 

 ability of the synthetic production in the laboratory of many of our 

 foods now only formed by the slow processes of nature ; a system of in- 

 tensive agriculture whereby our crops will be increased many fold; 



