HOME SCIENCE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 22, 27 January 1911, Page 9

HOME SCIENCE.

! MISS BOYS-SMITH IN CHRIST- !. CHURCH. AN INTERVIEW. fuS rELEGKAPH — SPECIAL TO THE POST.] CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. Miss Boys-Smith, who has been appointed to the chair of Home Science and Economics at Otago University, arrived in Chrislchureh yesterday, and was met by several members of the I University Senate, which is holding its I session in this city. She will leave this afternoon for Dunedin, where she will make arrangements for beginning her work. Miss Boys-Smith was educated at Tunbridge Wells High School, and gained a mathematical scholarship for Girton College, Cambridge, on the results of the Combridge Higher Local Examination, taking a first-class "distinction" in mathematics- She went up to Cambridge in 1891, gaining firstclasses in the groups of the "previous" examination at the end of her first term. She then took the full honours course of the natural sciences tripos for the next three years, spending an additional year at Cambridge to work at scientific drawing. After leaving Cambridge, she spent six months as science and drawing mistress at a girls' school at Weymouth," but was almost immediately appointed to the post of science lecturer afc the Cheltenham Ladies' College by Miss Dorothea Beale, LLD., a position which she has held for the last fourteen years and a half. Shft has been connected with the domestic science movement there from its earliest start. In 1905 the Frances Mary Buss Memorial Travelling Scholarship was awarded to her, and she spent a winter in America, visiting the principal American colleges and universities in the Eastern Stages. She has, therefore, had a great deal of experience in the study and practice of home scienoe and economics. AN ENTHUSIAST. She is certainly very enthusiastic in her work, and wher she kindly gave a representative of the Lyttelton Times an mteivjew, said that s»he was very sanguine that she and her assistant, Miss Rawson, would be successful. She hoped that they would be a means of making domestic duties so attractive that women would not only fee] that their truest sphere of work was there, but would also find in it their deepest interest and their greatest happiness. In London, she said, the work was somewhat handicapped owing to the preconceived ideas and conditions that already existed. In New Zealand she would be able to start from the step-ping-stone the Old Country had supplied, and, with absolutely fresh ground I to work upon, would be able to build up ideals which could hardly fail to have a beneficial effect. She had been told that there were very good technical classes in Dunedin and in other centres of the Dominion. She wished to work in conjunction with them, and was sure that there would be no difficulty whatever in that respect. A PRINCIPLE OBJECT. As to the scope of the University work, she said that the principal object would be-to train women to attend to their household duties so thoroughly and scientifically, arid also so quickly, that they would have ample leisure for other intellectual interests and other delightful pursuits that were available to every well-educated woman — notably drawing, painting, music, and other subjects.* Miss Boys-Smith speaks with the authority of experience on this point, as she has illustrated four botanical books in her leisure time. One of them is in its twelfth edition. It is used in schools all over the world, and has a fairly wide sale in New Zealand." "Woman's part in life," she remarked, "is obviously to make the home all that it should be from the point of view of comfort, orderliness, utility, beauty, health, and economy. We hope to teach our students not only how to keep a house thoroughly clean, but also how to decorate it artistically. We feel that we- aro in a good position to carry out the scheme it is proposed to put into operation -in Otago." DOMESTIC SCIENCE COURSE. Miss Boys-Smith explained that the domestic science course will include New Zealand housewifery, laundry work, cookery, hygiene, the making of garments and the care and feeding of children. In addition to fhe practical side of household work, lectures and practical work will be taken in chemistry, physics, biology, physiology, hygiene, and economics, and a literary and art club will place the students in touch with the aesthetic and literary side of life. DEGREE. Speaking of the degree of B.Sc. in | Home Science and Economics, she said | that the matriculation examination would be the same as for the ordinary B.Sc. degree, and care would be taken to maintain the' university standard, so that the degree would always have a high value. There would also be a one year's course and a two years' Diploma course, which would include technical subjects, suuh as cooking and laundry work, but it was intended lhafc the degree should be a really high one, in order that it might bo demonstrated in a few years time that a mistake had not been made in establising a professorial chair in association with the university. It was probable that most of the technical work would be done in the technical school in Dunedin, and that in other Tespects emphasis would be placed upon what might be termed the intellectual aspect of the study, which she was confident would be made as interesting and fascinating as it was useful and necessary.