DOMESTIC SCIENCE

Evening Post, Volume XCIII, Issue 28, 1 February 1917, Page 8

DOMESTIC SCIENCE

"A NEW AND IMPORTANT STEP." Dr. C. Cliilton, Professor of Biology, Canterbury College, and member of the University.Senate, passed through Wellington yesterday on his return from the sitting of the . Senate, at-, Auckland. Speaking to a Post reporter of the action of the Senate in determining that all female candidates for the matriculation and entrance university scholarships should present with their applications ■ a certificate that they have gone through a course of domestic science, Dr. Chilton said that the members of the Senate- regarded this as a new and important step, and purposely did not restrict the certificates too much by making the conditions too drastic. It was felt that this would ensure all girl candidates devoting a certain amount of time to the work which is requix-ed to be performed in the home.

Asked whether this was not placing girls in a disadvantageous position, compared with boys, Dr. Chilton rsaid that he did- not think such would be the case. Under, the existing laws all boys have to devote a certain amount of bhnir time to military training, from which the girls are naturally exempt. This, he thought, equalised the position and placed no undue handicap on girls in qualifying for the matriculation. There was no doubt whatever, he continued, that the value of the training afforded by a course of domestic science and the results that would accrue therefrom would, as time. goes on, be reflected in the management and control of the individual homes. At present home science is an optional subject for matriculation and also for the entrance* scholarship examination, and is taken up by a certain proportion of the girls. The necessity for" the production of a certificate "would, it was felt, result in a greater number of girl entrants taking the home science course as one of the subjects for the matriculation. Just as in the past, some parents considered the education of their girl incomplete without their having acquired a knowledge of music, so in the future ho hoped that parents would not consider the education of their girls complete until they had a sound training in what is considered to be woman's proper and most important sphere of work—the management and care of the home, upon which the welfare of the State so largely depends.