EDUCATING WOMEN

Otago Witness, Issue 3332, 23 January 1918, Page 9

EDUCATING WOMEN

AN INTERESTING VISITOR. An interesting woman now in Christchurch (says the Press of AVednesday), on her way to Lake Wakatinu. where she will spend a month's holiday) is Miss M. Chave Collisson, 8.A., of Sydney. Miss Collisson holds the post of assistant to the director of tutorial classes at the University of Sydney, her honours including the holding of the Frazer Scholarship in history. In other activities she is a member of the Board of Directors of Sydney University Women's Union —a body composed of graduates and undergraduates controlling the new University Women's Club—and is joint hon. secretary to the new women's section of the Workers' Educational Association.

As her activities would indicate, Miss Collisson is an enthusiast in the cause of women. Their uplift, mental, physical and social, is of supreme moment with her. Hence she speaks with rare enthusiasm and a compelling eloquence of what the W.E.A. is' doing for the women o*f New South Wales. The women's section of this bodywas only recently formed in Sydney, its principal aim being the teaching of women to handle lif« sanely and without hysteria, and the section's first work, just about to be carried into effect, is an eminently sane and helpful one. February will see the inception by the section of a series of weekend camps for women, and it is considered that the idea will be enthusiastically taken up. and that the camps will be well attended. Here the women will be encouraged in the wearing of a simple outdoor dress, and in the leading of healthy outdoor lives. A feature of the proceedings will be afternoon rambles or walks, whjle in the hours of the evening there will be educational talks. The campers will be encouraged to inv-'tn f.beir friends to visit them. "For," Miss Collisson says, "the a''m of the association has always been to encourage healthy co-operation of men and women." Further work meditated by the women's F-cetion will be the sendine' of.women trained in domestic science into the workers' homes to tench the women the simplest and b«st methods of home-k««ninff: the formation of " After Care" Committees, which will look after children between the times of their leaving school and taking up a trade or profession; and the encouragement of a greater interest among women in local and municipal affairs, and in the larger politics of the country.