HOME SCIENCE AND ECONOMICS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10071, 6 February 1911, Page 1

HOME SCIENCE AND ECONOMICS.

[Fboh Our Corskspondext.] DUNEDIN, February 4.. In the course of an interview, Miss Winifred Boys-Smith, who has been appointed to the chair of Home Science and Economics at Otago University, said:—"Dtmcdin is certainly aware of the value of education, and it appears to me that they are prepared to give this new Chair a fair chance and take ly? the project thoroughly. I can ask for no better start in. my work. I" may add that the work itself is of such great interest and importance that it cannot fail if people take pains to know anything about it. It must be of immense importance to the community. If the men are to hare a chance to do their best, we must have women doing their best as wives and mothers, womon who can keep the home comfortable, who know how to properly bring up children and to so nourish them as to fit them physically and mentally to take their places in the world and to become morally well trained. All these things we want to do. "We want to make good and capable women, to teach them to play thoir part properly, so that .they may fulfil their highest functions and truly become the complement of the men. If a woman is really a woman, she will see that her highest happiness and her right calling is net in trying to do man's work, for she cannot'do that adequately owing to lack of physical strength and her imperfect, knowledge of business affairs, but in doing such things as are complementary to a man's work, thus setting him free and enabling him to do his work well. The man is, of course, protective. It is he who produces and creates. The woman is not so original, but she is much more receptive. Sho has what is commonly called instinct, but as a rule not so much judgment. She is naturally more artistic and generally has a finer and more deeplyingrained religious sense, and will do 'her work on moral lines with the happier instinct which comes of an inborn conviction. In that way wo are trying to make domestic work what we believe it ought to be, to instil an idea of the dignity of all labour, to show women that their highest happiness is in making the homes good homes and in laying the foundations for the development of the race, wherefore they must look after their own health, because that means the health of the generations to come, and'for the same reason attend properly to the feeding and educating of their children. We are to take all our students to the Karitane Homo, where they will see how infants should be fed. That is a simple fact to prove the practical side of the work. Really, it is all practical. It is all scientific. This means adopting the best known methods of doing things about the house, so as to shorten labour and. give the best results. Yes, I have had experience in a corresponding position. For fourteen years I was lecturer on physiology and hygiene in connection with the domestic science movement at Cheltenham College. I have been most pleased with tho way the technical schools managers have welcomed the movement here. They are most willing that wo should send our students to take the cookery and needlework courses, and one of their cooking staff wishes to take the degree course at tho university; therefore, from the outset we work hand in hand."

Miss Boys-Smith added that the syllabus is to he submitted to the University Council on Monday.