Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/706

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and the public, prove the painstaking thoroughness with which these women applied this branch of the domestic science to their great task.

College women are working along the lines of the new science in organizations not distinctively their own, such as the Boston Woman's Educational and Industrial Union, which depends upon them for the strength and inspiration to make its work effective, A college woman is upon its board of directors, a graduate of Wellesley has made the investigations in shops and factories regarding the relation of domestic service to work in those places, a Radcliffe student represents its Domestic Reform League in the Domestic Bureau, while its School of Housekeeping has lectures from Prof. Lucy M. Salmon, of Vassar College, Mrs. Alice P. Norton, and Prof. Katherine Coman, of Wellesley College.

So naturally and forcefully do the problems of the house and home appeal to college women, first because they are women, and secondly because their training makes them ready to attack problems in a scientific way, that one of them, Miss Lucy M. Salmon, an M. A. from Michigan University, lent the particular trend of her mind as professor of history in Vassar College to the historical side of the subject. The painstaking labor given is shown in that the basis of her book was the information obtained through answers to five thousand blanks sent out by her during 1889 and 1890. Her valuable volume, Domestic Service, was finally published in the spring of 1897.

Her hope that "the tabulation and presentation of the facts will afford a broader basis for a general discussion than has been possible without them; that a knowledge of the conditions of domestic service beyond their own localities and households will enable some housekeepers in time to decide more easily the economic questions arising within every home; that it will do a little something to stimulate discussion of the subject on other bases than the purely personal one," has been promptly realized in one distinguished instance at least, since the Boston branch of the Association of Collegiate Alumnæ has been making this year a scientific study of the subject of domestic service, with her book as the basis for preliminary work, recommending it as "the most careful scientific investigation of the subject up to date."

The American Kitchen Magazine shows how college women are giving of their best to put before the public scientific and practical knowledge upon all matters pertaining to the home. Home is the magnet to which their thoughts and efforts are continually drawn. Frequent contributors to this publication are Mrs. Mary Roberts Smith, Mrs. Ellen H. Richards, Miss Lucy C. Andrews, Dr. Mary E. Greene, president of the National Household Economic Associa-