Hammond Times, Volume 15, Number 95, Hammond, Lake County, 11 October 1921 — Page 14

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WHERE TEACHING OF 125,000 WO MEM

MEAMS MAKING OF 125,000 FR

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Women's Institute Facts Founded 1916. Total enrollment 125,070. Largest women's college in the world. Students 'from every State and many foreign countries. Five hundred forty-six instructors and assistants. Courses taught: dress-making, millinery and cookery.

AS widely a? they varied in the scale of human needs, they were characteristic of Mrs. Picken's morning mail. A high school girl in Fresno was not popular. She bewailed the shyness and inditYerence of the males. How would she cornpel for herself the attention she saw lavished on girls not half so sprightly and attractive? The wife of an underpaid station agent in a Gopher Prairie town was in full revolt against the drabness and stupidity of her. Main Street existence. Why should she not forsake her husband and seek the brightness life somewhere must hold for her? A seventy-year-old woman, sheltered throughout her life from the crudities of existence, was faced with the necessity of earning bread for herself and her sightless husband. Could she learn to do plain sewing and keep a roof above their heads? Was there any hope for their destitute age? Although the problems of her correspondents in great cities, towns and rural sections hae first claim on her attention, the office of Mary Brooks Picken is not at all like the sanctum of an "agony column" editor. Located in the tower of the now million-dollar building just dedicated for the Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences in Scranton, Pa., her office suggests the headquarters from which a great industry is directed. A "Personalized Service" School The letters seem out of place. The fact that Mrs. Picken is the Institute's Director of Instruction and that the Institute is the world's greatest woman's college, does not explain the morning mail. The letters are an enigma until it is understood that "personalized service" is not only the keynote of Mrs. Picken's career but the moving principle of the very college she serves. It is a monument to the ideal of personalized service, and Thursday. September 2S. the day of dedication, will always be memorable in the history of Scranton. When the dedica

tion was planned, it was decided that its elaborate ceremonies should be graced by guests of distinction. Among those who accepted the invitation to attend were Admiral Austin M. Knight, of the United States Navy; Governor Sproul, of Pennsylvania; Miss Neysa McMein, the magazine cover artist who recently painted President Harding; Miss Sally James Farnham, the sculptor who made a bust of the President while Miss McMein was "doing

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TT-IEL 2lEW..iILLTOJ-DOLL,AR BDILDIT3G OF T.HF3 "WOMFVMS INSTITUTE. OP DOMESTIC ARTS S 6CE.CE?

him on canvas; Dr. Thomas E. Fin- personally the student it never

M'es. Through an inge system, the Institute

prol:".n wr.en tne sfuuent enrolls.

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negan, rennsyivania c-tate Superintendent of Education, and Miss Mary E. Sweeney. President (( the American Home Economics Association, and Dean f the Department of !loi:"e Economics at M ichigan Agricultural Coi'eee. ?.liss McMein :!so painted a portrait of Mrs. Picken to hang in the Institute building. Its System Adopted by Canada The letters on Mrs. Picken's desk demonstrate the success the Institute has aeh'eved in maintaining a relation of personal intimacy with its student body. Its record of contact with more than a million

women in all parts of the world, social

its growm in a i ew years irom an attend. n urn tier cak idea to a potent civilizing force, her biscuits are sotrirv

and the honor of having its nerds individual assistance in apmothods and text books adopted by plying her lessons in cookery, the an agency as uncommercial as the record will show the kind of fuel Canadian government, have not she uses, the type of stove in her brought it scholastic formality, kitchen, her cook book and any Its growth, in fact, lias served to otht-r important factor that would make more sensitive its contact not be covered in her letter, with individual students.

Mrs. Picken directs the force that is today teaching dress making, millinery and cookery to more than To.Ol'O women. Still she finds time for the problems of the high school girl, the Gopher Prairie wife and the aged woman. Moreover, she has found a way of saturating her organization with the same zeal for helpfulness. In the eyes of the Institute, the student is tirst. of all a woman. When she v rites

or nor course gives not only a detailed picture of herself but a comprehensive sketch of her domestic environment and social background. The instructors have this information always before them in answering the student's letters and grading her papers. If, in the course of her dress-rraking studies, she asks what kind of party frock would be most In-coming to her, the instructors know her complexion, color of her hair and eyes, all her measurements and the kind of

itTairs she probablv will

Jails or and she

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One section op the large, cofps of instructors corre.ctimc stude.njts' le5son -pape.rs (m the-, NEW C-llLLICN'DOLLAf, BUll-UitsiG

about her intimate domestic perplexities, and she writes about them frequently, she finds her instructors more interested in the pattern she is fashioning for her

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student receives from the Institute begins "Dear Friend " and it is not long before she learns there is a wealth of meaning behind that salutation. Students Pictured in Records At frst glance it might seem impossible for any school to serve

Names Maiden and Married Keeping the records of a college aiming at personalized service is a difficult task. Hut even if they were pruned to the ultimate word of simplicity, there would remain one ever-present source of trouble. A student begins a course under one name, and frequently finishes it u n.ler another. Often the bride-to-be recogi-izt s that personal charm may not be all-sufficient, and that a sound knowledge of cooking might, make a gor,,l second line of offense. She begins the lessons as a bride-to-be and continues them as a bride. ('onseou--ntly

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"VlCE-PRE-&lnEjrT &DTRECTttfvb IN5TR:VCncrf-r

Personalized Service'

"Personalized service," rendered unitedly by the whole Institute organization under Mrs. Mary Brooks Picken, Director of Instruction, is the secret of the Institute's success. Every personal characteristic of face, appearance, education, taste and environment is known to the Institute for every student. The record of them is before every instructor when grading lesson papers and answering letters. The student miles away is visualized like a girl in a class room. Instruction, guidance and advice are fashioned to fit her particular needs.

instructors reads and corrects vision of a loader, and their work, papers. The lessons of beginners when finished, must pass the scruconcern themselves with elements tiny of an inspector. In every case as fundamental as the proper the grade and comment must lit threading of a needle and the the lesson and sample. In the cook-

simplest kinds of stitches. With the passing of the primary and intermediate stages of her instruction, the r-udent finds herself mastering the fine points of tailoring.

125,000 Students in Five Years

marble to a height of nine feet, and above that in Caen stone. The building is 246 feet Ionjr, 66 feet wide and contains on each of its five floors a total of 11,600 square feet of space. Among its large offices are eight measuring- 102 feet by 57 feet. In arranging the dedication the following program was adopted: An afternoon meeting with Dr. Finnegan as the speaker to deliver the dedicatory address; a tea for distinguished guests presided over by Mrs. Picken, and a dinner in Scranton's Town Hall with covers laid for all the Institute staff and more than 2r0 guests. Before work on the new building began it was decided that a film should be made to show at this dedication dinner which would depict the work of construction from the day the cornerstone was laid until the day the building was completed. Governor Sproul and Dean Sweeney were the speakers selected for the dinner. The College of the Future From the days when the Greek philosophers lectured in the market places, through the Middle Ages when the universities of England and the continent were founded and down to the present day, the

or hat trimming or cake-making.

In all the courses but cookery, the student mitst submit samples of hex work.

ery course the students submit reports on their work which afford a basis of making and criticism. For the convenience of the students, especially those far removed

The growth of the Institute has been phenomenal among educational institutions. At the end of

T.H, its first year, it had a staff bulk of all instruction has been by of 25, floor space amounting to the "class room" method. During 2,500 square feet and an enroll- the centuries when printing was inent of 3,022 students. A year unknown or laboriously slow, and later there were nearly 0,000 stu- the few books in existence were dents. In 1018 the enrollment was in the hands of scholars, no other

her name mu-t be changed in the records throughout the many departments of the school. So often does this occur that a routine procedure is established, d the proper change is made instantly and without confusion. The persona! touch is present

abundantly in the division of the institution where the corps of

from fhe metropolitan shopping over 17,000. Since then it has method was possible. The unquali-

centers the Ins'ituo maintains a advanced with giant strides. The lied success and admitted effective-

SUpplV Shop that riva's a denart- l'Lrtl himhuu: eoiuuineiiL ir, ow ue.- o i. tot- iiniiitiii oio tpiMnirnv c

,,,,. frAtrl over io.uou. l ne siau n.is in- .Tiioyi nave raise'i a question as

croaked tv, 54c nn,j the floor space to the character of our educational to (T'..00( square feet. institutions in the future. With Since the cornerstone was laid our methods of printing becoming linn, 1 n tin K,iiii;ni r.,, ;i,- ,i j

thf l,-OT, r- .-,,-1 nnWn nrl' nnift .... - T .

, , , , ' 1 ' . ' ' , . grnduaMv has assumed th

r-.verv samnie aim ieson .i'er 01 (ne large scnie on wmcn tne

Constructive Comment on Lessons

ment store. Evorv accessory from

needles and notions to sewing machines and bolts of costly material may be had bv the student

is judged carefully on its own merits. When the work is graded it is returned to the student with comprehensive and constructive

comment. The instructors wnrK m small groups each under the super-

Institute does things is afforded by its printed matter. Preparing it lesson books and other literature occupies much of the time of the largest private printing establishment in the world.

r-i'iy has assumed t ne propor- tal system reaching to every man s

tions ot one of Scranton s most 1m- gate, it becomes a problem as to posing structures. The style is whether the great colleges of the collegiate Gothic, and the con- future will be those which wait struction is reinforced concrete for the student to enter their halls, with a facing of tapestry brick or those which raise the ideal of and Indiana lime stone. The main personalized service and go out to hall is finished in Pink Kasota seek the student.

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