Wisconsin Women's History

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meet with constant experiences of tough meat, underdone or dried, to a chip, half cooked, unseasoned vegetables, bitter coffee, sour bread and rancid butter, but even the dining-room, which hungry boys and girls always approach with pleasure, is now not only robbed of all epicurian delights, but even of pleasant anticipations of good things to come.

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To see our sons and daughters growing thin under the wretched system of feeding in all our institutions is a disgrace to those who have charge of that department of college life! Grown people do not fully appreciate how sad a disappointment an unsavory meal is to the healthy appetites of the young.

Dyspepsia is one of the common diseases among our

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literary classes, and the foundation of this prevalent ailment is laid in our schools and colleges; of what avail is a knowledge of art, science, philosophy and government, when health is seriously undermined?

A perfect understanding of the science of Diatetics is of far more importance than etymology as the former involves a knowledge of the laws of

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health and life, without which all other sciences are of little value.

It would be a great blessing if some of the large sums of money now being given to various colleges for buildings, libraries, gymnasiums and salaries, could be devoted to the benefit of the students, that the head of the culinary department might no longer

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plead poverty as an excuse for starving our sons and daughters.

The manager in one of our colleges was heard to say not long since, in answer to a protest from some of the students about the very meagre fare: "I feed you as well as I can afford to for the small price you pay."

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respectable pieces of meat, butter, potatoes, vegetables and other viands, to be daintily re-dished, and served up for the next meal.

We can readily imagine how the knowledge of all this must affect the appetites of even the most hungry guests subjected to such impositions.

I still remember my own

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experiences at Emma Willard's celebrated seminary at Troy, New York. After three years in that institution I suffered with dyspepsia for months, and have never been able since to look with satisfaction at corned beef, liver or bread pudding.

Now the time has arrived for a general

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protest against such outrages from all parents.

We must show new honor to the culinary department, build mor convenient and spacious kitchens, with more elaborate cooking apparatus and utensils; we must have choice domestic libraries on the art of cooking, and training schools for teachers of domestic science, who will give us a body

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of well-educated, moral, conscientious and scientific cooks.

One of our great needs at the present hour is to exalt and dignify this domestic department, that we may have far more thorough, conscientious managers than we have ever yet possessed.

Would that the great philanthropist, Cecil Rhodes,

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I am rejoiced to find that one millionaire has at last given some thought to the subject of dietetics. Cecil Rhodes, in his late will, left a bequest of fifty thousand dollars for the improvement of the high table, for resident Fellows and tutors, at Oriel College, Oxford.

May other right men follow his example, and extend this charity to all classes of students

Elizabeth Cady Stanton