EDITORIAL The Annual Meeting. All those who were fortunate enough to attend the meeting of the American Home Economics Association at Ithaca three years ago, or who have experienced the gracious hospitality of Cornell at the Graduate School of Home Economics, or at other times, must gladly have welcomed the announcement made in the April BULLETIN of the Association that the annual meeting is again to be held there with Miss Van Rensselaer, the President of the Association, and Miss Rose, joint-Head of the Home Economics Department, as hostesses. To others may we say that the charm of the region, the campus unrivaled for natural beauty, the opportunity for delightful excursions, should prove an additional inducement to attend even though the chief attraction be the opportunity to become acquainted with the workings of one of the most successful departments of Home Economics, to avail one's self of the resources offered by Cornell University, and to gain the inspiration that comes from meeting one's fellow workers. Since the meeting is to be held from June 28 to July 3, it will be possible to go directly from Ithaca to the convention of the N. E. A. in New York City, July 1-8. A Personal Opinion. The editor of this JOURNAL believes that the ideal method is to remove from the home every possible bit of work that may be done outside it, though she realizes that at present this is not practical for a large part of the population and that for some it may not now be even desirable. She believes that one purpose of the American Home Economics Association should be the working out of plans by which more of the household processes may be carried on in a community way. The coöperative laundry at Chatfield, Minnesota, offers a good example of this kind of work. She believes that raising the standard of bakeries and manufacturing plants both in regard to sanitation and to quality of food products is even more valuable work than instructing housekeepers how to prepare their own products. She was consequently somewhat disturbed to find a whole column in one of our city newspapers devoted to a quotation from the students' work on the "comparative cost of homemade and commercially prepared foods" that was published in the March JOURNAL, with a definite conclusion in favor of the home prepared foods, though the contribution was guarded by the statement that "the data given and the conclusions drawn in this partial report are valuable largely because of the suggestions which they offer for more thorough tests along the same lines." We need much more experimental work and more consideration of the various economic factors involved before we are ready to draw conclusions. Because we need these experiments the JOURNAL has welcomed and published contributions on this subject and will continue to do so in order that we may have a basis for judgment. Later we shall call attention to some of the difficulties involved in formulating conclusions and to the fallacies inherent in some of the articles. Standardized Dress. Many of us can recall numerous efforts more or less sporadic toward the reform of women's dress. These have usually been based on the principles of greater freedom of movement and the requirements of hygiene. Some of the dresses proposed have of necessity been doomed to failure because of the complete neglect of the elements of beauty; while others have been fashioned with due regard to line and proportion as well as to comfort. Today attempts to standardize dress emphasize additional reasons that have not been so often urged: the economic waste involved in the various forms of competition in dress, in the frequent change of style, and in over-emphasis upon adornment; and the economic hardships enforced upon the worker through the extremely seasonal character of the women's garmentmaking industry, the low wages, and the bad sanitary conditions, due partly to risks that the manufacturer is forced to assume. Perhaps these social reasons may be more effective in bringing about reform than has been the personal appeal. Certainly there is a growing feeling that in some way the more evident evils at least should be corrected. The Home Economics Department of the General Federation of Woman's Clubs in an article entitled "Clothes and the Woman" in the January number of the Federation Monthly suggests that there be put upon the market six or eight different standard styles of street suits from which each may select the kind best adapted to her special needs. Having purchased this becoming suit of good material one should be able to wear it until it is worn out, instead of discarding it within a year or less because it has gone out of fashion. This plan deals with street clothes only. It seems sensible and should receive careful consideration. Another solution is proposed by Miss Ronzone of the Home Economics Department of the University of Missouri. Making her appeal largely to the social responsibility of women, she suggests the adoption for all costumes of one design, modified slightly to suit individual types. She has devised such a dress that is adapted to different materials and that has proved satisfactory with many who have tried it. Whether one style of dress for all women and all occasions is practicable or desirable may seem a question with many, but it should not be answered without serious consideration of Miss Ronzone's work and her contribution to the dress problem. COMMENT AND DISCUSSION In looking over the article "The College Girl's Wardrobe," appearing in the April, 1916, issue of the JOURNAL, three things occur to me as requiring careful consideration by anyone using such a budget as a basis of expenditure. The first of these is the entire absence of any allowance for the upkeep of the wardrobe. It is surely proper to charge up to one's clothing account the necessary expense of keeping the wardrobe in wearing condition. For instance, the cost of repairs is an appreciable item in the matter of shoes. On averaging personal accounts kept for several years, I find that the cost of repairs on shoes of good material is approximately 30 per cent of the original cost. That is, a pair costing $6 will, before they are ready for the discard, need repairs averaging about $1.80; and the cheaper the shoes, the relatively greater the price of repairs. In figuring upon the cost of dresses made at home, it seems to me that too little has been allowed for the necessary findings. As a rule (referring again to an average of several years' accounts), the extras, such as thread, pattern, bindings, buttons, and simple trimmings, are about 12 per cent of the price of material for winter (woolen) dresses and from 20 to 25 per cent of the cost of cotton materials. These estimates are based on clothes of about the same quality as that indicated in the college girl's wardrobe. Another thing which should be considered in a wardrobe budget is the proportion to be spent for the different articles. While I am not familiar with prices in the West, it occurs to me that a coat costing $30or one costing $18-is somewhat out of proportion to undervests at 8 cents apiece or stockings at 12 cents a pair. Would not a better level of expenditure be represented by a coat costing $25—or $15—putting the money thus saved into underwear and hosiery of better quality? A college girl gives her clothes fairly hard wear, so it behooves her to consider with care the expense of repairs; and she should certainly avoid being a "whited sepulcher" of shoddiness in underclothing. ESTHER SWARTZ. THE SMITH-HUGHES BILL This note, in answer to some of the objections to the Smith-Hughes Bill as it stands, should be read as a supplement to Miss Kinne's article, in the April number of the JOURNAL, on Terminology and the Smith-Hughes Bill.—THE EDITOR. The friends of the Smith-Hughes bill feel that it is best to pass it with as few amendments as possible. The pressure of business in both the Senate and the House makes its passage somewhat doubtful, and it seems probable that if it does not go through at this session of Congress the work will need to be done over again from the very beginning. It seems to be the general opinion of those who have studied the matter, that an amendment is desirable in regard to the Commission that would put the bill into operation. It is the opinion of a number of teachers of Home Economics that the bill should be amended in regard to its Home Economics provisions. An amendment has already been proposed including a clause authorizing the federal government to provide money for training teachers of general Home Economics. Such an extension of federal control over state affairs would arouse much discussion in both the Senate and the House. The bill would seem to be wisely framed to avoid such a contingency. The original commission felt that most states have excellent provision for the training of teachers for the general phases of household economics or household arts. Many experts in the field of education and many Home Economics teachers approve this bill as it stands. It would seem probable that the training of expert teachers for the more technical phases of the household arts would act as an impetus to the general teaching of the subject, and as a spur to the general teacher. Surely, Home Economics has so established itself that it need not fear the development of a new phase in its own field. HELEN KINNE, Chairman of Legislative Committee THE QUESTION BOX Conducted by a committee of the Science Section of the American Home Economics Association. Chairman, Prof. Amy Louise Daniels, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis. Questions may be sent directly to Miss Daniels. Question: The following statements from American Cookery (March, 1916) do not accord with what I have been teaching. Will you state your opinion? Oatmeal should never be cooked until it is mushy. Steel-cut oats are good for the reason that they do not form a sticky paste; they should be cooked no more than six minutes. Stir the oatmeal into boiling water and let it cook until it thickens, then set it aside to simmer for five or six minutes and you will have a most perfectly prepared breakfast cereal. When oatmeal is so thoroughly cooked that it becomes a mush it will roll up into little balls in the colon, and produce one of the worst forms of constipation. For many years, some of the best specialists have forbidden oatmeal because of this fact. No breakfast cereal should be cooked over eight minutes, because it is important to carry some raw starch into the lower part of the intestine, and this is done when cereals are not thoroughly cooked. Raw food faddists have made some remarkable cures. A number of people have been practically snatched from the edge of the grave by living on a raw diet instead of the one they had previously followed. However, there is a happy medium-it is not necessary to live on raw oatmeal and raw potatoes in order to get starch uncooked. The six-minute cooking rule gives a palatable, hygienic form of oatmeal and other cereals, Answer: The clipping certainly states some surprising facts, if one may call them such. Starch which is uncooked, or from which that something which surrounds the starch grain has not been removed either partly or wholly, cannot be digested, that is, by the enzymes of the alimentary tract of man. The bacteria, however, may act upon it in the lower bowel causing much discomfort and more or less digestive disturbance (Reichert, E. T.: The Differentiation and Specificity of Starches in Relation to Genera, Species, etc., Part II,,160, 1913, p. 80). In the raw steel-cut oats there are many starch grains that are uninjured; unless the temperature is sufficiently high, and the high temperature is sustained sufficiently long to destroy the continuity of the coating of the starch grains, these cannot be digested. Furthermore, unless the cereal is cooked so that the cells of which it is made up can be separated by the various chewing and digestive processes much of the food value will |