The Lynden tribune. [volume] (Lynden, Wash.) 1908-current, 1914-11-26
UNIVERSITY COMMONS
OFFERS OPPORTUNITY
Institution Affords Fine Train.
ing For Home Economics
Students.

young women at our University since
the opening OF the University Com
mons. The modern girl graduates
from our higher educational institu-
tons too often find that the only posi-
tons open to her are those of teach
ing She is trained for none of the
new lines of activity eager today for
the trained woman. These new lines
of work that can be better done by
women than by men call for more
specialized training than the ordinary
college offers.
School lunch rooms need women ex-
perts in marketing, women who under
stand food values and the most whole
some ways of preparing food for our
children. Hospitals are calling for
women with domestic science training
for dietiticians and housekeepers.
Commercial houses want lunch room
supervisors. Orphanages and other
institutional homes are demanding
directors. Sanitary inspectors and
pure food experts should be trained
for their positions. The young wom-
an who has some capital and is en-
terprising can find no more congenial
lucrative employment than in owning
and running a tea room. The Uni
versity Commons is the laboratory for
such training.
The University Commons is run on
the cafeteria plan. Luncheon is served
to between three and four hundred
dow or
able to get good wholesome food we'll
prepared and at a reasonable price.
1t supplies a long felt want on the
campus. Students save time and
money, and are better fed.
The Commons is an institution found
in nearly all of the eastern colleges
and universities, but at our State Uni
versity the Commons has the addition
al function of serving to give Home
Economics students actual and valu-
able experience. Under careful super
vision she buys food, plans meals,
serves her term as soup, meat and We
getable cook, tries her hand at baking
bread, cake, and pies; makes salads,
sandwiches and desserts and serves
over the counter.
The location of the University in a
large city makes it possible for every
student who looks forward to work
of this sort to be tried out in various
lines of work.
After her training at the Commons
is complete, the young woman who is
being fitted for institutional work will
serye two weeks as student dietiti-
clan in a hospital, two weeks in small
tea room, and another term in a COM
mercial cafeteria. She will assist in
restaurant, will help buy provisions
for dormitory and leaves college well
prepared for several varieties of
work.
The situation in Seattle is ideal and
as the University is the only college
on the Pacific Coast that has such
resources available it realizes its res
possibilities toward this part of the
country that ii is eager to meet. 1t
wishes to be able to show our eastern
friends that Washington is alive to
the value of the new democratic edu-
cation that it is doing its share along
these lines and is doing it well, with
the cooperation of its public spirited
institutions.
The Commons is housed in the old
California building of the A. Y. P. Ex-
position, which later was used as a
museum and then condemned. The
Museum was moved to safe quarters.
The Commons was forced to use the
old shell of the condemned temporary
building.
The great old barn was cleaned up
and propped up, and due discretion
can be used to keep dry in on a
Winters day, though it is not always
possible to be comfortably warm, even
with the good heating system of the
University and with Seattle's mild
climate The old building is a make
shift. The hundreds who are fed daily
at noon and the business organizations
of the students that gather there for
special evening meetings must be cared
for. This building will not be safe
for use much longer. The desired
Home Economics building would have
as an important part of its plan a
cafeteria which would provide for
these pressing student needs, outside
of the department work; as well as
affording a most valuable training
ground for the girls in the department.
The 300 or more girls in the de-
partment need the cafeteria for the
practical advantages afforded by its
work. This is the most adequate
way that methods of work in large
quantities with all its widening posi-
bilities can be presented to the young
women. A part of the desired home
economics building would give the
much needed quarters to this. When
will the State grant relief for this
pressing need?
other professional and business po-
sitions are open to Home Economics
trained women. Commercial houses
need buyers who are not only practi-
cal women who have been trained by
experience, but who also can utilize
the resources of modern science. Nc
matter how able one may be TO judge
by physical tests, better selection will
be made by the use of the chemical
and microscopic tests available to the