TX 140 .K5 H4 Copy 1 HELEN KINNE HELEN KINNE PUBLISHED BY A GROUP OF HER FRIENDS TEACHERS COLLEGE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY NEW YORK CITY Gift Af S 15 1919 To Her Friends THIS BOOKLET is sent to you by a group of Miss Kinne's co-workers who feel sure that you will be glad to have these brief records of her friendly and stimulating life. It goes to Miss Kinne's former students, to her professional associates, and other friends. As long as the edition lasts, copies will be sent gladly on request. Benjamin R. Andrews Anna M. Cooley LUCETTA DaNIELL Josephine H. Marshall Wilhelmina Spohr Cora M. Winchell Laura Whittemore Mary Schenck Woolman [3I The Trustees of Teachers College at their meeting February 21, 191 8, adopted the following minute "Miss Kinne entered Teachers College as a student in 1890, and received the Diploma in 1891. She was immediately appointed instructor in domestic economy, a position which she held until 1898, when she was promoted to the profes- sorship of domestic science. On the organization of the School of Practical Arts, Miss Kinne was made professor of household arts education and head of the department. For twenty-seven years, therefore, Miss Kinne had been an active participant in the life and work of the College. A skilled teacher and a leader of ability, always ready to receive sug- gestions, resourceful in utilizing assistance of every kind, energetic in carrying forward her work, and imbued with a spirit of service, she rapidly developed a department that in point of numbers of students and extent of influence, was second to none in the College. Her professional and adminis- trative ability were happily reinforced by a radiant person- ality which was an inspiration to her students and a joy to her friends. She richly deserv^ed the recognition universally accorded to her of being the leader of her colleagues in the field of domestic science in America." 4) Resolution of the Faculty of Teachers College Whereas, in the death, on December 29, 191 7, of Helen Kinne, Professor of Household Arts Education for nineteen years in Teachers College, and a member of the teaching staff for twenty-six years, the College and University have lost a woman of rare spirit, broad sympathies and culture and creative vision, and Whereas, there has passed from this important field of education which she had a conspicuous share in developing, a teacher whose influence and inspiration have made a marked impression upon the lives and work of many women who are striving to promote and maintain the highest ideals of home and family life, and a worker highly esteemed and beloved, who leaves her co-workers the memory of devoted and valuable service toward the fulfilment of a common purpose. Resolved, that the Faculty of Teachers College here expresses its deep sorrow in its great loss and asks that its high appreciation of the contribution made by Miss Kinne to Columbia University, and of her guiding influence in the whole development of the household arts in education be spread upon the records of the University. [5I Extract from the Teachers College Record, March, 1918 On Saturday, December 29, 191 7, Miss Helen Kinne, Professor of Household Arts Education, died of acute colitis, after an illness of only five days' duration. Miss Kinne had been absent from the College on sabbatical leave since May, 1916, having: been granted an extension of the usual period on account of ill-health. Pearly last November she returned to the city, and was looking forward with keen interest to taking up her work again at the opening of the Spring Session. Her health, howescr, had not improved as she had hoped, and it is evident now that this acute culmination of long-standing conditions was inevitable within a few months at the latest. The funeral service was held on New Year's Day, in St. James's Chapel, Cathedral of St. John the Divine, where Miss Ivinne was a regular attendant. Bishop Greer, who had been her rector when she was a girl, and Chaplain Knox ofiliciated. A significant contribution to the service to those who knew her keen pleasure in the Cathedral music was the subdued under- tone throughout from the great organ, rendering selections which she especially loved. Miss Kinne was born in Norwich, Conn., January 31, 1861. Her early life, however, was spent almost entirely in Provi- dence, R. I., where she was graduated from a private school, and later did advanced work in mathematics and astronomy under Brown University instructors. It was her intention to prepare herself to teach these subjects, which held great charm for her throughout her life, but a period of ill-health extending over several >ears changed these plans. When she was again able to undertake work, at twenty-nine years of age, it was imperative that she should choose something that would bring financial returns after the shortest possible preparation. In January, 1891, the casual reading of a magazine article brought her to the doors of the New York College for the Training of (61 Teachers, now Teachers College, as one of its earliest pupils, to follow the brief course in domestic economy, as it was then called. In June, when the one instructor resigned to be married. Miss Kinne was invited to take her place. At that time her own brief training, combined as it was with courses in the theory of education and general methods of teaching, exceeded the preparation of her predecessor, and of any other possible candidate. Perhaps nothing could show more clearly than such a statement the immense development in household science that has taken place in this country and in the entire world in twenty-five years. The Department of Domestic Economy was at this time under the wing of the Department of Physics and Chemistry. Miss Kinne held the rank of instructor until 1898, when she was officially made director of the Department of Domestic Science and Art, with the rank of professor. In January, 1916, she completed the twenty-fifth year of her connection with the College, and a reception was given in her honor in February, which brought together her students and other college friends of a quarter of a century. At the end of the following May she entered on her sabbatical leave. Every life has some dominant characteristic which seems to be its especial message to the world. Miss Kinne's life seems to her friends to bear many such messages; but preeminent among them was her liberal-mindedness. Her life was open on all sides to all manner of interests, all kinds of people. She was the true aristocrat and the true democrat in one, equally at home with all, because there was in her heart no sense of inferiority to the one nor condescension to the other. Her line of descent, mostly English and Welsh, included, like that of many Americans, nobles and commoners, professional men, pioneers and farmers, and she took a whimsical satisfaction in accounting so for her feeling of kinship with "all sorts and conditions of men." In the New England village where she had established her home for the past seven summers, and where she hoped to spend her later years, she had already identified herself with the community, sincerely eager to make for herself friends among the regular residents of the village, to be accepted as one of themselves, and not to be considered [7] by llieni merely as a summer resident. Among the letters mourning her loss are many that show how truly she had made her place in her chosen home. Not only did she understand and enjoy those of var>ing modes of life, but those of widely varying temperaments and modes of thought. Conservative or Bohemian, cultivated or ignorant, old or young — with all, she found points of contact easily and seemed to have an understanding of each one's point of view, although her own might be wholly different. She quietly accepted the right of each to think as he chose, and to work out his own salvation in his own way. This made her an especially acceptable adviser to young people, many of whom she counted among her loyal friends. Not only were her sympathies broad as to people, but her entire range of interests was world-wide. One of the few persons she found it hard to understand was the teacher who settles down into a narrow groove and can think and talk of nothing outside her own particular field. To encounter that type of mind always greatly oppressed her. Her own work was keenly interesting to her, her absorption in it at times entire; but when she left it behind she left it wholly, and gave herself with enthusiasm to other lines of thought. Of these she had many. Her interest in public affairs at home and abroad was intense, and her knowledge extensive, although her participation was limited by lack of physical strength to wide reading and generous giving. Her early intellectual influences had been unusually cultural, and confirmed the instinctive tastes of a finely constituted nature. Her love for music and her scholarly appreciation of musical form are well known to some of her friends; her love of liter- ature, philosophy, and poetry to a smaller circle. Among the most use-worn books on her shelves are Royce's Spirit of Modern Philosophy, Pater's Marius the Epicurean, some volumes of Plato, De Morgan's Alice for Short, an old geometry text-book, and a modern translation of the New Testament. These she read over and over, as proven friends. Her enthusiasm over experiments on her little Connecticut farm. Uplands, shows her liking for the applied sciences in a field other than her own; and her endeavor to make her farm a sanctuary for her beloved bird-friends reveals another side, that of the true nature-lover. She was a perfect comrade for out-of-doors, for she knew the world of Nature intimately. She named the stars as one names friends, knew trees by their bark, birds by their flight, read the signs of cloud and wind, and could find rare flowers and ferns as by instinct. Much of this love of Nature she inherited from her mother. From her mother, also, she inherited her unusual power of affection, her unswerving loyalty, not only in her personal relationships, but to causes and obligations, and above all, her absolute integrity of character, which made untruthfulness in any form impos- sible to her. Her quick sense of humor was so inherited, also, together with her fine common sense, and a touch of mysticism, perhaps from a distant Welsh ancestry. She was an instinctive home-maker. Any room that she occupied, however temporarily, took on immediately a warm atmosphere of cosy homelikeness. And with this instinct another went hand in hand — that of the true conservationist — the redemptory instinct, which made her always ready to see what might be done with apparently hopeless material. An illustration of this was her keen satisfaction in the rescue of her little farmhouse from the state of approaching decay to which it had been abandoned after its two hundred years of service, and its restoration to the uses of a home, to her like the saving of a human life. Her nature was deeply religious, but her faith was wider and simpler than any formulated creed. It had not been an easy faith. She had the questioning mind that must find out its own road. But she had the will to believe, and the wisdom to know how few are the essentials of a livable religion. To her thought, such a religion was formulated on the principles of Jesus, and was the necessary foundation stone for every life. For this reason she was deeply interested in the promotion of all plans for courses in religious education in the College cur- riculum, and eager for just such study of the relation of religion to democracy as some of the proposed courses now offer. She was enthusiastic from the beginning over the alliance between the Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish societies in Teachers College, and proved her interest in many ways. l9] Her HlMjrality of mind is nowhere more evident than in her teaching. She saw education as a structural whole — and her own sulijcct in its proper proportion to that whole. Her constant effort was to release her pupils from the thralldom of devotion to special methods of work — to make them grasp the importance of principle and the relative unimportance of method. She taught them to think and to organize their thought, refused to let them become blind copyists of her own or any other way of doing things, and was happiest when she found that her graduates had so grasped principles that they were not afraid of liberty of application. Her students say of her teaching that they came away from her class feeling lifted up — with renewed ambition and sense of their own power to achieve. This was a heritage from her father, a teacher and thinker of unusual calibre. Her own thought-processes had a certain crystalline qual- ity — not only because of their clearness, but also because of their structural form. The order that made her desk a restful spot to the eye, even at her busiest times, was not a matter of the hand only, but ran through all her mental processes. In her personal life and in her professional life alike — everywhere her tendency was towards order and simplification. Her mind was constructive, the mind of the born organizer. She had, moreover, the gift, rare among those who plan so well themselves, of being willing to turn over to another a piece of work, and then leave it entirely in that other's hands. LUCETTA DaNIELL Extract from the Journal of Home Economics, April, 191 8 Miss Helen Kinne, Professor of Household Arts Education in Teachers College, Columbia University, died in New York, December 29, 191 7. Miss Kinne was a pioneer worker and a recognized national leader in the development of home economics. Her teaching began in 1891, and during her years of work she has trained about 3,000 teachers of home econom- ics, who are now rendering service in all parts of the world. Born in Norwich, Conn., in 186 1, and living afterwards in Providence, R. I., where she attended private schools and took advanced instruction under members of the faculty of Brown University, her attention was caught in 1890 by a magazine article that described the newly-established New York College for Training Teachers which was offering courses in "domestic economy." She entered this institution in January, 1891, and six months later was asked to become the instructor in domestic economy, which as a new subject was then under the direction of the Department of Physics and Chemistry. In 1898, when Teachers College, by affiliation with Columbia, became the first university school of education. Miss Kinne was made Professor of Domestic Science and Art in charge of her separate department. The subject grew rapidly and after a time separate departments of domestic science and domestic art became necessary, and Miss Kinne became head of the former and Mrs. Woolman of the latter. As the student body increased, specialized teaching was developed, Miss Kinne finally taking as her personal responsibility the courses in methods of teaching, while retaining active supervision of the laboratory courses in food-chemistry and cookery. She also herself gave the course in household management and domes- tic economy. Separate departments, of Household Adminis- tration, and of Nursing and Health, under Miss Nutting, had begun to develop when the gift of a $450,000 building made In] possible the organization of the School of Household Arts, in 1909, in which Miss Kinne became senior professor in the Department of Household Arts Education, while departments of Household Chemistry, Physiological Chemistry, Nutrition, Fo', Textiles and Clothing, each with extensive laboratories, and its own teaching staff, were developed, on the foundation which she, herself, had laid. The twenty-fifth anniversary of Miss Kinne's first connec- tion with Teachers College was celebrate' year, are land- marks in the histor>' of our subject. I12I The Home Economics Association of Greater New York was organized under Miss Kinne's leadership in the fall of 1908, and Miss Kinne served as president for three years. The programs dealing with health problems, standards of living, infant welfare, and other social as well as educational matters, reflected the widening views of those years. In the American Home Economics Association, Miss Kinne took a leading part, serving on the Council and as one of the incorporators of the Association, and on the editorial board of the Journal. She was also chairman of its important Com- mittee on Legislation for a number of years, and led the home economics group in the earlier campaigns for what were eventually the Smith-Lever and the Smith-Hughes laws, which are doing so much to enlarge our professional fields at present. Miss Kinne also worked professionally in other associations, contributing papers particularly in the Eastern Manual Train- ing Association. Another contribution to home economics was made in her books. Her 'Equipment for Teaching Domes- tic Science', helped to improve and standardize the material means of instruction ; her text-books, written with Miss Cooley as co-author, 'Shelter and Clothing' (1913), and 'Foods and Household Management' (1915), and the Home-Making Series, 'Food and Health', 'Clothing and Health', and the 'Home and the Family' (19 16-19 17), have made her name well known to thousands of school girls now studying home economics. Her projected 'Methods of Teaching Home Economics' was never written, but the thousands of teachers who received their train- ing under her are living testimony of her skill and her ideals in this field. Miss Kinne regarded home economics as a national and international agency for social progress. Because of the latter, she had planned to spend her sabbatical year in helping to introduce home economics into missionary schools in China; she was to have lectured at the Canton Christian College, and an invitation had come for her to plan the Home Economics Department of a new missionary college in Japan. She was returning to the College full of plans for her courses and for her participation again in the life of the College. She was planning to bring special lecturers on immigration and I13] other problems to the College, and was keenly following the war situation as relatcfl to home economics, and was expecting to go to Washington and to Boston in quest of material during the Christmas holidays when the fatal illness came on. Benjamin R. Andrews •4) Resolution of the American Home Economics Association in Convention Assembled in Atlantic City, March i and 2, 1 9 1 8 Whereas, in the death of Miss Helen Kinne the American Home Economics Association has lost one of its most effective members, be it Resolved, that this expression of the keen sense of loss felt by all members be recorded in the proceedings of this meeting. Miss Helen Kinne was one of the half-dozen leaders, who in the last quarter of a century brought about the results which we now see today in the country-wide adoption of education for the home. As a member of our Council, long chairman of the Committee on Legislation, and one of the first associate editors of the Journal, she rendered a professional service for which every home economics worker owes a debt of gratitude. (151 Resolution of the Home Economics Association ot (ircatcr Xcw ^'ork Resolved, that the Home Economics Association of Greater New York hereby place on its minutes this expression of the loss which its members and all home economics workers have sustained in the death of Miss Helen Kinne, late Professor of Household Arts Education in Teachers College, Colunii)ia Uni- versity. Miss Kinne was a pioneer and a recognized national leader in the training of teachers of home economics. Her activities extended through the quarter of a century in which, from small beginnings and a restricted place in the curriculum of schools and colleges, this type of education expanded until it has a place in practically every educational institution — elementar>', secondary, and higher; while the national govern- ment has given training for home making a full place along with industrial and other types of vocational education in the program for training e\cry worker for his or her work. Among all those responsible for this remarkable educational progress, Miss Kinne would by common consent be counted among the two or three who contributed most directly and powerfully. She herself trained several thousand teachers of home econom- ics, w^ho now serve all over the world. In the professional organization of home economics workers, she was a leader in the Lake Placid Conference of Home Economics and for many years was chairman of its important Teaching Section, which was the forerunner of the present American Home Economics Association. When the latter was established in December, 1909, Miss Kinne aided in its organ- ization and was asked to till important otVicial positions from the first. In our local professional field in New York, Miss Kinne led in establishing the Home Economics Association of Greater New York in 1909, some months before the American Asso- I16I elation was formed, and she was chosen as its first president, serving by re-election for three years. She helped to standardize the material equipment for domestic science by her book on that subject, while her texts on household arts have introduced to thousands of students and home women a better knowledge of housekeeping points. In all these and many other fields of activity, she was a woman of the finest, freest, and friendliest spirit — a personal counsellor as well as a teacher to her students; friend as well as leader in professional organization. She had a worldview of home economics, which she rightly regarded as one of the agencies of progressive civilization, and she was greatly interested in the problem of Christian missions and of immigration, both in their general aspects and in rela- tion to the home. One of the plans in the last year of her life was a trip to the Orient to aid in introducing home economics in the Chinese schools, and the authorities of a new missionary college in Japan were anticipating her aid there. Ii7l Resolution of the Wcmian's Club of Woodluirv, Connecticut VVhkreas, our friend and sister member of the \Voodbur>- Woman's Club, Miss Helen Kinne, was suddenlyand unexpect- edly removed from our circle by death, December 29, 1917, and Whereas, we as members of the Club keenly realize that in Miss Kinne we have lost one whose genial, lo\ing nature, combined with her intelligence and scholarly attainments, made her a \-aluable acquisition to our Clui) and to the town in which she had planned to make her home. Therefore we as fellow members of the Woman's Club Resolve, To show in this way to her friends our appreci- ation of the friend who has passed on, and to assure them that we sorrow with them in our common loss. We respectfully ask that our Secretary place this resolution upon the records of the Woman's Club and send a copy to Miss Kinne's friends. [18] Bibliography Appointed Chairman of Committee on Courses of Study and Training of Teachers, First Lake Placid Conference on Home Economics, 1899; and Report as Chairman, Second Conference, 1900. 'Domestic Science in the Horace Mann School', Teachers College Record, November, 1900. Report as Chairman of Committee on Home Economics in Elementary and Secondary Schools, Third Lake Placid Conference on Home Economics, 1901 ; Fourth Lake Placid Conference, 1902. Report as Chairman of Committee on Home Economics in Secondary Schools, Sixth Lake Placid Conference, 1904; Seventh Lake Placid Confer- ence, 1905. 'The Three Values of Domestic Science and Art in the Schools', proceed- ings of Eastern Manual Training Association for 1904. A plea for the introduction of Domestic Science and Domestic Art into schools, resulting in the appointment of a committee to offer a sugges- tive outline. Report of Committee on Handwork for Girls in High Schools, Miss Kinne, Chairman; proceedings of Eastern Manual Training Association for 1905. A suggestive outline of course of study. Report of Committee on Home Economics in Trade Schools for Girls, and Progress in Home Economics, Seventh Lake Placid Conference on Home Economics, 1905. 'School Luncheons', Teachers College Record, March, 1905. Report of Committee on Progress and Conditions in the Teaching of Home Economics, Eighth Lake Placid Conference, 1906. Report as Chairman of meetings of Teaching Section of Lake Placid Conference on Home Economics, December, 1906, meetings in the Ninth Lake Placid Conference on Home Economics, 1907, and December, 1907; meeting in the Tenth Lake Placid Conference, 1908. 'Survey Courses in the Sciences and Home Economies'; report of Com- mittee on Training Teachers of Home Economics, Lake Placid Conference, Ellen H. Richards and Helen Kinne. Published in Educational Review, March, 1908. 'Some Phases of Household Arts in the Secondary Schools', proceedings of the Eastern Manual Training Association for 1909; also in Manual Training Magazine, April, 1909. "The purpose of the study of household arts is to develop the prin- ciples and practices that underlie the proper conduct of the home. The ultimate aim is to raise the standard of home life, and to promote efficiency of the individual so far as that depends upon the home." [19] 'Equipment for Teaching Domestic Science', Teachers College Record, May, 1909. Enlarged in book form and published by Whitcomb & Barrows, Boston. Article on 'Houschohi Arts in Education', by Helen Kinnc, Mary Schenck Woolman, and Alice Ravcnhill, in Cyclopedia of Education, edited by Paul Monroe. Terminology', historical development, aim of instruction, equipment and cost of maintenance, development in different countries and in various types of schools. Article on 'The Field of Domestic Science' in Vocations for the Trained Woman, edited by Alice I'crkins, 1910. A general survey of the opportunities for trained women in the field of domestic science. 'Vocational Value of the Household Arts', proceedings of the National Education Association for 1910. "... In a world where a girl is forced to support herself, . should we not rejoice in being able to open up new means of self-supix)rt in work which will be pleasurable as well as remunerative; which will not degrade her womanhood or dissipate her physical energies. "The household arts will not have their full vocational value until the teacher has a scientific foundation, practical efficiency, and good reaching method, and is heartily supported by the school boards of the land." New York State Syllabus for Secondary Schools, 1910, 'Home Economics; Foods, and Housekeeping'. A suggestive course of study, references, and suggestions for the teacher. 'Community Work for the Home', Conference on Education for the South, Louisville, Ky., April, 1914. "With a live church, a progressive school, and an energetic women's club, is there any limit to what can be done in any community? Taking into account the great moral questions that confront us, is it not time for us to forget our individual and denominational differences and work together for a revivified community life, both material and spiritual? "We in America are strong individualists, and we shall not lose the thought of the development of the individual in the development of the community. Is it not this spirit of mutual helpfulness that we need at present to develop? Is not this the dream of democracy, the hope of our country, and the realization of the Christian ideal?" 'Present Tendencies in Household Arts Teaching', Journal of Home Economics, June, 1914. 'The Smith-Hughes Bill', Journal of Home Economics, Apnland]uT\c,i()i6. A description of this proposed law dealing with national vocational education, then being supported by the Committee on Legislation of the American Home Economics Association, of which Miss Kinne was for many years chairman. I20I Text-books by Helen Kinne and Anna M. Cooley: 1. 'Shelter and Clothing', a text-book of the Household Arts, New York, 1913- "This book deals with the home, its ideals in organization, its sanita- tion, decoration, and furnishing; also with the questions of textiles, sewing, and dressmaking." 2. 'Foods and Household Management', a text-book of the Household Arts, New York, 1915. "The volume treats specifically of foods, their production, sanitation, cost, nutritive value, preparation, and serving, these topics being closely interwoven with the practical aspects of household manage- ment, and they are followed by a study of the household budget and accounts, methods of buying, housewifery, and laundering." 3. 'Food and Health', an elementary text-book of Home Making, New York, 19 1 6. "This volume, like its companion, 'Clothing and Health', is intended for use in the elementary schools in those sections of the country where the home life is of the type described. It is hoped that each volume will be used by the home people as well as by the school children." 4. 'Clothing and Health', an elementary text-book of Home Making, New York, 19 16. "This volume treats largely of the clothing problems and of the elemen- tary work in sewing which precedes garment making. It also includes the subject of the leading textile materials — where they are grown and where they are manufactured for our use." 5. 'The Home and the Family', an elementary text-book of Home Making, New York, 19 17. "This little volume is to be used in the elementary schools as a supple- mentary reader to the two text-books, 'Food and Health', and 'Cloth- ing and Health'. This volume tells of some of the happenings at Pleasant Valley. One of the school trustees gives a cottage near the school, and Miss James, the teacher, occupies it with two of the girls in turn. The decoration and furnishing of the Ellen H. Richards House, as it is called, the repairing of household furnishings, and methods of cleaning of the home are all described. The book also considers the care of the baby as the most important member of the family, and gives a simple lesson on the care of the sick." I21I LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 014 355 033 3