October 15, 1917

The United States having entered the world war in April,a second group of preparedness courses began, offering extra-curricular study for limited credit in Personal Hygiene, Shorthand and Typing and in conversational German, French, Italian and Spanish with particular applicability to wartime work. Devised and overseen by a student-faculty Committee on Preparedness Courses, the courses had varying goals. The personal hygiene course covered “the physiology, sanitation and allied subject prerequisite to the second semester Red Cross Courses; shorthand and typing courses—two ‘points’ and one ‘point,’ respectively—offered study not present in the curriculum; and, with the prerequisite of a year’s study of the language, the conversational language courses trained students “for work in connection with the supervision of our alien population, in translation and censorship.”

A preparedness course in home economics was postponed until after President MacCracken had visited the recently-appointed Federal Food Administrator, Herbert Hoover, in Washington, DC, “to learn more definitely the Food Administrator’s ideas on the subject. With this knowledge, the course…given here can then take the form of a more scientific presentation of the plans…. Special training will be given for Canteen Service.”

Tentative Preparedness Courses for the spring term included: home nursing, surgical dressing, and first aid; agriculture; and relief, the latter course open only to “seniors who are taking [Professor Mills’s] Charities and Corrections and who are willing to give the time the instructor my demand.” The Miscellany News