From a recent report by Mr. Eugene Davenport, vice-president of the University of Illinois, we draw the following:

Miss Isabel Bevier retired this year from her work in Home Economics at the University of Illinois. She entered the service of the University in 1900. During the twenty-one years of its existence, Professor Bevier has given herself unsparingly to the development and conduct, day by day, of the department of Home Economics. The field was almost entirely new, as a university subject. The courses have been outlined and conducted with a double purpose in mind. First, the presenting of home economics as a part of a liberal education; and second, the development of courses leading to a profession in teaching, dietetics, and cafeteria management.

The first graduating class in 1903 numbered three. The number rapidly increased, reaching ninety-four in 1918. The total number of students coming under the instruction of the staff of teachers for the last twenty-one years is approximately 5,000.

If efforts are to be judged by their results, whether in respect to alumnÆ or the present registration of undergraduate students, it is not too much to say that the purposes of this department have been in the main accomplished, by which is meant that the department has trained hundreds of competent executives and teachers without such exclusive attention to the professional as to break the contact with that great mass of university women who are to become, not teachers or professionals of any kind, but the heads of American homes. To achieve this double purpose has been the great ambition of the department, in which it has eminently succeeded.

It is not too much to say that at present, no department of the university enjoys more of the confidence and respect of the institution than does the department of Home Economics.

At the Recognition Service in honor of Professor Bevier, in May, 1921, the alumnÆ presented the University with an excellent portrait of Miss Bevier.