Life, 1923-06-21 · page 13 of 36
Life — June 21, 1923 — page 13: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes the over-expansion of college curricula into impractical domestic skills. The headline questions why diplomas are reserved for academic study when practical knowledge matters more. The cartoons mock specific examples: a man with a blacksmith degree finding the training useless; another earning a degree in "Practical Telephony" yet remaining clueless; a PhD in "general information" who can't garden properly despite his credentials. The central joke targets Mrs. Densh, who refuses a degree in "Modern Merchandising" (housekeeping), believing higher education wastes time and money—and sarcastically suggesting she'd do better on "bargain day" (shopping). The satire critiques both the inflation of academic credentials for mundane tasks and the disconnect between formal education and practical life skills.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
LIFE The Broader Education HY are diplomas reserved solely for the graduates of schools and colleges? Isn't a man like Mr. Wilmerding, who has stisfactorily completed a four-year course in commuting at Belair Gardens, just as much entitled to his parchment? Mr. Wilmerding knows what all the asterisks, daggers and other codes in the timetable mean; given any figure from the same textbook, he can translate it into daylight, standard or the time the train actually starts. The railroads ought to encourage that sort of spirit by con- ducting June graduation exercises along the suburban lines. Before acquiring his M. A. in the domestic sciences the student pictured below will have to pass a rigorous examination in dishwashing. Among other things, he must know which soap to use, where the dishtowels are kept, whether the potatoes are worth saving and what to do with the butter left on the plates. It is rumored that a certain number of men are purposely flunking the course; but to no , since the trend of modern thought among wives is toward compulsory education. ‘The seminar in blacksmithing is cramming its finals. We venture to say that course will turn out a set of grad- uates incomparable in anvil and hammer work, Of course, though they owe a good deal to their suburban training, it is true that they have got their real education out of the hard knocks of life. Mrs, Demsh, the woman portrayed below, believing the higher education is just a new-fangled way of wasting time and money, has steadfastly refused to try for a degree in Modern Merchandising. As a result, this uncultured woman might just as well stay home on bargain day. Observe the poise that a diploma ven to Mr. Bastings. He is trying to call up his office and has been told for the third time that there is no such number. But the training he went through to get his degree of Bachelor of Practical Telephony (magna cum laude) has taught him repose. The scholar leaning over his garden fence holds a Ph. D. in gcneral information, He can, and will, tell you that you are planting the wrong kind of seed, or using the wrong size of rnace coal; that you do wrong in starting your car; and why you ought never to have bought that make. Indeed, his as A . LUYAS fund of learning is apparently inexhaustible. = WILIAMS comicbooks.com