The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers, Digital Edition > My Day
My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt

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WASHINGTON, Monday—The United States Office of Education is cooperating with high schools to make their pupils air-minded, and I have a long letter from Gould Academy in Bethel, Maine, telling me about the aviation ground school course for their older students, which is beginning this fall. A teacher training course in aeronautics has been held at the University of Colorado, Boulder, Col., and Gould Academy is fortunate in having their teacher in physics and chemistry a graduate of this course.

Many schools will carry on similar courses for high school students with the purpose of developing in them a greater knowledge of the growth of aviation and of giving such basic preparation as they will need in the various types of employment connected with this industry.

This will, of course, not prepare anyone to fly, but it will be good basic preparation for learning to fly later on. These courses show vision, because aviation along commercial lines is going to develop very rapidly when peace returns and the young people who are already trained to undertake more specialized training will be prepared to obtain jobs in this field.

I had a most interesting letter yesterday from a mother whose children are still very small. She brings out a point which I think important enough to pass on to the War Production Board and to you. In our efforts to save material in ready-made clothing, we have removed cuffs from mens' trousers and we are prescribing the length of ladies' skirts, among other regulations.

The rules result in small children's clothing having two inch hems and very little extra material in the seams. This young mother points out that she is about to buy her little girl a new coat and expects to pay $25 for it. As a rule, she chooses it very carefully and insists on a five inch hem and deep seams, so that the child can wear it for two or three years. Under the present regulation, she will undoubtedly have to buy a new coat every year, which is a waste of material, labor and money.

Anyone who ever bought childrens' clothes knows how rapidly they outgrow them. When you have younger children in the family to wear them, they can be passed on, but what this woman says is perfectly true, that the same child can use the clothes for two or three seasons if the material is adequate. In making this suggestion, this young mother is perhaps rendering a real service to our war economy and I hope that her letter will receive consideration.

E.R.

(COPYRIGHT, 1942, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC.)


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My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, September 8, 1942

Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1884-1962
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Digital edition created by The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project The George Washington University 312 Academic Building 2100 Foxhall Road, NW Washington, DC 20007

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MEP edition publlished on June 30, 2008.

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Transcription created from a photocopy of a UFS wire copy of a My Day column instance archived at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library.
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