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June 29,1950
TO PROSPECTIVE GIRL STUDENTS:
I would like a personal word with girl students
interested in attending AMBASSADOR COLLEGE.
Please excuse the delay in answering your inquiry. The
printing of the enclosed Bulletin has been unavoidably held up.
I'm sure the Bulletin will answer most of your questions.
But I want to tell you in this more personal way what I, as founder
and acting president, am planning for our girl students.
But first let me emphasize you will probably find life
here at AMBASSADOR quite different from that at other colleges.
But all our students feel very thankful they came. Nevertheless,
since it is so different, every prospective student should
understand what these differences are.
The entire atmosphere is different here. The Bulletin is
designed to fully reflect these differences, and I urge you to read
it thoroughly. But perhaps I can amplify it somewhat in a more
personal manner. First of all, we are not a typical large mass-
education institution, but probably the smallest liberal arts
college in America. Our goal is quality, not quantity. We're like
one family here---and a happy family! We are blest with beautiful
and quality surroundings of tone and character. We are privileged
to enjoy a highly cultural setting. The three buildings on the
campus are superbly built, and gradually being restored to original
newness and beauty. The campus grounds are not vast, but our four
acres of magnificently-landscaped grounds are ample for the college
of our size, and they are so perfectly adapted to our specific
needs that they provide advantages not found elsewhere. Personally
I have visited campuses in all parts of the United States---Pacific
Coast, Mountain States, Middle-West, New England, East, and South,
including a good portion of the most famous colleges and
universities in America, and some abroad. And while some of these
are superbly beautiful, nearly all larger than ours, yet it is my
candid personal opinion that none is as truly beautiful.
Our purpose here is a very serious one. Our students all
take it seriously, and no student should enroll who does not. But
life on this campus is full of stimulating interest; it is happy,
and there is time for laughter, play, enjoyment of life to the
fullest. Recreation and social life is an important part
of education here. We believe that when a girl leaves college she
ought to be something more than just a "bookworm." It is part of
our serious, and Christian purpose, that students receive a
complete, well-rounded education. And that requires so much more
than text-book knowledge, or development of the intellect alone.
It means development of personality, ability to express one's self,
instilling of character, training in true culture. This cannot be
achieved by class-room work alone.
As traditionally developed, the system of higher
education in America has come to measure the worth, importance, and
education of the individual by a definite yard-stick,---college
degrees. Personally I feel this has become a much abused, and
inadequate system. College degrees are conferred according to the
number of hours the student sits in the class-room armchair. They
do not measure such qualities as the acquirement of ambition,
vision, imagination, judgment, initiative. Nor do these class-room
methods, book-learning or laboratory work by themselves develop
these qualities, or impart understanding of life and its purpose
and its laws.
We cannot overlook the fact we live in a world of
established systems, and therefore AMBASSADOR must, of course,
conform to the system of credits leading toward a degree, based on
class-room hours. But, at AMBASSADOR students say they feel that
they definitely learn more and acquire more that will help them in
a practical way in life, in the AMBASSADOR campus life, outside
classes, than they learn in class here, or would elsewhere. Surely
it is the purpose of AMBASSADOR to recapture the "true values",
including development of personality, bringing out the best in
one's self, and acquirement of true culture---not the veneer of
sophistication, but that which is real and true and sincere, and
springs from the heart in a spirit of love.
As the background for some of the things I am planning
especially for girl students, may I, first, express some of our
deep-seated convictions which form our philosophical approach.
At AMBASSADOR we seek to teach and train young women for
every phase of life. If, during the past fifty years, the young
women of the world had not been instructed and trained as we plan
to train our girls, this world would not be in the chaotic plight
we see today. No nation can be better than its wives and mothers;
no community better than its women; no home happier than the wife
and mother in that home makes possible; and no girl can become a
happy, successful woman unless she has learned the mystery of life
---its real purpose, and the laws that inexorably govern it and
lead either to a most satisfying accomplishment, happiness and joy,
or if violated to embittered despair, frustration, self-
condemnation, loss of happiness and everything one desires in life.
While the general calling, purpose, and natural function
of the woman is to be a happy, inspiring, intelligent and
successful wife, mother and homemaker, yet the exigencies of
today's world make it desirable or necessary for many, prior to
marriage or even after, to find some desirable employment. There-
fore our purpose at AMBASSADOR in developing courses for girl
students is threefold: 1) a general and cultural liberal arts
education, including in a most practical manner education and
training in a true knowledge of life---its real purpose---the
spiritual laws that regulate all relationships---a realization of
the true values and how to achieve them; 2) a most practical and
thorough training in every necessary phase of home economics for
intelligent and successful entrance upon responsibilities of wife-
hood, home-making, motherhood; and 3) such specialized courses as
we find ourselves in position to excel in women's vocation and
professional training.
Specifically, I hope to have available for girls entering
this coming fall a special Secretarial course of highest standards,
preparing girls to become top-flight secretaries to important
executives---a full four year course which will offer a special
degree in this major. Preliminary plans are laid. This course and
the year of its inauguration is contingent on sufficient
enrollment, but inquiries and applications now arriving indicate
that girls enrolling this fall may start this course, getting
foundational liberal arts subjects preparatory to technical
training the freshman year, then entering intensified technical
training in the major beginning the second year.
But career or business life regardless, every girl should
have the thorough, practical domestic science course which is my
personal and special purpose to create here. I know of no college
which offers the type of course I have in mind. In this, again, we
are pioneering---blazing new trails. It seems to me that being a
really intelligent, successful and happy wife, home-maker and
mother is becoming a lost art.
It's difficult now, while this course is still in the
"idea" stage, to describe it so as to capture the fancy and arouse
the enthusiasm of the prospective student. An illustration or two
might help to convey what I mean. Today I heard a woman remark to
another about a third: "Mrs. X doesn't seem to be a healthy woman.
Strange, isn't it---she's a splendid person, and so well educated,
too."
But what's strange about it? What is there in popular
education today that teaches one how to be and remain healthy?
Such courses as are taught along lines of hygiene, physiology, and
what is called "physical education," scarcely touch on the real
laws of health. Even the overwhelming majority of physicians know
almost nothing about it. As a physician and surgeon remarked to
me, "We doctors have been kept so busy giving medicine to people
already sick we haven't had time to make a study of health". They
have studied sickness and disease, not health---drugs, medicines,
and surgery, not foods, sunshine and exercise.
But a small number of prominent doctors have made
specialized study along this line, and they agree that about 90% of
ill health comes from improper diet. Ignorance of this one thing
can, and usually does, cause irritability, a bad disposition,
laziness, fear and worry, and many social handicaps in addition to
most of the modern diseases and sicknesses of this day. Is
education which leaves the college graduate ignorant of this basic
need for a happy and successful life a well-rounded, practical, and
complete education?
The AMBASSADOR domestic science course will educate all
girls in natural foods and diet and their relation to sickness and
disease---not merely how to make dainty pastries. Without going to
the extreme of becoming "health-food fanatics," they will learn
scientifically how to plan and prepare appetizing, delicious well-
balanced health-producing meals of natural foods---and in a
delightfully dainty manner with eye-appeal as well. And make no
mistake---very few women today know how to do this!
One general step in that direction is added for the
1950-51 school year, Dr. Ralph E. Merrill, a prominent Glendale
physician and surgeon, and one of Ambassador College's staunch
friends, will deliver a series of lectures on this subject, which
you can't afford to miss. The domestic science course will be
placed under the direction of a thoroughly qualified woman of
unusual capabilities, enthusiastically accepting the responsibility
of building here the most practical, intelligent, common-sense
course of its kind. I know we shall succeed in this goal, for God
will guide and direct and open the way.
I wish to say personally that I feel we offer superior
advantages in music here, under Mrs. Martin and Mr. Ettinger. This
department will grow, and any supplementary work desired is
available here, Los Angeles, or Hollywood.
Mr. Walker is especially desirous of enrolling girl
students with good speaking voices and dramatic talent for the
radio and television classes---and especially those who desire to
give expression to this talent in God's service rather than in the
entertainment world.
I wish, too, to assure mothers that girl students will be
in the best of hands here, with Mrs. Annie M. Mann hostess in
charge of Mayfair, student residence on the campus. Mrs. Mann is
a fine, capable, efficient Christian woman of culture, loved and
respected by all students, fully trusted by all parents who know
her.
While AMBASSADOR is a qualified institution of high
standards in a cultural setting, it is working toward a fixed
ideal. It desires only students who whole-heartedly share and
enter upon that ideal, and it is possible for any such student to
come. Every student at present is working his or her way thru. We
are glad to lend every assistance to help students find employment
who must do so. Those who wish this guidance should state full
particulars. Be sure to send us your photograph---any good snap-
shot will do---what part of your tuition, room and board, etc., you
are able to defray and what part you must earn---your
qualifications, experience, kind of employment desired, etc.
Most sincerely,
Herbert W. Armstrong
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