The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-01-23
THE Do1NGs OF WOMEN FOLK.
A Few of Them Who are Famous in the
World of Intellect

| World of Intellect.
! New York, Jan. 2I.-Vassar College is to
have an Erminie Smith memorial scholar
ship fund. Erminie Smith was a woman
less known during her lifetime than many
whose claims to recognition have been less
pressing. Without especial educational
advantages in early life, the lack of which
showed in curious conversational lapSeS to
the end of her days, sne was yet a scholar
| in the best sense of a sometimes abused word
| and an authority or certain subjects. She
| lived for years among the Indians, was
adopted into an Indian tribe and became a
thoroughly posted Indianologist, better in
| formed perhaps with regard to the aborig-
| ines of America than any other single person
| in the country. She was in receipt of
| government pension for services rendered
| in her Investigations and researches.
| Erminie Smith founded a woman's club in
Jersey City, which she called-alas the day
the ESthetic Daughters. In spite of its
| name, the organization is strong and flour
! ishing aid on intimate terms with Sorosis
| The Esthetic Daughters have raised the
| VaSsar scholarship fund with the co-Opera-
| ton of Sorosis and it will perpeJuate
| Erminie Smiths name.
The Esthetic Daughters is an energetic
| club and includes many wealthy women
among its members Thirteen of them
have combined to present a testimonial to
! Jennie June to be used In establishing
Godevs Magazine firmly on its new basis,
| and the presentation was made at a recent
| Sorosis meeting.
| Sorosis is a curious illustration of the
occasional difference between reputation
and reality. 1t is currently supposed to be
a wildly radical organization, whereas, in
| point of fact, it is conservative, even
curlously conservative, hold g its meetings
year after year iii DemOnico's parlors to
avoid even the suspicion which might be en-
gendered by 9 possession of club head
quarters of any phase Of club life which
might endanger the home.
soRosIs WILL DECK ITSELF
with flowers in March to celebrate the
completion of its first twenty years. 1t
counts among its members known in the
literary world Elizabeth Akers Allen and
May Riley Smith, the poets; Mrs. Lizzie w
Champney, author of Two Va ssar Girls,
Olive Thorne Miller, Grace Greenwood,
Laura G. Holloway, Eliza Archard Conner
and Jennie June; of writer's on topics relat-
ing to the home and to various reforms it
has Marion Harland, Helen Campbell,
Frances E. Willard and the English women
Emily Faithful and Frances Powers Cob
Der: of professional women it has the
physicians DR.. Mary Putnam jacob aud
the Blackwell sisters, Maria Mitchell, the
ford; of actresses it has Helen Dauvray
Ward, Genevieve Ward, Vida Croly and
Georgia Cayvan. Nine. Demorest, who
frequently receives the club is a host in
herself and her artistic home with its
treasures of painting and sculptures doubly
delightful as the need of a business womans
talent and energy. Mrs. NJ. Louise Thomas,
the President, is accurately described as
motherly little woman, and her daughter
in-law, Mrs. Thomas, DR.. who is a niece of
the Cary sisters, is petite woman, slender
and dark, aud very popular.
Two noteworthy Contingents of the mem
bership are the wealthy New Workers,
wives of the great dry goods merchants
some of them, and the business women,
whose contentment with their lot and the
general respect shown them contrast very
strongly with the repute in which women
who work for their living were held no long
time ago 1t was but yesterday that lady
gave me her experience in Philadelphia as
recently as the centennial year. Two colored
servants of the friend whom she was visit
ing left the house because, they said, they
took service only with the quality, not
with women who entertained people who
worked. The position of the self-supporting
woman grows more and more honorable
and organizations like SoroSis do much TO
make it so.
There is room, nevertheless, for very
different kind or woinans club in New
York What is wanted and what nobody
has ever had the courage to initiate is
woman's clubhouse with reading and lunch
room, which would afford opportunity for
an. easier social intercourse among women,
and would be to teachers, TO students, to
artists, to bookkeepers and stenograpbers,
to many women employed at slender,
salaries refined, educated, and with cult
vate tastes, but doomed to the baroness OF
the boarding house hall bedroom, to the
ever growing army of women who have no
home worthy of the name, a rendezvous for
leisure hours that would be q spot of sun
shine in their lives.
MARIA MITCHELL, WHO HAS RESIGNED
the professorship Of astronomy of Vassar,
and to whom the trustees have insisted on
granting an indefinite leave Oh absence
Instead. viii be missed al the girls College
as nobody else connected with It could be.
She has been part and parcsi of the inst.tii-