Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1892-03-25
WOMEN'S CLUBS IN THE WEST.
Possible Results of an Extremely Curl
Gus Social Development.

Possible Results of an Extremely Curl
Gus Social Development.
In indianapolis there are forty women's
clubs. Every woman met on the street
has book under her arm and is on her
way to the club. incidentally she may
step in and do some shopping, as one of the
necessities of domestic life. But her real
occupation is the improvement of her
mind. The Propyleum, new variety of
Greek temple, was built by the women of
indianapolis and dedicated by them to art
and literature.
What the women of indianapolis have
done women are doing in every town and
hamlet throughout the south and west
There have been periods before of femi
nine unrest, but never one so widespread
SO powerful, so cheerfully optimistic. The
women in smaller towns, who used to drag
in melancholy through their work and
YEARLY feel the Juggling of children at
their apron strings, now get up and make
the domestic machinery hum, pack the
children off to school and kindergarten, so
that they can sit down in quiet and get up
their papers on the Homeric epoch, Ltera-
ture in the reign of Louis XIV, or on the
comparative influences of environment and
heredity.
As it happens this sudden thirst for
knowledge and culture does not come from
the east and New England. The most DO
tent influence has been the cabalistc al
phabetical w. C. T. U. Mental culture
alone is not sufficient to stir women from
the tolls of household routine. Only the
emotions as they are involved in questions
of morality and religion can do this 1t
was this service that the w. c. 7. U. did
through the churches in every part of the
country, but with a thoroughness in the
west and south of which the east has no
knowledge.
The w. C. T. U. taught women the value
Of organization and how to organize. Once
In active participation in public matters,
women felt their deficiencies and set about
repairing them.
The ferment spread; other women out
side of the temperance organizations
caught the spirit. However crude, how
ever superficial may have been their papers
and discussions on literature and art, no
one can ever know, except through like
experience, what refreshment and up
lifting they have brought to women on
whom the merely personal affairs of life
had hitherto crowded and pressed.
In one place the organization is travel
club. Shut in by the mountains or a speck
on the prairie with the aid of photographs
and books it voyages up the Nile, wanders
| through old London streets, or journeys
through the Italy of the CAESARS or of the
Renaissance. In another town it studies
different literary periods or different
phases of art. Human relations, natural
history, psychology, political economy,
botany have their votaries in villages of a
thousand souls.
This is regarded as frenzy for knowl
I,,,
it's brave man who tackles any woman
on IA subject on which she is well up.
This enthusiasm for knowledge has not
proved mere passing fancy. 1t has not
waned. On the contrary, it has spread and
deepcned. In almost every state there has
resulted central organization in which
the clubs of the state are represented
There is also national federation of clubs
There is n social side to the club. In bring
ing women together on ilnpersonal grounds
it has broken down the barriers of sects
and classes. New friendships and alliances
have been cemented on the ground of kin
bred tastes and sympathies.
Clubs visit one another in neighboring
towns, and mental kinshps are enlarged
These results are of incalculable benefit tC
women remote from larger centers of popu
laton, and without opportunities of travel
In the meantime, while acquiring knowl
edge they are acquiring powers of thought
and expression. Club exercises teach them
to think on their feet.
The western newspapers are beginning
to discuss seriously the influence of the
womens clubs as IA factor in the develop
ment of the men of the future. That it is
now impossible for the men of the present
to catch up is granted, but the hope is ex
pressed that these women will bring III
their sons to lay more stress on the advan
tages of knowledge and wider culture thar
do their fathers. The women themselve:
do not seem to be concerned for future gen
erations. On the other hand, they seem tC
feel that hereafter they are going to take q
more active part in public affairs, aud they
are getting good ready.-New York Even
! ing sun.