The Dalles times-mountaineer. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1882-1904, 1898-05-17
WOMAN'S CLUBS.
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The Woman's Climb is simply one
feature of the movement of popular
education which sweeps like the waves
of an ever-restless sea over the closing
years of the nineteenth century and it is
also the effort TO coordinate life: social
tic.
Forty years ago a woman's environ
her church and her small social circle,
but with the growth and financial pros
perity of the country, came the oppor-
tunity for greater leisure to many, who
realized that the education they had
received in the past was not sufficient to
keep them in touch with the new line of
thought which moves toward and neces-
states higher and greater education and
association.
No country of the world is so full OF
opportunities and possibilities so great
as America. Those who eagerly laced
the privations and perils of life in new
land, that here they might work out
the dictates OF conscience, laid the
foundations, left the traditions which
succeeding generations have followed,
broadening and developing along new
lines as the needs of a great nation
growing greater demanded
1t is this evolution that has aroused
in woman desire to fit herself to take
her place among the thinkers and
workers of the age To share the
burdens and responsibilities of life to
do her Lart in making the world better,
humanity broader Then came the
need OF organization, SO ordered and
sustained that by association we might
first educate more fully ourselves;
round out our characters, learn the
sweet grace of forgiveness and kindly
feeling one toward another; cultivate
the mind and do away with prejudice
and partisan spirit. Learn how to re-
tain the patience, yield the quick
sympathy, meet the greater practical
demands upon, and take part effectively
III the work given US to do, yet keep
intact our own peculiar relations to the
world
1t was this desire that led women
several years ago to form societies,
having in view various objects and in
terests for mutual improvement accord
ing to the needs of the location where
they might be. Many of them had
small beginnings but the leaven of hope
and better thought which was the germ,
has reached out over the land until
today there is scarcely city or town
throughout the country but has its
clubs working along all lines, the. prac-.
teal and domestic, as well as ethical
and intellectual.
Most of the women who formed these
little clubs had pursued no course of
study since their school life ended;
domestic cares made large demands
upon their time, while those enjoying
any amount of leisure, spent their
surplus energy in society. In the idea
Of club life was seen the means of re-
alizing their aspirations for something
higher; of securing the broader educa-
ton and fitting themselves for the new
social conditions, which could only
result from well-organized associations.
The Woman's Club movement has
therefore been one of the greatest educa-
tional factors of the century. 1t has
been of inestimable value as it has
enabled women who could not leave
home to secure greater advantages, to
round out their education, through
study classes and in the department
work which many clubs are carrying on.
1t gives them the exact knowledge and