New-York tribune., 1901-04-01
BOSTON WOlLEN OF TO-DAY.
THEIR ESCAPE FROM EXCESSIVE CLUB
DOM-THE END OF THIS CEN
TURY WOMAN

There has for years been impression at large
that Boston. feminine Boston a mammoth
woman's club. where matters pertaining TO the in
tellect and soul diagnosed and settled by
earnest women with long hair and short skirts,
said a New-York woman yesterday who has lived
In Boston for several years. THAT the Boston
woman is intellectual has passed into a proverb
Yet no one would insist to-day that she is essen
TALLY intellectual and acqusitive, that her club
IS the end-an OF her existence. BY heavens
bounty a BostOnian' longer stands for an ex-
elusive patent OF intellectual nobility.
Clubs the typical Boston woman has. Of every
nature. name and descrption-indeed. there is
hardly a town IN Massachusetts that does not
boast a woman's club along with its library But
the aim Of these clubs has ceased TO be mainly
retrospective and reformatory. The clubs are doing
less work for themselves, and in its place sub
stituting lectures and talks on the whole wide
range OF subjects in which the % the time
is interested This broadening in the range of sub
jects has lessened the tension over theories of
things. Nowadays to talk Higher Educa-
tion The Right of Suffrage there ten talks
on such topics as Influence Of the Renaissance
Charlotte Bronts.' "reminiscences of Peru The
Genius OF Heine. our National Music Pre-
Raphaelite Movement a Mediterranean Summer,
The Passion Play Count Tolstoi and His Philos-
ophy Of Life and 'Glmpses of Switzerland There
is less Browning and debate: music and play.
home talent afternoon occasional dra-
matte entertainment. even whole afternoon
II Il
Nearly every club of any Importance has current
class. conducted by one OF its members or by
a paid leader. is said. by the way. that Boston
women better informed locally but less widely
in touch with general affairs than their New-York
sisters.
Another way OF escape from excessive cubdom
has come through the adoption OF card playing
a feature Of club life. Bridge whist has been
great furor IN Boston this last winter The CEN
OF the press has even been directed against
this offshoot OF club life. Whist afternoons are
scheduled as a part of the programme of almost
every club, except the most serious minded Whist
and euchre both prominent clubwoman con-
fessed the other day. are eating into the women $
| ..The comparatively recent federation of clubs
| movement. State and national has exerted a strong
| ing together. as the federations 40 women from
widely different sections and with correspondlngiy
| Dakota, from Shanghai come reports OF gather
ings and starting points. And with them comes the
erai IT, irterConrsc among neonIe the larger be-
/ comes knowledge and human expansion on both
sides. Il is only thus that people may readily dis
/ cover what they may lack and another may have.
| In enurneratinE the changes which have come
| about must mention one definite advance by the
| clubs in the matter Of service to the community
especially in suburban centres. 49,
! especial relaxation they start out and climb the
family tree-make excursions here. there and else
where to look up matters hs OF ssneaoy neI 15 9 or
| daughters-in-law and the stranger that is within
especially confined TO Bostonians; they have kin
dred sisters IN PHILADELPHIA
that in New-Engiand Svery art is & studied except
having its effect And there are people who proph-
! esy great things for the future few weeks ago
one OF them. Professor Barrett Wendell OF Har-
| ward chanced 10 remark In his classroom At Har-
ward that the death Of the century would probably
see the last OF the more obstTeperQus phases of
feminine adyaneement--or polite phraseology 10
| tation for strenuousness and undue care for tho
things Of the intellect"