Daily Kennebec journal., 1901-11-28
THE C\CLUBBED WOMAN.

We We're sitting under the graceful
eims at the summer home far from the
madding crowd and able 10 think with
| out haste and pause in the conversa-
tion without uneasinr,S. The thirty
two ears which pass our Boston home
eS cry hour had vanished and only the
occas sional rumble " Il farmers cart
broke the pleasant stiffness Of the sum-
mer day. Yet il was not an empty life
We led. There We're the books that in
their titles and contents did our brains
credit. There We're the children whose
daily lessons We heard and To whom We
read daily and with whom We sought
out the flowers of the season and
Identified the forty species of birds
that hnnoIcd our farm with their an
nCal SOjOuru. There We're the inevitable
tire meals 10 b. got ana there We're
the regular duties which We owed 10
the village and our neighbors. the calls
to make ana the calls 10 receive. On
the whole We thought it rather fun
life even in the summer. The parish
was far distant and We had sense OF
responsibility lifted from us in the
thought that no one would refer to us
as the minister's wife and expect i'm
possible things from us. Even the
missionary society drifted for a brief
space from our minds. dearest of all
pastoral troubles. And most of all no
womans club demanded of us the per-
petual acknowledgements that it was
doing great things for women and that
somehow or other every woman ought
TO be worrying through literature,
class which she couldn't attend except
at the neglect of her home or class in
social science, the precise purpose of
which was somewhat hazy, or q cur:
rent events symposium where some
body or other brought all the news
paper scraps she could find nd gave us
a hash of unrelated happenings frcin
Kalamazoo. Mich. to Nova Zembla
We seemed then to be very idle. lit
was then that ii daWned upon us hOw
isolated our existence was.
What an afiliction il is to have 10
think. II was that fearful maladiy
that first made heretics. and someho ~
when one once gets the virus into the
blood, gloomy and fearsome forebtDd-
ingS will come stalking into the misld
in spite of all we can do to resist it. |
And What was the horrd spectre talat
now assailed us? 1t was nothing more |
nor less than the thought that perhaps !
the unclubbed woman who did all the !
year round what we were doing with |
so much happiness and delight for The |
pleasant summer months. bereft Of
classes and clubs ana current eve nts |
and German III ten lessons. and phy''si- |
cal culture in twelve. and metaphys ical
happiness in nine. together with hi
W.. IL.
economy, might perhaps have Il better
grasp OF the rational life than We of
the club passion. The thought WAS
Stagg ring one and We knew il couldn't
he true. But We tried to honor ,the
alma mater whose degree Of bachr Tor
of arts we had accepted. doubtless, to
the great qualification of the president
and fellows thereof. by thinking, il
through. And here is the argument, we
constructed for the unclubbed won IAN.
still the vast majority OF our sex and
still doing the vast part of wom.an's
work in the world. Not in the news
p"pers to be sure nor through the
beautifully stamped stationery which
We affect in our club and others, but
in those old-fashiOned institut ions
known as the home, the church and the
parish
We began the argument historically
or course. That grew out OF the fact
that at Milwaukee our assembled ma
ticnal representatives had met forl the
first time in a national woman's ,as-
sembly a really great moral and social
question. a cultivated. certainly not
ignorant and by no means objection
able. colored woman. had been duly
elected to her place and position in that
assembly and had carelessly assumed
that the Civil War and the fifteenth
amendment and other tritlng facts in
history had filtered in some /
where in the six weeks course in {
American history. An amiable dame /
from the Southland whom We had |
helped honor in Boston presided, and I
)n learning that with chara cteristic |
moral integrity and tactlessness
Massachusetts, had permitted coIored (
woman to get enrolled, with no inti- I
nation of her race or color or previous d