The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1904-03-15
LEAP YEAR BANQUET
AN IDEA FOR A CHURCH OR CLUB
ENTERTAINMENT
Women Are Now AS Competent to
Speak in Public as Men-They Owe
Their Ability TO the Training Receive
ed in Women's Clubs.

Here is an idea for an entertainment
which this department will present
free of charge to any one who wants It,
1t is for a leap year banquet which
might be given for the benefit OF
church. or by a woman's club, and
would surely be productive of much
pleasure and fun. Let the affair be
gotten up entirely by women, who
may ask their husbands, brothers or
sweethearts to be their guests. If it
was given for the benefit of a church,
tickets could be sold at a dollar or
two dollars plate and a considerable
sum melted for the parish. Have
woman in the chair as POSTMASTER,
and a programme of speeches by Wom-
an after the dinner; perhaps few
men might be permitted to voice their
gratitude for the entertainment be-
fore it was over. For n programme
the women could take Shakespeare
"Seven Ages of Man," and in that way
some very witty speeches might be
prepared. Or there are many ways
good programme could be made, the
speeches to deal with man, in his as
pect of son, brother, husband or father.
One church in st. Paul had leap-year
entertainment, but it was not in the
form of a banquet and there were
no speeches But a leap year banquet
would surely make a hit and result
in a good time.
Another suggestion for programme
might relate to the conditions of this
particular leap year, as 1T is the first
one in eight years. Much fun might
be made out of the leap year idea.
In these days Of clubs and feminine
organizations of various kinds, 1t is
no longer difficult for women to make
speeches, that is younger women. The
older and more conservative women
who were educated before the days
of public utterances by their sex are
not as able to appear publicly as
those in middle life, or indeed college
girls. The latter are now fitted by ap-
pearance in debating clubs and col
lege societies to speak before an au-
dienee so that when they go into So
ciety later on and join a Womans
club it is not as hard for them as it
would be for their mothers, for whom
public speaking is out of the ques-
ton.
Some may doubt whether this abil-
ity to speak before an audience is a
desirable accomplishment for wom-
an, but this department has made up
its mind that it is an excellent thing
for a woman when not carried to an
extreme. Many a man would say, if
asked that he would not care to have
his wife accomplished in that way,
and yet surely he must admire more
the woman who can rise, if called up
on, and make graceful little speech,
than the one who gets upon her feet
with difficulty, becomes red in the
face, and is too frightened to make an
ineligible remark. There are, how
ever, few of the latter left now, thanks
to the training that women have had
in clubs.
1t would certainly astonish many a
man if he attended club meetings to
hear women make extemporaneous
speeches as well as they do. The
writer has often been astonished at
women, and surprised at the lack of
this ability in some men. In some
way we expect almost any man to be
able to say a few words il called upon,
but it is the impression of the writer
that nowadays the bulk of women do
this sort of thing better than the
bulk of-men. No offense, brothers.