Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1909-07-27
Women Convert English
VILLAGE Into Modern Utopia

| Lombard street and st. SWithin's lane
and is recognized as an influence in
| banking circles.
She has maintained her powers as a
speaker, and is today recognized as the
! greatest speaker of her sex in Eng
| land.
Her arguments in favor of woman
suffrage have been taking London by
storm, and she never fails of big
crowd when announcement is made
that she is going to lecture.
When Mrs. Martin and her daughter
came into possession of Brendon's Nor
ton they found it, like many English
agricultural villages, to be in most
dilapidated condition The village
school was mismanaged in the old in
efficient style, and the villagers were
as much cut off from communication
with the outside world as though they
! had been in the center of an African
continent.
! The farmhouses on the estate were
in the neglected and semi-ruined con-
dition that is to be found in many a
village In the mother country.
The two American women at once
saw the need of attracting a better
class of cultivators of the soil, and i'm
mediately began devoting their wealth
and energy to the proposition.
The handsome old manor house. sit
uated at the foot of the hill at Norton
Park, was restored and turned into a
womens agricultural college. Compe-
tent teachers were put in charge and
already the class of women studying
agriculture there has grown to the
number of fifty.
The estate has been partitioned off
into small lots ranging in size from
five to twenty acres. These will be al
lotted according to merit, the more
thrifty and skilled getting the bigger
farms, the others being given to those
who have not reached the point of
qualifying for the bigger trust.
Preference, of course, will be given to
the pupils of the school.
An interesting thing about the school
is its club feature. Tired women from
London can run down and spend a few
days in the old country house At the
same time they never need lose touch
with the remainder of the world, for
telephone connects them with their
London interests.
The library is one of the largest and
best selected in England, and virtual
ly every magazine published in the En-
glish tongue Is to be found there. Mu-
| the place is to mingle the artistic and
cultivating with the practical and
|
money winning.
1t is not without a bitter fight with
the Worcestershire educational author
tiles that kindergarten methods were
| introduced.
This quarrel went far back for its in
ception. Some years ago the mother
and daughter gave a school to Brendon's
Norton. 1t was run in the old-fash-
toned way, the teaching being pretty
we'll confined to reading, writing and
arithmetic. The local educational au-
thorities declared that this was all the
children needed.
But within the year Mrs. Martin and
daughter realized that they had made
mistake, so they brought from Lon
don some of the best kindergarten
| teachers and Immediately changed
| their system so that today it is one
of the most modern in the country.
! Bitter opposition from the old-fash-
toned conservatism at first opposed this
plan, but now 1t has won out, and even
the antagonists have been forced to adj
nit it's value.
Motor cars are at the disposal of the
teachers for visiting the towns, and in
warmer seasons the children have the
use of a motor boat on the Avon.
! The liberality and wisdom of the two
women have forced the admiration of
all. and have made many converts for
the cause of woman suffrage, for none
can deny that women who can achieve
so we'll in a work of this kind are bet
ter fitted for welding the affairs of the
nation than most men who have them
| in charge.