Omaha daily bee., 1916-07-23

1HERE is general impression abroad that
club women devote themselves to the study
of poetry, art music classical literature
and other ornamental furnishings of the
- futilely feminine mind" writes Cora Har-
ris welknown novelist and writer OF
feminist articles, in recent issue of the Saturday
Evening Post
"And it is a fact that for years they were sadly
involved in the Encyclopedias Britannica, digging up
material for club papers; and they reveled like deaf
and-dumb idiots among the poets. But, again, it is
easy to understand if you willing to be honest.
When women start they always start at the mystical
top somewhere in the poetic region of illusions, and
work down to the dingy facts of everyday life They
have mind like Saturn, with luminous rings round
it. But this is not deformty. 1t is lack of for
nifty, if may be permitted to clip word,
Saturn will be fine planet some day if it keeps
cooling and revolving, and women will have good
substantial minds some day if they keep think
ing You will always find them trailing fruit off the
forbidden Tree of knowledge, as you will always
find men feeding on it, as Adam did in the beginning
Even now, if you ask me, say the average woman
has more knowledge and more breadth of vision
along humanitarian lines than the average man. In
order to be humane man must specialize in the
humanlties; but woman is born that way, endowed
with pity a9d compassion"
Mrs. Harris attended the biennial convention of
the General Federation of Womens clubs in New
York City and has some pertinent observations to
make with regard to it.
Club women are devoted students of parliament
tary law" says the celebrated writer, but they
ploy it too often and too literally like illiterae peo
pie trying to learn what literature is by studying the
best writer's and speakers, and never daring to use
their own judgment apart from the printed canons
of this art. So, too much energy Of the convention
went into the effort to preserve all the rules and
regulations of the organization to the very letter of
parliamentary law
sf Women are, about the practice Of parliamentary
rules, little girl is about practicing her scales
the piano when she takes her first music lessons
She counts her one-two- -three-four carefully, and
comes down hard on the four, and she loses the
rhythm of the thing, because she has not yet got
the use OF her fingers. But give her time and she
may become an accomplished musician. So these
women who thump out their rules and regulations
so awkwardly and conscentiously are taking the
right method to become a good governing force"
Mrs. Harris ascribes the faithfulness with which
the club women adhered to the convention program
10 womans strong sense of duty.
"On the night of the formal opening Of the con-
vention these women demonstrated their sense of
duty They all came-delegates, alternates, visitors
presidents and eficers-twenty thousand Of them
They were serious about the performance of this
duty No theaters or, Broadway lights for theml
AT the door of the convention hall every woman
was required to remove her hat, which was hard
ship. When you consider how much money 10000
women had spent for hats, they might have been
permitted to them far as the seats, which is
the usual CUSTOM
at was good time to observe the character and
quality of the convention. Most of the women had
gray hair and young eyes Most of them were we'll
dressed, Useful women can look very handsome in
tneT convention ClOtneS. ana tney all naQ tnat eX-
perienced expression of long patience peculiar to
gray-haired women, complemented by kind of
weakness -know-more look, peculiar to women
who wish to do right, but in any case to do!
THE federations of the northern and western
states actively engaged in teaching foregnborn
children and their parents the American standards
of life, sanitation and domestic economics. The Ne
braska women have a portable school, which they
send to communities in need of it. The Dakota
women have concentrated upon efforts to tighten the
drudgery of farmers wives Seven thousand women
in Oklahoma are educating teachers. They sent
thrtyeight into the schools of that state last year.
The Arkansas women have organized 1000 college
girls into active domestic educational force de-
voted to service in rural communities The Wiscon-
sin clubs specialize upon the health of children, free
clinics for babies, and eugencs. Illinois has
women in its clubs than there are soldiers in the
regular United States army Ten thousand of these
are giving all their time to social service.
The New England clubs engaged in
every kind of service by which the immigrant is pro-
tected as an immigrant and by which he is developed
iato an American cizen. The New Hampshire clubs
have tnd Tor educating teachers, who, instead OF
returning The money spent, pledge themselves to
teach Tor Two years among immigrants in rural
communities
Kentucky, Georgia andthe Carolina women are
conducting and financing moonlight schools for
ilnterates. Ills IS the name given any group OF
ilhterate men and women in rural community who
gather at the end OF the day to learn their b C's
The ambition of these club women is to wipe out
iliteracy in the south by the end of 1920 The clubs
OF Georgia educating eighty-s,x mountain boys
ind girls in Industrial school owned and supported
b. the STATE federation.
"In addition t, these activities there we're reports
nom the department of vocational training. where
the club women united with every possible means
10 fit girls for business life, as nurses, saeswomen
raphers-everything but cooks laundresses
and housemaids--which is queer when one considers
the growing problem of domestic service 1t is an
other where they miss their and become in
voved in the farther-from-home things first The
handling of servants and the training ct servants
are such immediate needs that they shrink from
them, for that revolution in the character of
the women who have servants; and, like other peo-
pie, women prefer to revolutionze other people and
conditions-not themselves. 0&
There was not single report from Browning
club. not word about the Maeterlincl bee culture
in mysticism. Nobody it seems, has been studying
the origin of Shakesnear nlavs