The Complete Club Book for Women

Howells is considered the most distinguished of our modern American prose writers, the leader of the realistic school which has so largely influenced recent work. He has written much besides his novels, but they are perhaps best known. Notice his ability to portray character; the delightful ease and naturalness of his style and his humor and truth in character drawing. Read from "The Rise of Silas Lapham," and "A Modern Instance." Read also from his sketches of travel.

VIII – APRIL

Study Hans Christian Andersen, Murillo, Wordsworth and Charlotte Brontë, whose birthdays come in this month.

Andersen's life is full of a simple interest, and a sketch of it may be followed by many readings from his books, especially from "A Picture-Book Without Pictures," "Tales for Children," and "The Ice Maiden." Notice that most of his work was illustrated from incidents from his own experience, which makes it natural.

Murillo, the Spanish painter, the friend of Velasquez, painted in three different styles, but he used only two classes of subjects; papers may work out this suggestion and illustrate it from his well-known pictures. Show copies of the "Assumption of the Virgin," his best-known religious work, and of others of the same style. Notice the beauty and charm of his children.

Wordsworth should certainly have more than one meeting given to him. Write of his quiet country life, of his wife and sister Dorothy; of his many friends; show his different styles of verse and read poems from each; read also his best-known sonnets.

Charlotte Brontë is one of the unusual English women writers. Write of her home life on the moors with her talented family, her work, especially "Jane Eyre," so full of striking romance, and her early death. Read several scenes from "Jane Eyre."

IX – MAY

Dante, Andubon, Browning and Brahms belong to May.

Dante's story, his life in Florence, his love for Beatrice, his military service, his exile and death all need plenty of time to study. His fame as a poet is unrivaled in its power and beauty of language. Have sketches of his life, his times and his work, and read what critics have said of it. Read also from translations of the "Vita Nuova" and the "Divina Commedia," in their translations. (See Longfellow's.)

The work of our own Audubon is better known to-day than when he was living. His life story is most romantic; read this, and show what he accomplished. Have shown some copies of his famous pictures of birds. Compare him with other naturalists.

Robert Browning did what no other poet has done; when he was twenty years old he found the theme for his life work, the development of the human soul; this is the key to his verse.

Read of his life in England and in Italy; speak of his friendships; study his philosophy; discuss his versification; show his different styles of work; have many illustrative readings. Compare him with other poets. Have some of his songs sung which are set to music; read also "Pippa Passes."

X – JUNE

Now come the birthdays of the musicians, Gounod and Schumann, and also of the patriot Nathan Hale, the teacher Thomas Arnold, and the novelist Thomas Hardy.

Hale is one of those men of whom we are always learning more. Have papers on his early life, his years at Yale, the events which led to his capture and his execution; show a picture of the statue in the City Hall Park of New York. Compare him with André. Give selections from different writers showing their estimate of him.

Thomas Arnold is the ideal for all teachers, and so an excellent subject for a meeting. Tell of his home; of Rugby as he found it; of his ideas for the school and for the individual boys; mention some of the great men he trained; read from "Tom Brown at Rugby" and show pictures of the school.

Hardy is one of the great Victorian novelists, a writer of somber, realistic and pessimistic stories of great power. Read of Wessex and its moors and wind-swept fells in the "Return of the Native." Notice the homely humor in all his books. Read from his most artistic work, "Far from the Madding Crowd," and from "Tess of the D'Urbervilles," his most dramatic. Compare him with other writers of the day. Discuss his philosophy.

CHAPTER XX

Programs from Clubs

I

A Virginia club has studied this group of painters:

Italian Artists: Raphael, Titian, Correggio.

Flemish Artists: Van Eyck, Rubens, Van Dyck.

Dutch Artists: Frans Hals, Rembrandt, Ruysdael.

Spanish Artists: Velasquez, Murillo, Fortuny.

German Artists: Dürer, Holbein, Hoffman.

French Artists: Rosa Bonheur, Corot, Millet.

English and American Artists: Sir Joshua Reynolds, Millais, Sargent.

The Girls' Club of Upper Montclair, New Jersey, was started several years ago as a department of the Woman's Club. Its membership includes girls in the grade below the high school and the girls who have left school and have not gone to college or into business. The attendance has grown so that one winter there was only one meeting when the number did not reach a hundred.

The meetings are held every Monday afternoon at three-thirty and some well-known speaker gives a short talk. Sometimes a musical is given. After the lecture there is dancing for a half hour and light refreshments are served by the girls.

The club has two unique features: first, it has no officers, but is managed by a committee of five ladies, all mothers of high school students. The girls are willing to help at all times, but those who know girls realize that most clubs are "officered" to death. Another unique feature is that there are no dues. There are many minor expenses, such as printing and traveling expenses of the guests, and the first three years the Woman's Club met these, but later the Girls' Club became self-supporting. One afternoon entertainment was given for the children and one evening entertainment for the "grown-ups," making enough to pay all the yearly expenses and present the Woman's Club twenty-five dollars as a gift for their building fund.

The club now has started a prize competition in bread-, cake- and dressmaking, offering a first prize of five dollars and a second prize of two dollars and fifty cents.

A club that is doing practical work is following this varied program:

Roll call: Kitchen appliances and conveniences.

Paper: Household accounts. Are they essential?

Paper: System in household work, and economy of time.

Demonstration: Sandwiches and canapés.

Roll call: Helpful suggestions for housework.

Paper: Fireless cookers and their usefulness.

Demonstration: The fireless cooker.

Roll call: Waste; what is it?

Paper: The household waste.

Paper: Fuel and fuel economy.

Demonstration: Paper-bag cookery.

Roll call: Emergency luncheon menus.

Paper: Modern problems in the home. The servant problem.

Paper: The seamstress problem.

Paper: The nurse, or the hospital?

Paper: The guest.

Demonstration: How to shape croquettes and seal molds.

Roll call: Supper ideas.

Paper: A balanced dietary.

Paper: Suitable combinations of foods.

Paper: Food values.

Demonstration: Supper dishes.

Roll call: Ways of serving fruit.

Paper: Soups and soup-making.

Paper: Planning the menu for a formal luncheon.

Demonstration: Laying the luncheon table.

Roll call: A chafing-dish menu.

Paper: Planning the meals so as to reduce cost.

Paper: The chafing dish; is it practical?

Demonstration: A chafing-dish luncheon.

Roll call: Where shall we market?

Paper: Marketing and the cheaper cuts of meat.

Paper: The old market and the new.

Discussion: Is it more economical to buy bread or make it, for a small family?

Demonstration: A luncheon costing twenty cents per capita.

Roll call: Breakfast dishes.

Paper: The adjustment of home duties to social requirements.

Discussion: Fats; lard, butter, butterine, etc.

Demonstration: Cakes made with different shortenings.

Roll call: How shall we replenish the preserve closet in winter?

Paper: Sweeping made easy.

Paper: Labor-saving devices.

Demonstration: New labor-saving devices.

A teachers' club in the West has an excellent travel and study program based upon books of current interest.

Roll call: Current Events. Paper: "Through the Heart of Patagonia."

Roll call: Unique Customs of Countries. Paper: "Changing China."

Roll call: Quotations from Doctor Grenfell. Paper: "The Possibilities of Labrador."

Roll call: Persian Epigrams. Paper: "Modern Persia."

Roll call: Anecdotes of Famous People. Paper: "The Passing of Korea."

Roll call: Conundrums. Paper: "Tripoli the Mysterious."

Roll Call: Selections from Spring Poems. Paper: "Turkey and the Turks."

Roll call: Epigrams. Paper: "The Balkan States."

One of the most interesting clubs in New England has a membership of farmers' wives and daughters, scattered around for ten miles. It has astonishingly clever programs, prepared with few library helps. Each program is clearly written on a small folder, adorned with a Perry picture bearing on the subject of the day. One program was:

Our Friend the Horse. Music; Current Events; paper, "Horses, Past and Present"; reading, "The Council of Horse," by Gay; reading, "The Blood Horse," by Barry Cornwall; reading, "The Leap of Roushan Beg," by Longfellow; paper, "Some of the Horses in Bookland"; reading, "How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix," by Browning.

Another meeting, a social one, had for its subject:

Tea. Paper, "Tea Culture"; "Tea in literature"; reading, "The Boston Tea Party," by Holmes; reading from "Cranford," The Tea Party; toasts, presented by members, drunk in tea.

A program for the year on Domestic Science begins each month with a roll call, answered by Helpful Hints. Here is one meeting:

Roll call: Helpful Hints on Vegetables and Soups.

Paper: Furnishing a Dining-room.

Paper: Furnishing a Bedroom.

Discussion of certain recipes (read aloud).

Practical demonstration.

Another meeting was even more interesting:

Roll call: Helpful Hints for the Kitchen.

Paper: The Evolution of the Modern House.

Paper: The Woman Who Cleaned Atlanta.

Notes on Meats and Deep-fat Frying, by members.

Discussion: Made-over Dishes.

Practical demonstration.

Discussion: Use of butter substitutes.

A charming yearbook has come from Flatbush, Long Island:

The Ocean. Importance of the Ocean; Life in the Deep; Sea Animals; Whales and Whaling; Turtles and Tortoise Shell; Sharks, Sword Fish, Sea Serpents; Modes of Fishing in Various Countries; The Sponge; Pearls and Pearl Diving; Sea Gardens, Sea Weeds and Mosses; Shells; Superstitions and Folklore; Coral; Birds of the Sea; Phenomena of the Ocean; Influence of the Sea on Poetry and Music; Marine Painting; Deep Sea Explorations; Evolution of Sea Craft; Famous Navigators; Pirates; History of the Battleship; Naval Heroes; Polar Explorations; The Life Saving Service; Light-houses and Beacons; Roll Call, answered by Fish Stories.

A new idea from Tacoma, Washington, is a Query Club. The members write on slips of paper the questions they wish answered and the president gives the slips to a committee of three to prepare the answers for the next meeting of the club.

A club in the West doing practical work reports:

It has the promise of a city market.

It has made a study of the state pure-food laws.

It has personally inspected dairies and ice cream factories, and studied the state laws of weights and measures, and had lectures on them.

It has had a weights and measures exhibition at the state fair, and is working on a new weights and measures law.

It has written to the Secretary of Agriculture for valuable bulletins on household economics, to be distributed among the women of the state.

A club in Illinois which has addresses before it made by "ministers, doctors and school superintendents," as well as papers by members, has studied these topics:

Pure Food; Juvenile Courts; Industrial Homes; The School as a Home; The Home as a School-Maker; Books by Age and Temperament; The Psychology of Success and Failure; Environments: natural, civic, esthetic and ethical; The Psychology of Occupation and Dress; Playgrounds, Games and Systematic Recreations; Woman's Place in Civic Improvement; The Conservation of Health; and, What the People Have a Right to Expect of the High School. Other clubs will find these may easily be expanded into many interesting sub-topics, and many of them may be used as suggestions for practical work in the home town or city of the club.

A Kentucky woman's club, meeting fortnightly all the year round, has for its current subject Rome and Italy. The meetings open with a roll call, followed by from two to four papers, sometimes varied with readings, music and discussions. For the responses at the roll call such themes are suggested as: Something about Italy; An ancient Roman and something about him; Quotations from Shakespeare's "Coriolanus"; Something About statuary you have seen; Quotations from Marcus Aurelius; Quotations from or about Petrarch; Quotations from "Romola."

The themes for papers are; Italy in Roman Times; Legends; The Eternal City; The Romans; The Republic; Early Literature; Early Art; Michelangelo; Italian Opera; Statesmen; Master Minds; Philosophy; Naples; Growth of Ecclesiastical Power; Dante; Humanism; Italian Art; Italian Musicians; The Renaissance; 1492 and Its Triumph; A Battlefield for Aliens (modern Italy, 1530-1796); Patriots; Sicily; Modern Romans. One meeting is given to an annual reception.

A club of three hundred members in the East is divided into standing committees, each member being on as many as she chooses. They are: Literature, music and drama, art, science, sociology, home and social relations, education, and hospitality.

One year this program was presented:

Education. Address: The function of story-telling in modern education, with illustrative stories.

Music and Drama. Address by an actor-manager: Behind the scenes; Music.

Art. Address: Japanese arrangement of flowers; Music.

Home and Social Relations. Society; Early colonial life; Southern society; Intellectual society; Society to-day (four papers).

Sociology. Two addresses: The Probation Court, and, the Children's Court, both by officers.

Literature. Address: Lincoln and the people; Music.

Science. Address with lantern slides: The wild birds and how to attract them.

A club in Pennsylvania prefaces its year book with these ten commandments:

1. Thou shalt have no other clubs before this one.

2. Thou shalt not worship any false thing.

3. Remember thy club engagement.

4. Honor thy club sisters.

5. Thou shalt not murder the King's English.

6. Thou shalt not covet office.

7. Thou shalt be prepared for roll call.

8. Thou shalt not at the eleventh hour begin to hunt material for thy paper.

9. Thou shalt not speak in meeting when thy sister has the floor.

10. Thou shalt diligently keep these commandments so that thy club days be lengthened, and thy fame spread unto the uttermost parts of clubdom.

CHAPTER XXI

What Clubs Are Studying

II

From many club year books that have been examined the following programs are selected:

Here is the program of a Louisiana club which has studied the history of its own State – a very good thing to do: The Early Settlers in Louisiana; Founding of New Orleans; Spanish Dominion; Jackson Square and the Cabildo; Louisiana's Part in the Revolution; The Great Purchase; The Battle of New Orleans; The Carnival and Mardi Gras; The French Quarter; Louisiana Folk Tales; The Evangeline Country; The State's Resources; Forestry; Mines and Minerals; Products; The History of the Levees; Bird Life in Louisiana; Louisiana Law; The Code; Laws of the Home; Legal Status of Women, and Their Influence in Municipalities. It is hoped that this program was illustrated with the many delightful stories of life in New Orleans which have been written.

A club in Idaho has an interesting connection with the Commercial Club of the city made up of business men, and works with them by having occasional meetings together. Some of the topics studied this year are these:

Aids to the Public School System; Social Centers and Open Air Schools; Parent and Teacher Associations; Encouraging Home Industry; The Idaho Health Bill; What the Government Is Doing for Women and Children; City Sanitation; Market Inspection; Uniform Marriage and Divorce Laws; The Proposed Compensation Act for Criminals; Interstate Commerce; Property Rights of Women; Juvenile Courts; Conservation of Natural Resources; Civic Improvements; Pure Food.

A Vermont club which has existed for many years has in its year book a list of all the subjects studied for the past ten. Some of these are: Colonial America, Later American History, Short Studies on Great Subjects, Russia and Japan.

In addition to these studies the club has had lectures on American Indians, The Moving Picture Show, Forestry, Humane Education, Travels in the Penal Settlements of Siberia, and The Land of Evangeline; most of these have been illustrated. This club numbers a hundred members.

A Western club has taken up Shakespeare in a remarkably thorough way. It has had five plays for the year's work, and one act of each play has been read at each meeting, followed by a paper relating to it, and a discussion. One part of their work is this: Antony and Cleopatra – Act I, The History of the Play and Its Setting; Act II, Paper on Egyptology; Act III, Paper on Cleopatra and Her Influence. Other plays are studied in the same way.

A Georgia club gave the first half of the year to the study of Shakespeare's women, and the latter half to this program on American Painters: The Early Painters, to 1865; Whistler and LaFarge; Landscape and Marines; Figures; Miniature Painters; American Illustrators; Stained Glass Designers. A noticeable feature of the year book is the printing at the back of an excellent bibliography, giving a list of all the books needed in the work.

From Ohio comes a program on Welfare Study and Vocations for Trained Women; The Boy Problem; The Girl Problem; Local Civics; Foods; Women in Business (three meetings); Women in Arts and Professions (three meetings), and Handicraft (three meetings).

An Alabama club has a year book on Spain of more than usual attractiveness. Each topic is unusually well developed: The Land of Spain; The Dawn of History in Spain; The Moors; The Age of Adventure; Kings; Spain in Its Glory; The Church; Cities; Social Life; Industries and Occupations; Spanish Women; Art and Literature; Spain To-day.

A New York club has this study in Conservation: Water Power, the History of Its Development; State Laws; Reclamation of Arid Lands; Government Dams; The Laws of Water Rights; Our Fisheries; Our Forests; Forestry Service; Our Mineral Wealth; Conditions in Mining Districts; Laws of Mining; Conservation of Human Energy; Labor Laws; Protection of Workers; Compensation; Abandoned Farms; Scientific Farming; Life Saving Service; Government Lands; Homestead Claims.

A delightful year book has the title "Studies in English History," with this program: Life Among the Early Saxons; Alfred the Great; The Norman Conquest and Its Influences; Edward the Third and Chivalry; Chaucer and His Tales; The Wars of the Roses; Henry the Eighth and the Reformation; The Glory of Elizabeth's Reign; Puritans and Cavaliers; Oliver Cromwell and His Times; The Romance of the Stuarts; William of Orange, Queen Anne, and the Literature of the Times; Art of Reynolds and Gainsborough; The Romantic Movement in Literature; The Reform Bill of 1832 and the Rise of Democracy; The Age of Victoria; Life and Society; English Essayists and Novelists.

The charm of this study lay not only in the subjects given, but in the readings which illuminated each monthly program, chosen from the best literature bearing on the general subject.

A teachers' club has a program with no definite title, but with a certain geographical and historic value, and at the same time deals with subjects in which the members take a professional interest. Each meeting begins with a roll call answered sometimes by description of unique customs in different countries, and sometimes by anecdotes of famous people, and often by epigrams, or selections from poems of the season. Some of the subjects studied are: Changing China; The Possibilities of Labrador; Persia; The Passing of Korea; Tripoli the Mysterious; Abyssinia of To-day, and The Balkan States. The topics of special interest to the teacher: The Montessori Method; The Binet Tests for the Feeble-Minded; The Status of the Teacher; Systematic Study in the Elementary Schools; The Teaching of Arithmetic.

One excellent program sent by an Ohio club is on a unique plan. There are seventeen members, and to each was given one current topic, on which she reported each month. Municipal Affairs, Magazines, Our State, Literature, Hygienics, Suffrage, Art, Domestic Science, Politics, Foreign News, Science, Agriculture, Education, Religion and Philanthropy, the Drama, and Famous Men were those selected. The year's program was wholly upon social and economic questions: The Dawning of Economic Consciousness; Economics in Relation to Citizenship; New Methods in Public Schools; Organized Charities; Cost of Living in Relation to Criminology; Prison Reform; The Tramp Question; United States Courts; History of Money; Panics; Municipal Ownership. There were several papers under each of these heads, and the whole seems most practical and interesting.

In contrast with this well-constructed program comes one from an Illinois club which shows a certain confusion. There are committees on Parliamentary Law, Domestic Science, Dramatic Art, Travel, Music and Physical Culture. Meetings are held weekly and, among others, these subjects have been presented: Our Local Pioneers; Mexico; Home Environment; Mother and Child; The American Colonies; Domestic Science with Demonstration; American Art; and Travel in Japan. This is by far too varied a program, and if only one main subject had been taken, say The American Colonies, members of the club would have found at the end of the year that they had gained more than they possibly could have from the casual treatment of so many.

A New York State club offers this unusual Musical Program. (The study meetings are illustrated by musical numbers, and between such meetings are others on the latest events in the musical world. A large chorus is also sustained by the club, which gives concerts at intervals.)

American Music. Our Favorites; Folk Songs and Indian Music; Women Musicians; Nevins and MacDowell; Operas; Ballads.

Foreign Music. German and Austrian Music; Great Britain's Music; Russian Music; Polish and Hungarian Music; Italian Music; French Music; Comparison of Foreign and American Music.

An Ohio club has an unusually good set of Current Topics, for study in connection with a year's program on Nature:

Women's Clubs; Inventions; Education; War; Music and Musicians; Famous Personalities; Our Cabinet; France; Commerce; Agriculture; The Religious World; Our Foreign Affairs; Germany; Mexico; South America; China; Canada; Immigration; Philanthropy; Municipal Affairs; Art and Artists; Panama Exposition; Aviation; Panama Canal; Russia; Turkey and Italy; Scientific News; British Affairs; Current Literature.

One of these topics is taken up at the close of the study program at each meeting.

A club in Pennsylvania has this somewhat unusual program:

The American Government.