THE WOMAN’S CLUB
[Sidenote: THE TOLERANT ATTITUDE]
THE popularity of women’s societies for literary study, for economic
discussion, for the consideration of municipal and social improvement,
is enormous. They are to be found all over the country, but
particularly do they flourish in the Middle West, where every town and
hamlet in the region boasts a woman’s club of some sort. Both ridicule
and praise are showered upon these organizations; and they deserve
both. Some of their manifestations are crude, absurd and tiresome;
others are fine in themselves, exert a broadening influence over
those intimately concerned, and are helpful indirectly to the whole
community represented by them. However much particular societies may
lay themselves open to adverse criticism by reason of priggishness,
superficiality or a mistaken sense of their importance in the scheme
of things, it must be acknowledged that the general tendency of these
organizations is good. They lift women out of the consideration of the
commonplace, domestic side of existence; they encourage toleration
and a give-and-take attitude toward life, in which attitude women are
often lacking; they open a way for the development of latent talent of
various kinds; they are often stepping stones to improvement in the
social life of a community. It would be hard to estimate how much they
have done in creating an atmosphere for the truly artistic and literary
element in various communities throughout the United States. No doubt
they have in this way encouraged the production of literature and other
forms of art; while, in humbler fashion, they have brought pleasure and
an outlook into many narrow circumscribed lives.
An English woman, visiting in a western city of our country, was
asked what one of our institutions she admired the most. “The Woman’s
Club,” she replied without hesitation, and added that she would like
to transplant it to her native land where, it was true, there were
associations of women banded together for various purposes, but none
in which women met in such easy and happy intellectual relations as in
the women’s clubs of America. Such praise from an unprejudiced observer
of our country consoles the woman who believes in the mission of the
woman’s club despite many an ugly newspaper fling. The English woman
in question was fortunate in attending a club of particular interest
and value where, to a degree, the ideal of what a woman’s club should
be was realized. Such a club indicates the possibilities of the
institution, however; and many organizations of women are working with
crude material through absurd phases toward accomplishment as happy.
In small communities where the opportunities are infrequent for
theater, for social diversion of various kinds, the woman’s club is of
the greatest help. It serves at once to focus and distribute all the
better social and intellectual interests of the neighborhood. It may be
a means of lifting a whole community to a livelier and more interesting
social and intellectual level.
[Sidenote: HELPING IN LEGISLATION]
Many women’s clubs become important factors in municipal legislation
along the lines most amenable to feminine influence. Through such clubs
women have helped to solve educational questions, have influenced
public sentiment in the direction of cleaning and beautifying the
streets, and in many other ways have helped to promote law and order.
The literary club is, however, the form most often taken by feminine
organizations.
The formation of a literary club is not a difficult matter, though the
amount of red tape with which it is sometimes covered up makes the
project seem formidable. The woman most interested in the organization
of such a club should call a meeting at her house of those she thinks
most likely to enter into the scheme with energy and profit. A
perusal of Robert’s _Rules of Order_ or of any other good manual of
parliamentary law, will show how such a meeting should be conducted,
how officers should be elected and a constitution adopted. It may
be said in this connection that there are few matters harder for a
woman to digest gracefully than a knowledge of parliamentary usages.
Such knowledge is for use only, not for display. To make a show of
it is like using a kitchen utensil for a drawing-room ornament. Many
women seem to regard the rules governing societies as important in
themselves. They are only important as the knowledge and use of them
quickens the business proceedings leading up to the real purpose of
the organization. Business in a woman’s club, founded for study and
improvement, is only a means to an end. It is disastrous to consider it
otherwise.
[Sidenote: MAKING OUT THE PROGRAM]
The membership having been decided upon, the officers selected and
constitution adopted, the next and most important thing in a literary
club is to make out the program. For this purpose an executive
committee of three or more is appointed by the president or elected
by the club. Sometimes this committee makes out the entire program,
merely notifying each member of the part she is expected to take in its
performance. Sometimes the members are consulted as to what subjects
they prefer. The more arbitrary method is often necessary in order
to procure unity of design in the program. If, for instance, the
program for the day includes two papers and a discussion following,
the subjects considered should be related, so as to make some sort of
harmony. If each member is allowed to choose her subject, regardless of
anything but her own desire, small pleasure or profit follows. In some
clubs the executive committee sends out cards to the members, asking
for suggestions, accepts the best of these, and, when possible, assigns
the topics preferred.
[Sidenote: ASSIGNING THE TOPICS]
If the first mentioned and more arbitrary method is followed, the
committee should be careful to select subjects according to the
persons for whom they are designed. Mrs. Brown, who loves poetry, but
knows nothing of science, should not be asked to handle the wonders
of electricity in the twentieth century; and Mrs. White, who has a
delicious touch in narrating personal experiences, but knows little
of continental fiction, would better be asked to write a paper on her
summer vacation than one on the great Russian novelists, Turgenieff
and Tolstoi. Of course, the practise for Mrs. Brown and Mrs. White, in
considering subjects opposed to their knowledge and taste, might be
salutary for them, but it might also send the other members of the club
to sleep. And the ambition of the executive committee should be to
avoid as much dulness as possible in the atmosphere it partly creates.
Whether the program shall be miscellaneous in character, or shall
be devoted to progressive study in one direction, is a question to
be considered by the committee. If the club is small, compact in
spirit, and on improvement bent, the study of some one period, author
or movement is often most advantageous. If the club is large, and
entertainment is largely the motive for meeting, a program that varies
to meet the various demands of the membership is better.
[Sidenote: THE CLUB SESSION]
Usually, the number of papers on a given day should not exceed two.
Sometimes, owing to the light or easily divisible nature of the theme
for the day, three papers, of fifteen or twenty minutes each, may be
assigned.
For the discussion that should follow the paper, or papers, it is the
custom generally in women’s clubs to appoint a leader. The selection of
leaders for conversation should be carefully made. Not every woman who
writes a good paper talks well, though it is possibly within her power
to do so if she makes sufficient effort. The leader of a conversation
should be one who has been tried in general discussion and found
successful. Upon the leader depends the guidance of the talk. If it
drifts into foolish and unprofitable channels, it is her business to
call it back to better issues, yet to do so with what shall not seem
a meddling or arbitrary touch. The cultivation of the gift of speech
is, in the minds of many competent judges, the best thing offered us
by the woman’s club. Only a skilled person should undertake leadership
in a discussion, but the floor of the club is a school where all may
learn something of the art. To learn to think quickly, to express one’s
self standing and facing an audience,—this is an accomplishment worth
having, and one which many a club woman owes to years of progressive
effort in a woman’s club.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: ADMITTING NEW MEMBERS]
Members should be taken into a club because they have qualifications
which will add to the pleasure and profit of the membership at large.
One should not vote for or against a candidate for purely personal
reasons. Many kind people, who are yet ignorant of the proper law for
limiting the membership of a club, consider it an act of enmity to
blackball a candidate for membership whether she be fitted for that
membership or not. This is a mistaken and a sentimental theory. It
is indeed disagreeable to blackball, but it is sometimes necessary.
Those who propose members for a club should feel the responsibility of
such proposals and thus, as far as lies within their power, avoid for
the membership, or committee controlling this matter, the unpleasant
necessity of refusing or blackballing a candidate.
[Sidenote: ADDRESSING THE PRESIDENT]
The new member should be received with courtesy by the older members
of the club. Her sponsors or guarantors should see to it that proper
introductions, if introductions be necessary, are made. For several
months, at least, after her admission to the club, the new member’s
part should be a negative rather than a positive one. It is an
unwritten law in the United States Senate that the new senator does
not speak on any matter of importance for a year after his election.
Exactly so, modesty demands that the new member in a woman’s club,
unless specially requested, keep silent till custom has established her
place in the organization. When the proper occasion arises for her to
speak or to read, she begins her performance as others do theirs, by
formally addressing the president and members of the club thus: “Madam
president and women of the club.”
In many clubs, where the membership is not large and the dues are
small, it is customary to meet from house to house. This should always
be considered only a provisional method. It is much better to have a
club home than to wander about from place to place. Papers and other
properties accumulate in the life of a club, and it is advisable to
have some permanent place for the bestowal of them. The sense of
getting acquainted with a new place each time interferes with ease
of manner and freedom of discussion, while familiarity with one’s
surroundings begets both these happy qualities. As soon as the funds
warrant the expenditure, a club should rent a convenient and acceptable
place, where its regular meetings can be held.
[Sidenote: THE CLUB BREAKFAST]
Once a year, usually at the beginning of the president’s term of
office, it is customary for the club to give some sort of entertainment
for its members. This may be a luncheon or breakfast, a high tea
or merely an afternoon reception, where salad, ices and coffee are
served. At this festivity, after the menu has been served, the retiring
president bids good-by to her office and introduces her successor, who
acts as toast-mistress for the occasion. The toasts should be few in
number, not more than five or six, and the time occupied by each should
be from five to seven minutes. Commonly, the subjects for toasts should
be of a lively pleasing nature, and should be treated in a manner to
correspond. To take advantage of a festive occasion for the delivery of
a lamentation or a sermon is in very bad taste. It should be remembered
by the speaker that she is expected to entertain and not to instruct.
[Sidenote: UNWISE CRITICISM]
The spirit of the members toward club performances should be kindly
and genial, if good work is to be expected. Nothing can be done in
the face of ill-natured criticism. The standard of work can only be
raised by each member doing her best, and keeping an open mind for
the performances of her acquaintances. Frequently a special advantage
in hearing club papers lies in one’s acquaintance with the writer,
which makes it possible for one to interpret much more richly than
would be possible in the printed page of a personally unknown author.
This is the “unearned increment” of club membership, one of the best
returns for its fellowship; and, in order to get the most out of one’s
connection with a literary club where, in the nature of things, one can
not be expecting literary masterpieces, one must be on the lookout for
this personal quality which adds so largely to the written and spoken
words heard there.