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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.