MBS. PERCY V. PENNYBACKER By Gbaob Juuan Clabee WHEN the history of the modem woman movement comes to be written, a considerable portion of the work will be occupied with an account of the woman's club ; for this has undoubtedly been the school where women have received a training absolutely essential to the intelli- gent performance^of certain duties and responsibiUties that are gradually being placed upon them — a stepping-stone, as it were, to a position of greater dignity and significance in the world's affairs. The object of the first clubs was self -im- provement, not at all an unworthy motive when one considers the sex's previous environment and opportunities. The clubs of an earlier day served a great end. Women found that they could talk, and not simply gossip together. They talked and wrote papers. After years of consideration of such topics as
- The Women of Ancient Greece and Rome/' ** Germanic
Criminal Jurisprudence in the Middle Ages," etc., they began rather cautiously to take up modem themes, and to-day we find club programs delightfully suggestive of the life we are now living. Through club activities women also learned how to conduct public meetings, and how to differ from one another without giving or taking offense. After awhile, the attention of the club women, long fixed on purely literary and cultural themes, was attracted to their own immediate surroundings, and they were frequently amazed and appalled at what they saw. It was, perhaps, the child that first drew the eyes of club women away from those more remote interests. Contemplating, in the light of their new knowledge, the needs of their own children, they were naturally led to consider the situation of **the other woman's" offspring. They began to demand the establishment of kin- dergartens, they looked into sanitary conditions of school- houses, the pay of teachers, and so on. Presently these club women were inspired to form parent-teacher associations,
