FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 143 



therefore to use ail available material. If auvoue has a special hobbj 

 or fad, he or she has the opportunity of presenting it to the Country Club 

 by invitation from the program committee. If an affair of National im- 

 port fills all our minds, the program committee appoint a day to have it 

 discussed in club. We have had talks from clergymen^, doctors, lawyers, 

 business men and teachers. A banker tells us how to take care of our 

 money, an electrician tells us why we do not need to be afraid of light- 

 ning, the superintendent of schools tells us from his point of view what 

 the home influence does for the child in his school work. If any of our 

 number goes to a convention of any sort, which is of general interest, 

 whether missionary, or temperance, or political, or to the Federation of 

 Clubs, she is invited to share her pleasure and profit with us on her re- 

 turn. When a new book rouses the interest of the people at large, we 

 have a review of it. 



Our programs may seem rather heterogeneous, but we have decided 

 that for the present at least this answers our purpose better than having 

 a course of study, or even of lectures on any on^ subject. Our members 

 keep about the same, but the personality of each audience changes. This 

 is easily accounted for. A member comes into town one Saturday, and 

 perhaps the roads or home duties prevent her from coming again for two 

 or three weeks. If we had a course of study she would feel perhaps that 

 she had lost too much time to ever overtake us again, but under our pres- 

 ent method she comes as if she had never been away. This year we have 

 followed a little more of a plan, having had a travel course, but even this 

 has been very loosely interpreted. Any one who has taken a trip any- 

 where in our own or other countries has been asked to tell us about it. 

 Another feature of this year's work has been the giving of ten minutes in 

 each session to an account of some famous picture and its home. We 

 have also a question box in which all sorts of information is sought after. 

 The questions ranging from how much soda to use with sour milk to who 

 was Adam's first wife. 



Every woman in Lapeer county is elegible for membership in the club. 

 Our dues are forty (40) cents a year, or fifteen (15) cents a quarter, if one 

 prefers to join in that way. The supervisors have given us a pleasant 

 room in the court house, and we have papered, carpeted, and furnished 

 it simply, but prettily. The only objections to our quarters is that they 

 are rather small, sometimes much too small for our audiences. At such 

 times we can usually adjourn to the court room above. We are more and 

 more convinced that a club where women, who do not come in contact 

 with each other in other ways, may meet together, simply for social pleas- 

 ure, and for rest and amusement is a good thing in these days of much 

 study and many books and general weariness of the flesh. 



We have found that we return to the round of daily duties, refreshed 

 in body and mind, after an hour spent in exchange of ideas. on some 

 outside topic, and we have learned that a good working principle for club 

 or individual is to think on and talk of the things that are pure and 

 honest and right, and true and lovely and of good report. 



DISCUSSION. 



Mrs. O'Dell: I am a member of the Ladies' Town and Country Chib of Lapeer. 

 I feel that every town or village should have these organizations. It originated 



