THE STUDY CLUB. 35 I 



topic that club women are not busy women, I want you to dispel 

 that from your minds, because I am sure you are all fainiliar 

 enough with what club women are doing and with what they expect 

 to do that you must already know they are very busy women. 



One of the most delightful recollections I have of my connection 

 with the club movement in the state of Minnesota refers to a 

 visit I made to a club composed of women from farms. I do not 

 remember ever meeting with women who were so earnest in their 

 chosen work or so wide awake as were those women. Some of the 

 women had driven ten miles to attend that meeting. The subject 

 was "Our Philippine Possessions," and they were making a practical 

 study of the conditions in the Philippines, and I am sure at the 

 close of the club year what they did not know about the Philippine 

 Islands was not worth bothering over. I remember that afternoon 

 was a perfect inspiration to me. I received so much benefit my- 

 self that I went away a much wiser woman as to our island pos- 

 sessions. One of the subjects had relation to the trees growing in 

 the Philippine Islands, and I am sure all of you would have been 

 more than benefited to have listened to the excellent papers by 

 the women who had made the subject a complete study. On another 

 occasion I was delighted with the remarks of a woman at a club 

 meeting when she told of the changed condition of the cemetery in 

 her little home town. She was a widow, her husband having died 

 there t'en or fifteen years previously. She said the cemetery of the 

 town was one of the most forlorn places imaginable, neglected and 

 unkempt. No one would have thought of going there unless Provi- 

 dence required it. She said she felt so impressed with this state of 

 neglect that she determined to make the spot more attractive. She so 

 impressed the club women of the town that she succeeded in having 

 a beautiful avenue of trees planted reaching from the town to the 

 cemetery, the road kept in good condition and the cemetery grounds 

 kept in proper order. I felt that if that woman had never done 

 anything else in her life than that work she certainly deserved a 

 monument over her grave when it came to be her time to be laid 

 in that cemetery, and I felt the town people could not do anything 

 wiser than to remember the good she had done for that spot. 



I am sure the avenues of interest are diversified enough today 

 for all women. When our library authorities say of our own state 

 that there would not be a single local library in the state except 

 for the club women, it is a tribute to the club women and the efforts 

 they have put forth to secure libraries, and our club women are 

 entitled to great credit for what they have done in that direction. 



