WOMAN'S PART IN THE WORK 315 



country take up the movement to benefit their " poorer " neighbours, 

 the result often enough is to give what Oliver Goldsmith calls 

 " ruffles," when what is wanted is a shirt. We have not yet, so it 

 is to be feared, quite the right democratic spirit and the democratic 

 composition of our rural society in this country that they have in 

 Canada and the United States — which States are, in this matter, 

 treading in Canada's footsteps. Our conditions also are, of course, 

 essentially different, and our wants call for different practices. 

 However, of our want of a similar instrument, to produce essentially 

 the same effect, there can be no doubt. 



There is also another difference. In Canada, as well as in the 

 United States — and for the matter of that in Belgium, with its 

 ecoles menageres forming an effective counterpart to the Swiss and 

 German Landliche Haushaltungsschulen, and similar institutions 

 still much less densely scattered over France (which have, however, 

 done a great deal of good), there are — above all things, as being 

 by far the most instructive and most effective under this aspect — 

 well and systematically organised preparatory institutions for farm 

 children in the shape of girls' clubs— for poultry keeping, canning of 

 fruit and vegetables, preserving and the rest of it — so that young 

 folk come into the women's institutes readily primed and equipped 

 with considerable training, domestic as well as agricultural, and can 

 accordingly devote themselves all the more freely and unrestrainedly 

 to the higher tasks of the institutes — the study of hygiene, of the 

 bringing up of children, of home-making and community life. 



Our American cousins, by the way, are not content to wait for 

 women to come to their institutes. They go out into the highways 

 and among the hedges to seek for them, and " compel them to come 

 in." If men have their county agents to enlighten and guide them, 

 surely there is an even more recognisable claim on the part of women, 

 on whose tending depends the fitness and success of the growing crop 

 of human beings, so much more valuable to the nation than the crops 

 of wheat and potatoes, which men raise in the fields and on which we 

 concentrate our attention. There is a regular service of such agents 

 now in operation in the United States, supported by contributions 

 from the Federation, the particular State, and local authorities, 

 besides individual well-wishers ; and such service is found of distinct 

 and even great value. Attention was called to the necessity of 

 providing it by the discovery that the lamentable " drift to the 

 town " carried more women even than men away. And women the 

 country cannot spare. There are now nearly 30< I agents so provided 

 regularly at work in the north and west alone of the United States — 



