Culture and Women's Clubs 117 



The individual influence of woman is great; but in 

 organization, by their skill in shaping local sentiment, 

 forming public opinion, and so purifying public taste, 

 they combine individual influence, and really create an 

 atmosphere in which culture and refinement have nat- 

 urally their place, and fine appreciation. Instinctively, 

 I think, the women 's clubs turn the attention of them- 

 selves and others to things pure and beautiful. They 

 affect letters and music and art. They are housekeepers, 

 and they go in for municipal housekeeping, for clean 

 streets and lawns, for parks and trees and flowers : they 

 study moral conditions, and seek the social purity of 

 ward and street, and, in my judgment, these things are 

 immensely practical; they shape the environment in 

 which our young men and women grow to life's estate. 



It is to this same end that, of late, we have urged vo- 

 cational studies in public schools, in schools specially en- 

 dowed as at Gary. These things are fine ; they will help. 

 Only do not imagine they solve the problem. We may 

 not discuss the matter here. It is well to train a boy to 

 be a blacksmith or a farmer, but he must also in the Re- 

 public be trained to live : it is well to train a man to be 

 an operator in a mill, but he must also be trained to 

 care for his wife and children and make them rationally 

 happy. 



This brings us now, once more, in sight of our sec- 

 ond problem, the problem of the man who labors with 

 his hands, especially of that fourth man; every fourth 

 man, remember, who does not have wage enough to live. 

 All your women's clubs, all your literature and poetry, 

 all your beautiful things, amount to nothing to him 

 nay, are simple mockery, so long as he does not have 



