scussed, and a subject must be selected which needs few books
to work with. It is to be noted that a good general reference book will
be found most useful, even if a practical subject is finally decided
upon.

One of the great dangers a new club has to face is the ambitious
tendency to begin with some abstruse, difficult subject rather than with
a simple one. The Literature of India, or the Philosophy of the Greeks
may be tempting, but even with all the reference books in the world such
subjects are a mistake for beginners. Something should be selected which
is interesting to every one, not too far away from their every day
reading, not too utterly unfamiliar. A country club may like a season on
Bird Study. A village club may find Town Improvement full of
suggestions. A city club can study some American Authors, or the Public
Schools.

If all these things still seem too difficult to begin with, then at
least an Embroidery Club may be founded as the very simplest foundation
possible, the members to come each week with their fancy work and listen
to one member who reads aloud something entertaining. This may do for a
first season, and the second, a study subject may be taken up.

Sometimes where there is no library at hand, a Magazine Club makes a
good preliminary step to larger things. Members tell a chairman what
magazines they take, and agree to have them at the home of the chairman
one day each week or fortnight. She will look them over and divide the
contents into several parts, travel, biography, essays, stories, poetry,
and so on. Then she will portion out among the members parts of the
programs; one meeting may be on travel only, a second on essays, a third
on poetry, three or four members reading selections from articles on
these. Or, the programs may be varied by combining two or more subjects.
This, too, makes a good training for a serious study in a second year,
especially if a discussion of the subjects becomes a regular part of
each meeting.

Clubs which have gone beyond these two early stages of development, or
which have never been compelled to pass through them, may begin work
with some literary topic. A Year of Biography, covering the lives of
great men and women of America or England, is a good first subject, with
plenty of material. The writings of Emerson, Hawthorne, Poe and others
of the same period, is another. Or, the novels of one or two great
writers, George Eliot, Thackeray and Dickens, are