FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81  
82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   >>   >|  
pathies, the discussion of knotty club questions, the affirmation by others of what have become club convictions, and mutual congratulations on club successes. This is not all that a federation of clubs can accomplish, but it is enough for a starting point. It is the kindly, providential, sympathetic way in which we are always led from the smaller to the larger field of work. Just before descending from a crest in the Sierras into the valley of the Yosemite, you come suddenly upon a wonderful view; it is called "Inspiration Point," and it is like an open door, a revelation of the infinite, a promise in one gleam of transcendent beauty, of all the separate and divisible splendors that are to follow. This spirit of enlargement beckons us and leads us to the formation of the Federated Union of Clubs, and we cannot do better than follow its guidance. We all need, clubs as well as individuals, encouragement and counsel; we need to enlarge our knowledge of what other clubs are doing, of their extent, of their objects, of their ambitions. Above all, we need to enlarge our sympathies, to cultivate sympathy by knowledge; for our prejudices are born of ignorance, and we rarely dislike what we intimately know. As Charles Lamb said: "How can I dislike a man if I know him? Do we ever dislike anything if we know it very well?" With the growth of clubs the purely personal characteristics of them will disappear, or at least be subordinated to larger aims; and it is in the prosecution of these larger aims that the federation will find its reasons for existence. There is a vast work for clubs to do throughout the country in the investigation of moral and social questions, in the reformation of abuses, in the cultivation of best influences;--not the influence of class or clique or party, but a wide, liberalizing, educational influence which works for true goodness, for cleanliness, for order, for equal opportunities, for the recognition of God in man and nature, in whatever stage of unfolding the Divine in us may happen to be. It is in the last twenty-five years that village-improvement societies, first instigated by a woman--Miss Sallie Goodrich of Stockbridge, Mass.--have created a transformation in whole townships, and so enhanced the value of property as to drive out the original inhabitants and change farming communities into fashionable summer resorts. This result is of doubtful value. But every woman's club, especially in th
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81  
82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
dislike
 

larger

 

influence

 

follow

 

enlarge

 
knowledge
 
questions
 

federation

 
cultivation
 

personal


liberalizing

 

educational

 
purely
 

growth

 
influences
 

abuses

 
clique
 
characteristics
 

prosecution

 

subordinated


reasons

 

existence

 

investigation

 

disappear

 

social

 

country

 

reformation

 

twenty

 

property

 

original


inhabitants

 
enhanced
 

created

 

transformation

 

townships

 
change
 

farming

 
doubtful
 

result

 
communities

fashionable
 

summer

 
resorts
 
Stockbridge
 

Goodrich

 

nature

 
unfolding
 

Divine

 
recognition
 

cleanliness