o become a Newton before he feels,
with that sage, like a child, playing on the sands, with the great,
unexplored ocean of knowledge stretching out before him. Most students are
rather like ducks in a barn-yard puddle, quite sure that they are familiar
with the whole world and serene in that knowledge.

Most writers of text-books would indignantly deny that this criticism
implies a fault. It is none of their business, they would say, to call
attention to what is beyond their scope. So be it. Unfortunately, every
one feels in the same way and so the horizon of our women's clubs is that
of the puddle instead of the ocean.

It is a most interesting fact in this connection that there exist certain
organisations which make a business of furnishing clubwomen with
information for their papers. I have heard this service described as a
"godsend," to clubs in small places where there are no libraries, or where
the libraries are poorly equipped with books and _personnel_. But, if I am
correctly informed, the service does not stop with the supply of raw
material; it goes on to the finished product, and the perplexed lady who
is required to read a paper on "Melchisedek" or on "Popular Errors
Regarding the Theory of Groups," may for an adequate fee, or possibly even
for an inadequate one, obtain a neatly typewritten manuscript on the
subject, ready to read.

This sort of thing is not at all to be wondered at. It has gone on since
the dawn of time with college theses, clergymen's sermons, the orations
and official papers of statesmen. Whenever a man is confronted with an
intellectual task that he dare not shirk, and yet has not the intellect or
the interest to perform, the first thing he thinks of is to hire some one
to do it for him, and this demand has always been great enough and
widespread enough to make it profitable for some one to organise the
supply on a commercial basis. What interests us in the present case is the
fact that its existence in the woman's club affords an instant clue to the
state of mind of many of its members. They have this in common with the
plagiarising pupil, clergyman, or statesman--they are called upon to do
something in which they have only a secondary interest. The minister who
reads a sermon on the text "Thou Shalt Not Steal," and considers that the
fact that he has paid five dollars for it will absolve him from the charge
of inconsistency, does not--cannot--feel any desire to impress his
congregati