treatment,
would be received, and that the best of these would be read and discussed
before the club, after which some would appear in print. No conditions
would be stated, but it would be understood that such features as length
and style, as well as subject matter, would be considered in selecting the
papers to be read. Above all, it would be insisted that no paper should be
considered that was merely copied from anything, either in substance or
idea. It is, of course, possible to constitute a paper almost entirely of
quotations and yet so to group and discuss these that the paper becomes an
original contribution to thought; but mere parrot-like repetition of
ascertained facts, or of other people's thoughts, should not be tolerated.

Right here the first obstacle would be encountered. Club members,
accustomed to be assigned for study subjects like "The Metope of the
Parthenon" or "The True Significance of Hyperspace," will not easily
comprehend that they are really desired to put briefly on paper original
ideas about something that they know at first hand. Mrs. Jones makes
better sponge cake than any one in town; the fact is known to all her
friends. If sponge cake is a desirable product, why should not the woman
who has discovered the little knack that turns failure into success, and
who is proud of her ability and special knowledge, tell her club of it,
instead of laboriously copying from a book--or, let us say, from two or
three books--some one else's compilation of the facts ascertained at
second or third hand by various other writers on "The Character of the
Cid"? Why should not Mrs. Smith, who was out over night in the blizzard of
1888, recount lier experiences, mental as well as physical? Why should not
Miss Robinson, who collects coins and differs from the accepted
authorities regarding the authenticity of certain of her specimens, tell
why and how and all about it? Why should not the member who is crazy about
begonias and the one who thinks she saw Uncle Hiram's ghost, and she who
has read and re-read George Meredith, seeing beauties in him that no one
else ever detected--why should not one and all give their fellows the
benefit of the really valuable special knowledge that they have acquired
through years of interested thinking and talking and doing?

But there will be trouble, as I have said. The thing, simple as it is,
would be too unaccustomed to comprehend. And then a real article in a real
cyclopaedia by