a real writer is Information with a big "I." My little
knowledge about making quince jelly, or darning stockings, or driving an
auto, or my thoughts about the intellectual differences between Dickens
and Thackeray, or my personal theories of conduct, or my reasons for
preferring hot-water heat to steam--these are all too trivial to mention;
is it possible that you want me to write them down on paper?

It may thus happen that when the committee opens its mail it may
find--nothing. What, then? Logically, I should be forced to say: Well, if
none of your members is interested enough in anything to have some
original information to tell about it, disband your club. What is the use
of it? Even three newsboys, when they meet on the street corner, begin at
once to interchange ideas. Where are yours?

Possibly this would be too drastic. It might be better to hold a meeting,
state the failure, and adjourn for another trial. It might be well to
repeat this several times, in the hope that the fact that absence of
original ideas means no proceedings might soak in and germinate. If this
does not work, it might be possible to fight the devil with fire, by going
back to the programme method so far as to assign definitely to members
subjects in which they are known to be deeply interested. This, in fact,
is the second method of treatment mentioned at the outset, namely, the
endeavour to secure immunity where the germ cannot be exterminated. We
shall probably never be able to rid the world of the _bacillus
tuberculosis_; the best we can do is to keep as clear of it as we can and
to strengthen our powers of resistance to it. So, if we cannot kill the
programme all at once, let us strive to make it innocuous and to minimise
its evil effects on its victims.

Let us suppose, now, that in one way or another, it is brought about that
every club member who reads a paper is reporting the result of some
personal experience in which her interest is vivid--some discovery,
acquisition, method, idea, criticism or appreciation that is the product
of her own life and of the particular, personal way in which she has lived
it.

What a result this will have on that woman's reading--on what she does
before she writes her paper and on what she goes through after it! If her
interest is as vivid as we assume it to be, she will not be content to
recount her own experiences without comparing them with those of others.
And after her paper has been read and t