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Show FOR FEMININE READERS. : . t MRS. MAY ALDEN WARD, president pres-ident of thf Massachusetts State Federation of Women's Clubs, said at the annu.il festival festi-val of the New England W. S. A. the other day: "A great change is coming over the clubs in regard to woman suffrage. suf-frage. Only four or five years ago, when It was proposed that our Stale, Federation should recommend women to use their school vote, ihe idea was considered so alarming that a special meeting of the Stat,e board was called, and there -was - much opposition; and tho proposal was only carried at -last by Ihe argument that school suffrage was an accomplished fact, and that we must accept its responsibilities. Two years ago. the State Federation devoted de-voted a day to the question how lo Increase In-crease women's school vote, without objection from anybody. I see that at St. Louis Mrs. Sarah Piatt Decker Is to give an address on what the ballot can do for working women. That would not have been possible two years ago. "The clubs aro helping the suffrage movement by awakening the civic conscience con-science In women. In looking over the programme for the biennial at St. Louis, I am struck by the change In the subjects to be considered, they are so much more serious and solid than they used to be. Many are legislative and legal. We now have committees on child labor, on legislation affecting working women, etc.. and the more the club women get Interested in these questions, the more they learn lo desire de-sire tho ballot." Charlottenburg has distinguished Itself as the "first German commune to appoint a woman school doctor. m That women's clubs give their attention atten-tion to the furtherance of American arl Is earnestly urged In an editorial of the Art Interchange, which laments the' fact that on the rare occasions when clubs go In for art study they devote their attention exclusively lo the work of old Italian or French painters. "Ilellglon, philanthropy and books women have had thrust upon their attention at-tention for centuries," continues the writer, "but it is only in recent years In this country that the importance of art has been presented to the public, and woman Is. therefore, not altogether altogeth-er blameworthy In that the twentieth century finds her in large measure oblivious ob-livious lo Ihe Incompleteness of the training that leaves out esthetics. "Fortunately, educators have awakened awak-ened to the educational need of observation obser-vation and manual dexterity, and manual art training is fairly in hand. uBt the educators aro only a very small group, and It Is, therefore, needful, need-ful, If progress Is to be made jn gt-tiiigr gt-tiiigr nativa art on a proper basis in this country, that the general public should be brought to realize its Importance. 'It is with art affairs precisely as it Is with matters of the church and w!t1i literature; withdraw from tho la-t two the intfret and patronage of w onion and h.t would bei-oino of prl . ji -tors and authors' What with l.iv.id- wlnnlng and politics, the usual run of men have small leisure for culture or for the consideration of questions that do not immediately concern their individual in-dividual welfare. ."On the contrary, the wives ;md daughters of these very slaves of business, busi-ness, have ample leisure, and this .spam time many thousand of them employ lo the betterment of objectionable conditions con-ditions and to the forwarding of educational educa-tional work. ' "Through the women's clubs. Ihe intelligence in-telligence of members Is quickened and the sympathies broadened, and by concerted con-certed action clubs are enabled to ac- ; complish In a comparatively short time j what It would take Individuals acting Independently decades to bring about." Miss Fannie J. Crosby, the blind J hymn writer, lias Just found In a Pros- , byterian church In New Jersey the or- , gan she played while an inmale of the New York Institute for the Blind, fifty years ago. Miss Crosby was led lo the j organ loft, and I tears rolled down her J cheeks as she touched tho yellowed ( l keys. Although SI, It is said she played ( with vigor and accuracy. She told of playing the same organ for President 1 Polk. Henry Clay, ( Marshal Bertrand, the friend of Napoleon; Martin Tuppcr. ( the poet; Gen. Wlnfleld Scott, and i other Illustrious men. i m i iMrs. .Catherine Waugh McCuKoch ' was given a h'earing before the State Republican c onvention of ' Illinois lo i present the question of equal suffrage, i and the papers said her argument w.13 "the most incisive and appealing ever 1 madf under similar c ii cunistances." |