THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
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interested in university extension, and club extension; and clubs sprang up as if by magic in almost every city, town hamlet and school district throughout the state, like the “walls of corn” on its rolling and verdant prairies. We have Mothers’Clubs, Ethical Clubs, The Woman’s Press Club, and The Authors’ and Artists’ Club, which includes both sexes; also the annual Chautauqua Assembly, and last, but not least, the Social Science Club.
Each year since this last society was formed, the circle of its influence has expanded ; the contact of bright minds, the interchange of ideas, the discussion of literary, artistic and practical questions has had a broadening effect which has gone beyond the boundaries of the state. The members of the society form a state acquaintance which of itself is an education. Today there are on its enrolled list nearly a thousand names which represent the culture and intellect of the women of the state, with tastes so diverse and lines of study so varied that they can say with Browning—
“I have not chanted verse like Homer’s—No Nor swept string like Terpander, no; nor carved And painted men like Phidias and his friend.
I am not great as they are, point by point;
But I have entered into sympathy with these four,
Running these into one soul,
Who separate, ignored each other’s arts;
Say, is it nothing that I know them all?”
This year—the year 1893—the Social Science Club took one step onward. Emboldened by its marked success and accumulation of membership and energy it merged itself into a Social Science federation, taking in all the local clubs who may wish to join.
In isolated places where there is no club the Social Science Federation is preparing to send out delegates to help organize such a society with a plan of work adapted to the taste and mental requirements of the persons sought. In this way the club woman hopes to bring a mental stimulant to every careworn, tired housewife, who has nothing to look forward to but the monotonous routine of farm life, and its lonesome cares. To such a woman a reading club, debating circle or literary society of any kind is a godsend. It takes her outside of herself and outside of the economy and care with which her life is filled and leads her into the green pastures of thought and imagination and beside the still waters of hope.
To save the intellect from stagnation, as well as to awaken lofty thoughts and purposes in a dormant mind is a mission only less than that of saving a soul, if perchance it does not often save the soul.
Outside the club, however, there is an ever-increasing list of women in the state who are making a name and fortune for themselves by original literary effort.
We who follow are still traveling in the same path as did the pioneer Kansas woman, but with this difference, which, better than I can give, is summed up in the words of a noble Kansas man, who is a noble friend of Kansas men and women. I refer to Noble L. Prentis, Esq:
“ But the worst is over; gone are border ruffians and drouth and privation; gone danger and difficulty. The sunflowers are growing on the roof of the abandoned dug- out and within the roofless walls of the old sod house. The claim is a farm with broad green, or golden, or russet acres now. The family is sheltered in a stately mansion now. Having brought Kansas about where she wanted it, the Kansas woman is devoting her attention to culture, to literature, to music, to art. She discusses all the artists from Henry Worrall, a Kansas artist, to Praxiteles; all the musicians from Nevada to the piper who, according to Irish tradition, played before Moses. She belongs to the Kansas Social Science Club, and traverses the field of human knowledge and investigation, from the hired girl to the most abstruse problems of society and government. In the summer she goes to Long Branch and Saratoga, and is accom-