THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
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sorts and conditions of women; it has organized loan libraries of books on health, and distributed over a million and a half of tracts on hygiene for the people. Much of the technical teaching of which we have already spoken may be traced to its influence, as well as dinners for destitute children, nurseries for motherless babies, and many coal and clothing clubs and temperance associations. From its “ park parties ” have sprung the Children’s Country Holidays schemes for city boys and girls, to whom an uncaged singing-bird, a growing wild flower, an expanse of blue sky, a field of scented hay or waving corn, or the rippling of water or whispering of leaves in the wood, are things as new and wonderful as they are joy inspiring. Its secretary is Miss Rose Adams.
The National Health Society, founded in 1873, began with a modest scheme of lectures by ladies at men’s clubs and mothers’ meetings. It now has three princesses of Great Britain for patronesses, the Duke of Westminster for president, and over four hundred and fifty members. Its aims are well summed up in its motto: “ Prevention is better than cure.” Free lectures are given throughout the country to the poor, subsidized now in many places by the county councils; while distinguished medical men and eminent lady nurses instruct drawing-room audiences, who need teaching scarcely less in the laws of health. A diploma of honor was awarded to its literature by the Council of the International Health Exhibition, and among the varied matters that claim its aid and interest are hygienic dress, smoke abatement, open spaces, and boarding-out of children. Its secretary is Miss Ray Lankester.
The Ladies’ Association of Useful Work at Birmingham, which was founded in 1874, is a local association, rather younger than these two national societies. It was originally as comprehensive as its title; but since Mason College was opened it no longer labors for higher education, but is chiefly active in giving eight or nine courses of lectures on hygiene to working women, keeping up a recreation-room for business girls, and organizing country holidays for children. Its useful work is almost wholly carried on by voluntary helpers.
Education, in the narrower populay sense, next concerns us. This is not the place for speaking generally of the system that has supplemented girls’ schools by women’s colleges, and thrown open to the women of this generation a wide culture that is making women’s lives richer and happier than they ever were before. Some women, like some men, go to the university in order to take up teaching or another profession that their attainments will render honorable. But some women, like some men, seek a liberal education for its own sake, and for its usefulness to others, rather than its gainfulness to themselves; and a new need of the help that they can give has grown up with their new power to give it.
The College for Working Women in Fitzroy street, London, was founded in 1874 in memory of the Rev. Frederick Denison Maurice, originator of Queen’s College, Harley street, the earliest of all women’s colleges which now play so large a part in our intellectual life. It seeks to provide women in business and in'domcstic service with three things—teaching, amusement, and opportunity of friendly intercourse. When it began three-fourths of the two hundred women on its books were learning to read, write and spell in elementary classes. Now, thanks to the progress of popular education, there is but one elementary class with twenty pupils, though the members are between three and four Hundred in number. The council seeks a teacher for any subject desired by not less than six students. Some subjects, such as French, attract from their usefulness for daily work; others, as in the case of a girl who lately took up Greek, because of their remoteness from the daily toil. There is a Bible class on Sundays, and lectures on first aid and sick nursing have been given in connection with St. John’s Ambulance Association. The classes are supplemented by a library of some two thousand volumes, all gifts. Members who have worked for four terms in a class may use the college as a club only, and the social side of its work grows more important as time goes on. Take, for instance, the Holiday Guild inaugurated by Lady Stranford. The four Saturday evenings in the month are devoted to a dance exclusively for students, presided over by young ladies; an ambulance practice; a work- ( 42 )