CHAPTER XX

PROGRAMS FROM CLUBS

I

A Virginia club has studied this group of painters:

_Italian Artists_: Raphael, Titian, Correggio.

_Flemish Artists_: Van Eyck, Rubens, Van Dyck.

_Dutch Artists_: Frans Hals, Rembrandt, Ruysdael.

_Spanish Artists_: Velasquez, Murillo, Fortuny.

_German Artists_: Duerer, Holbein, Hoffman.

_French Artists_: Rosa Bonheur, Corot, Millet.

_English and American Artists_: Sir Joshua Reynolds, Millais, Sargent.

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The Girls' Club of Upper Montclair, New Jersey, was started several years ago as a department of the Woman's Club. Its membership includes girls in the grade below the high school and the girls who have left school and have not gone to college or into business. The attendance has grown so that one winter there was only one meeting when the number did not reach a hundred.

The meetings are held every Monday afternoon at three-thirty and some well-known speaker gives a short talk. Sometimes a musical is given. After the lecture there is dancing for a half hour and light refreshments are served by the girls.

The club has two unique features: first, it has no officers, but is managed by a committee of five ladies, all mothers of high school students. The girls are willing to help at all times, but those who know girls realize that most clubs are "officered" to death. Another unique feature is that there are no dues. There are many minor expenses, such as printing and traveling expenses of the guests, and the first three years the Woman's Club met these, but later the Girls' Club became self-supporting. One afternoon entertainment was given for the children and one evening entertainment for the "grown-ups," making enough to pay all the yearly expenses and present the Woman's Club twenty-five dollars as a gift for their building fund.

The club now has started a prize competition in bread-, cake- and dressmaking, offering a first prize of five dollars and a second prize of two dollars and fifty cents.

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A club that is doing practical work is following this varied program:

_Roll call_: Kitchen appliances and conveniences.

_Paper_: Household accounts. Are they essential?

_Paper_: System in household work, and economy of time.

_Demonstration_: Sandwiches and canapes.

_Roll call_: Helpful suggestions for housework.

_Paper_: Fireless cookers and their usefulness.

_Demonstration_: The fireless cooker.

_Roll call_: Waste; what is it?

_Paper_: The household waste.

_Paper_: Fuel and fuel economy.

_Demonstration_: Paper-bag cookery.

_Roll call_: Emergency luncheon menus.

_Paper_: Modern problems in the home. The servant problem.

_Paper_: The seamstress problem.

_Paper_: The nurse, or the hospital?

_Paper_: The guest.

_Demonstration_: How to shape croquettes and seal molds.

_Roll call_: Supper ideas.

_Paper_: A balanced dietary.

_Paper_: Suitable combinations of foods.

_Paper_: Food values.

_Demonstration_: Supper dishes.

_Roll call_: Ways of serving fruit.

_Paper_: Soups and soup-making.

_Paper_: Planning the menu for a formal luncheon.

_Demonstration_: Laying the luncheon table.

_Roll call_: A chafing-dish menu.

_Paper_: Planning the meals so as to reduce cost.

_Paper_: The chafing dish; is it practical?

_Demonstration_: A chafing-dish luncheon.

_Roll call_: Where shall we market?

_Paper_: Marketing and the cheaper cuts of meat.

_Paper_: The old market and the new.

_Discussion_: Is it more economical to buy bread or make it, for a small family?

_Demonstration_: A luncheon costing twenty cents per capita.

_Roll call_: Breakfast dishes.

_Paper_: The adjustment of home duties to social requirements.

_Discussion_: Fats; lard, butter, butterine, etc.

_Demonstration_: Cakes made with different shortenings.

_Roll call_: How shall we replenish the preserve closet in winter?

_Paper_: Sweeping made easy.

_Paper_: Labor-saving devices.

_Demonstration_: New labor-saving devices.

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A teachers' club in the West has an excellent travel and study program based upon books of current interest.

_Roll call_: Current Events. _Paper_: "Through the Heart of Patagonia."

_Roll call_: Unique Customs of Countries. _Paper_: "Changing China."

_Roll call_: Quotations from Doctor Grenfell. _Paper_: "The Possibilities of Labrador."

_Roll call_: Persian Epigrams. _Paper_: "Modern Persia."

_Roll call_: Anecdotes of Famous People. _Paper_: "The Passing of Korea."

_Roll call_: Conundrums. _Paper_: "Tripoli the Mysterious."

_Roll Call_: Selections from Spring Poems. _Paper_: "Turkey and the Turks."

_Roll call_: Epigrams. _Paper_: "The Balkan States."

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One of the most interesting clubs in New England has a membership of farmers' wives and daughters, scattered around for ten miles. It has astonishingly clever programs, prepared with few library helps. Each program is clearly written on a small folder, adorned with a Perry picture bearing on the subject of the day. One program was:

_Our Friend the Horse_. Music; Current Events; paper, "Horses, Past and Present"; reading, "The Council of Horse," by Gay; reading, "The Blood Horse," by Barry Cornwall; reading, "The Leap of Roushan Beg," by Longfellow; paper, "Some of the Horses in Bookland"; reading, "How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix," by Browning.

Another meeting, a social one, had for its subject:

_Tea_. Paper, "Tea Culture"; "Tea in literature"; reading, "The Boston Tea Party," by Holmes; reading from "Cranford," The Tea Party; toasts, presented by members, drunk in tea.

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A program for the year on Domestic Science begins each month with a roll call, answered by Helpful Hints. Here is one meeting:

_Roll call_: Helpful Hints on Vegetables and Soups.

_Paper_: Furnishing a Dining-room.

_Paper_: Furnishing a Bedroom.

Discussion of certain recipes (read aloud).

Practical demonstration.

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Another meeting was even more interesting:

_Roll call_: Helpful Hints for the Kitchen.

_Paper_: The Evolution of the Modern House.

_Paper_: The Woman Who Cleaned Atlanta.

Notes on Meats and Deep-fat Frying, by members.

Discussion: Made-over Dishes.

Practical demonstration.

_Discussion_: Use of butter substitutes.

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A charming yearbook has come from Flatbush, Long Island:

_The Ocean_. Importance of the Ocean; Life in the Deep; Sea Animals; Whales and Whaling; Turtles and Tortoise Shell; Sharks, Sword Fish, Sea Serpents; Modes of Fishing in Various Countries; The Sponge; Pearls and Pearl Diving; Sea Gardens, Sea Weeds and Mosses; Shells; Superstitions and Folklore; Coral; Birds of the Sea; Phenomena of the Ocean; Influence of the Sea on Poetry and Music; Marine Painting; Deep Sea Explorations; Evolution of Sea Craft; Famous Navigators; Pirates; History of the Battleship; Naval Heroes; Polar Explorations; The Life Saving Service; Light-houses and Beacons; Roll Call, answered by Fish Stories.

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A new idea from Tacoma, Washington, is a Query Club. The members write on slips of paper the questions they wish answered and the president gives the slips to a committee of three to prepare the answers for the next meeting of the club.

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A club in the West doing practical work reports:

It has the promise of a city market.

It has made a study of the state pure-food laws.

It has personally inspected dairies and ice cream factories, and studied the state laws of weights and measures, and had lectures on them.

It has had a weights and measures exhibition at the state fair, and is working on a new weights and measures law.

It has written to the Secretary of Agriculture for valuable bulletins on household economics, to be distributed among the women of the state.

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A club in Illinois which has addresses before it made by "ministers, doctors and school superintendents," as well as papers by members, has studied these topics:

Pure Food; Juvenile Courts; Industrial Homes; The School as a Home; The Home as a School-Maker; Books by Age and Temperament; The Psychology of Success and Failure; Environments: natural, civic, esthetic and ethical; The Psychology of Occupation and Dress; Playgrounds, Games and Systematic Recreations; Woman's Place in Civic Improvement; The Conservation of Health; and, What the People Have a Right to Expect of the High School. Other clubs will find these may easily be expanded into many interesting sub-topics, and many of them may be used as suggestions for practical work in the home town or city of the club.

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A Kentucky woman's club, meeting fortnightly all the year round, has for its current subject Rome and Italy. The meetings open with a roll call, followed by from two to four papers, sometimes varied with readings, music and discussions. For the responses at the roll call such themes are suggested as: Something about Italy; An ancient Roman and something about him; Quotations from Shakespeare's "Coriolanus"; Something About statuary you have seen; Quotations from Marcus Aurelius; Quotations from or about Petrarch; Quotations from "Romola."

The themes for papers are; Italy in Roman Times; Legends; The Eternal City; The Romans; The Republic; Early Literature; Early Art; Michelangelo; Italian Opera; Statesmen; Master Minds; Philosophy; Naples; Growth of Ecclesiastical Power; Dante; Humanism; Italian Art; Italian Musicians; The Renaissance; 1492 and Its Triumph; A Battlefield for Aliens (modern Italy, 1530-1796); Patriots; Sicily; Modern Romans. One meeting is given to an annual reception.

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A club of three hundred members in the East is divided into standing committees, each member being on as many as she chooses. They are: Literature, music and drama, art, science, sociology, home and social relations, education, and hospitality.

One year this program was presented:

_Education_. Address: The function of story-telling in modern education, with illustrative stories.

_Music and Drama_. Address by an actor-manager: Behind the scenes; Music.

_Art_. Address: Japanese arrangement of flowers; Music.

_Home and Social Relations_. Society; Early colonial life; Southern society; Intellectual society; Society to-day (four papers).

_Sociology_. Two addresses: The Probation Court, and, the Children's Court, both by officers.

_Literature_. Address: Lincoln and the people; Music.

_Science_. Address with lantern slides: The wild birds and how to attract them.

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A club in Pennsylvania prefaces its year book with these ten commandments:

1. Thou shalt have no other clubs before this one.

2. Thou shalt not worship any false thing.

3. Remember thy club engagement.

4. Honor thy club sisters.

5. Thou shalt not murder the King's English.

6. Thou shalt not covet office.

7. Thou shalt be prepared for roll call.

8. Thou shalt not at the eleventh hour begin to hunt material for thy paper.

9. Thou shalt not speak in meeting when thy sister has the floor.

10. Thou shalt diligently keep these commandments so that thy club days be lengthened, and thy fame spread unto the uttermost parts of clubdom.