Act III, Paper on Cleopatra and Her Influence. Other plays are studied
in the same way.
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A Georgia club gave the first half of the year to the study of Shakespeare's women, and the latter half to this program on American Painters: The Early Painters, to 1865; Whistler and LaFarge; Landscape and Marines; Figures; Miniature Painters; American Illustrators; Stained Glass Designers. A noticeable feature of the year book is the printing at the back of an excellent bibliography, giving a list of all the books needed in the work.
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From Ohio comes a program on Welfare Study and Vocations for Trained Women; The Boy Problem; The Girl Problem; Local Civics; Foods; Women in Business (three meetings); Women in Arts and Professions (three meetings), and Handicraft (three meetings).
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An Alabama club has a year book on Spain of more than usual attractiveness. Each topic is unusually well developed: The Land of Spain; The Dawn of History in Spain; The Moors; The Age of Adventure; Kings; Spain in Its Glory; The Church; Cities; Social Life; Industries and Occupations; Spanish Women; Art and Literature; Spain To-day.
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A New York club has this study in Conservation: Water Power, the History of Its Development; State Laws; Reclamation of Arid Lands; Government Dams; The Laws of Water Rights; Our Fisheries; Our Forests; Forestry Service; Our Mineral Wealth; Conditions in Mining Districts; Laws of Mining; Conservation of Human Energy; Labor Laws; Protection of Workers; Compensation; Abandoned Farms; Scientific Farming; Life Saving Service; Government Lands; Homestead Claims.
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A delightful year book has the title "Studies in English History," with this program: Life Among the Early Saxons; Alfred the Great; The Norman Conquest and Its Influences; Edward the Third and Chivalry; Chaucer and His Tales; The Wars of the Roses; Henry the Eighth and the Reformation; The Glory of Elizabeth's Reign; Puritans and Cavaliers; Oliver Cromwell and His Times; The Romance of the Stuarts; William of Orange, Queen Anne, and the Literature of the Times; Art of Reynolds and Gainsborough; The Romantic Movement in Literature; The Reform Bill of 1832 and the Rise of Democracy; The Age of Victoria; Life and Society; English Essayists and Novelists.
The charm of this study lay not only in the subjects given, but in the readings which illuminated each monthly program, chosen from the best literature bearing on the general subject.
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A teachers' club has a program with no definite title, but with a certain geographical and historic value, and at the same time deals with subjects in which the members take a professional interest. Each meeting begins with a roll call answered sometimes by description of unique customs in different countries, and sometimes by anecdotes of famous people, and often by epigrams, or selections from poems of the season. Some of the subjects studied are: Changing China; The Possibilities of Labrador; Persia; The Passing of Korea; Tripoli the Mysterious; Abyssinia of To-day, and The Balkan States. The topics of special interest to the teacher: The Montessori Method; The Binet Tests for the Feeble-Minded; The Status of the Teacher; Systematic Study in the Elementary Schools; The Teaching of Arithmetic.
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One excellent program sent by an Ohio club is on a unique plan. There are seventeen members, and to each was given one current topic, on which she reported each month. Municipal Affairs, Magazines, Our State, Literature, Hygienics, Suffrage, Art, Domestic Science, Politics, Foreign News, Science, Agriculture, Education, Religion and Philanthropy, the Drama, and Famous Men were those selected. The year's program was wholly upon social and economic questions: The Dawning of Economic Consciousness; Economics in Relation to Citizenship; New Methods in Public Schools; Organized Charities; Cost of Living in Relation to Criminology; Prison Reform; The Tramp Question; United States Courts; History of Money; Panics; Municipal Ownership. There were several papers under each of these heads, and the whole seems most practical and interesting.
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In contrast with this well-constructed program comes one from an Illinois club which shows a certain confusion. There are committees on Parliamentary Law, Domestic Science, Dramatic Art, Travel, Music and Physical Culture. Meetings are held weekly and, among others, these subjects have been presented: Our Local Pioneers; Mexico; Home Environment; Mother and Child; The American Colonies; Domestic Science with Demonstration; American Art; and Travel in Japan. This is by far too varied a program, and if only one main subject had been taken, say The American Colonies, members of the club would have found at the end of the year that they had gained more than they possibly could have from the casual treatment of so many.
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A New York State club offers this unusual Musical Program. (The study meetings are illustrated by musical numbers, and between such meetings are others on the latest events in the musical world. A large chorus is also sustained by the club, which gives concerts at intervals.)
_American Music_. Our Favorites; Folk Songs and Indian Music; Women Musicians; Nevins and MacDowell; Operas; Ballads.
_Foreign Music_. German and Austrian Music; Great Britain's Music; Russian Music; Polish and Hungarian Music; Italian Music; French Music; Comparison of Foreign and American Music.
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An Ohio club has an unusually good set of Current Topics, for study in connection with a year's program on Nature:
Women's Clubs; Inventions; Education; War; Music and Musicians; Famous Personalities; Our Cabinet; France; Commerce; Agriculture; The Religious World; Our Foreign Affairs; Germany; Mexico; South America; China; Canada; Immigration; Philanthropy; Municipal Affairs; Art and Artists; Panama Exposition; Aviation; Panama Canal; Russia; Turkey and Italy; Scientific News; British Affairs; Current Literature.
One of these topics is taken up at the close of the study program at each meeting.
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A club in Pennsylvania has this somewhat unusual program:
_The American Government_.
_Colonial Times_. Reading, Colonial Heroes.
_Territory Gained by the Revolution_. Reading, "Paul Revere's Ride."
_The Constitution_. Reading, The Amendments.
_The Louisiana Purchase and the Acquisition of Florida_. Reading, The Department of Agriculture.
_The Monroe Doctrine_. Reading, The Pan-American Union.
_The Annexation of Texas; the Mexican Cession_. Reading, The Weather Bureau.
_Settlement of the Oregon Boundary; The Gladsden Purchase_. Reading, The Post Office Department.
_The Alaska Purchase: Alaska of To-day_. Reading, from Beach's Silver Horde.
_Hawaii_. Reading, The Smithsonian Institution.
_Porto Rico_. Reading, The Patent Office.
_Cuba_. Reading, The Interstate Commerce Commission.
_The Philippines_. Reading, Our Insular Possessions.
_The Panama Canal_. Reading, The Public Health.
_Expansion_. Reading, The White Man's Burden.
_The Executive Department_. Reading, The State Department.
_The Judicial Department_. Reading, The Civil Service Department.
_The Legislative Department_. Reading, Library of Congress.
_The United States Army_. Reading, The Treasury Department.
_The United States Navy_. Reading, The National Capital.
_Discussion_: Woman Suffrage.
PLEDGE OF TENNESSEE FEDERATION OF WOMEN'S CLUBS
"_WE PLEDGE OURSELVES_ to use our united strength to make better homes, better schools, better surroundings, better scholarship, and better lives; to work together for civic health and civic righteousness; to preserve our heritage--the forests, and the natural beauties of the land; to procure for our children an education which fits them for life--the training of the hand and the heart as well as the head; to protect the children not our own, who are deprived of the birthright of natural childhood; to obtain right conditions and proper safeguards for the women who toil."