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About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 17, 1896)
if n THE COURIER. SIGNIFIGANT PHASES OF THE CbUB MOVEMENT. Mbs. H. M. Sbumak. THE VERY LATEST STYLES IN $3.00 SHOES OBSSSSMSSaSSnS S SSBgsaSSC II !! SSBSSBSSBSBSaaaaSS IB f i in ! ' Every mother in this largo audience of rcprepentative Nebraska women is ware that a namo appropriately worn by a child in infancy may prove a do cided misnomer in its later years. The Pearls acd Lillies frequently become brunettes of the most striking type, the Juliets are fairer than they promised, the Daniel Websters and Henry Ward Beechers may grow up sadly deficient in the mental calibre that went to make up the greatness of these men while the plain Johns, Toms and Freds are the genuises of the family, and upon the Williams may sometime rest the united hopes of a nation. So with the chil dren of our thought; they grow out and away from iur early conceptions of them in a manner alike surprising and quite beyond our power to hinder, we begin by forming them, to Add at length they hare formed us. Therefore had I been requested to name this paper after its completion in stead of three months before thought hai conceived an idea upon the subject I would not have called it "Some signifi cant phases of the Club Movement for all phases have been in turn significant. But rather. The Social Rationale of the Club movement for it is when we view the movement as a whole that we see its true relation to woman's development and her share in the worlds progress. It is in this way that the full signifi cance to the present age is felt. For the popular idea of the club is as popular ideas usually are more or less erroneous. It is founded on a super ficial present day glance confirmed by a few equally superficial and hastily formed conclusions the result of a course of reasoning which evidently runs some, thing like this: The old woman was womanly. The old woman did not go to clubs; the new woman goes to clubs, therefore the new womac is not wo manly. I have not ascertained directly from the oracles of popular opinion that this k their method; but we all know in some way the club k made respons ible for that most reprehensible of creatures, the new woman, who is according to the funny papers the total of all things unwomanly a creation transformed by soma mysterious influ ence, exerted by the club into the product of all the vices of both sexes with none of their virtues. Women themselves are in some de gree responsible for this prevalent opin ion among the uninitiated for there is a natural tendency in meetings of this nature to underscore the points of dif ference between women then and now, that all may be mutually encouraged at the distance passed. The club as we all know has been ever active in advancing women along all lines of domestic, social and intellectual effort It is sometimes mistakenly regarded as a dividing line between the old and the new. But the ciub k not a line of division but one continuation, a long leap, to be sure, a mighty 6tride upward and on ward, but along the same path which woman's feet have trod from the begin ning of human time, when her way was first marked out, and from which she had never swerved. It is along this backward track I ask you to accompany me, for the first glance at the real sig nificance of a movement is always a glance backward, and the first step along the path of inquiry is one of re trogression. Movements, as it has been wisely said, are economic, outward, me chanical. They do not express the step. Call up if you will the Woman's clubs whatever their name orobjrct.bid the splendid pageant of the Federated Union of Woman's clubu to appear and all the other various organizations that bavo been formed by women since the world began, and see them paai in re view before your vision. Without stop ping to observe the personelle of any, let them slip through the memory as a string of shining pearls through tho fingers, and you will find the eamo motif like a silken thread running through them all. The saving of the higher self, the ultimate betterment of the race. I care not how small the com pany, how poorly equipped with appli ances, how isolated, or under what dis advantage of social opportunity and enlightenment they may labor, au or ganized band of women means an effort at truer living, intellectually and soci ally. .A woman is a vital protest against war, bloodshed, drunkenness, or any of the vices that tend to destroy man and dkintigrate society, or as Dr. Peabody expresses it: These movements i9 the moral lite of woman trying to express itself through the mechanism of the world. Certainly, some one says, women have done that always, its a natural in stinct. Always? That is what makes ir significant Instinct! Instinct! Yes that is the genius of ages of accumu luted experience stored in great reser voirs by the women of the past, (for in the economy of natnre wom en were taught to waste nothing) out of which you an J I draw freely and even prodigally without a thought as to the source of supply. A long step back ward reveals the source deep in the fastness of woman's nature, hid from the beginning in the secret places of her being, conserved through ages of ignorant darkness, stirred with action when the deep waters of maternity were stirred, quickening into ambition by the operation of the first lw of na ture, developing strength, patience, pas sivity, courage, under the heroic train ing of a primitive existence. Herbert Spencer divides the life his tory of civilization into two periods: militancy and industrialism; first came the period of militancy, of savagery and barbarism, of wavering between man and man. between man and nature. After that succeeded the period of in dustrialism when people settled down to the great occupations that dignify the most advanced nations. A later writer, Prof. Mason, very cleverly asks whether these two words did not mark a sexual division, whether instead of an age wo should not rather say, a sex of militancy and a sex of industrialism. It would seem a more correct expression as in -vestigations have shown that fire mak ing was a dovisio a of domestic life, and it was a division based upon sex. (I may add it is a subject upon which the -texes are still divided.) However, in the early days the woman built the fire and stayed by it to keep it alive whi'e the man went to the field, to the forest for game, and the world's militancy and industrialism began then and there. Ever 6inceman has been cunning in de vising means of killing beast and his fellow man. He has been the inventor of every murderous engine. The woman at the fireside became the burden bearer, the basket weaver, potter, agriculturist, domesticator of animals in a word, the inventor of all the peaceful arts of life. Man in contact with the animal world, Nice Fine Vici Kid, Patent Calf or Kid Tips. Light, Flexible or Good, Heavy, Cork Filled Soles. derSone2liigwaj THEFOorFnoM -C-STQHty. tiSJ-'Datfis 1213 O STREET. FRANK C. ZEHKUNO Manager. One Week Beginning Monday.Oct. 19 i The ill I In Repertoire, Presenting Royalty Plays Only at Popular Prices, 10 - 20 - AND 30 - CENTS "On Monday night two ladies. or one'gen tlcmaa and lady, admitted on one 30-cent ticket if purchased before 6 o'clock." Each Play is presented with the Owners. permission of the PHoes-($l,00. 75o, 50o, 22 &g Seats now on sale at Box Office. THE PALACE BEAUTIFUL AXalceai aSpeololtyof ; Hair Fessiui gbampooing JyJankuFing And all Kinds olMaaaaice, A Full Line of Hair Goods and Cosmetics. 131 1. 13TH. 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