VOL 12 NO 29-'
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: OBSERVATIONS.
Club women are earnestly discussing
the expediency of the delegates to the
State federation paying their own board,
fnd thus leaving the dead head class
and becoming a respected and self re
specting convention. Unless some such
arrangement is made, the annual gath
ering will be eo burdensome to the people
of the city where it is held that it will
be difficult to secure a meeting place.
En the state and district conventions
of religious bodies are beginning to ap
preciate the poor economics of quarter
ing delegates in private families. In all
cases the body which a delegate repre
sents ehould pay the expenses of that
delegate. If the association which sends
the individual to represent it is not wili
ng to pay the expenses of representation
oy ehould an already over-workeJ
house keeper contribute room and board
for the purpose? It is pauperizing the
dubs, relieving them of a function which
Jtay can perform without burdening the
dividual, and at the same time impos
,DK it upon a woman only interested in a
general way in the delegates of any par
ticular club. According to the year
k. Beatrice has only one club, "the
woman's club." It will be obliged, if
8 Agates are entertained at the
bomes of members, either to ask non
dab members to assist them, or to pay
weir board at the hotel. The impro
Pnty of either course is apparent with
out discussion. There are at present 159
"lbs in the federation. It has been
customary to "entertain" all who come,
vitors and delegates alike. The few
days of meeting have been an inspira
tion to everyone able ti listen or take
part in the exercise. But these have
not included the natives who have been
kept at home peeling potatoes, making
beds, cleaning lamps and helping in var.
ious ways to make th ir stranger guests
comfortable. I have never heard a hos
tess complain. Women are in the habit
of accepting tradition as law. Never
theless the entertainment of delegates,
unless entirely voluntary, is a survival of
desert days, when there were no inns
and when every nomad dared not re
fuse a hospitality which he would be
apt to require himself. How long would
the State Teacher's association last if
the householders in the city of the ses
sion were compelled to "entertain," (the
word has a special significance from this
very custom), the members? The viciou8
custom will certainly limit the useful
ness, if it do not destroy, the annual
meetings of the State Federation. Tue
Courier invites correspondence on this
subject, particularly from those who
have anything to urge on the side of the
old plan. Mrs. MeKillip's vigorous state
ment of her objection to the plan now in
use was printed in last week's Courier.
So far the discussion has been one-sided.
If there is any reason, eicept that of
custom, why a woman of one club should
entertain two women from another club
whom she does not knoar, the readers of
Thf Courier want to know it. There
are women whom we all know, who be
long to so many religious literary, mu
nicipal, temperance, musical and social
associations, that they have acquired an
especial and specific education, viz: how
to get elected to any desired office. Al
though fewer of this genus appear in
the State Federation of Women's Clubs
than in the older temperance and suf
fragist conventions, and so far as my ob
servation goes, no one of this kind has
ever held any office except that of dele
gate, she is still present in a small mi
nority at the State Federation. The
club which sends her ha9 the advantage
of her knowledge of intrigue and of the
science of "working" a convention and
that club should pay her expenses. Al
though the knowledge and practice of
this ECience is not inconsistent with an
honorable and wommly character, it is
disagreeable to the orJinary club mem
ber because it savors of professionalism,
and because when t! e Went is allowed
to expand, the club is apt to become a
machine or rjither a tool. In spite, how
ever, of the newspapers, club women are
the most domestic, as well as the most
intelligent women there are and manip
ulators of the kind described, are not
always successful, at least in Lincoln,
though according to '-The Woman's
Weekly they are firmly established in
Omaha. The clubs of the state, through
their officers, have expressed their desire
to study psychology in order that the
matrons who are members of them may-
make fewer mistakes in training the
little souls who belong to them. They are
studying way9 and means to make the
cities they live in cleaner and health
ier places to live in. In this work there
is first a desire to perform intelligently
the duties nearest at hand and secondly
a desire to spend themselves for their
country. Associations of such enlight
ened womanhood have small opportuni
ties for the selfishly ambitious and the
annual club reports show only charitable
and intellectual endeavor. Hut an oc
cas:onal electon of officers discovers the
political intriguante often in the process
of being suppressed. And although the
professional delegate has little chance
among the keen wits in the Nebraska
women's club she occasionally succeeds
and is "entertained" jtar necessite by an
innocent, hospitable, imposed upon,
little club women who bears the burdens
which a club in a distant town
reaps the benefits of, from a
representative gifted with a
knowledge of affairs. Before the meet
ing in October if the officers of the
State federation should see fit to rec
comend that each club pay the expenses
of its representatives, the women of
Beatrice would have an opportunity to
enjoy the exercises at Beatrice. From
four hundred to six hundred women can
not be "entertained" by the members o
one club without hardship to themselves
and they should not be asked to do it.
The editor of this paper in a recent
comparative estimate of the amount of
composition in The Woman's Weekly,
and the The Courier, overstated the ex
cess in the latter paper. Through the
winter months the average amount of
composition in The Courier, not count
ing advertisements or paid notices or
any kind, was above 70,000 ems. TnE
Courier of last week contained 68,000
ems. The Woman's Weekly of July
10th. contains 10,500 ems exclusive of
advertising or paid notices. The week
before. The Weekly contained 29,110 ems
The Courier, without going over the
files carefully and excluding extra
editions of both papers, contains three
times as much composition as The Wo
man's Weekly.
The election of a man to the principal
ship of the high school who has not had
university training is a fatal and short
sighted selection. The boys and girls
who are graduated from the high school
need to be stimulated to further intel
lectual effort. A principal of the high
school who3e accomplishments consist
only of a skill in mental arithmetrict,
grammar, geography, reading, writing
and spelling, will in a short time make
the Lincoln high school a by-word. A
wide scholarship, a culture acquired not
in a normal school nor in any technical
school nor in any one university should
be the possession of the high school
principal. Without internal harmony pro
gress is impossible. The teachers who
know more than the principal will despise
him and at the end of the year another
change will be necessary. If the school
board wete out of politics the blection of
such a man as the new principal would
be impossible. With all thepredjudicea
of ignorance, against the modern labora
tory method of teaching literature and
history, as well as science the
nossibilities for blocking the
better trainod efforts of his
subordinates are endlees. The
Courier predicts that in a year, either
a new teaching force at the high school
will have to be secured or a new princi
pa It is impossible to attain the high
standing established by other high
schools in the state and out of it, with
an annual or biennial change of princi
pals. The Lincoln high school, on ac
count of its contiguity to the university
and other surrounding colleges, should
already have established a precedent of
exacting scholarship. But mainly
through the efforts of the board to Be
sure a cheap principal, the high school
is still without a reputation. The school
has had many good principals, but not
one who has stayed long enough to make
his administration a time to be quoted
or referred to as a time of accomplish
ment and growth. I think the fault lies
with the personelle of the school board,
the members of which areselected.not for
their knowledge of educational matters
but because it is a certain man's turn
for recognition for some effective ward
work in the last election. There are
some notable exceptions, as in the case
of Judge Field, who protested against
the Eelection of the new principal. To
nominate members of the school board
for such reasons injures directly the
youth of the place, but that is the
regime we live under. In New York there
are saloon keepers on the board of educa
tion. There is no reason in our way of
doing things, why such men should not
be on the board here. The same prin
ciple underlies nominations but we do
not carry it quite so far We will in
time, beciuse we are approaching that
point much more rapidly than New York
city did.
The Courier has been allowed to
ma e the-e few excerpts from Mrs. H.
H. Wilson's thesis on "Tendencies of
Mo 'ern Fiction, which she delivered
before the Alumni of the state
university. The thesis is a clear pre.
sentation of the theories of the differ
ent schools of Realism, Natural
ism, Romanticism, Idealism and
Illusionistn, together with a history of
the growth of English fiction, from the
germ in Beowulf to the flower or Field
ing and the fruitage of the nineteenth
century. From being the most deepued
form of literary expression, the novel
has become the beat and most trust