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Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" by Various
page 86 of 178 (48%)
the words in which John Addington Symonds defines Renaissance. "This,"
he remarks, "is not explained by this or that characteristic, but as
an effort for which at length the time has come." It means the
attainment of the conscious freedom of the woman spirit, and has been
manifested first most strongly and most widely in this country,
because here that spirit has attained the largest measure of freedom.

The woman's club was not an echo; it was not the mere banding together
for a social and economic purpose, like the clubs of men. It became
at once, without deliberate intention or concerted action, a
light-giving and seed-sowing centre of purely altruistic and
democratic activity. It had no leaders. It brought together qualities
rather than personages; and by a representation of all interests,
moral, intellectual, and social, a natural and equal division of work
and opportunity, created an ideal basis of organization, where every
one has an equal right to whatever comes to the common centre; where
the centre itself becomes a radiating medium for the diffusion of the
best of that which is brought to it, and where, all being freely
given, no material considerations enter.

This is no ideal or imaginary picture. It is the simplest prose of
every woman's club and every clubwoman's experience during the past
thirty years.

It has been in every sense an awakening to the full glory and meaning
of life. It is also a very narrow and self-absorbed mind that sees in
these openings only opportunities for its own pleasure, or chances for
its own advancement on its own narrow and exclusive lines. The lesson
of the hour is help for those that need it, in the shape in which they
need it, and kinship with all and everything that exists on the face
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