beyond the power of words to express.

Women have been God's own ministers everywhere and at all times. In
varied ways they have worked for others until the name of woman stands
for the spirit of self-sacrifice. Now He bids them bind their sheaves
and show a new and more glorious womanhood; a new unit--the completed
type of the mother-woman, working with all as well as for all.




The Advantages of a General Federation of Women's Clubs[1]

_Address by Mrs. Croly to the First Meeting of the First Federation of
Women's Clubs, Held in Brooklyn, N.Y., April 23, 1890_


The growth of the woman's club is one of the marvels of the last
twenty-five years, so fruitful in the development of mental and
material resources. What it was destined to become was, perhaps, far
from the minds of those who aided its inception, but all the
possibilities of the future lay in the germ that was thus planted, for
it was formed by the marriage of two great elements--freedom and
unity.

[Footnote 1: _The Cycle._]

The club has been called the "school of the middle-aged woman." It is
so in a very broad sense. It begins by gratifying her desire for
fellowship, her thirst for knowledge; by training her in business and