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OVER and over again has it been proved that real, soul-born art depends upon no favors and accepts no defeat from circumstances.

When Anne Whitney, the noted Boston sculptor, began her career there were no teachers, no interest in sculpture which represented anything later than some heathen god or storied nymph, no intelligent criticism of the little sculpture which was produced. It was the foresight and insight of genius which showed the young woman visions of something which might be closer and dearer to the present life. "I hold" she wrote in a letter to a friend, "that art, at its best, is only an expression of the life of the people--in infinite adaption--and that its scope is correspondingly broad and varied. I hate the pedantry of prescriptions. Whoever prescribes limits to this expression, and labels his articles, 'Art for art's sake only,' or, 'Beauty is the sole end of art,' or, 'No art without a moral purpose,' I hold to be a weak brother, deserving commiseration."

Miss Whitney began her modeling by using snow, wet sand, clay or any malleable substance, and without any definite purpose in mind save the immediate expression of her mood, which often led her to indulge her love for shaping likenesses.

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One day she overturned a pot of wet earth in the greenhouse, and began to model with the damp material, which retained any shape which her deft fingers gave it. She worked for hours, returning to the task the next day with unabated zest.

From that time she recognized and accepted her vocation. That she has taken a foremost place among America's sculptors needs not to be reaffirmed. She has been declared "not merely high among female artists, but high in art itself, that knows no sex."

When, after working alone for a number of years in America, Miss Whitney went to Paris, and made known her wish to familiarize herself with the superior skill of the French artists, one of these artists said to her, "Why do you want to study with French artists? You have nothing to learn from them."

This to a woman who had never had a teacher!

"Fra Angelico painted on his knees. With all sincere workers the spiritual attitude must be the same." Thus declares Harriet Thayer Durgin, in whose studio, on Copley Square, Boston, one feels like removing his shoes, knowing that ground consecrated by high thoughts, constantly sustained, and soul endeavors continually maintained, must needs be holy ground.

In this studio are the two artist sisters, Harriet Thayer and Lyle Durgin, who have lived and wrought in a manner which may well be an inspiration and an incentive to any girl starting out in life with her brush for a weapon wherewith to carve her way.

The old refrain running like a central chord through all the variations of the most complicated musical theme, the unbroken thread of the poem about which minor fancies play, the pattern which obtains through all the intricate weavings of the many-fibred web,--this old refrain, sounding from every country and myriad tongues, "I did this or this, or performed that or that, because it claimed and held me," this old refrain is that of the Durgin sisters.

"When did we begin?" they say.

"We never consciously began. We always drew and painted. We should not have known how to keep from it."

The two were daughters of a clergyman richer in honor and intellectuality than in gold. They attended the New Hampton school, but education has come to them more through their own wide reading, observation and thoughtful deductions than by the teachings of others.

Before going abroad in 1879 they may be said never to have had any instructions in painting. They felt and painted, trusting to the inbred accuracy of their perceptions for just atmospheres and true values; and trusting wisely, for almost from the first they produced pictures which were noticed and sold.

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Harriet, the elder sister, found her most pleasing and successful accomplishment in water colors and sketches, while Lyle painted mostly in oil. While still what might be called an amateur, the latter had paintings exhibited at the Mechanics' Fair, in Boston, and after five years of study and work in Paris, her portraits were seen in the Salon of that city.

In the Rue de Verneuil, near the Luxembourg Gallery, the sisters made a little home, inexpensive, but adequate and restful, and supporting themselves by the sale of their pictures, all the while growing in grace of character and grace of touch, and into the fullness of the true life, which is the life that works toward an ideal of holiness, and has found and accepted its true work.

After some years the two returned to America and established themselves in the studio which they have ever since occupied, and which was planned especially for them.

They are not rich in money; they probably never will be; I do not think they desire to be; but theirs is the beautiful and beautifying, the uplifting and unwanting life which is its own surpassing reward.

"How did you succeed?" I asked. "Why, we just kept on. We couldn't be anything but artists, you see."

Ah! there lies the open secret. They "just kept on" and obeyed the "soul's emphasis."

"If," says Miss Harriet--and in her statements she was, I am sure, uttering also the belief of her sister--"if we read the lives of those who have left their record on the world of art, we find that they had need of considering money. They were artists because they were born with the love of art in their very natures, and kings were their patrons, and fortunes were placed at their disposal.

Our Western world is different. An artist on being asked why, with a history like ours, full of glorious subjects, our painters almost never avail themselves of its resources, while other nations have their museums, galleries and churches filled with great historical pictures, the reply was: 'We can't afford to do so--nobody wants them.' It is too true. It is not from the inability of our artists, but from a lack of public appreciation of such things, that so few great works are painted in America.

"The awakening is coming, no doubt. A love of art is inherent in humanity, and must develop itself, and if we consider the wonderful difference between the artistic conditions of to-day and those of so short a period as twenty years ago, we can comprehend the rapidity of the development.

"Truly, all may love art, but not all may be artists, and the student who is choosing his life work must consider carefully. There is a whole history behind the expression, 'a struggling artist.' It expresses a phase of humanity and a

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condition of society as well. All artists do not struggle, and the ill success implied by the expression proves nothing discreditable. Even exceptionable merit may be unrecognized by the wisest critics.

"There is always room for good artists. In affairs of the world's need the laws of supply and demand regulate each other.

"Art does more, for while widening her own influence, she increases in the heart of the world all those qualities which tend to its elevation, not only making beautiful things, but increasing the general capacity for enjoying them. She has creative force, like the Great Master,

"Who sendeth and giveth both mouth and the meat,

And blesseth us all.'"

"No one," says Miss Anna E. Klumpke, who shows as an artist a talent equal to that of her sister Dorothea in science, no one can promise success in art to any student, even when a considerable amount of talent and natural disposition is manifested. But patience, self-sacrifice and determination will make an artist of any one who feels strongly drawn toward this invisible power, who has a real love of the beautiful and an intense desire to express it.

"I would like to emphasize the value of preparatory study in the best schools in America before going to Europe. Going abroad will naturally broaden one's ideas, and especially help one feel how little one knows. But, first, the American student must realize how much he can learn here.

"What I have seen of the schools in Boston and New York impresses me very favorably; here are fine, airy rooms, good casts, good models, and the instruction is such as would please any of the French masters. Bouguereau once said to me: 'Most of the American students have very little to unlearn, and few bad habits about their work, and it takes them but a very short time to drift into the strongest current that moves to right results.'

"I may safely say that this is the opinion of several of the French artists, but this only applies to the students who have studied at the art schools of New York, Boston and Philadelphia. Before going to Europe let the aspirant have a good knowledge of drawing, composition, anatomy, perspective, and very little painting, and then his visit abroad, if it can only be a year, will be more beneficial than he can realize. While the financial side of this question is never the first one to present itself to the thought of any true artist, it is nevertheless something which must be considered in choosing one's life-work, and what his success will be it is not easy to predict. It must depend very much upon the artistic development and culture of the people who look at pictures and buy them. From what I have

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known during my experience in America, there is no lack of either artistic appreciation or liberal patronage among its people.

"As American age increases the wealth of its citizens, they are naturally awakened to the life struggles of the masses from whence they came, and feel a sincere desire to help them, but who will open the way of each to the other, and save to the world some genius, whose sensitiveness might otherwise bury him?"

Miss Nettie Johnson, of Columbus, Ohio, is a young sculptor whose name has frequently been heard of later. Miss Johnson is a farmer's daughter, brought up in the country home of her father. She graduated from the Columbus Art School, and from thence went, about four years ago, to New York to avail herself of the privileges of the Art Students' League.

One day a person who was speaking with St. Gaudens asked his opinion of Miss Johnson.

"Out of dozens of students that flock yearly to the modeling class," was the reply, "there are perhaps one or two who evidence decided ability. Miss Johnson had not been there long when she arrested my attention. Her work stood out. She gives promise."

Miss Johnson not long after this conversation took place, assisted St. Gaudens in the mechanical part of preparing the statue of General Logan and collected material for models of the saddle, the spurs, and other paraphernalia. By her work on this statue she overtaxed her always delicate strength, and was obliged to retire to her country home. Her father erected for her a rough studio, and here she labored, almost discouraged, and utterly homesick for the atmosphere from which physical limitations had debarred her. One day she received a letter from the Ohio State University offering her five hundred dollars for a bust of Dr. Edward Orton, for the library of the college. Feeling herself unequal to so important a task, she appealed for advice to her old teacher. "Of course you can do it. Go ahead," wrote St. Gaudens.

The work was begun a little over a year ago. Last June the plaster cast was complete, the artist having spent many hours at the college studying the doctor's head while he delivered his lectures. St. Gaudens pronounced the bust a strong piece of work, and commended it enthusiastically. It has now been put into marble.

"Ever since she was old enough to crawl under the kitchen table and catch the drippings from the bread pan, Nettie Johnson has modeled," says Lida Rose McCabe in the Columbus Press.

Again the central chord in the music, the unbroken chain of the poem, the staving pattern in the web, the "keeping right on!"

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It is seldom that a painter or an author--any one whose sole capital is devotion to an ideal, a soul-alliance with the work which has chosen her, and a consecrated heart, becomes even moderately wealthy. Therefore let no one dream that by entering one of these professions she will be at all likely to gain thereby aught beyond the work which, if it was born hers, will uplift and ennoble her, come nearer to satisfying her heart than any other employment could do, and if intelligently and persistently followed, afford her, in due time, an adequate livelihood.

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THE story of many a girl's achievement is but half told, when it only repeats what she has done for herself. The fully rounded recital is the one which tells what she does for others as well. And as an example of the harmonious, fully developed life of endeavor and fulfillment, it is pleasant to point to the work of Anna Adams Gordon.

She was a very fragile baby, the fourth girl born into the home of the Gordon family in Boston. Her father had hoped greatly for a son, but being a man rich in sympathy, he took her warmly to his heart and said, "Father likes his little girl just as well." She was so delicate that the most faithful of mothers carried her on a pillow much of the first year.

When she was three years old the family moved to Auburndale. Anna was now quite strong, and a most "noticing" little thing. As the family walked to their new home, they missed her at the open gateway of a fine old mansion, but the mother caught the gleam of her dress and entered, and there was the fair-haired little one kneeling beside a bed of violets, with her small arms stretched out over them, and saying in sweet, earnest tones, "I didn't know that." Her love of nature has always been so great that, with her gift of versification, I have felt that among literary surroundings she might have become a charming writer.

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Akin to this quality is her love of animals, which prepared her for a leader in our Mercy Bands. Three little brothers came to the home, and doubtless her share in bringing them up gave Anna much of that bright, attractive "way" with children that has been one of her greatest charms in our white-ribbon work.

[image: MISS ANNA ADAMS GORDON]

She went to the Newton High School, and afterward to Mt. Holyoke, where her sister Alice, after graduating with high honors, had become a teacher, and where her sister Bessie, since so warmly cherished by all of us, was also a student. But little Anna was a home-lover. She used to cry herself to sleep thinking of that happy hearth stone in Auburndale, and, after enduring the separation for a year or two, she "begged off," and lived at home, taking studies and attending lectures at Lasell Seminary, and studying music, to which she and her whole family had always been devoted. I never heard so many fine voices at family prayers as those of the father and mother and their six children (for when I came to know them the youngest and fairest had passed away).

On my going to conduct the women's meetings for Mr. Moody, in Boston, in 1877, there was no one to play the cabinet organ that was beside my desk on the platform. An earnest appeal was made, and after a painful pause and waiting, a slight figure in black with a little music roll in her hand, came shyly along the

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aisle of Berkeley Street Church, and Anna Gordon whispered, "As no one volunteers, I will do the best I can." That very day she had taken her first lesson on the organ, meaning to become mistress of that instrument. Her teacher was the famous organist, Professor J. K. Paine. But something greater had come into her life a fortnight earlier. Her brother Arthur, eighteen years of age, and nearer to her by years and temperament than any of the others, had suddenly died. This was Anna's first sorrow. She had been a Christian and church member since she was twelve years old, but a deeper current Godward now flowed through her soul. This was her first visit to Boston after her brother's death, and she had just attended Mr. Moody's noon meeting, at which the text was, "Whatsoever He saith to you, do it," and had promised in her inmost heart that by God's grace she would try to do helpful things as the opportunity offered; and behold! the very first "opportunity" was to come forward before twelve or fifteen hundred waiting women, and "start the tune."

I wish I could picture her as she looked then in her sweet youth, with eyes that were the mirror of an absolute truthfulness, no less than of the utmost kindness and goodwill; with soft, fair hair, a pretty brown complexion, and a smile full of humor and benignity. She was hardly up to medium height, and had a slight figure, with a remarkably alert bearing and quick gliding step. She had that noiseless way of getting about and doing things without one's knowing that she did them, which I have found to be a most uncommon characteristic.

For three months I led those great meetings, being obliged to have a fresh gospel talk of twenty minutes each day at noon, and I often went out into the suburbs to speak for our temperance women at night. We had a long inquiry meeting at the close of the noonday service, and yet I kept up in good condition from first to last, which I attribute largely to the fact that when I asked Anna Gordon if she could come and play for us every day, she said she would try, and I soon turned over my letters, messages, etc., into her faithful care. In prompt and accurate execution of commissions, tactful meeting of people, skillful style in correspondence, I have not known her equal. As soon as the meetings were over, she had a lecture trip ready for me extending all through New England. I remember she brought her plan to me in a little book ruled in red and black ink, showing the town, the hostess, the place of meeting, the time and place of trains, indeed, every item that one need wish. I used to say that if I should only pin Anna's directions on my back, I could go the country over in the capacity of an express package. From that day to this she has been doing these things, only they have multiplied until sometimes we say, "Let us make out the duties of the private secretary." The last time we did so, they numbered anywhere between forty and sixty distinct lines of occupation.!

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For fourteen years she was with us at Rest Cottage. As my mother grew older she resigned into Anna's hands more and more of the care, so that, although mother presided at her own table until a few weeks before she left us, Anna had the supervision of every detail of the housekeeping. Of course we had excellent "help," but the planning mind was hers. The house became a charming place as years passed by, and I was able to do more to make it the home I wanted it to be, chiefly for my mother's sake. Later, Mrs. Thorp and Mrs. Ole Bull, of Cambridge, added that beautiful room, the "Den." Lady Henry Somerset told me that nothing more complete and delicate than the housekeeping had she ever seen.

I wish I could tell of my mother's birthday, when there were twenty-five hundred invitations sent out, all but five hundred of them to women at a distance, and when well-nigh five hundred guests were entertained. Anna planned it all, besides writing one of the sweetest commemorative songs that I have ever heard. When my mother passed away, she who loved Anna so well and had said to me, "More than any one I have ever known, she reminds me of our Mary who died," what a solace and sure refuge was Anna, when my heart was overwhelmed!

She was brought up in a conservative Congregational church where it would never have occurred to anybody to ask her to speak, although her experiences in traveling through every State and Territory of the Republic were far more varied and helpful than those of any other member. Anna could not be persuaded to think that she could ever put two sentences together in anybody's hearing, but I begged her to speak at least once in my Boston meetings, and she came forward in Park Street Church and gave her testimony in the most natural and tender manner on the last day. From that time on she would "twitter a little," as I was wont to call it, in my afternoon meetings for women all about the country. Later she begged to be allowed to have children's meetings by herself. Then she began to write "Marching Songs" for those meetings; and, finally, she prepared a little book of "Questions Answered," taking all the queries about the Juvenile work that had come in our meetings and letters, and answering them in her clear, concise way. Then, with a great deal of urging from Mrs. Frances J. Barnes and me, she prepared her charming "Song Book for the Y's" and finally, under the ceaseless monition of our leaders, she gave us her "White Ribbon Hymnal," so that her books of song have gone wherever the W. C. T. U. has a group of workers the world over.

It was Anna Gordon who made the first flag of the W. C. T. U. We were "up in Connecticut" with a friend of olden-time, when I said to her one day, "Go to, now, it is a shame that we have no standard to carry at the head of the regiment in our peaceful war." "I will see that there is one at the next

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National," said Anna, and calling in the advice of our hostess, and the services of the skillful lady who could design on satin, the dear old first flag, that is now given into the custody each year of the State having most members, was manufactured, with a water lily and the motto, "For God and Home and Native Land." I doubt if we have ever had a prettier flag, in all the rich variety that has developed since.

It is now more than twenty years since Anna has stood by me in temperance work. In 1891, at our first World's W. C. T. U. Convention in Faneuil Hall, she was elected secretary of the World's W. C. T. U., Mary A. Woodbridge making the nomination. After her unanimous election there was a call for Anna to come forward. She absolutely declined, saying she "would not dream of taking new cares that would make it less likely that she should faithfully discharge those she had already assumed"--with an arch glance in my direction. Then our good women insisted on her taking the leadership of the Juvenile work. Nothing would have induced her to consent had she not felt that Mrs. Helen G. Rice would be her strong right arm.

Her first effort were to unify the work of the children in all countries, and how admirably she succeeded is shown by the "Little Cold Water Girl" fountain, that beautiful statue standing in front of Willard Hall, also in a London park, and soon to be erected in Bombay.

It would be a pleasure to write of our life in England, which went on very much as it does here, only that through the kindness of our dear Lady Henry Somerset we were fitted out with any number of stenographers besides our own, and we never invested more earnest years of effort for the W. C. T. U. than while we were at Eastnor Castle, Reigate Priory and the dear old Cottage. Anna several times addressed groups of those devoted "British women" concerning the L. T. L.

Great changes have come in these years; Anna's home is broken up, even as mine is. Her mother and her sister Bessie (who worked so long and faithfully as corresponding secretary of the W. C. T. U. of Massachusetts, but who is not strong these later years) are in a pleasant cottage at Castile, N.Y., not a stone's throw from the Sanitarium of our faithful friend and helper, Dr. Greene. When Anna lost her father, James M. Gordon, for many years treasurer of the American Board of Foreign Missions, one of the purest and most devoted spirits that ever blessed the earth, the keystone fell from the arch of a home as hallowed as a home could be. It was a dear place to me, where I have hidden away many a time to write some special address or article, and I always felt in going from West to East that I went from one home to another.

There is "history" yet to be made by Anna Gordon. She is in her happy prime, in better health than ever, and with a rich experience and ever- widening

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outlook. Best of all, she grows steadily in the sweet grace of humility and the crowning beatitude of loyalty to our Heavenly Father and that earthly brotherhood and sisterhood which are the crowning proof of the presence of Christ in personal character, and prophesy the setting up of that Heavenly Kingdom for which white-ribbon women work and pray.

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THE simple announcement in the Boston daily papers, of the death of Anna Elliot Ticknor, brought a sense of personal loss to hundreds of women all over the country. Women who had never looked into her kindly eyes, nor felt the cordial clasp of her hand, yet knew her for a genuine friend and helper, who had made life broader and more satisfying, opened new vistas where before the outlook was circumscribed and brought dwellers in isolated homes into quick, responsive touch with all that was best in the world of action and endeavor, in the wide realms of literature, art and science.

Without doubt many of the readers know something of Miss Ticknor's work, some of them may have come under its influence, yet probably few know how widely diffused that influence was, nor how many women there are in America who owe to her a sweet debt of gratitude. She was the founder of the society to encourage home study, a society which has done most efficient work and has reached most admirable results. It would be more correct to say that she was the founder of the American society, for the idea was an English one which Miss Ticknor adopted, altering the methods so completely, however, that it might almost be claimed that she was really the originator of the plan. She has also carried it to a much higher plane and a greater degree of usefulness than the English society has attained.

Miss Ticknor was the daughter of the eminent diplomatist and literateur, Mr. George Ticknor, the author of "The History of Spanish Literature," a work that has been most valuable to students, and is ranked among the American Classics. Mr. Ticknor was the foremost man of letters of his time, his reputation being

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international. He was more widely known in Europe than any other citizen of New England, certainly if not of the country. The Ticknors owned and occupied a stately and elegant mansion on the very crest of Beacon Hill, diagonally opposite the State House, and here they dispensed the most courtly hospitality, entertaining most royally every foreigner of distinction who visited the country, and every noted American of their time. Indeed, the hospitality of the Ticknor mansion was famous, in the days which just preceded the Civil War, and one can hardly take up a diary or letter of that time without finding some mention of a gathering of noted folk under its roof. For some years after the death of Mr. Ticknor his wife and daughter still occupied the mansion, but its social glory had departed, as they lived very quietly, drawing about them only their most cherished friends. This was due to the enfeebled health of Mrs. Ticknor rather than any desire to shun social intercourse and destroy old traditions. At the death of her mother Miss Ticknor consented to the sale of the home, and she removed to a newer portion of the city, her residence during the later years of her life being in Marlborough street on the Back Bay.

It was in the old home, filled with the atmosphere of literature and art, and also of social distinction, that, after the death of her father Miss Ticknor first planned the work which from the smallest beginning has grown to such large proportions. The reason for the existence of the society was told in its name. It was intended to encourage home study, especially by women, and to so direct this study that it should prove of genuine benefit to the student. It was to be carried on steadily and systematically, and not allowed to degenerate into the desultory aimless mode of work that is so often the result when one attempts, with the best intention in the world, to study without guidance. Almost every woman who has been denied the early opportunity for education has sometime felt the need of the missing knowledge, and been eager to find some way to obtain it. It has been the province of this home study society to point out a way, and to assist the student to pursue it properly, and without mistake, and during the years in which it has existed, now over twenty, hundreds of women have availed themselves of the opportunities which it afforded, and enrolled themselves on its list of students.

Plans of study were arranged with as much care as would be given to the curriculum of a school or college, and the students chose the subjects they preferred. All the teaching was done by correspondence. Miss Ticknor surrounded herself with a number of men and women, all specially qualified for the line of work in which they were to engage, many of them teachers and professors, while others were finely educated persons of leisure, who were glad to place themselves and their services at her command, and these enthusiastically undertook the labor of instruction.

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A system of monthly correspondence was established, with frequent tests of progress, the object being to produce intellectual results that should be apparent at once to student and instructor, without any of the evil of competition. These tests of results were found much more satisfactory than the system of annual examinations.

Possibly as clear a way of showing what the practical work of the society has been will be to give the story of one of the years of its work. In this year, one of the latest in the society's existence, over eight hundred women entered as students. These represented thirty-four States, three territories, Canada and Hawaii. Ninety-eight of these students were teachers, thirty-three represented clubs and among the rest were women who had been shut-in invalids, whose only relation with the outside world came through the society and women who had been making the bravest struggles with adverse surroundings, fighting with closed lips, as only women do fight, and giving no sign of distress when circumstances were bearing most hardly upon them. Now and again a woman has entered as a student who imagined the work might be done superficially, but she has been speedily disillusionised and has dropped out of the list, but the number of such has been very small. On the whole, those who became students were earnest in their desire and untiring in their endeavors.

Following the correspondence came examinations and the writing of abstracts which were to test the quality of the work accomplished. These abstracts were sent from time to time, as the study of a special book or some portion of a subject was completed. The examinations were not intended to trip students up, nor to take the place of continuous work, but to show to the student herself as well as to her teacher and the society whether or not she had mastered the subject in hand. The records, when fully completed, showed the names of twenty-five students who, in different courses and under different teachers, took 100o per cent in examination, four, five, six, in some cases up to nine times.

The fee was three dollars yearly for each student, to cover the expenses of stationery, postage and necessary printing. This was merely a nominal sum, when one considered what was the outcome of the work which rested essentially on the basis of individuality, the personal relation between one woman and another in correspondence not dealing with private circumstances, but depending greatly on moral and intellectual sympathy.

Still, personal experiences would find their way into the letters, and some of them were interesting to a remarkable degree. One of the students lived in a log cabin in the extreme Northwest, six miles from any neighbor. Naturally, much of the loneliness of her isolated life crept into her letters, and as a slight alleviation of her forlorn condition her instructors gave to her their very best endeavors, often supplementing their letters with copies of magazines, reviews and interesting

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books. A student in the art course had been an invalid for years, suffering severely from heart disease. She found great solace in the society, first in studying herself, then in helping others to study. It was she who first suggested the "imaginary journeys," and she took great delight in piloting people through countries she had never visited. Lying on her sofa or on her bed, with all sorts of appliances of head-rests, arm- rests, back-rests and pillows, by which, as she said, she reduced illness to a science, she mapped out trips for stay-at-homes, and once dictated to a friend what to see when she actually went to France and Germany. Still other students have been daughters of old members, joining the society when they have been old enough to be received, having grown up in its atmosphere, and looking forward to the time when they might share its benefits.

The course of study includes history, ancient and modern, political economy, sociology, science, mathematics, home-sanitation, musical history, theory and composition, art, English, German and French literature and a special Shakespeare course. A library was established composed of several thousand volumes, covering every branch of study and including several important and valuable illustrated works on art. Most of the books were gifts from friends. These books have been lent to the students, being sent and returned by post. Very few have been lost, the entire number in twenty years being twenty-one volumes in a circulation of over twenty-five thousand. That surely speaks well for the honesty of the students and the safety of the postal service.

With the death of Miss Ticknor it was feared the society must be given up, but a few notable women who had worked with Miss Ticknor determined to carry on the work, and they formed the Anna Ticknor Library Association. They took rooms in Trinity Court, Boston, and they are already deep in work. All the teachers have been retained, and correspondence has been established with the Mycological Club of Massachusetts, the University of the State of New York, and the University of Chicago.

The chairman of the Executive Board is Miss Katherine P. Loring, Pride's Crossing, Massachusetts, and she has the welfare of "The Silent University, " as some one has happily called it, very much at heart. She will welcome students as heartily as did Miss Ticknor; and no girl in the United States, but may find the opportunity of obtaining the education she craves in this Association for Home Study. She will meet all the encouragement in the world. It rests with herself what use she will make of the opening offered her.

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AN IMPORTANT factor in the wage earning of women, especially those who work in the seclusion of their own homes, has been the opening, in many of the cities, of Women's Industrial Unions and Exchanges, which have proven a market to which workers may bring the results of their home work and place it on sale, giving to the Union or Exchange, a commission on all the sales made. As a Boston woman wittily expressed it when asked what was the object of the Woman's Educational and Industrial Union:

"Oh it is a clearing house for feminine industries."

And in a way that is what all of them are. To this exchange women bring the work which they have done, and which they think may meet some need, and so find a ready sale. The work has to pass a committee, whose business is to examine every thing brought, and see that it comes up to the standard of requirement, which is usually set rather high, because if the exchange is to stand for anything, it must be for excellence of its work, else it would not attract purchasers, for no one is going to buy poorly made useful articles, or inartistic "art" work simply because they represent the labor of a woman who happens to need money. There would be no business in any such transactions as that, it would be the bestowal of charity, and that is not what the Unions and Exchanges exist for.

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They are conducted purely on a business basis, just as any business is, and they require the best that their workers can give.

When a woman wishes to become a "consigner" to the exchange, she takes, or sends a sample of her work, and the committee examines it to see if it meets the requirement. If it does a number is given to her, and she is known by that number, instead of her name, to the managers of the exchange. The committee, following the suggestion of the consigner, sets the prices on the articles, and once in so often a settlement is made, the manager paying to the consigner the amount of the sales after deducting the commission, which helps to pay the expenses incurred by keeping the rooms open, and hiring attendants.

Some women make a good income through the work they send in to the exchanges. If they chance to hit a popular idea it pays almost at once. If you ask what it is that catches this fancy, it would be almost impossible to tell you. A few seasons ago, a woman in Brookline, Massachusetts, made a great success with some rag dolls that she sent to the Woman's Union of Boston. They were very well made, their faces prettily painted, and they were dressed like babies with the cunningest little caps, and really they were the most fascinating bits of doll specimens that had been seen. The children took to them at once. They were such comfortable dollies, They could be hugged and kissed and made love to, and they weren't hard and unyielding like the French bisque dolls, which can only be handled very carefully. The first half-dozen dolls were sold the very first morning they were on exhibition, and the managers sent for more. It was just before Christmas, and I would not venture to say how many Boston children had one of those dolls for her Christmas present. The maker had all she could do and she could not meet the supply. So she kept right on through the year making and dressing the dolls, to give the Union its needed supply for the next holiday season. The dolls brought a good price and the maker found herself in possession of a good income which promises to hold good just as long as there are little girls who love dolls, and that will be as long as there are any little girls in the world, for the mother instinct is in every woman child's heart, and she loves her dolly as the representative of the real child.

The woman who is a fine needlewoman finds a ready market at the exchanges for the dainty products of her needle. Pretty hand-made underclothing, finished with exquisitely hemmed or hemstitched frills, are always salable. One must, in cutting them, follow the latest idea in shapes, for there is as much fashion in the modeling of underclothing as in the cutting of a gown.

Then there are all sorts of infants' garments that may be made by the same needlewoman. Sets of sheets and pillow cases, hemstitched, and then neatly folded and tied with ribbon. In preparing your work for the exchanges you must take care that they are attractively put up. The class of women who patronize

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the exchange are, as a rule, a superior class, women, not merely of means, but refined women, who are attracted by any special daintiness. So be careful in the preparation, and remember that the nicest work may be unattractively arranged and thus lose half its beauty and effect. As much for your own sake, as for the sake of the prospective purchaser, you want your consignments to be attractive.

[image: "A FINE NEEDLEWOMAN FINDS A READY MARKET AT THE EXCHANGES"]

In plenty of time before the holiday season opens you want to anticipate the wants, and make your consignments. You will need to keep quite up to date in your ideas, and if you are ingenious and contrive to think out something quite novel and taking, you can be sure of a good return from it. Then there are

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always plenty of useful things for which there is always a good market. The ready knitter can find a quick sale for golf and bicycle stockings. The home knitted ones are much preferred to those which are woven by machine, and there is a chance for all sorts of quaint and pretty devices in the fancy tops. Knitted silk mittens for ladies and children, and knitted silk stockings for little girls are all good things to offer to the exchange.

Embroidery and china painting are so much a matter of course among the articles found in the exchange that I have said nothing about them. There is only this to say. If you embroider or paint only indifferently do not send any of your work, for it will only be rejected. There are so many now who do both these things in a superior manner, that only the very best will pass the inspection of the committee.

Most of the exchanges have a food department in which cake, preserves, jellies, mince-pie meat, and other articles of food are received and sold. This is one of the most popular departments, especially in the city exchanges, and there are women who do nothing else besides cook special dishes for this department and deliver daily. At one Union a kind of Graham bread is sold which one woman makes, and does nothing else. As it is she cannot supply enough, and every day there is a call for more loaves than the Union can furnish. And the funniest part is, no one else can make it. She has given the rule to others, but some way it is not the same thing.

Once become a successful consigner to an exchange, and there is an assured income. It may not be always a large one, but as the consigner usually has the advantage of living at her own home, she is not at so much expense as the one who has to go out. There is not the wear and tear of clothing, of nerve or of body, and, consequently, she does better in every way, and the smaller income does more, so that, if any, the thing is rather broader than it is long when measured by the woman who has to go out of the home.

The consigners are not always resident in the city in which is the exchange, they may live at a distance and send their articles in. If a woman, within reasonable distance of the town and has anything which the public wants, the Union will be glad to be the medium by which she may reach the public.

It is the quality of work which tells in this as in everything else.

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IF I could have chosen when to live," said an enthusiastic girl not long ago, "it would be at this very time. Everything is so easy for girls now; I don't wonder that they call it, as I have heard them do, 'the woman's age.'" It is indeed a good time for girls to live, and I often wonder if they realize by whose efforts it became the "good time." Do they ever think what other women and girls had to contend with before this time dawned upon the world, or how much they owe to those same women? Not many of them, or they would never make the remarks which some of them do, and which to one who knows how all the good has come about, all the ridicule and suffering that was inflicted upon the pioneers of the so-called woman movement--though I insist that it should be called the human movement-- sounds heartless and cruel.

Think of the lack of opportunity for girls even half a century ago, and contrast it with that of the present. What were the possibilities of education? Unless she happened to be the daughter of a family who belived in advance of the age that a girl had the ability to learn, and that education would not spoil her or make less of a woman of her, and who could afford to give her private masters, she had to be content with the merest common school education less, even, than children get now in the grammar grades of the public schools. And even that

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was grudgingly bestowed. The spirit of the average man of the early century is shown in a story which Miss Mary Eastman tells. In the town of Hatfield, Mass., in the early part of the present century, the question of establishing public schools was being discussed in town meeting. It had finally decided that the schools should be opened, when the question came up regarding the propriety of allowing the girls of the town to attend. Some of the voters were in favor of admitting them to at least a portion of the privileges, and others opposed. Finally one of the prominent men, whose word was almost law in the town, arose to his feet, looked around impressively, and seeing that he had the attention of the assembly, raised his arm and uttered solemnly, but vehemently: "Hatfield school shes! Never!" So it was decided, and for some years all the girls who wanted to read and spell had to pay some one to teach them. And yet, in Hatfield, the town that wouldn't "school shes" was born a woman who on her death left the fortune which endowed Smith College.

"Why cannot I go to college as well as my brother," asked gentle Lucy Stone of the father who believed in his girl as well as his boy, but who could not open the doors of Harvard or Yale or Dartmouth for her. She did go to college; she sought out the stirring young college at Oberlin, Ohio, where the people had caught the true spirit of Liberty, Fraternity and Equality, and shut no doors in the face of the two classes denied admittance everywhere else, woman and the negro.

Other girls joined her there, and in the face of hardships borne with the bravest hearts, and far from home and all that had been familiar to their young lives, they worked for what they most coveted, an education. What the world owes to the Oberlin girls can never be measured or computed.

To her great surprise, when she graduated from the Boston public schools, Mary Livermore found the college doors closed against her. She had kept abreast of her brothers and his friends in the school, and she could go no farther with them. She might go to a "female seminary," but there was nothing beyond.

Lucy Stone's daughter graduated from the Boston University taking her degree of B. A. in a large class of whom at least one-fourth were girls, and she might do what she choose. The world of the professions was open to her to choose from. But Alice Blackwell, the daughter of the pioneer woman in education and reform, the niece of the first woman doctor in the country and of the first woman minister, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, choose to take up her mother's work, and she carries it on as a sacred legacy, left her by the one whom she loved and revered beyond all others in the world.

Mary Livermore's granddaughter graduated from the same college a short time ago, and is preparing to take up some form of helpful work.

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[image: SUSAN B. ANTHONY]

In the years between the time when two girls longed so eagerly for an education, and the graduation of daughter and granddaughter, what had the older women's eyes beheld? The establishment of four splendidly equipped colleges for girls, Vassar, Wellesley, Smith and Bryn Mawr; the opening to women of Michigan University, the endowment of Boston University, where from the beginning lung, girls were received as well as young men; the opening of Cornell to the girls who flocked to its doors, the establishment of Harvard Annex, which is now Radcliffe College and a part of the University system, the establishment of Barnard College as part of the University system of Columbia, the introduction of girl students into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and springing up all over the country, hundreds of co-educational colleges, youngest and best equipped of all, the Leland-Stanford University of California, the most magnificent memorial which ever bereaved parents raised to the memory of a beloved child.

They have seen, these pioneer women, the opening of the schools of medicine, of theology, of law, of laboratories, of all technical schools, until the entire field of education is thrown wide open to the young girl as well as to the boy, and her professional chances are equal to his.

They have seen avenue after avenue of labor open to admit the advancing feet of the army of girl workers, they have seen women occupying positions of

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importance in offices and banks, they have been interviewed by them for the newspapers, they have found them in positions of public trusts, they have known that they have penetrated everywhere. It has been given to these pioneer women to see the results of their sacrifices and labors, something which is not always vouchsafed to the worker for reform.

[image: JULIA WARD HOWE]

Little does the girl of to-day coming to meet life, with all its changed conditions, know what it has cost in real heart break to bring this condition about. She cannot realize the social ostracism, the coarse ridicule, the scorn and contempt which was heaped on the heads of the first women who ventured to ask for a broader outlook, a better chance for women. Yet they knew there was justice in their demands, and neither scorn, ridicule or threats could stay them in their work. It was not for themselves alone for which the brave, and sometimes it seemed almost hopeless, fight was being waged. It was for all the women who are to come in the history of the world. All the daughters who want the same education which is given to brothers; the wives who need protection from the husbands who should themselves be the protectors; the widows who are left with little children to bring up and educate; the whole army of women who have to face the world and make their own fight with it. These are they for whom these other brave women bore the burden and heat of a terrible day, and come out victorious.

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What do we owe to those women? Everything. Honor, reverence, affection, all that we are capable of giving, and then the debt will not be half paid.

I feel always as though some one had struck me a blow in the face when I hear these women spoken slightingly of, or when any one belittles their work. Lucy Smith, Susan B. Anthony, Julia Ward Howe, Mary Livermore, no woman, especially one who has to enroll herself among the world's workers, should ever hear these names spoken without a thrill of thankfulness. The open door would still be closed, the clear path full of rough places and stumbling stones had it not been that the bruised fingers of these women opened the one, and the bleeding feet smoothed the way of the other. My dear girls, you can at least pay a part of the debt which you owe to them, by gratitude and regard, and by trying to do for other women, something of the good they have done for you. For their sakes, who were trite to you, be loyal to their memories, when they are no longer here to receive your personal gratitude. We have only the memory of dear Lucy Stone, but the others are still with us to hear our spoken thanks, do not let us be niggardly with them or give them grudgingly. As the years go on the world will know better than it does now how beneficient was their work, not for women alone, but for all the human race; for what elevates the women, and gives them wider opportunity, makes the whole world better. The development of the mother is the development of the race, and what is higher education and broader opportunity but development on the most beneficient lines.

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THERE is hardly a field of labor into which woman has not penetrated, and every day brings some new story of discovery and achievement. It is usually a story of success, else it never would have been told. Failures are hidden away, the pathetic details locked in the heart and memory of one who has tried only to be baffled. The world is not interested in the story of defeat--it only opens its ears to listen to the plaudits which greet victory.

Among the new departures is one which is specially unique--that of Miss Minnie Alleyne, of Chicago, who paints anatomical charts. She is a slight, retiring, twenty-year-old girl with a piquant face and expressive eyes. If one were told that she painted one would think that it was some pretty arangements of violets for Easter instead of a chart showing the malformation of a club-foot, or an up-to-date girl in chiffon instead of an X-ray view of that beauty's interior. Miss Alleyne began her work about five years ago. A German had come to Chicago, seeing the field was unoccupied, to paint the charts constantly needed by physicians lecturing before classes. But the man spoke no English and became discouraged. He had met Miss Alleyne, told her the paints he used, and gave her a few hints. Soon after he left Chicago and she began her work. All the charts are painted upon parchment and the paints are brought to Chicago only for her. Her grandfather was a famous physician, her mother a skillful, though untrained, nurse, and her aunt, a rich New York woman, took a course at Bellevue just for the love of it,

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with the additional idea of being of use to the poor. So you see Miss Alleyne comes naturally by her taste for anatomical study. Sometimes she has her pictures given her by the doctors, small illustrations in books, from which she makes her charts, enlarging the parts mathematically in proportion. The colors the physicians describe and she experiments until she gets them of the correct tint. Miss Alleyne keeps a copy of every chart she paints, for reference and help. She has many hundreds of them, many in sets. They cost from $3.00 upward. There is scarcely a prominent physician or surgeon in Chicago for whom she has not painted, and the specialists say that she is wonderfully successful in catching quick directions, and exceedingly correct in drawing.

One of the most unique occupations for a woman to pursue is that followed by Miss Elizabeth Marbury, of New York. It is really a triple business, for she is a theatrical manager, an advance agent, and the American representative of Sardou, the French dramatist. Needless to say, she is a very remarkable woman. Miss Marbury is intensely interesting, for the strong masculinity of her mentality is combined with absolute femininity of temperament. She is shrewd and clever, yet modest and dainty withal, a by no means common combination. In each of the three branches of her profession she has been eminently successful, and has demonstrated her peculiar aptitude therefor.

The Veterinary School at Alford, France, graduated one woman this year, and she is one of the very few women who can write herself D. V. S. Germany and France have a number of woman veterinarians, but the United States claims only one, Miss Jennie Revert, who attended the New York Veterinary College during two terms. Women have applied at the different veterinary schools in this country, most of them wishing to make a special study of cats and dogs, but none have ever done more than take a preparatory course at the various schools, especially at the one connected with Cornell University. Miss Revert, the only woman veterinarian in America, is the owner of Robindale Farm, Glen Head, Long Island, where she raises blooded horses and fine bull-dogs. It was mainly on account of these pets of hers--for they are pets--that Miss Revert took up active work as a veterinarian. She has not yet finished her course, but it is her intention to complete it.

Veterinary surgery is a profession from which a woman might derive a good income, for she would, no doubt, be patronized by the numerous female owners of cats and dogs that are always having some ailment which feline and canine flesh is heir to. Dr. Levy, of the Lexington (Ky.) Veterinary Hospital, says that a woman assistant would be so valuable to him in his practice that he would willingly pay her a good salary in return for her services during the college course. A woman would be likely to have an extensive practice among the smaller pets of society. The expensive pets of fashionable women would probably be taken

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to a woman in preference to a man, and by becoming a successful veterinarian she would make even more than the average doctor, the fees of a veterinary surgeon being double those of the ordinary M. D.

Another new vocation for woman is that of demonstrating or introducing. Nowadays a great many advertisements appear for demonstrators and introducers, sometimes specifying the line to be introduced or demonstrated. This method of advertising new goods was begun at the World's Fair, and since then it has become a permanent business. Manufacturers and wholesalers who wish to introduce anything new depend largely upon this means of doing it. There are the city demonstrators, who are stationed for months in the larger stores, introducing to whoever may come their way the excellencies of their wares. There are traveling demonstrators who stay from three days to a week in a place. Previous to their visit cards are sent out by the proprietor of the store to all his customers, saying that for so many days such and such a firm will have his new wares represented at his store by a demonstrator. Curiosity leads housekeepers to attend and be entertained and fed free of charge. Of course then the least they can do, having accepted the hospitality, is to invest. The desired effect has been produced, and the demonstrator moves on to the next town, feeling success is hers. If it be anything in the culinary line, you find the young woman in charge in neat, dainty white apron and cap, and she serves the drink, pudding, pie, biscuit, cake, or whatever it may be, in an appetizing way, telling meanwhile of the superiority of this particular brand over others.

It is not alone the housewives who respond to this invitation--often men may be seen lurking around. Soon they become deeply interested in the deft way in which the fair demonstrator manipulates her materials, and are soon devouring the mince pie or plum pudding with hard sauce with placid looks of contentment. It is the largest size of package that the men bear away with them.

If it be an exhibit of embroidery, to introduce a new brand of silks or the like, the men are barred out. You invest in the stamped linen and silks, the lesson being free. Morning and afternoon classes are always crowded, for who could resist free embroidery lessons? Or it may be introducing artists' materials, ribbon bows for neck and sleeves--in fact, a great variety of things are introduced and brought to the notice of the public in this attractive way.

The latest opportunity for those who have improved their time in music is introducing new music at the music stores and musical departments of the department stores, especially the latter, as these departments are usually run by one musical publishing company which desires especially to introduce its own publications. So they advertise for a bright young girl who can read music at sight, place a piano in the department, and keep her playing the brightest popular music, and music is attractive to everybody, even "soothes the savage breast,"

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[image: WOMAN VETERINARY HOSPITAL WARD]

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as you will remember, and there is always an immense crowd attracted wherever the piano is heard, and the brighter the music the faster it sells.

The salaries of the demonstrators are good, their duties not arduous, and, lastly, what is often a great deal to the woman worker, it does not take a lifetime and a small fortune to prepare one's self for this work. The accomplishments of a society girl suddenly and unexpectedly thrown on her own resources can thus be utilized with profit.

The women in New York inaugurated a new business as visiting household managers a few months since. They were very successful, but recently have dissolved their partnership, each one conducting business on her own account, thus making two concerns instead of one, with plenty of work for both. The business of visiting household managers consists chiefly in the relieving of wealthy women burdened with manifold social duties and many household cares. The managers take entire charge of a limited number of houses, and see to it that all the domestic wheels run smoothly both in the presence and absence of the owners. Both brought to the work a thorough experience gained in the management of their own households, and as they had been society women, they found a large clientele among their personal friends. The rich women handed over to their care the household affairs found to be beyond their physical resources. The manager engaged servants, first looking carefully into their references, All cleaning was done under the supervision of the manager, floors were polished, plumbing examined and, if necessary, put in repair by competent men; curtains, blankets, rugs and carpets were cleaned and put down in their proper order, and bric-a-brac dusted and replaced uninjured.

Another feature of the business was the house-hunting department. If any patrons living in distant cities wished to come to New York to live and did not care for the terribly taxing work of hunting for a suitable residence, the manager would send full descriptions of houses, and meet the visitor when she arrived to inspect them, helping her to make a choice without the necessity of ransacking the real estate offices for likely homes. When a choice was made, the manager would see that the house was put in proper shape for the reception of the new family, and receive the baggage when it arrived.

If the wealthy woman was contemplating a trip to Europe or to her country residence, she could leave the closing of her house in the hands of the manager with perfect confidence. If it were required, all articles of value would be packed carefully and sent to a storage warehouse or to the safe-deposit company's vaults, the manager keeping a careful record of everything stored away, so that it could be replaced in the house when a notification was received that the owner was about to return and wished the house to be reopened ready for occupancy. When such notification was received, the manager undertook to have the house in such shape

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that the mistress could step out of the carriage that brought her from the steamer or from the railroad station, to find that the servants had been engaged and awaited her arrival, the house cleaned and put in thorough shape from cellar to roof, the dinner waiting at the agreed time to be served, and the whole establishment in working order, as though it had never been vacated.

Miss Margaret McDonald, of Washington, who is called the cleverest designer of paper dolls, is in her early teens, and displayed her ability in this line of work when she was yet a child. Some of her very artistic designs came to the notice of a very large art publishing firm when she was about thirteen years old, and produced such an impression by their grace and originality that the house sent her an offer for them. Since then the work begun as child's play has proved extremely profitable, although all the instruction the young girl has had is what she received in an ordinary public school. Her ambition goes beyond her present accomplishment, and she is using this means to fit herself to become an artist in the fuller sense, although it is a question whether she will ever do anything more perfect in its way than these dolls are in theirs.

Miss Edith J. Griswold, of New York City, is a solicitor of patents, and she carries on her business in a room on the fifteenth floor of one of the big down-town office buildings. Although Miss Griswold is youthful in appearance, she has been in her present business for about twelve years. After being graduated from the New York Normal College in 1883, she took a special course in mathematics and patent office drawings, taught mathematics for a year, and studied patent soliciting. Since she started out in business for herself she has been very successful. She not only obtains patents for people all over the United States and in foreign countries, but gives opinions on patents and trademarks, and in her leisure studies law with the intention of passing the New York bar examination.

Miss Lilian Small is probably the only woman in this country engaged in the maritime signal service. Miss Small's father has been signal master at North Truro, Cape Cod, for thirty-seven years, and he now finds an able assistant in his daughter. Miss Small is a little past twenty years of age, and completed her education in Dean Academy, Franklin, Mass. On returning home she resumed her interest in marine matters, and soon developed into a valuable assistant for her father, fully competent to attend to his duties. The work is not arduous, but calls for close attention, as new-comers are constantly arriving, and the observer must note them. Miss Small has clear blue eyes, that readily catch the points of identification on a vessel, but she does not rely on these entirely. She has a telescope nearly six feet long through which she can distinguish a vessel's class and rig thirty miles away, as well as read names on most of those that pass at the average distance. Foreign craft almost invariably show their signals as they make the light, and Miss Small is an expert at reading and answering them. After

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securing information from the vessel she steps into her office and wires her news to Boston. She is an expert telegrapher, having studied with her father.

In the appointment of a woman as sexton of a church, a new field of labor is suggested. The Clarendon Street Baptist Society of Boston recently held a meeting at which Mrs. William S. Stoddard received an official appointment to have the entire charge of the business usually assumed by men.

None of these fields are crowded; in most of them there is ample room for workers. Surely some of the clever girls who read this will find a suggestion that shall prove the practical words for which they have been waiting.

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IT is probable that to young women no other young woman was ever more of a "living epistle" than is Lida A. Churchill. "I cannot say what I feel about her," said one who knows her well. "I just stand by and marvel. Her example stimulates us slow-paced girls, but it half appals us, too. She has done so much! Better still, she is so much! Her handshake is a benediction, her commendation a tonic. I thank Heaven for allowing her to be. And one feels all the while that her deepest living and best doing are yet to be."

Of her writers of books Maine is particularly proud; one of these, a Harrison girl, Lida A. Churchill, whose stories, "My Girls" and "Interweaving," have given her standing as a remarkably vivacious and individual writer of fiction, is the daughter of the late Josiah and Catharine Hilton Churchill, and is a descendant of the historic house of Marlborough, England. In babyhood she was moved to New Gloucester, where she spent her childhood and early girlhood. She early fell into the habit of composing sentences, and at twelve had written several stories. The second of these to be printed appeared in the Portland Transcript. She was self-reliant as she developed, and at sixteen she left home, and finally settled in Providence, R. I., where she learned telegraphy. While working at telegraphy Miss Churchill continued writing for the press, and after going to Northbridge, Mass., where she spent several years in charge of the local telegraph station, she wrote "My Girls," a simple, natural and vivacious account of a company of telegraph girls' experience when thrown upon their own resources. If it were not in purpose and in execution the helpful tale that it is, I should

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expect to see it read for its truthfulness, its merry humor, its individuality of style, and the freshness of the field which it cultivates. The girls are flesh-and-blood, and the "tickers" are actual railroad "tickers."

[image: LIDA A. CHURCHILL]

The "Carmen" of "My Girls," whom thousands will remember, and who now sleeps in Gracelands Cemetery, near Chicago, wrote some three years ago in The Telegraph Age:

"Lida A. Churchill author of 'Interweaving' and also distinguished as essayist, novelist, writer of short stories, and of 'sparkling press letters,' was for a time a telegraph operator, and though now for some time withdrawn from the fraternity as a member, is still in sympathy and touch with it through numerous friends who still count her one of them.

"One of her pictures was seen at the Maine World's Fair Building among the celebrities of that State.

"There is a better pen-picture of her to be found in her own book, 'My Girls,' than in all that others have written of her.

"In the 'literary' character, one of the four of the book, all taken from life, she represents herself perfectly. The other three are now well-known operators. She began her telegraphic career as operator in her cousin's office, in Providence, R. I. He was at that time superintendent of the P & W. R. R. "We, along the line, soon became interested in the operator there who called herself 'Billy,' and whose sending always convulsed us with thoughts of the

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hymn--then popular--'Pull for the Shore'--she always 'bent to the oar' and to her abnormal application and staying power she owes much of her success.

"Later she took charge of an office at Northbridge, Mass., and choose for particular friends a favored few young ladies along the line, who were beginners, like herself, and of whom she tells in 'My Girls.'

"In those happy days none of us had much work, and we used to chat over the wire, send letters to each other by the obliging train men, and exchange presents; and when we learned that we had 'a chiel among us taking notes' her Mss. had to pass through our critical but appreciative hands.

"How we watched for 'Lightning Flashes' containing her story that we had already seen in her very own handwriting. How proud we were of it, and the numerous newspaper and magazine stories with which she often treated us. But more than her literary ability, more than her wit, which is beyond compare, we valued the great, loving heart, generous to a fault, and faithful not only unto but beyond death.

"Her remarkable quality of perseverance and constancy--without which genius is a laggard--has enabled Miss Churchill to stand where she now does.

"By her own unaided efforts she mastered the arts of shorthand and typewriting, which accomplishments placed her in a position as private secretary to Rev. Charles A. Dickinson, of Berkeley Temple, Boston, and opened to her other opportunities for furthering her higher purposes."

Five years ago Miss Lilian Whiting, author of "The World Beautiful," "From Dreamland Sent," etc., said of Miss Churchill in one of her press letters:

"No one of the young writers is more ready in asserting a certain standard of dignity and nobility of thought; no one more keen in thrusting a lance into nonsense and sham and pretension; no one more earnest and true and tender in high thought and beautiful feeling. The most sensitive and impressionable nature; swift in assimilating new ideas and taking on that finer polish for which there is perhaps no better name than culture; responsive as a current of electricity; full of delicate divination and tender sympathy, and combining with all this range of the sympathetic, the imaginative and the spiritual, a fund of the common sense and flawless integrity of her New England heritage, Miss Churchill has certain signal advantages of temperament and capability to make her way in literature."

But Miss Churchill's highest literary attainment is reached in the book entitled "A Grain of Madness," which is about to be issued from the press of Lee & Shephard, Boston. Around a most unique plot the author has woven a marvelously enthralling story. The tale, sometimes fairly throbbing with earnestness, sometimes melting into the most yearning pathos, again gliding into the sweetest tenderness, everywhere pulsates with warmth and color. The language

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nowhere loses its loveliness and charm. While reading the chapter of the Christ-vision and of the crown of melting, many-hued stars, one finds his breath suspended before the rich creation of the author's fancy, and wonders if she herself saw not the vision how she could thus wonderfully portray it. In reading the story of the Roman plague the reader actually feels with shuddering acuteness the weird awfulness, the dread fatality of it all. Telepathy plays an important part in the story, and sufficient occultism is introduced to show that the author has dipped somewhat deeply into hidden lore. The volume is affectionately and gracefully dedicated to Lilian Whiting who is the author's dearly loved friend, "in grateful remembrance of days which kindled inspiration, and hours which colored life."

"How did it all come about that you are what you are? that you have accomplished what you have accomplished?" the writer asked Miss Churchill.

"I will tell you a story," was the thoughtful reply. "One day, with the snow flying before the fierce wind around their lonely little black house, which stood a mile from the main road, and to which the 'breaking-out' teams had not found their way, two children sat with a song-book held between them. They were so lonely, poor mites! All the elder children, except one brother, who was in a distant city, had married and gone to homes of their own, and the mother, who was obliged to accept nursing when it was to be had, for the money it would bring, was away for a week.

"'We will sing every song in the book,' the children agreed. 'It will be night before we have finished, and we can go to bed, and then it won't seem so long till mother comes home.'

"They knew the air to only now and then one of the songs, but to the rest they made tunes. They sang and sang. They grew terribly weary, but having undertaken to sing the song-book through it never occurred to them to give up the task. When the last song had been sung, overpowered by the feeling of desolation which a sense of the descending darkness, the drifting snow, the fireless grate, forced upon their sensitive hearts, the children, with one accord, fell down before a gown which was hanging in the room, and hiding their faces in its familiar folds, wept woefully, calling on their mother to return. 'Let us ask God to send her sooner than she intended to come,' said Maria, the elder girl. Then the childish voices mingled in a request that the dear one who took away the loneliness might come before her appointed time, and when she did come a day before the one set for her return, the wee petitioners never doubted that their prayers had been heard.

"I was the younger of those children, and ever since I have been singing the song-book through, and though many, yes, most of the tunes have had to be made, and weariness and heartache, and such comforting as only a mother can

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[image: "WE WILL SING EVERY SONG IN THE BOOK," ... "THEN IT WON'T SEEM SO LONG 'TIL MOTHER COMES.]

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give--the dear mother went away a dozen years ago--have come and come again, and though comprehension and sympathy, and often even the necessary money, have been wanting, it has never occurred to me to give up my task. To write; to live so that I could adequately write--these have been my song-book. Please God I shall sing them through.

"My first tale was written when I was almost an infant, with a wooden- bottomed chair for a desk, in my mother's kitchen. It was scrawled on both sides of some huge yellow paper which I had managed to lay hold of, and when finished was tightly rolled. I had never seen any one prepare a manuscript, or read how it should be done. That I did not know a rule of grammar or one law of composition did not at that time so much trouble me as did the idea that some one might find out what I was doing. I walked three miles to the nearest post-office to mail my story. I don't remember what it was about, only that it was, to my mind, high tragedy. That it came back 'respectfully' declined leaves no room to doubt that some editors, at least, are perfect gentlemen.

"There were probably not twenty-five books, outside of the school books, for ten leagues around. I walked miles to borrow the scanty volumes of all our scattering neighbors. They were generally on 'What I Know About Farming,' or some similar subject, but I devoured them all.

"In the evenings, after her hard day's toil, my mother used to tell us stories, and sing us songs, since she could not buy us books. My father had gone West when I was a mere baby, hoping to found a home there. One of my chief delights was to listen to his letters, which were so rich in thought and so beautiful in phrasing that the neighbors came long distances to hear them read. Too soon the letters ceased. My father never came back to us.

"I early realized that if I was to be educated I must educate myself. I managed to get the necessary books, and began alone the study of higher arithmetic, algebra, grammar and philosophy, depending upon any one who could give me a moment, to hear me recite. I had many chores to do, but every day I kept my attic tryst with my books. When going on errands, or on book-borrowing expeditions, I used to beguile the way by 'playing' I was reading a story; composing it as I went along. I have often moved myself to tears by these improvised tales.

"One summer when I was casting about trying to think how I could get where I could learn to do the thing whereunto I felt myself called, I met Rev. Anson Titus, the well-known genealogist, who had come into our neighborhood to woo the lady he afterwards married. Learning of my desire, he advised my learning telegraphy. But how was I to do this? The nearest telegraph office was five miles away, with no trains or conveyances between it and me. I had then never seen a telegraph instrument. I wrote to the operator, who kindly sent me

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the Morse alphabet. I was then just recovering from a fever. Sitting bolstered up in bed, I thoroughly committed the characters to memory. And still I saw no way to learn telegraphy. Then there came from my brother in Saundersville, Mass., a letter saying that my cousin who was then superintendent of the Providence & Worcester Railroad, had said if I would learn telegraphy he would secure me a position. I had never written my brother that I wished to learn telegraphy, and this occurrence seemed like a miracle. I have since come to know something of the power and possibilities of thought.

"While in the first office which was given me I wrote 'My Girls,' the large and constant sale of which has astonished me.

"I had been assured that if one understood shorthand he stood a better chance of obtaining good positions, and, without a teacher, I set about learning it. When I was competent I was invited to act as literary secretary to Rev. C. A. Dickinson who had hitherto tried in vain to secure a helper adequate to his needs. I remained with Dr. Dickinson nearly five years, all the time writing stories, essays, and sketches for numerous publications. Since leaving him I have done purely literary work."

With another young woman Miss Churchill occupies a beautiful, sunny apartment near Copley Square, Boston, where at a handsome desk, the gift of several of her girl friends, she does the greater part of her literary work.

Another girl who has achieved success against tremendous odds is Miss Martha A. Thompson, who is a native of Hyde Park, Vt. She was the oldest of seven children, and the father lost all his property when she was small. She was eager for an education, and early felt the stirring of the impulse to be something which has been the guiding principle of her life. Five miles away was a State Normal School. She got a scholarship in this and got there any way she could, walking the distance in good weather, and even riding on loads of wood when no better chance offered. She seldom had a second dress to her back, but she worked day and night, and finally graduated with honors. Then she taught school a few terms and in 1881 went to North Dakota to take up a claim. This proved unprofitable and she again took up teaching, afterwards taking charge of a grammar school in Sac City, Iowa. Tiring of this, she entered upon the sale of books, with the understanding if successful she should be advanced to the traveling position. She realized her expectations and now owns the largest and most prosperous subscription book house west of Chicago.

For the first four years while acting as manager of The Occidental Publishing Company her identity was unknown by the business world--all letters came addressed "Gentlemen, Sirs," etc., and not until the purchase of the business she had so successfully established and controlled, and the notices were sent out from the main office did the business world learn it had been dealing with only a

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woman. She was instructed by her employes never to sign her name so agents would know she was a woman. "It would hurt the business if she did." She says she is tired of posing as a man, and wants the world to recognize that ability is not alone confined to the stronger sex.

While Miss Thompson is proprietor of the business at Oakland, California, and does all contracting with general agents, and makes all selections and purchases all books, etc., she has a competent office force of men and women who thoroughly understand every detail of the business.

Miss Thompson's name is now familiar to Prohibitionists, W. C. T. U. and suffrage workers throughout the East as well as the Pacific coast, and all will feel like according to her a full meed of appreciation over the successful culmination that has attended her plucky struggles with the diverse fortunes and opposing forces, that in the past have so often exerted a baleful influence over the hazardous woman, however able, who has dared to invade any realm popularly supposed to be especially set apart for the use of the sterner sex. Her career is only one more illustration of the old truth that perseverance wins success.

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DON'T be frightened, girls, I'm not going to sermonize; if you knew how I hated it, just as much as I used to in the old days at the "Sem" when we were brought in for Friday night lectures on our shortcomings during the week. Plenty of cause I had to hate, yes, and dread them too, for usually at the head of the list of offenders stood my unlucky name, followed by those of half a dozen kindred spirits, who, preferring fun to French translation, liberty to Latin, and mischief to mathematics, kept ourselves in hot water and the faculty in a continual state of nervous excitement. Fanny, sweet and winsome still; Min, bright, sparkling brunette, the most petted of society's darlings; Hester, ringleader in all the frolics, staid matron now--girls all, who stood together in the library on those unlucky nights, do you remember? Have you forgotten how meekly we stood, with downcast eyes and repentant faces, listening--apparently--to an exaggerated account of our depravities, and a horrible warning of the awful consequences that would ensue unless we mended our ways, but in reality revolving some new plan for mischief in our fertile brains, and only waiting to be dismissed the awful presence, and find our room door closed behind us, to break out into fresh anathemas against our persecutors, and to concoct some grand escapade more startling than any we had indulged in before.

Ah! girls, we have changed since then; added years have brought new experiences; let us hope we have grown wiser and better. To all of us life has assumed new phases; to some new happiness has come, and down their life path

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shines only rosy brightness; to others (and God help them), sorrow and care, with only the corpse of a dead hope at their feet, and the tear- moistened grave of a dead past in their hearts.

But in spite of all these changes, in one thing I am still unchanged--my horror of sermonizing; and so, girls, I'll spare you, but if you can only fancy that we are sitting together as we used to do in those bright school- days--bright in spite of the little clouds that used to sometimes cross our sky--with hand clasped in hand, and looking kindly into each other's eyes, I would like to talk to you a little about this life of ours, the grandly earnest thing it seems to me, and if I can make one among you see her duties and responsibilities as a woman, rouse any one to truer and more earnest endeavor, broaden and deepen her aims and interests, then indeed I shall not have striven in vain.

Do you know, I've been thinking lately that the majority of us have fallen into a decidedly aimless, desultory way of living, just going on from day to day with no fixed, definite purpose in our lives, but simply drifting along on the wave of circumstance, caring little where it was taking us, so we could be at our ease and indulge ourselves in our own selfish pleasures.

By most of us I fancy this life of ours is regarded as one grand play-day, and so we go on getting as much out of it as we can, and giving nothing in return. This is, I dare say, less selfishness than thoughtlessness, though the one does lead to the other after a while; for it is true that in proportion as we let our thoughts of others and our care for them be displaced by thoughts of and care for self alone so our desire to benefit them will decrease, and our love of self will grow.

It is pleasant to have our own way, to have all our whims gratified, and to deny ourselves of no pleasures--that is, it is pleasant for a little while in a certain way, but I question if there is any real feeling of satisfaction that will arise from such a course of life. There might be, if there were nothing beyond, but it does seem to me that we are called into existence for something nobler and better than to pander to our own selfish appetites, and simply be content to live on from day to day with no effort for improvement.

I believe that no one is sent into this world without a work to do; there is nothing without its mission in the whole catalogue of created things, and it is not likely that we, "made in the image of God" and "only a little lower than the angels," will be exempt from our share of usefulness. What the special life work of each one of us may be I cannot tell; it depends entirely on our surroundings and opportunities. Each one must decide for herself what her duties are, and in what manner she can work to the best advantage.

Golden opportunities present themselves every day to every one of us, if we only would use them; but either we don't see them or in our careless indolence we pass them by unthinkingly, not attaching the proper importance to them.

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[image: DEEDS OF KINDNESS]

The trouble generally is, girls, we are all inclined to "despise the day of small things," and we want, if we are to work, to do something grand and startling, quite out of the common course, that will astonish the world; and in our look out for the grand opportunities that so seldom come, we lose many ways of doing real good. We cannot all be "representative women," and do grand, heroic deeds, but we can work quietly and unostentatiously, carrying our deeds of kindness into every- day life, and making ourselves better, and every one around us happier by the influence of a consistent, lovely manner of living.

But because we have a work to do and life is earnest and we are to be in earnest with it, I do not mean that we are to go through it with knit brows, as

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though we were puzzling over some perplexed question in mathematics; n, indeed! I believe in carrying so much sunshine in our hearts that it will shine through our eyes and brighten our faces. We need all the sunshine we can get in this world, you may be sure, and you and I have got to help make it. Clouds will come sometimes, of course, but they needn't come as often as they do if we wouldn't let them; we make them oftentimes, I think; let trifles annoy us, grow impatient and fretful at little things, and render ourselves and everybody else uncomfortable. This can be helped by a little patient endeavor and forethought.

Less for self and more for others, girls, and our work is well begun; after that, once fairly started on the upward way, our progress will be easier, we will find our field of labor extending before we are aware that we have commenced our task, and with every day's duties will come new love and interest in our work.

First of all, let us each one try to make our own life so sweet and sunny that our influence will be felt on all around, and after that the other opportunities will come as fast as we can use them. The result can be no other than satisfactory, I am sure.

Did my talk become a sermon after all? Well, I didn't mean to preach. I only wanted to tell you my thoughts and set you thinking for yourselves.