nd for an educational bureau of correspondence and also
a lyceum bureau through whose agency good lectures upon
practical subjects can be secured in every city and village.
All interested in such a conference are requested to send
their names to Mrs. Elizabeth Boynton Harbert, Evanston,
Ill., or Mrs. Louise Rockwood Wardner, Cairo, Ill.

Hon. Frank Sanborn, in his annual report to the American Social
Science Association, mentioned the formation of a branch
society[370] in this State. He said:

Like the State Charities Aid Association of New York, which
was organized and is directed by women, the Illinois
Association devotes itself chiefly to practical applications
of social science, though in a somewhat different direction.
It was formed in October, 1877, with a membership of some
two hundred women; it publishes a monthly newspaper, _The
Illinois Social Science Journal_, full of interesting
communications, and it has organized in its first seven
months' existence eight smaller associations in other
States.

The enthusiasm in this society branching out in so many practical
directions, absorbed for a time the energies of the Illinois
women. Our membership reached 400. This may account for the
apparent lethargy of the Suffrage Association during the years of
1877-78. Caroline F. Corbin dealt an effective blow in her
novel, entitled "Rebecca; or, A Woman's Secret." Jane Grey
Swisshelm, with trenchant pen, wrote earnest strictures against
the shams of society. Elizabeth Holt Babbitt wrote earnestly for
all reform movements. Myra Bradwell persistently held up to the
view of the legislators of the State the injustice of the laws
for woman. Mrs. Julia Mills Dunn and Mrs. Hannah J. Coffee were
doing quiet but most effective work in Henry county. Miss Eliza
Bowman was consecrating her young womanhood to the care of the
Foundlings' Home. Mrs. Wardner, Mrs. Candee, Mrs. George, and
other women in the southern part of the State, were founding the
library at Cairo, while in every village and hamlet clubs for
study or philanthropic work were being organized. Mrs. Kate N.
Doggett, as president of the Association for the advancement of
Women, was lending her influence to the for