utive justice which grows out of cooperative
interests in work and life, had found small opportunity for growth or
activity."

The opportunity came with the awakening of the communal spirit, the
recognition of the law of the solidarity of interests, the
sociological advance which established a basis of equality among a
wide diversity of conditions and individuals, and opportunities for
all capable of using them. This great advance was not confined to a
society or a neighborhood; it did not require subscription to a tenet,
or the giving up of one's mode of life. It was simply a change of a
point of view, the opening of a door, the stepping out into the
freedom of the outer air, and the sweet sense of fellowship with the
whole universe that comes with liberty and light.

The difference was only a point of view, but it changed the aspect of
the world. This new note, which meant for the woman liberty, breadth
and unity, was struck by the woman's club.

To the term "club," as applied to and by women, may be fitly referred
the words in which John Addington Symonds defines Renaissance. "This,"
he remarks, "is not explained by this or that characteristic, but as
an effort for which at length the time has come." It means the
attainment of the conscious freedom of the woman spirit, and has been
manifested first most strongly and most widely in this country,
because here that spirit has attained the largest measure of freedom.

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

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

It has been in every sense an awakening to the full glory and meaning
of life. It