larger aims; and it is in the prosecution of these larger aims that
the federation will find its reasons for existence.

There is a vast work for clubs to do throughout the country in the
investigation of moral and social questions, in the reformation of
abuses, in the cultivation of best influences;--not the influence of
class or clique or party, but a wide, liberalizing, educational
influence which works for true goodness, for cleanliness, for order,
for equal opportunities, for the recognition of God in man and nature,
in whatever stage of unfolding the Divine in us may happen to be. It
is in the last twenty-five years that village-improvement societies,
first instigated by a woman--Miss Sallie Goodrich of Stockbridge,
Mass.--have created a transformation in whole townships, and so
enhanced the value of property as to drive out the original
inhabitants and change farming communities into fashionable summer
resorts. This result is of doubtful value. But every woman's club,
especially in the newer sections, has in its power, by wise and
careful action, to improve the conditions, elevate the tone, and
crystallize the moral force of its community in such a way as to make
it more desirable to live in, more beneficial to its own citizens,
more of an example to others.

All these questions of club life and work would naturally come up
before a federated body, and these would as naturally lead to
governmental questions; to contrasts and records of activities in
different parts of the world, and to the investigation of the causes
which bring about certain results.

Women are naturally both receptive and constructive. The affirmative
states of mind are those which, particularly belong to women; as