social traditions, or a creator of social standards, or a tribunal of criticism, but as a literary and political training-school, a maker of citizens with a broader outlook into the world of affairs, a powerful engine of moral force. Perhaps its greatest direct value at present lies in this moral force, which is the outgrowth of centuries of sternly moral heritage, and runs not only through philanthropic channels, but through all the avenues of life. Of scarcely less importance are the impulse and direction the club has given to the administrative talents of women--talents which mark their special strength, and are far too valuable to be ignored at a time when all the wisdom of the world is needed, in private as well as in public affairs, to guide it safely through its threatening storms. IV But it is of the intellectual and social value of the club that I wish more especially to speak here. It is often asked by thoughtful foreigners why American women, who are free to pursue any career they like, with ample privileges of education and the universal reign of the literary club, have produced no writers of the first order, measured even by the standards of their own sex. One finds many clever ones, and a few able ones, but no Jane Austen, no George Eliot, no Mme. de Staël, no Mrs. Browning. This may be partly due to the fact that we have not yet passed the period of going to school. It is possible that another generation, reared in the stimulating atmosphere of this, may give us some rare flower of genius, if its mental force be not weakened by the general pouring-in process, or dissipated in the modern tendency toward limitless expansion and dilution. But club life in itself is not directly favorable to creative genius. The qualities of the imagination never flourish in crowds, though a certain order of talent does flourish there--a talent that brings quicker returns and more immediate consideration, at far less cost. The salon made brilliant and versatile women who were noted for conversation and diplomacy; it made charming women who ruled men and affairs through rare gifts of administration, tempered with intelligent sympathy and tact; it made executive women, and finely critical women, and masterful women, who left a strong and lasting impression upon the national life: but, though they lived in the main intellectual current of their time, stimulated and inspired its leaders, and had much to do with its direction, they seldom made a serious effort in literature themselves. The few who have left a name in letters only illustrate the fact that individual genius is a flower of another growth. Mme. de Staël would have been a great woman under any conditions; but we owe all of her best work in literature to her exile from the social life of Paris, where her thoughts had no time to crystallize. The gift of Mme. de Sévigné was nearly allied to a conversational one, but her mind was matured and deepened during years