There is no doubt that American women read and discuss books enough. It may be that we read too many. One may devour books as one does bonbons, and with little more profit. Nor is there any doubt that we write papers enough and hear talks enough on every imaginable subject, from the antediluvians to Imperialism and the Chinese question. To whatever all this mental activity may lead, it does not always lead to culture, even of the mind, and I take the word, unqualified, to include much more. It does lead to a broad diffusion of intelligence, but there is an essential difference between intelligence and culture. Paradoxical as it may seem, it is quite possible, in running after the one, to run away from the other. The woman who belongs to ten or twelve clubs in order to be of the new age, and to learn enough of all sorts of things to be able to talk about them, may find her social compensation and a harmless way of amusing herself, if she likes that sort of amusement; but if she aims at mental culture, that is another affair. It is not a matter of facts and phrases and formulas that one goes in search of, but an inward growth, the result of long and loving companionship with the best thought of the world, which is not at all the same thing as a flitting acquaintance with a multitude of subjects, or the ability to talk glib platitudes about the latest fads in art or science or literature. Such companionship is found to only a limited extent in gatherings of any sort; but stimulus and inspiration may be found there, and here lies the true intellectual value of the club. To thoughtful and sincere women, who have a certain amount of training and natural gifts of assimilation, with small facilities for contact with the thinking world, it is a priceless boon. But to narrow and untrained intellects that like to flit from one thing to another, content with a flying glimpse and a telling point or two which will go far toward making them seem wise to the uninitiated, there are large possibilities in the way of what we may call imitation culture. It is simply another outlet for the ambition of the parvenu who puts on costly clothes and rare jewels in the comfortable assurance that “fine feathers make fine birds.” V