Ruskin club.-French history. President, Mrs. C. W. McKown; secretary, Mrs. C. V. Reed. Membership 14.

South Prospect club.-Bay View course.

President, Mrs. O. H.

Schramm; secretary, Mrs. C. S. Burns. Membership 14.

Tuesday Morning Study class. Spain. President, Mrs. F. F. Todd; secretary, Mrs. W. S. Cowherd. Membership 20.

Women of the Humane Society.-Humane education. President, Mrs. Henry N. Ess; secretary, Mrs. R. J. McCarty. Membership 150.

Woman's Reading club.-Mythology. President, Mrs. W. M. Dunning; secretary, Mrs. C. G. Pinckard. Membership 16.

The Club life of women, in its present expression, has long passed the stage of apology or defense. Time was when the cynic had his sneer and the jester his fling at the utilitarianism of Women's Clubs, but that was of a day long gone. It is a time now not only of rapid thinking, but of equally rapid action, and so swiftly has been the forward movement of women as a potent force in sociological development, that her present position seems to have been as imperceptibly acquired as it is securely established. The Woman's Club no matter what the scope or trend of its purpose, is a necessary stone in the social arch, and one which has, by the beauty, the art, the aestheticism of its ornamentation, as well as the utility of its form and substance, wrought a wonderful influence upon the thoughts and purposes of the other makers of the stones that compose the arch.

And while Women's Clubs have grown in strength and usefulness, the "Club Woman," as a type which once threatened to develop from an overzealous devotion to form rather than to matter, to the non-essentials, rather than the essentials, of organization, has disappeared, and, be it said, to the greater good of the cause. The "Club Woman" now is a Home Woman. She has come to understand that the lintel of her own house is the first step into her world of usefulness. And while this seems a trite enough saying it is a fact that never before has the Home idea-the development of the Municipal Household, as the unit of government, along every line of improvement, artistic, scientific, sanitary, ethical-received such an impetus and enjoyed such an expansion as it has within the past few years in America.

Long regarded by foreigners as inhabiting an enervating women's paradise, because of the supreme indulgence that the faith and courtesy of American men have accorded to women, the latter have passed unspoiled through an era of lotos-eating, drifting, indolence of public spirit, into a "safe and sane" period of usefulness and hearty co-operation with men in the world's work. If there be still a four hundred or a six hundred who find their pleasure in that

A land where all things seemed the same,"

there are millions who prefer the new dawn that has arisen for their sex and who are abroad and daring to follow wherever men go and to do whatever men do, for the benefit of men, with sure feet, with clear brains and educated, helpful hands.

Nor is this the language of mere rhapsody or enthusiasm. Cold statistics mark the growth of women's clubs in America and the newspapers of the country record the activity of their members. In the far west, in the newly awakening states and territories, the remotest village paper records the tendency of women, even in the hard conditions of frontier life, to foregather in the interests of intellectual profit and higher social development. The mammoth periodicals that emanate from the eastern centers, the women's magazines, wherein the thought of the world of women and the acts of the world of women are circulated so widely that the dweller in Jimtown may ascend to the same ethereal atmosphere enjoyed by her sisters in Boston, and catch the wireless messages of the world's progress. These have been powerful influences in hastening on a solidarity of women's activities, the movement towards which is keeping full pace with the progress of the race along other paths of evolution.

The Women's Clubs are now the intermediaries, as it were, between the plane of the home and the planes of the business and the political world. The political idea which was once supposed to be one of the dominating influences of women's public organizations, has long ceased to count as an energizing factor, that is to say, the political idea as expressed in mere desire for recognition, glory, privilege, but in the broader field of ideal government, the impressment of the "eternal feminine" sense of right, and justice and beauty and harmony upon the home, upon the city, upon the State, and upon the Nation, is now the high purpose that is being daily made more effective in the operations of women's clubs throughout the nation.

The forums and the counting houses and the market places of men are no longer alien worlds to women. Its former secrets have become the topics of conjugal discussion, in the home circle, and men have learned to feel that "The Doll's House" in America is no longer the vogue, and that the wife who keeps in touch with the world through her own club media is capable of opinion and advice and warning and comfort that are not only helpful to him, but fast becoming essential and necessary. By this new spirit of reciprocity man has lost none of his virility nor woman her tenderness. It is not accomplishing a curtailment of love, of romance, of courtesy, of honor or regard between the two. On the contrary it is drawing them closer and

closer together and will continue to do so until they become in such intimate intellectual rapport, standing shoulder to shoulder in the world's struggle, that they will become in sooth and in fact as well as poetically, "useless one without the other."

CHAPTER XXIX.

SOCIAL LIFE.

Perhaps no city in the world can show a more rapid development, a greater change in its people, its life and customs than can Kansas Citysometimes known as the "French settlement," Kawsmouth, Kansas, and Town of Kansas, and later Kansas City, with its Indian, French, Mexican, Spanish and American inhabitants. In 1908 there are only about half a dozen persons living who rocked the cradle of this young giant that soon put on the seven league boots and stepped across the Apalachian mountains to the Atlantic ocean, and across the Rocky mountains to the Pacific ocean. Among them are: W. Henry Chick, Joseph S. Chick, James Hunter and Mrs. Cyprian Chouteau.

To discuss the social development of Kansas City is to discuss the separate phases and epochs brought about by constantly changing conditions from tepees, bark huts, log cabins and sun-dried brick mansions to stone and cement apartment houses; and from Indian ponies, ox-carts, prairie schooners, stage coaches, packet boats and steam cars to automobiles. These transformations took place in this community from 1808 to 1908; a century with its ten mile-stones marked with privation, endurance, evolution, ambition, enterprise, catastrophe and achievement. A golden milestone, like the Milliarun Aurum in the Roman forum, might be set up to show that all roads-be they Indian trails, wagon roads, water ways or railroads-lead to a new Rome. On that golden mile-stone a golden book might be laid, and after the manner of the Venetians, there might be inscribed therein the names of those daring founders, energetic builders, and brave fighters whose abiding faith developed the little trading post into one of the great cities of the world.

Although known to French trappers, explorers and adventurers, the vicinity of Kansas City, so far as history tells, was not visited by white men until Daniel Morgan Boone came about 1787. This son of the celebrated Kentucky pioneer trapped for twelve winters on the Big and Little Blue rivers, and he pronounced them the best beaver streams he had yet discov

ered. The first white woman known to have settled near the Kaw's mouth was Madam Grand Louis, who came with her husband, Louis Bartholet, from St. Charles, Missouri, in 1800. Francois Chouteau brought his family with him when he established a trading-post near the mouth of the Kaw river in 1821; and in 1829 James H. McGee bought land, followed by Gabriel Prudhomme, who purchased land in 1831 that afterwards became the original townsite of Kansas City.

The first white settlement in Jackson county was made in 1808 at Fort Osage on a site twenty miles east of Kansas City. George C. Sibley, government factor at the fort, built a home in 1818 that became noted for its hospitality. Mrs. Sibley is said to have owned the first piano brought to Jackson county. Abraham McClelland built a log mansion at Fort Osage in 1822.

In the olden times it was said that Independence was a town of good breeding and that Westport was a town of good fellowship, Kansas City had both and by adding enterprise formed the celebrated "Kansas City Spirit." Some of the prominent men of Independence before 1850 were Judge Russell Hicks, William McCoy, John McCoy, John Parker, Cornelius Davy, John Wilson, Samuel D. Lucas, J. B. Hovey, George Buchanan, Jacob Hallar, L. W. Boggs, Samuel C. Owen, Henry C. Childs, James Childs, Major William Gilpin, Samuel H. Woodson and Abraham Comingo. The law firm of Woodson, Comingo & Chrisman was one of the oldest, and their families were among the socially prominent.

Before church houses were built the people worshiped in private homes or in the groves. In 1827 the New Salem church, a few miles east of Independence, was organized, and in 1832 the Cumberland Presbyterian church was built in Independence, followed by the Christian church in 1835 and the Methodist church in 1837. A college for young women, established in the early forties by a Methodist minister, was well attended, and was considered one of the best schools of the west. Many Indian girls from Wyandotte, daughters of wealthy Wyandotte Indians, were among the pupils. Julia Armstrong, daughter of Silas Armstrong, a chief of the Wyandotte tribe, attended, and married in Independence.

Captain M. S. Burr, Martin Parker, Meade Woodson, Brook Kerley, James Beckman, Captain Schuyler Lowe and John Smith were among the beaus in 1840. Among the belles were Miss Ann Eliza Kean, who at the age of sixteen married Jabez Smith, one of the largest planters and slave holders of the county, and after his death married John W. Polk. Miss Fannie Owen, daughter of Samuel C. Owen, a popular and beautiful girl, figured in one of the first romances and first tragedies of the town.