It was once my duty to act as private tutor in algebra and geometry to a young man preparing for college.  He was bright and industrious, but I found that he was under the impression that when he had gone to the end of his text-books in those two subjects he would have mastered, not only all the algebra and geometry, but all the mathematics, that the world held in store.  And when this story has been told in despair to some very intelligent persons they have commented:  “Well, there isn’t much more, is there?”

The effort of the text-book writer, as well as that of the maker of programmes, lists, and courses, appears to have been to produce what he calls a “well-rounded” effect; in other words, to make the student think that the whole subject—­in condensed form perhaps, but still the whole—­lies within what he has turned out.  Did you ever see a chemistry that gave, or tried to give, an idea of the world of chemical knowledge that environs its board cover?  One has to become a Newton before he feels, with that sage, like a child, playing on the sands, with the great, unexplored ocean of knowledge stretching out before him.  Most students are rather like ducks in a barn-yard puddle, quite sure that they are familiar with the whole world and serene in that knowledge.

Most writers of text-books would indignantly deny that this criticism implies a fault.  It is none of their business, they would say, to call attention to what is beyond their scope.  So be it.  Unfortunately, every one feels in the same way and so the horizon of our women’s clubs is that of the puddle instead of the ocean.

It is a most interesting fact in this connection that there exist certain organisations which make a business of furnishing clubwomen with information for their papers.  I have heard this service described as a “godsend,” to clubs in small places where there are no libraries, or where the libraries are poorly equipped with books and personnel.  But, if I am correctly informed, the service does not stop with the supply of raw material; it goes on to the finished product, and the perplexed lady who is required to read a paper on “Melchisedek” or on “Popular Errors Regarding the Theory of Groups,” may for an adequate fee, or possibly even for an inadequate one, obtain a neatly typewritten manuscript on the subject, ready to read.

This sort of thing is not at all to be wondered at.  It has gone on since the dawn of time with college theses, clergymen’s sermons, the orations and official papers of statesmen.  Whenever a man is confronted with an intellectual task that he dare not shirk, and yet has not the intellect or the interest to perform, the first thing he thinks of is to hire some one to do it for him, and this demand has always been great enough and widespread enough to make it profitable for some one to organise the supply on a commercial basis.  What interests us in the present case is the fact that its existence in the woman’s