Side by side with the suffrage movement, growing along with it and with the women's clubs, and in time to be absorbed by them, was another movement which was for many years very dear to her, the Association for the Advancement of Women.

This Association had its beginning in 1873, when Sorosis, then a sturdy infant, growing fast and reaching out in every direction, issued a call for a Congress of Women in New York in the autumn of that year. She says of this call:—-

"Many names, some known, others unknown to me, were appended to the document first sent forth. My own was asked for. Should I give or withhold it? Among the signatures already obtained, I saw that of Maria Mitchell,[76] and this determined me to give my own."

She went to the Congress, and "viewed its proceedings a little critically at first," its plan appearing to her "rather vast and vague."

Yet she felt the idea of the Association to be a good one; and when it was formed, with the above title, and with Mrs. Livermore as president, she was glad to serve on a sub-committee, charged with selecting topics and speakers for the first annual Congress.

The object of the Association was "to consider and present practical methods for securing to women higher intellectual, moral, and physical conditions, with a view to the improvement of all domestic and social relations."

At its first Congress she said:

"How can women best associate their efforts for the amelioration of Society? We must come together in a teachable and religious spirit. Women, while building firmly and definitely the fabric they decide to rear, must yet build with an individual tolerance which their combined and corporate wisdom may better explain. The form of the Association should be representative, in a true and wide sense. Deliberation in common, mutual instruction, achievement for the whole better and more valuable than the success of any,—these should be the objects held constantly in view. The good of all the aim of each. The discipline of labor, faith, and sacrifice is necessary. Our growth in harmony of will and in earnestness of purpose will be far more important than in numbers."

One hundred and ninety women formed this Association: a year later there were three hundred. The second Congress was held in Chicago, with an attendance "very respectable in numbers and character from the first, and very full in afternoon and evening."

On the second day, October 16, 1874, the subject considered was "Crime and Reform." The Journal says:—