Clubs which have gone beyond these two early stages of development, or which have never been compelled to pass through them, may begin work with some literary topic. A Year of Biography, covering the lives of great men and women of America or England, is a good first subject, with plenty of material. The writings of Emerson, Hawthorne, Poe and others of the same period, is another. Or, the novels of one or two great writers, George Eliot, Thackeray and Dickens, are always delightful, especially with readings from their novels.
Often clubs will find it a good plan to alternate some study subject one month with a miscellaneous topic the next, by way of variety. Current topics, too, are well worthy constant study, and these can be used as a sort of prelude to any regular program.
Musical clubs are usually limited to a few members, except in cities, but this is by no means necessary, for numbers of women love to listen to good music who can neither play nor sing, and perhaps they can contribute their share of work by writing or speaking of the lives of the composers.
Clubs interested in practical themes may take up civic questions, municipal reforms, or children's courts, or cleaning up their town, or studying factories, or labor laws. There is an excellent magazine called The Survey which deals with all these topics, and suggests many more on the same lines.
Chairmen sometimes find real difficulty in making out club programs, puzzled how to divide a subject into its best points, and subdivide each of these general topics into others, for individual papers.
One of the best plans is always to look up any subject in the encyclopedia, first of all. It is surprising how much help one can get there, for history, art, literature, politics and everything else can be found. Then next, the public library is to be consulted, its card catalogue looked over, and the books drawn out, or at least glanced through for suggestions. Magazines sooner or later seem to have articles on everything, and the library will offer also books of reference to these. In case the subject is historical, a good high school history may be consulted, for in the table of contents the main divisions are all clearly given. A chairman can write down the outlines of all she gleans from these varied sources and then select from them the general lines of study and fill these in.
Sometimes when there is no library at hand, a school teacher can help one out with suggestions, or perhaps a minister may have books on the subject selected. Or, by writing directly to the state librarian books may be borrowed of him. Clubs which have a small yearly fee sometimes buy a book or so a year and keep them as a nucleus of a library.
As to writing club papers, there personality comes in, and education and training, and these give a certain individuality of method of treating a subject. But even here members can follow out certain definite directions.
Suppose, to make the matter concrete, that some one wishes to write a paper on Ruskin, and does not know exactly how to go to work; here is a general plan:
First, of course, she should read something on his life,—a book, an article in a magazine, or anything she can get, and the more she can read the better paper she will write. Next she should divide her subject into its parts; in this case there might be three: Ruskin's life; his work; his influence.