Page:The part taken by women in American history.djvu/451

416 those who love and labor for the greater human family"; to combine "recreation with the pursuit of wisdom"; to provide "the comforts of the club to the lonely, in city and suburb," and proposed useful work in a registry of women seeking the so-called higher occupations, providing rooms for women who came to Boston for concerts, operas, and lectures.

Among the achievements of the New England Woman's Club has been the establishment of a Horticultural School for women, in which the pupils erected their own greenhouses, painted the buildings, etc. It was subsequently merged into the "bussey," a department of Harvard. Caused the passage of the first school-suffrage law, which permitted women to be elected members of the Boston and other school boards. Aided by helpers, the club established the New England Hospital for women and children, which was officered and managed by women, with eminent doctors of the other sex as consulting physicians and surgeons. In co-operation with Hon. Josiah Quincy, Dr. Bowditch and others, the club joined in the incorporation of a successful Co-operation Building Association, which proved a great assistance to the poor, and furnished an object lesson to the philanthropists of the whole country. Aided by one of its members, "St. Elizabeth" Peabody, the club provided scholarships for studious young women and used its potent influence to promote higher education for women, resulting in the founding of the Girl's Latin School, of Boston.

The club began the agitation and eventually caused the appointment of women police matrons and placed women on the boards of all public institutions. Homes of detention for women they also secured.

This club also aided the fund of the Egyptian Exploration Society, joined the Archaeological Institute of Greece, and abetted the New York Society for the suppression of obscene literature and took an active part in the dress-reform movement.