WHAT WOMEN CAN DO.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1419, 20 April 1912, Page 11

WHAT WOMEN CAN DO.

Tho great German All-Woman Exhibition, called "The Woman at Home and Business," which was opened in Berlin recently by the Empress of Germany, in the Exposition Salon of the Zoological Gardens, will interest Australian women, whose example in holding an exhibition of women's work, such as was held in Melbourne some few years ago, has been an incentive to women in all parts of the world, says the English correspondent of tho "Telegraph." The creation of Frau Hcdwig Heyd, "Mother of Berlin," in co-operation with the German Lvceura Club—which is ii branch of the London Lyceum Club—the exhibition is probably the most comprehensive display of feminine achievement ever organised in Europe. It is at least an epoch-making attempt to shatter tho

Gorman masculine tradition that woman is an inferior being. When tho Kaiserin entered the hall she was greeted by a chorus of 250 women, who sang a cantata composed -for tho occasion by. Fraulein Elizabeth Kuyper, conductress of the Berlin Women's Symphony Orchestra, which played the ' accompaniment.

Woman dominates the exhibition. The decorative scheme was planned and to a large extent executed by women. An array of statistics shows that 9,000,000 women are engaged in German industries, of whom 20,000 aro in the mining trades. A woman blacksmith exhibits horseshoes from her forge in a booth next to those of a woman cobbler and a woman clockmaker. Four German airwomen show their flying machines. ' Two women farmers have brought their pigs from the country. The products of women architects, oaipenters, engineers, chemists, authors, composers, painters, and sculptors aro present in profusion. Tho Queen of Rumania, "Carmen Sylva," exhibits specimens of her own needlework. The ladies of the .Rothschild family display their famous collection of thimbles in sold, silver, and precious stones. Near-by is a rope of pearls, which will be awarded as the first prize in an exhibition lottery. The Duchess of Connaught and tho Duchess of Albany are tho hon. presidents of o section showing the work of German women resident in _ Great Britain and the Dominions; it _is chiefly of a philanthropic and artistic nature. It is stated that 11,600 women of British birth I live in Germany.