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Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 203, 6 December 1910, Page 4

! WOMEN'S WOEK. As from a little acorn grows a huge oak, so from an idea .do all achievements | come. In 1888 an American woman imagined that a National Council of Women •might achieve some results, and elected a Mrs. Fawcett its first president. To-day there are twenty-two affiliated national councils forming the International Council of Women and there are ten million members. Women had up to the time of the formation of that preliminary council taken no really aggressive part in great social questions. The Countess of Aberdeen was international president from 1904 to 1909, and has lately been re-elected for a further five years. This remarkable woman lately set out not only the achievements of the Council, but showed what might yet be achieved by an organisation that had so wide a scope.. One of the International Council's most important sections is that which deals with education, and in connection with which a system of educational bureaux has been' formed. There is in no country an adequate social service for taking, young women when they s leave school and finding them employment, besides arranging for them to continue their studies along specialised- lines. But the International Council of Women intend henceforth to take a large share in educational matters for the promotion of special objects within each country, such as the scientific and practical teaching of domestic subjects to girls of all classes, and the foundation of a national system of educational information and employment bureaux under public authority and connected with the schools. In public health matters, again, there are fields in which the value of women's co-operation cannot be over-esti-mated. The Countess of Aberdeen holds that it is the duty of women to further and guide the efforts to combat tuberculosis and infant mortality to safeguard the health of school children; to improve the health of women industrial workers, as well as the health of the' home. The traffic in women is a question which concerns all women profoundly, and the International Council are laboring unceasingly; to get laws introduced in every country for the suppression of this nefarious trade, as well as for the recognition of an equal moral standard for both sexes. In advancing the movement towards international peace and arbitration the Council has performed yeoman service, and has secured and supported suitable women candidates for positions on those public bodies where membership is open to women.