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aware that 0111' organization's first objective is better homes. But two world wars in the lifetime of most of us have made women â€"especially women who lost sons in these warsâ€"see that it isn't enough to make good homes for children; we must also do what we can to make a better world for them. So our interests broadened. It seemed that to be a good mother, a woman had to be away from her family sometimes; and perhaps the interests she brought home with her made, her an even better mother. 1' TIâ€"IOUGHT FOR THE FAMILY:â€"Institute members are well But somehow a trend away from the family seems to have crept up on us. There was a time when we heard a lot about the isolation of the country woman. A poem "The Farm “Wife,” said, "She never climbed a mountain. She never heard the sea, But always watched a winding road That wandered aimlessly . . The farm wife doesn’t stay at home watching the road any more. A considerable part of her time she's on it, usually in a good cause, but not always. Go to an Institute meeting and the women may tell you “We were up till midnight last night catering for the Lions' Club. Next week it's the Masons and the week after that the Holstein banquet." Or perhaps it’s the women of the Church who cater for something about every week and every Institute woman is a Church woman, too, so she does double duty. Then lodges are extending rapidly into the smaller places and when any good organization is set up in a small community every woman feels she should give it her support. It takes courage to say "So much I can do; beyond that my responsibility is with my family." Perhaps we should not be surprised at a recent indictment from a Chu rch that “children are suffering from the lack of the experience of mother love." Most of us would agree that a good family life is as important as ever it was, as vital to the well-being of the individual and the state. Perhaps we would agree, too, that there are more influences attracting women away from homemaking than there are attracting her to it. Then, since a major concern of our organization is the welfare of the home and the family, is there something we can do about it? Can we give the business of homemaking the dignity it deserves, perhaps even glamorize it a little; let our programs streSs the psychology back of being a good Wife and mother; make much of creating beauty and peace and interest in our homes? Can we find ways of raising the funds we need without asking too much of already busy women? Can we develop the talents of all our members so that no one woman has to hold three or four or half a dozen oflices? The husband of a talented, popular woman, pressed into office by about every organization in the community. said to me: "I wish something would ease up soon. Our little boys hardly know their mother any more." How to divide her time between her home and outside interests is something each woman will have to work out for herself. But shouldn't the Institute have a thought for the problem too! WW UMMER 1954