meeting are, firstly, that the programme is arranged by the Committee to include as far as possible subjects suggested by the members, and that in this way a great variety of topics are included, ensuring that all members will find subjects which interest them personally; and secondly, that suggestions from members (known as the Roll Call, as each member when her name is called out contributes her quota of information on the chosen subject) form a part of most programmes. The latter point is important, as through the Roll Call an Institute member gets used to hearing the sound of her own voice, and is gradually able to express herself more easily in public, for although a considerable number of lectures are given by lecturers supplied by the local Education Authority and by other experts who will speak at Women's Institute meetings for a small fee, yet the more flourishing Women's Institutes pride themselves on having members who are able and willing to lecture or demonstrate at Women's Institute meetings.

Countrywomen have a vast amount of expert knowledge, which, when once they have got over their natural diffidence, they are ready to impart to fellow-members. One may have the best recipe for scones, another may be an expert upholstress; a third may have lived in one of the Dominions and have many shrewd observations to make, to the delight of her audience, who have no knowledge of other lands.

At first sight a Women's Institute programme for the year seems to deal with so many subjects that the impression is given that the members cannot get more than a smattering of knowledge on a variety of matters. In fact, the monthly meetings include subjects which interest everyone; they widen the outlook of members and make them able to give expression to their views; as pleasant social meetings they break down barriers which have existed in villages sometimes for generations. But the work of a Women's Institute does not end with the organization of its monthly meeting.

Has a lecture on Book-keeping aroused special interest, a class may be formed to include not only members but also men in the village. Has a "Roll Call" on what is wanted in the village shown that there is difficulty in getting books, then a Women's Institute Committee is instructed to start a scheme for the formation of a village library. Has a demonstration on the making of rush mats elicited the information that suitable rushes can easily be obtained

and sufficient members are anxious to learn the craft, then arrangements may be made for the demonstrator to give lessons. Has the care of a village path or the children's playground been neglected, then a deputation to wait on the Parish Council is arranged.

Women's Institutes are strictly non-party and nonsectarian organizations, but, in spite of this safeguard, with their growing importance there is the danger that they may be used by enthusiasts for their own ends. Already, when money has to be raised for a county hospital or other well-organized charity, the wideawake appeal committee at once thinks of the Women's Institutes in the county. When some minor non-party Bill is before Parliament, enthusiastic supporters again turn to the Women's Institutes and ask for their help. Both the County Federations and National Federation of Women's Institutes are fully alive to this danger. They realize that whereas the Women's Institute members can do immense good by studying, for instance, the policy and scope of the League of Nations, or by influencing women to fulfil their public duties and to serve on juries when called upon to do so without demur, yet the members must be protected from those who would make Women's Institutes into moneyraising machines, or who would use the Women's Institutes as a lever to influênce M.P.'s whose constituencies are in rural areas.

It is hard to foretell exactly how much Women's Institutes will in the future take part in public affairs, but it is safe to prophesy that they will continue to remain entirely aloof from party politics, and that, through the educational advantages which they bring to countrywomen, they will help to form a sound public opinion.

The mental atmosphere of a village is tremendously changed by the advent of a Women's Institute. The spirit of friendliness and co-operation reaches beyond the members and has its effect on the men, who frequently regret that they themselves have no organization of the same kind, and in many cases the Women's Institute has been indirectly the means of forming men's clubs.

Like every other form of village organization, Women's Institutes are handicapped by the lack of buildings, but in a very large number of cases Army huts have been bought by Institutes, and in a still greater number money is being raised steadily for the provision of a hall.

Women's Institutes are not rich bodies; the yearly subscription is only 2s. a member, and from this 6d. is paid

as an affiliation fee, shared between the National and County Federations; but the amount of money which can be raised even in a hamlet, from whist drives, jumble sales, concerts and dances, is a constant surprise to the townsman.

The Women's Institutes are not charities, so when money is required members make a joint effort to raise it; they do not exist on the subscriptions of those members who happen to be rich and generous. While the Institutes themselves are self-supporting, the movement could not have spread with anything like the same rapidity were it not for the Government support which it has received.

In 1915 the Agricultural Organization Society was responsible for the formation of the first Women's Institute. The movement remained under their care until 1917, when there were 137 Women's Institutes. The work was then undertaken by the Women's Branch of the Board of Agriculture, and by 1919 the number had increased to 1,400. The responsibility for the organization of the movement was then handed over to the Institutes themselves, and a grant was given by the Development Commissioners.

It is the aim of the movement to become eventually entirely self-supporting, and if the Government grant is gradually decreased, this should be possible without detriment to the work.

The idea of Women's Institutes first came from Canada, where similar organizations have been extremely successful for many years. The rapidity with which Institutes have spread in this country, and the surprisingly small proportion of failures, speaks well for the soundness of the conception. The idea of working together was no doubt made more familiar by the war, when the necessity for all sections to co-operate was the beginning of the slow and painful death of that mental attitude best described by the familiar phrase, "I keep myself to myself."

This exclusiveness was at one time the ideal of many countrywomen, and if through the Women's Institutes it is finally killed and buried, the advantage gained will be considerable, for to make village life as attractive as it is possible for it to be, the first essential is for country men and women to decide in what direction their well-being lies, and then together to give effect to their design.

G. DENMAN

PRESENT THEIR MERITS COMPARED

AMONG lovers of games a fruitful topic of conversation can generally be found in a discussion of the relative merits of the players of the present day and the players of the past. It is fruitful to this extent, that in the case of nearly every game one finds that there is plenty to be said on both sides; but it is unfruitful from another point of view, because, in the nature of things, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to arrive at a really satisfactory conclusion. You cannot pit the players of the past against the players of the present, and thus the best evidence upon the point -some say the only evidence worth having-cannot be produced. In default of it the answer to the question must necessarily be based upon opinion, and opinions, as we know, are apt to differ widely.

The belief that the foremost players of to-day are superior to the foremost players of yesterday is naturally the popular one. We like to think that we are progressing, and the man who stands up for the heroes of the past is usually listened to with incredulity. Nor can it be denied that the innuendo contained in the phrase laudator temporis acti is often well merited. Byron has reminded us that "the days of our youth are the days of our glory," and some of us, at any rate, as we grow older, are apt to have our vision distorted by the memory of events which thrilled us more deeply than similar events of more recent occurrence, because we are less enthusiastic and less impressionable than we used to be. On the other hand, the argument that things must necessarily have improved in relation to any particular game, because of the progress that is going on in relation to things in general, is only argument unsupported by proof. In fact, the presumption, owing to the virtual cessation of all forms of sport during the war, is the other way. And those who hold that there is leeway still to be made up, for instance, in two of our greatest games, cricket and football to wit, are probably right, though they cannot prove it. They cannot pit the great players of the past against the great players of the present.

It so happens, however, that in lawn tennis we are able to do the next best thing. We are able to compare the great players of the past with those of the present

because there is a man who comes in both categories. Mr. Norman Brookes was one of the greatest players in the world from 1905 to 1914, and, despite his forty-three years, he is still one of the greatest players in the world to-day. In 1905 he came over from Australia and beat everybody but the reigning Champion, Mr. H. L. Doherty. In 1907 he renewed the attack and won the championship, which Mr. Doherty did not defend. Mr. Brookes resigned his championship in the following year, and did not return to the charge-although he played in the meantime, and with distinction, in the Davis Cup-until 1914, when he came over again and regained the title, beating the late Captain Antony Wilding (holder) in the Challenge Round. Subsequently he and Wilding went to America and won the Davis Cup, of which America was then the holder, for Australasia.

Passing on to post-war history, we find Mr. Brookes, never a very robust man, still less robust than he was in 1914, older by five years, and yet still able to "make good" in the highest company. In 1919 he lost the championship at Wimbledon to his young compatriot, Mr. Gerald Patterson (the contest having been in abeyance since 1914 owing to the war), in a match which suggested that his disabilities were mainly physical. But after that in America, in the U.S.A. championships, and again in the defence of the Davis Cup, at the end of 1920, in his own country, as well as in the series of exhibition matches which took place early in the present year after the Americans had won the Cup, Mr. Brookes proved that in the matter of actual play he was the equal of Messrs. Tilden and Johnston, admittedly the two foremost men in the world at the present time.

It follows from this that, unless Mr. Brookes is as formidable as he has ever been, the players with whom he can hold his own now cannot be as formidable as those with whom he held his own before the war. What, then, is his actual strength at the present time as compared with what it was in 1914, or, earlier still, in 1907 ?

My own opinion is that Mr. Brookes was at his zenith (aged thirty) in 1907; that he was not as good in 1914 (although he beat Wilding) as he was in 1907, and that he is not as good now as he was in 1914. In the belief that he was better in 1907 than he was in 1914 I am supported by one of his many great American rivals, Mr. Karl Behr, who has stated in print that he thinks that Mr. Brookes was at his prime in 1907. In 1914 he had lost, according to Mr. Behr, a lot of his speed and severity, though he