Ten years ago Llanfairpwll (for short) became famous. There was started there a society that was something quite new. It bore the dissuasive name of "Women's Institute". The name was made in Canada, where, having a practical bent, they sometimes think more of the thing than the name. According to the wise and prudent, there could hardly have been a more unpromising start for a new movement. It was the second year of the war.
Today, however, there are, up and down Britain, no fewer than 4,000 rural Women's Institutes, with a quarter of a million subscribing members. Very many of the members of this countrywomen's social and educational movement are agricultural workers' wives and daughters. But the village shop, the farmhouse, the schoolhouse, the parsonage, and the manse are strongly represented. And then there are the members from every grade of the entry, and for some years the Queen and Queen Alexandra have been members. The Government has spent nearly ú50,000 in support of the movement, in addition to several thousands that have been forthcoming from the Scottish Board of Agriculture.
The movement has not only its salaried organisers and secretaries, but in every county indefatigable and skilful voluntary organisers - farmers' and parsons' wives, schoolmistresses, and ladies of title and leisure - who are trained by headquarters and hold their positions subject to renewal each year. The rules for institutes, institute groups, institute centres, county federations, and the national federation have been worked out in great detail with much skill.
The monthly meetings of the institutes are devoted to education, to technical instruction and to social enjoyment. The County Council Education Committees have found in the institutes ready-made agencies for adult instruction. For all forms of technical training which are assisted by county councils the institutes have been invaluable in establishing Carnegie village libraries. As centres of social life they have made rural existence a new thing for the womenfolk of the village, saving them from the monotony of the common round and giving them opportunities of self improvement.
There is tea at every institute monthly meeting. The women listen with growing appreciation to each other's housewifely wisdom and increasingly value each other's social qualities. Together they study fruit preservation, upholstering, first aid, tinkering, cookery, shoe mending, the care of small stock, fur craft, baskets, or hat making, or household economies and shortcuts. The women develop their powers in music, folk dancing, or acting; they join hands in schemes for the improvement of the water supply or the motor-bus service, or the disposal of waste or the provision of a sweep's outfit or a clinic; they take their part in parish and County Council elections, and in getting women put on public bodies, and become acquainted with public questions of a non-party sort ranging from mental deficiency, child welfare, women policemen, and humane slaughtering to the league of nations.
