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editorial What would Adelaide HoodlCSs have though: about The \V Before trying to answer this question it might be advis Hunter HOodless as a woman She was born in 1857, children. Records do not tell us much about the othe that some of them received excellent educations and that the mother set high standards for the quality of the'home environment. Adelaide went to the nearby public school completing the course of studies theft; and she may have studied for a few months at a Ladies' College When she was visiting a married sister. Her further education was acquired through reading afld home 5min and She Pmbably Willi advantage of any and all opportunities to acquire knowledge and to develop her natural abilities since we are told that in later years she was 2] Skilled and influential public speaker, and an interesting conversationalist. - Born in 1857 Adelaide Hoodless would be forty years old when the \Vomen's Institutes were founded in 1897. It was a period in time when women were growing restless about the domination of men in private and public affairs. Education for women was not thoung to be necessary. In fact any woman who was bold enough to want any education beyond the local schools was considered queer and certainly not a good prospett foli- marriage and motherhood. Even so the suffragettes were gaining strength and demanding rights. \Vhen Emily Stowe, the first woman to practice medicine in Canada. approached the chancellor of the University of Toronto on the subject of admitting women the chancellor replied, "I hope that I will never live to see the day when the doors of the University are darkened by women." Emily Stowe was forced to get her medical training in New York but her daughter Dr. Aogtwtit Stout- Gullen was the first woman to graduate from the Medical School of the University of Toronto. Later Dr. Stowe, deploring the situation of women. helped to start a W'omen's Literary Club, which promoted a study of women's rights. This organization later took name of the \‘O’omen'x Suffrage Club. Adelaide Hoodless must have been well aware of the inequalities in the rights of women. and must have known of the various stirrings and the unrest. \Ve have no record that she took any part in any movement until her concern about education in Household Science \\ as kindled by the death of her sort. From then on Adelaide Hoodless had a crusade and she pursued it fearlessly till her death in 1910‘ In this she was, in the words of our age. "doing her own thing.“ Considering the woman there seems very little doubt that if Adelaide HntKlless was alive today she would speak out fearlessly to improve the rights of women. It could be that Mrs. Hoodless would not have much use for \V’omen‘s Lib., :15 “u know it. It could be that the vociferous attention getting antics of some of the so called emancipated women would have offended her sense of a woman's dignity. She would consider that these females are all wrong in their approach and that they are probably not willing to join with those women who understand the slower approach of persistently pursuing (nagging) the need lo a change in women's rights. When Mrs. Hoodless felt that women needed an organization through which they could improve their education not only in homemaking but in other fields she spoke out boldly. telling men and women alike her thoughts and ideas. The \V’nmen's Institutes are the result of one of the times when she “spoke out." and was willing to give the benefit of her thinking to follow it up. Considering things accomplished by the Women's Institutes could the organization not be considered a revolutionary women's movement? It has brought women out of the home â€" but it has sent them back better equipped to deal with all aspects of homemaking. It has shown women, as no other organization has done, that women had skills and abilities that they didn't know they possessed and taught them how to use these skills. It has sent women into flElClh beyond their home communities where they can learn at first hand of other women and has given them the opportunity to serve other women in all parts of the world. The Women's Institute has been responsible for so many innovations in Home and Com. munin living that it has long been forgotten to whom the credit is due. The members have not been egg throwers and perhaps they have been too modest to claim their rightful credit. but any cause that has been for the improvement of the status of women had and Will continue to have the support of the organization. Whether being more militant and aggresstve in the causes being supported would help is a good question. K Perhaps only modesty and a lack of imagination prevented the early \Vomen's Institute workers from being called members of a \Vonien's Liberation Movement. It is not difficult to believe that Adelaide Hoodless would have appmved of that. omen's Liberation Movement? able to give some thought to Adelaide the youngest in it family of twelve t members of the family but it is known WINTER 1971