The Institutes of Fine Arts have also been thrown open to women since 1890 and many girls take their degree as teachers of drawing; a few become painters or sculptors; many more work in the field of decorative art. The in dustrial arts have made much progress of late in Italy; there are three excellent Industrial Museums, the one in Naples being: renowned for its important production of delft-ware. But where women excel to-day in such industries is laceworlc, It was around 1886 that a Venetian Countess, Adriana Zon Marcella a lady of honor to Queen Margherita, conceived the idea of reviving the lost art of laceraaking, for which Italy had once been so famous. En couraged by the Queen, the work was revived, at first in Venice, and so much interested the Italian ladies of the upper classes that the pno duction of all kinds of hand-made laces and embroideries has been established in different provinces, reviving in each the special char acteristic designs. A few years since the ladies. conducting the work established an incorpo rated Association of Italian Feminine Industries, having its headquarters in Rome. The work exhibited is of exquisite character. Literature and journalism offer a large field of labor to women, but these professions are scantily re munerated in Italy.
No one who has not lived in Italy during recent years can realize the wonderful advance Made in every department of woman's life. Women's associations have been started, wo-. men's papers circulate, :women work in new fields of labor, they are fully recognized as able to take care of themselves and their industrial co-operation during the Great War 1914-18, is regraded as having g•reatly advanced the solu tion of their economic position. This advance, fostered by uplifting influences, is notable in Rome where it seemed well-nigh impossible that modern ideas could ever take root.
When Lady Aberdeen was president of the International Council of Women in 1898, she asked Mrs. Sanford, who was then coming from Canada to Italy, to invite Italian women to the great International Congress which was to be held in London in 1899. Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, who was then in Rome, greatly helped Mrs. Sanford in her mission. A meeting was held in Rome in 1898 and the Italian ladies present were deeply touched by the interest in Italy evinced by American women. They promised to draw up a program that (adapted to the circumstances, habits and needs of their country) should make it possible to do some thing practical towards starting a National Council of Women in Italy. It was decided to federate in one large association the principal co-operative societies of woman's activity; and the aims of the General Federation of Woman's Work were defined as follows To create a current of mutual understanding and kind feel ing amongst women interested in this or other good works; to make widely known the various existing enterprises of women; to bring about, by the force and influence of the union of wo men's associations, the most desirable reforms.
Since the congress in London, the first pro gram has been greatly enlarged, but it con tained the central idea, around which the dele gates of different associations grouped them selves. Countess Lavinia Taverna, a lady of
honor of H. M. Queen Margherita, was unanimously named president and received the valuable help of Miss Dora Melegari, who was the first general secretary of the federation; one of the strongest of modern writers and a woman of very superior character.
When 60 different organizations, created and supported by women,• had joined the Roman Federation, it was decided to begin with them a National Council of Women. Three years after the first Federation of Woman's Work was organized there were 60 different institu tions, whilst in the same number of years American women organized only 11.
Italian women carry their aspirations fur ther than philanthropic schemes; they aim at a social activity in the fullest meaning of the word, but avoid every sort of political action. They study the condition of woman, comparing it with her condition in other countries, tak ing into account the rare virtues of Italian women, virtues that often, by the force of cir cumstances, reveal themselves in silent self sacrifice more than in positive and efficient action. They acknowledge that woman in Italy has in all social spheres much to learn economically, morally, intellectually. The Italian woman is only now beginning to recog nize and develop her moral sense and her social personality, and every effort is made to further this aim. By lectures, many of which treat of the different aspects of the woman question,—her culture, her social, judicial and even political rights,— through books, papers, reviews (such as Vita Femminile, started in Rome in 1907), Italian women are led to recog nize that a high standard of social duties is necessary.
The majority of women do not believe that their active co-operation can be of any use in politics and are not desirous of the right to vote, for they know well how efficacious their indirect action can be, through their influence over the men of their own family and their friends. The influence of woman in the family is so strong in Italy, that the women question in Italy is of the utmost importance and has to be solved in a manner essentially different from that of other countries. The Italian woman understands that she cannot and must not remain inactive in the fervor of the moral resurrection of her country, and if at times she seems inert and uninterested, it is because she works in silence, without pomp or parade.
It may be safely asserted that the educated Italian woman is inferior to none. She differs only in temperament and its manifestations in daily life. Averse to participation in public affairs, she is yet an important factor in them owing to her personal influence, and there is no doubt that woman in Italy is becoming an important social power. Freed from many prej udices and misconceptions which have kept her far from the vital interests of the nation, she is advancing in the full promiseof a brilliant future.