Club puts focus on learning

For more than a century, a little known group of Augusta women has taken time each month to sit quietly in a circle and listen to presentations of what might be described as middle-aged term papers.

They are the Augusta Philomathic Club and consider themselves the oldest continuous women's study club in the United States, according to member Jane Howington, who said she researched the matter thoroughly when she was president.

This Garden City think tank was founded in 1895 by Mrs. F.M. Tufts "to foster the love of learning," which is the club's motto.

Every year, each member of a three-member literary committee proposes a broad topic of study for the upcoming year, and the group votes on one of them. Members then choose a subject that falls under the broad topic, and each researches and writes a paper on it and presents it to the group during a monthly meeting.

This year's topic is Naturalists Lead the Way, with subtopics, such as "Charles Linnaeus," which retired Augusta State University English professor Beth Fanning presented last week.

Dr. Fanning said she chose a topic she knew almost nothing about, and as is always the case when she's in that position, she ends up "doing everything," which results in a paper that's too long for a 30-minute presentation. So she was still cutting the piece as she went along. She talked about the life and work of the 18th-century Swedish botanist who is known as the father of classification and systematic taxonomy.

The scientific names Mr. Linnaeus inherited were unwieldy, often long Latin phrases that had to be memorized, but they weren't standardized. So one plant might go under six, seven, eight such names, she said.

"Linnaeus' practice of uniformly giving living things true Latinized names, genus and species, with modification, remains in use today, giving us, in effect, a universal scientific language," she explained.

Dr. Fanning said she enjoys the conversation with interesting women interested in "all different kinds of ideas."

"There are lots of strong personalities," she said. "The papers are as varied as the presenters. It's fun."

Mrs. Howington said the club was formed when women didn't go to college but felt a need to expand intellectually.

Member Debby Barron said the club was "early women's lib."

"These were women who were older, had already been through motherhood and into grandmotherhood, had spare time, and they saw they were quite early and able to compete with men," she said.

"It was integrated early on, and we have attempted to include younger women, as well as all races and all socioeconomic groups. We now have working women involved, which affects when the meetings are held, but that's all."

Mrs. Barron said being in the club is a special treat she gives herself.

"I always carve out time for this first, and everything else comes after that," she said.

Member Rita McFee said she loves the diversity within the club.

"These women are from totally different walks of life," she said. "I'm a physician's wife, and all of the groups I belong to are about medicine or all about the garden club. These women came from teaching and from business and from education, from all different backgrounds. So it's really, really enlightening and interesting."

Arlene Schler, a former high school English teacher, lawyer, author and now the program coordinator at ASU's Continuing Education, said being in the club satisfies her need to learn, write and speak before a group.

"I was an English major, and I didn't know anything about Linnaeus except that he's associated with plants," she said. "I just learned so much, and now that information can be connected to other things that I know to help me kind of live in a better world, intellectually. And that's what this club is, an intellectual club."

Gloria Greenbaum, likewise, said she always learns something new that enlarges her mind.

"And I love learning," she said. "I have enjoyed listening to the papers, and I love doing the paper, any paper, because our topics are so interesting. It's stimulating to listen and to do."

Carolyn Ingram, the director of Continuing Education at ASU, said she loves the fact that people who don't see each other on a day-to-day basis have come together from very different places.

"They're all exciting, bright, educated women," she said. "These are women who learn and love to learn. Every topic has been interesting. Topics you would never study."

Club historian Hester Bliven said the topics are always interesting.

"And you learn something that you never would have found out for yourself," she said. "I'm so old now, I don't have to do papers anymore. I just listen. It's a lot of fun."

Reach Sylvia Cooper at (706) 823-3228 or sylvia.cooper@augustachronicle.com.