CHAPTER VI PUBLIC ACTIVITY BESIDES the very confining and regular work at the school, and her private and public lecture courses, Ellen Key has been greatly in demand as a speaker before various Women's Societies, Student Fraternities, Tem- perance Leagues and Labour, Unions in Stock- holm, Gothembourg, Christiania, Copenhagen, Helsingfors, as well as smaller towns in Sweden. Even as early as 1880, in Stockholm, we find her giving addresses on different subjects. Without pecuniary reward, she generously lavished her energy to further enlightenment, to collect means for treasuries, for agitation, for this or that piu*pose. She has especially laboured for workingmen, women, and child- ren. When engaged to speak in other cities she has always given one or more free lectures. This is much more remarkable since she is a popular speaker and fills to the last seat every hall in which she speaks. Her ' ' self-realisation ' has been to give to others what they other- 81