For the purpose of helping these weaker ones the Woman's Trade Union League is organized. Who shall say that in this day when the theory of the "survival of the fittest" seems to be the power which influences, that a new power, a new spirit is not needed, which shall rule at least with an equal right in our hearts women-"bear ye one another's as burdens." the face of them-women have left country, friends, relatives and luxuries behind, to teach people who took little interest in being taught-our respect and admiration know no bounds. Frances Willard, Her Life and Work* A Frances Willard who rides cow-back because she was forbidden a horse; a Frances Willard fixing her gun, and setting traps for birds, railing at housework and "invited company" is not the character we usually think about when her name is mentioned. There is an unfortunate halo, and a feeling of awe about a reformer which removes her from Books Old and New the attractively human type of the aver Women of India* The needs of India The Education of the along educational lines are made very clear and we are enabled also to see what the problems are which confront anyone desirous of taking up work in that country. We think of India in the concrete, forgetting, even with Kipling's help, that she is an empire made up of foreign countries (we may call them), each with differing speech, religion and custom, united only under the British flag. When we consider that there are in this empire only two divisions of people who are at all progressive, the Burmese and Parsi; when we remember the inherited prejudice for education; when the natural apathy of the nation is recalled; its need for teachers, such need that there has been one case at least, where the head of a school could not write words of three letters to dictation, and yet she kept her position; when we think that this certainty of employment lowers the standard of character and efficiency, and that in India the personality counts for everything, and without it, the best of institutions and Government plans are unavailing-one's hopeful idealism is very near fainting. Yet, although this side is so very discouraging we cannot help but be proud of the women who have triumphed in their efforts, like the Clews sisters in the Diocesan High School in Calcutta. And, to quote, "the task of Inspectorate is no easy one; the word calls up visions of many successive nights spent in bullock carts, in trains, and on horse-back to reach the inaccessible parts of an inaccessible province... it hardly seems work which a woman should do, and yet it is work which must be done by women." When we know this work is done by women! And more are wanted; that, facing all these adverse facts, and acting in *The Education of the Women of India, by Minna G. Cowan. Revell. 250 pages, $1.25 net. age sinner. It is therefore well to make one's self read a biography like this one, if only to close the book with a friendly feeling for the homeliness of human nature, no matter how great it may have become. It is to the reader's own gain that the austerity of fame melts into the softness of familiarity-even such familiarity as failures. To find that Frances Willard knew all about farm work, could milk the cows and harness oxen, knew when to plant and reap. That she fed the animals, and chased the hogs and turkeys, and that her family called her a "reign of riot" is such a surprise that one is positively refreshed, as if some breezy stranger had blown in at a perfectly respectable tea party and had delivered herself of a few prairie yarns and gone out again to address some meeting on the economic questions of the day. One would have such a different point of view of the lecturer! Constructive Rural Sociology The first half of this book is devoted to the usual sociological considerations of rural life. Its advantages and drawbacks, its differentiations, its economic valuation, its value to the country, and its difficulties. The second half of the book may be said to deal with the constructive portion of the problem. Here such practical things are dealt with as health and sanitation; the attractiveness and necessary social life of the country, with a chapter on rural social institutions and their results. Charity and correction as applied to this realm of citizenship is an unusual aspect offered to the reader, and a social survey brings the book to a close after a thorough and efficient handling of this large subject. This social survey includes (a) physical conditions, (b) population, (c) such economic factors as marketing, renting, labor, taxes and mortgages, (d) politics, (e) religion, (f) culture, (g) community psychology, (h) transportation and communication, (i) esthetic conditions, (j) recreation, (k) health, (1) pathology. The last unique chapter, with its tabulated headings, is a plea for a thorough and wide survey to be made of the rural life in our country. Suggestions as to methods and forms of procedure accompany it. We may say in closing this resumé of a very practical volume that the author is Professor of Sociology in the University of North Dakota. The Spark of Life* Margaret W. Morley has given us another book on life beginnings, "The Spark of Life. The story of how living things come into the world as told for girls and boys." The book belongs to "the Edward Bok books on self-knowledge prepared for young people and parents.' For persons who are willing to work toward self-knowledge" through the processes of study of all forms of life from the flower seed up to highest mammalia, we can always recommend Mrs. Morley's delightful series of books. "The Spark of Life" is in some respects the choicest of the series. In the first place it is brief and in the second, it centers around a choice family group. The parents of the girl and boy are engaged in teaching their children the series. In the first place it is brief and, eugenics, and at the end they arrive. Given the same conditions and facilities other parents may use this little hand book with like results. The Country Church and Community Co-operation t The proceedings of a third conference series dealing with country life problems has been gathered together and published in book form. It is a complement of a book entitled "The Rural Church and Community Betterment," and the larger proportion of the work is evident just in the change of title. A co-operation which represents the public feeling of a place is absolutely necessary to make any line of work a success, and a co-operation with the initiative apparently coming from The Spark of Life by Margaret W. Morley. Fleming H. Revell. $0.25 net. † Country Church and Community Co-operation, by Henry Israel, editor, N. Y. Association Press. 170 pages, price $1.00. Story-telling in School and Home* The author says that stories represent man's way of hoping and saying that which means most to him and that which he takes to heart and most strives for. The myth, for instance, is some deep thought or wish which he gives expression. If this is true, with the fundamental desires of man much the same everywhere, and the laws of mental action universal, given the same stage of development, and the same environment, the same mental product will result. From this point of view the story and its educational importance is considered, with the relative merits of different types of tales for the varying stages of development of the child. In these classes fairy tales, epic stories, historical stories, fables and other purposive stories, individual and modern stories are included. Part two is given up to the retelling of twenty stories illustrative of the argument of the book. The author has had the practical experience as story-teller for the Worcester (1910) playgrounds, for Bancroft School, and for Garden Cities, Worcester, Massachusetts. Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and Corrections at the Thirtyninth Annual Session Held in Cleveland, Ohio. Effective Bible Study, by Fred S. Goodman. Association Press, 55 pages, 25 cents. Compelled Men, by F. L. Pattee, Association Press, 83 pages, 25 cents. Engagement and Marriage, by O. G. Cocks, Association Press, 50 pages, 25 cents. The Three Gifts of Life, a book intended for girls by Nellie M. Smith. Dodd, Mead & Co., 50 cents. CITY NEWS ITEMS A Camp Fire Girls Pageant, entitled "Any Girl," has been given by the Los Angeles Association so effectively that the board of directors is said to have felt that "if the men and women who are interested in girls of this age could have seen it the Association would never have to ask for another dollar." One hundred girls, drawn from the Camp Fire groups established in Los Angeles by department stores and factories, took part in this representation. Any Girl, a mountain maid, strays into a band of Camp Fire girls gone a-gypsying from Camp Wohelo, and is invited by them to return to the camp, where she sees their ceremonies and frolics, and finally is taken to the city Association. Here she sees them at their folk dancing, handcraft and finally in a ceremonial meeting, where she herself is made a member. The staging was simple, but very real. Even the hooting of an owl could be heard in the camp scene. Someone who saw it comments: "To see and hear the Hamburger Store girls recite, each taking the section she liked best from 'God of the Open Air,' at the close of the day in camp was an inspiration." The text was prepared by Miss Ella Lownsberry and the play was planned under the direction of Miss Ludema Sayre, both secretaries of the extension department of the Association. to The Central Branch in New York its members well City distributes through the following Clubs: Ayuda, open to young women in domestic service; Good Times, girls from fifteen to twenty years; Semper Fidelis, girls from twenty twenty-five years; Social Service, composed of young business and professional women; Silver Bay, those who have represented the Association at a city conference; Camp Fire Girls, two separate groups, ages fifteen to twenty-five years. The Semper Fidelis Club, for example, arranges its four monthly meetings along business, philanthropic, literary and social lines successively. Its members have made close connection with a home for crippled children, for whom they have given Thanksgiving and Christmas parties and sent candy eggs and flowers at Easter. They also send the children a box of fruit once a month, and take goodies to them when they call. As the management of the institution supplies the children only with necessities, these homey extras bring them great delight. Through the efforts of the Seattle and Tacoma Associations a bill has passed both branches of the State Legislature exempting properties of the Young Women's Christian Association in the State of Washington_from_taxation. The Northwest Field Committee comments as follows: "This is just the right thing at the right time; and it is good that such a matter should be discussed in our legislature, that the knowledge of the work of the Association may be spread abroad in high places." Prompted by her interest in the Association in Nashville, Tenn., a resident of a neighboring suburb has written the Association that she would like to entertain four of its members during their summer vacation. Four business girls will be sent, two at a time for two weeks each, to the attractive home. The Schenectady press calls attention to the fact that inasmuch as many of the rooming places available for business girls have no suitable bathing facilities, the new showers and swimming pool in the Association building are even more of a necessity than a luxury -an attitude which more and more Associations are coming to feel about this part of their equipment. The Society of Professional Stenographers, established by the Association in Jacksonville, Fla., recently held a banquet in the Association rooms to which were invited many young women who, having had at least one year's experience in business life, were eligible to membership. It was explained in speeches that the society co-operates with the Association employment bureau, helps its members in self-improvement and promotion, and provides for a savings fund and well-planned vacations. A flourishing gym club has been organized in the Washington, D. C., Association. It plans social events for the members, and in one way or another they are brought out into the wider life of the Association rather than being limited to the physical education department alone. The girls may invite their men friends to the bonfire suppers followed by moonlight walks. So cramped was the Association work in Harrisburg, Pa., becoming that even though the contract for its new buildings has been let, it seemed imperative A friend of the Assoto move at once. ciation, Mrs. John Weiss, has generously arranged in emergency for the Association to occupy, rent-free, a residence, which she owns but was not using, until the completion of its new building. Two-year-old Little Rock, Ark., Association has just published “Volume 1, ་ Number 1" of the Y. W. C. A. News, which will appear weekly, and is sent to all who have paid the $1 membership fee or are contributors. A grafanola company of Rochester loaned its best instruments and records to the Association for a concert. Readings with piano accompaniment were also given by two young women artists. The Poughkeepsie Association is cooperating with one of the city physicians to maintain a milk station for the health of Poughkeepsie's babies during the hot weather. This sort of work is also being done by the Association in Meriden, Conn. A business women's club has been organized under the auspices of the Salt Lake City Association, though independent of the Association as to membership. Its purpose is the "promoting of a closer union and better co-operation of the business women of the city in their corporate interests, and securing a better knowledge of the various vocations open to women, and to advance and encourage personal and individual effort in commercial and individual 1913 class of the National Training School, Shanghai, China, April 6, 1913. As far as the Association is concerned, all that I have seen has been, of course, only the evident and external workings, but these seem to me very remarkable. The newly established work of the educational and physical departments is fairly bursting out of the doors and windows; one of Miss Mayhew's gymnasium classes has to be divided each time, and even then some of the girls are out on the verandah; a cooking class is established in the downstairs hall, and the up-stairs rooms are nearly always full of educational classes. The Sunday afternoon vesper service could give pointers to some of those at home; the room is always crowded with girls and young married women, a majority of whom are non-Christians. The other day I went to a meeting of the local Board. The chairman, Mrs. Chang, is a woman who was brought up in Honolulu, has been in Shanghai only a few years, and speaks her inherited Cantonese mixed with English, which she sprinkled through her talk, especially in such expressions as "Y. W. C. A.”, “Committee", etc., for which there is no Chinese equivalent. The secretary, who was taking the minutes, knows only Mandarin, and most of the other women there knew only Shanghai dialect! Miss Ting, one of the Chinese secretaries, interpreted everybody to everybody else and the business got put through in a most satisfactory fashion. Another day I had the privilege of going to a meeting of the National Committee, composed of foreign and Chinese women. Part of the business consisted in reading and discussing the requests of several places to have the Association organized or reinforced, the most critical places being Peking, Tientsin, Canton and Foochow. In all of these places the requests -demands, rather-come from foreigners and Chinese alike, and the Association seems to be the type of work demanded for three principal reasons: To direct the intense desire for social All these demands are getting more and more urgent. There isn't a place that is really supplied with anything like an adequate force, and of course there are always places unfilled or vacated in the inevitable periods for language study and furlough, and by the occasional ravages of break-downs and matrimony. If eight or ten of you will just take the first steamer that leaves after Commencement, and come this way, you will relieve the biggest situation that there is anywhere, I do believe. I don't want to be one of those people who sees China and nothing else on the map, but that is the feeling that people have who have had a good chance to see the rest of the world. I had a wonderful privilege the other night, of going to a prayer meeting of the Young Men's Christian Association secretaries, their wives, and "us." Mr. Taylor, one of the National Secretaries who went through China and Korea with Mr. Mott and Mr. Eddy in their meetings this spring, told us of the marvelous reception, attention and response which they met everywhere. He said that in several cities the government officials erected special pavilions for the meetings and gave the government school students holiday while the meetings lasted; in some places where the building would hold only 2,000 or so, Mr. Eddy had to duplicate his meetings to reach the crowds that came to hear him; thousands signified their desire to sign the card which pledged them to daily Bible study and prayer, and to direct consideration of the claims of Christ upon their lives. Mr. Taylor said that Mr. Eddy tried to "scare down" the numbers, by warning them that it meant ridicule and possible persecution, but that even then the majority insisted on signing cards-many of them coming at once into Bible classes; for one of the greatest things about this campaign is the superbly scientific way in which plans were made beforehand and in which the follow-up work is now going on, of seeing personally each person who signed a card and helping him to keep his pledge. In several places they held meetings also for women students, with results as great, proportionately; so the influence of the campaign is being felt in all quarters, and needs a far greater number of leaders to clinch things than are now here. It is one more thing that makes immediate help all the more urgent. Just before coming to China, Mr. Eddy held a similar series of meetings throughout India; the results there were good, but didn't begin to compare with those which resulted from his work here in China. Every day even such a newcomer as I is more convinced that all we've been hearing about the urgency and crisis in China is not hysteria or even exaggeration. Missionaries who have been here for twenty and thirty years say that it is as though they were working with absolutely different people, so great is the openmindedness and the eagerness for progress, which simply must be controlled and steered in the right direction; and for a few years at least, even China's own splendid Christians are not sufficient for the task, and need the strongest foreigners that can be found to help them. I wish someone would find words which would pierce through the indifference of people at home and make them see and feel this situation-and meet it! Wherever you people are next year don't let your Associations be blind to it, and if you can't come yourself, find somebody who canespecially you people who are going to be with students. Frankly, I shouldn't want the responsibility of being in student work these days, and of putting up the question of life work to people, unless I could make them see the critical state of all the foreign work and the fact they and all other Christians have some definite responsibility This is Halloween. You may think I started to write this letter on the 31st of last October, but no, it is the 3rd of February and this night, if you are possessed with a demon, you have the chance of your life to get rid of him. All you have to do is to scatter beans all about the floor of all your rooms, rushing from one to the other as quickly as you can. This settles your demons for a whole year. Of course if you are as intelligent as most people here in present-day Japan, you use this night for a real lark, and choose beans that you will like to eat afterwards! Last year I stayed all night at one of our dormitories on Halloween. They used peanuts. To-night, just before supper, Miss Page and I went for a walk along the street in front of our house. An electric car line runs along this street to the top of a hill where there is a famous soldier's shrine. On either side of the street are small shops of all kinds, wide open until late at night, full of light and color and the most interesting things imaginable. When we got opposite the shrine, in the open space surrounded by stone lanterns which stretches for a good block in front of the shrine, we saw a number of people dressed in white, each carrying a lantern, running about in the darkness and apparently forming into a kind of procession. There was a great jingling of bells and a voice calling in a kind of chant for the others to keep time. They were pilgrims, dressed in thin white kimonos, and running from one shrine to another in the city as a form of penance. Sometimes when they reach a shrine they are doused with cold water to increase the merit of the pilgrimage. The weather is so cold that snow has stayed unmelted for a month, in spots where the sun does not strike! This whole day has been interesting. The third of each month is the day to go to the thread factory to hold a meeting. Some of you will remember Miss Michi Kawai, who was in America two years ago. She spoke to-day. When you think of our going to the factory, you may imagine a journey of an hour in an electric car and then a walk of about ten minutes to a huge walled-in enclosure in which are the |