tea, coffee, lemonade, chocolate, and sandwiches were served. Other committees took charge of the office, where a good supply of such articles as sheets, pillow-cases, towels, washcloths, soap, combs, and hair pins were ready for sale and rent. On the walls of the office was hung a poster exhibit of the county work of the Young Women's Christian Association, secured from the National Board, as well as all the conference photographs, posters and announcements that could be found. Printed matter about the city work, concise and comprehensive, was given out to every person who came, and the committees in charge talked Young Women's Christian Association from morn 'til dewy eve.

As a piece of publicity this undertaking is second to none. In this State, where the only city Association is in Oklahoma City, very few knew anything about it. During the ten days of the Fair I feel sure that we did more advertising than we could have accomplished in ten years of ordinary work. Thousands of women came to the building and every one carried away some idea of our work. We have felt the result of our advertising all winter, for many people from all parts of the State now know us and make the Young Women's Christian Association their headquarters when coming to town. Commendatory letters from women all over the country have come to us.

In February we began to make preparations for the coming fall, for while the work last year was good, we could see chances of improvement at every turn. We have put a half page advertisement in the State Fair Book, which will reach at least 15,000 people, and hope to make the rest room a prominent feature of our work hereafter.

REMEMBER ΤΟ SEND YOUR CHANGE OF ADDRESS FOR THE SUMMER TO THE ASSOCIATION MONTHLY.

CITY NEWS ITEMS

The newspaper women of Nashville were entertained by the Association secretaries at a dinner which closed with

clever toasts on such subjects as "The Society Column," by the membership secretary; "Want Ads.," by the financial secretary; "Hints to Housekeepers," by the house secretary; and "Newspaper fession," "Why I Don't Visit the AsWork vs. Association Work as a Prosociation More Often," "Why I Joined the Gym," etc., in which the newspaper women responded from their point of view. The toasts closed with the reauing of an "extra" containing "interesting scoops and exclusive dispatches," and with a talk by the general secretary, extending to the guests the promise of all possible future courtesies in regard to furnishing news.

Special groups are being entertained by the various clubs of the Lawrence (Mass.) Association. For example, the Business Girls' Club has entertained two large groups of hospital nurses; members of the Camp Fire Group were at home in their ceremonial dress to the Young Men's Christian Association High School Club; the Employed Boys' Club of the Young Men's Christian Association has also been specially entertained. The after effects of the finance campaign in November are proving so gratifying in prompt payment of pledges and increase of intelligent enthusiasm, especially on the part of all who served on the finance team, that Lawrence plans to make the annual budget campaign a regular matter.

A business girls' tea given by twenty business girls of the Association at the Fort Smith (Ark.) building has_resulted in the formation of a Business Woman's Club, with a charter membership of one hundred, and the purpose of co-operating in all possible lines of Association work.

"Chinese Night" was the form in which the Foreign Club of Loweli, Mass., recently held an open meeting which brought in both increased public interest and financial aid for Lowell's support of the work of Miss Henrietta Thomson in Canton. The eighty menibers of the Foreign Club planned the entertainment, which was a distinct novelty in the New England City. Decorations, refreshments and the costumes of the attendants were thoroughly Chinese; a Chinese play entitled "Slave Girl and School Girl" was given, and two young Chinese men from the Boston Institute of Technology gave an exhibition of oriental games and "magic."

Easter Day meant some sort of remembrance to practically every shutin of Scranton, Pa., for the Association members either distributed hyacinths, crocuses growing in egg shells, Doxes of candy eggs or Easter cards or made personal calls, often supplying music, to all in the city's hospitals, sanitariums, jails or houses of detention. For five days in May, the 11th to the 16th, Scranton will observe its twenty-fifth anniversary.

A

A monthly conference of all the employed officers of the Seattle Association and branches opens with a dinner and "frolic" planned by two different members of the staff each month. Time and Talents club has lately been formed among the leisure girls. One of their first activities was to entertain two hundred of the Association's sustaining and contributing members.

An "Old Fashioned Spelling Bee" was held at the Young Men's Christian Association of Montgomery, Alabama, between the boys and girls of the two Associations, for the benefit of a cottage "When at an anti-tuberculosis camp. thirteen Young Women's Christian Association spellers dressed in white middy blouse suits and red ties marched into the Young Men's Christian Association auditorium the boys lost their nerve, and it was twenty minutes before their forces could be mustered. But be it said to the credit of the boys that with their ranks reduced to only nine, they were able to hold their own against the thirteen girls." Yet a girl won out in the end.

Club

of the

The Mandolin-Guitar Norfolk Association furnished the music at the Association's second annual banquet. On this occasion Governor Mann of Virginia was present and was made an honorary member of the Association.

An unusual finance campaign has been successfully conducted in Racine, Wisconsin, following the usual preliminary methods, but making the following exceptions:

"We used only women, with the exception of three or four older business girls. We had no contest and put no expense into schemes for arousing interest, such as clocks or thermometers. We had no teams. Each woman chose one to work with her or told us when she could work and let us find her a partner. We divided the city into districts, so that a pair could take a whole district if they wished. We did not ask the women to report every day, but served tea every other day at the Association rooms and reports were made then.

"The result was that the Association work was presented in a more dignified way than girls could have presented it. There was no personal element in the campaign, as each woman worked for the Association and not for the sake of winning herself. The women sent their cards to the men upon whom they were calling, and almost without exception they were well received. There was no waste of time in duplication of territory or names, or in making too many reports. The women enjoyed the week, and the $2,846 needed for the budget was secured, except a little that could not be collected until the following week."

An increase of $700 in the house receipts of Reading, Pa., is attributed to the new electric sign, which cost but $60.

A Vocational Board, founded for the establishment of a Vocational Bureau for Yonkers (N. Y.) young people, has been formed of representatives of the Chamber of Commerce, the Board of Education, the Young Men's Hebrew Association and the two Christian Associations, with its present headquarters at the Young Women's Christian Association.

A good canoe song has been written for the summer fun of Keokuk's (lowa) Camp Fire Group:

Below where lofty bluffs look down
From the cultured upland pride,
Where busy men have built the town,
In our light canoes we glide
On Lake Keokuk's bright waves,

With merry song and shout we go,
Free as girls of Indian braves-
Here we row, row, row.

Chorus:

Skimming, swimming like a duck;
Keo, Keo, here we row,
On thy breast, Lake Keokuk;
Keo, Keo, Keokuk
Lake Keokuk forever.

We are camp fire girls so gay,
And we hear the whispered sounds,
As if the night applauded day

From the happy hunting grounds.
Indian spirits hover here

Wild to hear the paddles play
And the pretty rippling stir
As our boats glide on their way.
(Chorus.)

Now a pull as if for life-
Give the spirits cause to shout,
Row as if in earnest strife;

Paddle this way, then about,
Strike in unison, with nerve,

Give the old-time paddle sounds-
That our camp may cheers deserve

From the happy hunting grounds.

A series of neighborhood gatherings is being held in Riverside, California, whereby the work of the Association in both local and wider aspects is presented

I want to tell you a story of a Japanese girl and her unusual courage. I heard all that I did not see. For four or five years this girl had been in a Bible class, but she had never had quite enough courage to brave her father and ask permission to be baptized. After the summer conference to which she went, she decided to do so. Her father did give his consent. But in the meantime, a marriage had been arranged for her. As she was determined to be baptized before her marriage, her father consented to write to the man and tell him, so that if he wished to break off the marriage, he might do so. The baptism was set for a Sunday, just before the wedding. On the Friday before a Japanese friend rushed (not with calm Japanese demeanor) into our house about noon and said she had a most important matter to tell us of. A day or two before, the groom had arrived, and found, to his surprise, that the girl had not yet been baptized. He had supposed it was too late to interfere, but finding it was not, said: "It is much better-we shall be married to-morrow." That meant no baptism. The girl held out against her whole family, and the man, as long as he could, but he finally gave in. As soon as the man left, she hastened to her Bible teacher and told her trouble. That evening they were unable to find the pastor, so when next morning they finally saw him, there were only three hours of grace. He told the girl what the teacher had said-to get the marriage put off to the original date if she could, or to get the man's consent to her baptism that morning. If the man would not consent, the girl was quite prepared to refuse to marry him at all. She could do that, although it would mean a great upheaval in the family. At this point, a very unusual thing happened. You know in most Japmarriages, the whole thing is arranged by go-betweens, and often the girl never sees the man except when he makes a preliminary call on her parents. course she never sees him anywhere else. But there were less than three hours until time for the wedding ceremony, so, that there might be no delay, the teacher said they would go to the house where he was staying and would see him directly, and she would be responsible for it all. When

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they reached the house, they found the gobetween there, and while the girl was talking with the man, she gave a piece of her mind to the teacher who, of course, was responsible for the whole trouble from the start." However, soon the man came in and said the girl might be baptized, either before or after the wedding, whichever she chose. She said "before," of course. The teacher looked at her watch and said: "I will bring her to the house by one o'clock, in time for the wedding." The man looked at his watch, and said: "There is no hurry-we can be married to-morrow just as well." So they went back to the pastor after they had been to the girl's home and found things satisfactory there. At this point in the story, the teacher turned to me and said: "Now, will you fix this room up to look as much like a church as possible, while I go and get some flowers and telephone some more people to come? The baptism will be at one.' So while she was gone, we turned our parlor into a chapel.

At one o'clock the girl arrived in her best clothes, and soon afterwards her pastor, two of his assistants and many friends. Two of the friends were girls who had roomed with her at the summer conference, one of whom had been baptized a few weeks before and the other of whom was to have been baptized with this girl the following Sunday. The girl's sisterin-law also came. She is not a Christian, but because she loved her sister, she had stood with her against the whole family, and that was courage for her. The pastor began by saying that not all baptisms had been performed in church, and he mentioned the baptism of the Ethiopian and of the jailor and his family. He spoke of the quiet room, as did others when they prayed later in the service. There were songs and talks and prayers by different people. The last hymn was, "Blest Be the Tie that Binds."

Does this sound just an interesting story to you? It certainly is that—I hope I have made it sound half as exciting as it actually was. But it is much more. It is one of the big problems of Christianity in Japan' to-day. A great many families allow their daughters to study Christianity, to be Christians up to the point of being baptized (church membership recognition)

and then will not allow them to be "branded" Christians because they cannot make such good marriages And, of course, that is the "chief end of woman" in Japan. Because of this, many and many a girl has gone into married life without having taken her stand as a Christian, and it means that she will probably drift farther and farther away because she has no chance to be with Christians who will help her to grow stronger, and she is more or

less subject to her husband's family anyway. This girl decided that she must be recognized as a Christian by her husband and her own family, and felt that perhaps she could finally win them all. But it took courage that we know nothing about, because we know nothing of the traditions with which these things are surrounded from ages back. It means going in the face of custom and tradition. But she stood her ground. And she was so happy that day. Her calm self-possession and bright face showed nothing of what she had been through and no fear of what the new unknown life might hold for her. Yes, she was married the next day.

Extract-Letter-Evelyn T. Derry,
Nanking, China.

The first thing that impressed me upon my arrival in China was the cordial greeting which our party received, for Miss Paddock, Miss Smith and Miss Ting were all at the dock to meet us. We were

not allowed to go to the Association building until everything was ready to receive us in the most festive way. It was indeed an enthusiastic reception, which about one hundred and sixty Association members attended-more than half of the membership. Miss_Ting led first Miss Coppock, then Miss Thomson, and then me before the assembled people, and introduced us separately and then crowned each one of us with a wreath. The address of welcome was given by a former member of the Board, and Miss Thomson and I watched Miss Coppock in order to know when we ought to smile in appreciation. Afterward, tea and cake were served and we shook hands with everyone. It was interesting to find that the Shanghai Association is reaching all ages, from the little school girl to the elderly woman.

Mothers' meetings are held regularly at the Association, and I heard part of a lecture on "Flies and Dust,' to which the women were listening attentively. These have to be very simple lectures, but they are a good preparation for more scientific knowledge along these lines.

There is much interest in the physical work among many of the Association members. There are many narrow chests and round shoulders to broaden, as well as many tiny feet to set free. While Miss Mayhew is really making a beginning in the physical work, I am beginning the study of this most fascinating language. I am here in Nanking to take advantage of the language school. Nanking is a real Chinese city, quite unlike Shanghai, and every day I am impressed with the great need for a knowledge of sanitation. Many of

the houses have only mud floors, on which the water stands in pools when it rains.

I am glad to be free to study the language, but I am impatient to get into the physical work with Miss Mayhew and to begin to help right some of the physical conditions in order that these women may be strong and upright in body as well as in spirit. I am glad every day of my life that I am in this land of opportunity.

Miss Elizabeth Tritton, member of the World's Committee, and her sister, Miss Annette Tritton, are spending some weeks in the States. After attendance at the Biennial Convention, and a brief stay at the National Training School, these friends will visit Canada before their return to England. Miss Annette Tritton has, for some time, been interested in student work on the Continent, having a part in the student hostel work in Paris and upon the opening of the foyer for students in Lausanne, Switzerland, became general secretary. She will attend the conference of the World's Student Christian Federation at Lake Mohonk, New York, in June.

Miss Clarissa Spencer, general secretary of the World's Committee of Young Women's Christian Associations headquarters in London, arrived in the United States in time to attend the Biennial Convention, after which she will visit Associations in a few State schools and universities, and will attend summer conferences. We are grateful for this opportunity of sharing with some of our Associations the message that Miss Spencer brings from other lands.

Miss Picton-Turbervill, member of the World's Committee, and chairman of the British Foreign Department, arrived in New York on April 7th in time to attend the Biennial Convention at Richmond. Miss Picton-Turbervill, after a brief stay at the National Training School, will visit a few Associations for the purpose of studying Association methods in this country.

Miss Ruth Rouse, traveling secretary for the World's Student Christian Federation, attended the Richmond Convention, and will remain in the United States until after the World's Student Christian Federation Conference in June.

Miss Elizabeth Wistar, who has been for the past two years connected with Association work in Bombay, resigned this spring, and has returned to her home in Germantown, Pa. It is with regret that her resignation has been accepted. Miss Wistar has won many friends in Bombay and will be much missed in Association circles.