flood reached its height. The rented building occupied by the Hamilton Association was wrecked beyond repair. Almost everything on the first floor was either swept away or ruined by the eleven feet of rushing water which came through the town like a Niagara, sweeping everything before it. Office, dining room, kitchen, and parlor furniture, including books and piano, were utterly ruined. Those living in the house were rescued with difficulty. The Association has found refuge in a residence generously loaned by the owner, and with admirable courage is opening up the lunch room, renting a few rooms, and planning to make it the same cheerful and attractive place for the girls of Hamilton that it was before the flood. The Baldwin Piano Company of Cincinnati has given a piano, and gifts of books and furniture from various friends will assist in restoring cheer and comfort. All the walls on the first floor are stripped of paper; the floors are bare and swollen by water; the front porch is in ruins, and the yard full of every kind of debris, but even this does not daunt the bravespirited women of the board and the secretaries

In Dayton the situation is even more serious. The building temporarily occupied while the new one was in process of building was right in the path of the flood. The lower floor and its contents are completely ruined. The educational rooms and gymnasium in a business block were taken by the militia, and the Recreation Park is being used for a Day Nursery. The administration building is now needed by the owner, which leaves the Association quite homeless and makes the suspension of all work for the present quite imperative. The new building was not materially damaged, as only the walls were up, but all work is delayed three months and tremendous additional expense involved.

By flood injury to some property recently bequeathed and uncollectable

building pledges, the Association loses $35,000, and in addition will have to wait indefinitely for the payment of $50,000 more in pledges which are considered good. The building must be finished and furnished. Under ordinary conditions Dayton citizens would come to the rescue of the Association, but now this is impossible. Thousands of those who have supported the Association are ruined. Every church and public philanthrophy in the flooded district (which is ten square miles) is crippled, and unless help comes from outside the Association must carry a debt for There was never a years to come. time when the young women of Dayton have so much needed all that a well equipped Association car give.

The generous sympathy of friends at the Biennial Convention resulted

in

a gift of $688.41, and pledges amounting to about $40. Later “a friend" sent $500. This sum was divided between Hamilton and Dayton to be used to meet present pressing needs, and was most gratefully accepted. Representatives of several Associations at the Convention pledged assistance for these stricken Associations. Some have already responded with books and clothing. Others will doubtless do so.

According to the recommendation, money should be sent to the Field Committee, Mrs. Wm. A. Gamble. Treasurer, 806 Mercantile Library Building, Cincinnati. Supplies may be sent direct to Dayton, care of Mrs. H. E. Palmer (President), 219 North Main Street, and to Hamilton, care of Y. W. C. A., Third and Dayton Streets.

ELIZABETH HUGHES.

Special Announcements I

The harvest of the annual report blanks has been reaped and its results appear in the new Association Yearbook for 1912-1913, just published. Send 50 cents to the National Publi

cation Department for a copy for your desk. Every Association desk. should be so equipped, for the Yearbook serves as guide, counselor and friend, information bureau and directory of who's who in the Association field, and is prepared for the use of all Association workers, volunteer or employed.

Special Announcements II

The publication of a book so significant as "The Christian Approach to Social Morality" calls for special mention. The fact that it is first fruits of the Commission on Social Morality, and contains the Commission report and Dr. Richard C. Cabot's lectures on the Consecration of the Affections commends it at once to all who were at Richmond. Seldom have any addresses been listened to with such intense interest as were these by Dr. Cabot. It seemed to be unanimously felt that they voiced for the entire group of employed officers who heard them a fresh but absolutely right and fundamental approach to the whole field of human relationships, in which the problem of sex education and control, too often considered with abnormal separateness, assumed its reasonable place.

While the report of the Employed Officers' Conference will contain these lectures, they are printed separately in this form by courtesy of the Employed Officers Association, so that extra copies may be purchasable. The book may be ordered from the National Publication Department for 50 cents; it is bound in attractive tan boards, with the title on a white paster. Its wide and immediate circulation will perhaps do more than any other one thing to bind Association people together in a common sympathy toward this difficult and universally important subject, and to make ready the way for the program of education endorsed by the Richmond Convention, and to be entered upon in the fall.

THE NEWEST PUBLICATIONS

Look for them on the table of the book-room at your summer conference.

Or order them directly at this time when you have summer leisure for reading or "stocking up" your Association equipment.

The Eight Week Club. Suggestions to leaders of this flexible. club plan for summer work and play in the country and small town. Explains the Certificate of Commendation for Community Service.

Price 10c; $1.00 per dozen.

A new text on the Life of Christ, "The Manhood of the Master," has been prepared for Association use by the Reverend Henry Emerson Fosdick. This is slightly more advanced than "Jesus the Man of Galilee," and in appearance is uniform with "Christ in Every Day Life."

ing of Volunteer Workers; 10 cents each; $1.00 per dozen.

All interested in The Commission on Social Morality will be eager to order The Consecration of the Affections, or Dr. Richard Cabot's three lectures on the Christian interpretation of the whole field of human relationships, with special reference to sex education. This includes as an appendix the report of the Commission.

Price: Boards-50 cents.

The Commission on Thrift and Efficiency endorses the Saving's Fund Account Book, which simplifies the opening and keeping of small savings accounts in the local Association (see page 188, June ASSOCIATION MONTHLY). Contains full instructions.

Price 10 cents; 85 cents per dozen.

The national exhibit of sixty screens, displayed at Richmond and now occupying the Exhibit Room at headquarters, is reproduced in its most significant parts by photographs of the charts and explanatory notes, in a leaflet called The Association Exhibit. Splendid for informational and publicity purposes, and as a guide to local exhibits.

Price 15 cents.

The new Yearbook for 19121913 is just off the press. One of the two absolutely indispensable publications for every Association officecity, student or county. Contams the Association Who's Who, and newest facts and figures. Foreword and field map. Don't keep your old Yearbook a day longer, but order this one now. Price 50 cents.

You will find other publication notes of interest to you this month on page V of the advertising section of

this issue.

Publication Department, 600 Lexington Avenue, New York.

SECRETARIAL CHANGES

LOCAL

GENERAL.

Edith Caniff, of the 1913 class, National Training School, to be acting general secretary at Trenton, N. J.

Georgia Downing, formerly office secretary at Atlanta, Ga., to be acting general secretary at the same place.

Gertrude Hill, formerly general secretary at Ann Arbor, Mich., to hold the same position at Fort Smith, Ark.

Mrs. Evelyn Keck to be general secretary at San Francisco, Cal.

Elizabeth Sweets, formerly economic secretary at St. Louis, Mo., to be general secretary at the same place.

Mary Watson, formerly general secretary at Danville, Ill., to hold the same position at Flint, Mich.

NATIONAL

Ella F. Clark to be house secretary at Syracuse, N. Y.

Mildred Julian to be acting branch secretary at the Warner Club, Bridgeport, Conn.

Margery A. Lyoǹ to be domestic science and art director at Savannah, Ga.

Elizabeth Read, of the 1913 class, National Training School, to be registrar of the Board Directory, Central Branch, New York City.

Aimee Sears, formerly immigration secretary at Trenton, N. J., to hold the same position at Lawrence, Mass.

INTERNATIONAL HOME FOR FOR

EIGN LADIES IN MADRID.

This home was founded twenty-eight years ago and though but small it has been permitted to be a refuge and resting place to many a stranger in a strange land. No one who knows Spain and Spanish customs will doubt the great need there is for such a home for unprotected girls. Its object is to offer such safe and comfortable quarters whilst seeking occupation in this country, and in some degree to take the place of the family to them. Here where girls are so jealously guarded by their families this is of an importance which can hardly be imagined in lands where our western ideas of freedom prevail. The home is situated in a very good part of the city, near the public park promenades and museums, and at a very short distance from the picture gallery with its treasures by Murillo and Velasquez. Ladies travelling through Spain are gladly welcomed. Many a one prefers the quiet comfort of the home to life in a hotel, of which they have more than enough in other cities. The address is Calle del Cid 4.

NOTE. This article, considerably abridged, is reprinted from the June number of Religious Education by courtesy of the Religious Education Association. It is felt that Mrs. Cabot's experiments are ripe in suggestion for club and educational work, especially in the Girls' Department.-EDITOR.

IN

1906 I offered a course in what I called the ties and opportunities of our city. The title was soon reduced by the girls to the simple words: "Seeing Boston." Their name was better than mine. To en

able them to see Boston as a living place of which they were a part was my aim. I wanted them to see it as what our useful business slang calls "a going concern."

My work was planned for thirty lessons, alternating between visits to characteristic institutions in Boston and papers, reading and discussions on what we were to see or had seen. At the first meeting I tried to show them the physical and the commercial significance of a city like Boston. We studied a large map showing the surrounding bay and ocean and then took up for investigation questions like the following:

Why do we have cities?

On what does the prosperity of a city depend?

What towns are likely to grow fastest?

What institutions are sure to spring up in any city?

(E. g., schools, churches, markets, transportation and lighting service, water-supplies, hospitals.)

What problems are likely to arise. in any city?

(Disease, poverty, fire, questions of taxation, education.)

What are the advantages of city life?

What are the disadvantages? uation of Boston? What is there significant in the sit

(Relation to harbor, railroads, size of city, character of early settlers.) What are the principal departments in the city?

What are the principal occupations of men? Of women? Of children over 14?

What occupations are best paid? Why?

What occupations are underpaid? Next (in order to give its life history) we took up the past of Boston. We spent one lesson in study and one in visiting the Old State House, from whose window Washington had reviewed the army, and the strange old market, Faneuil Hall, our cradle of Liberty. In contrast with the tiny State House of past days, I wanted. them to see the new State House, with its ever wider spreading wings, and I took the class to witness the inauguration of our governor. They had never seen the quaint ceremony before, nor had I, and when the Senate, the Judges, and the past Governors were received by the House of Representatives standing, when the new Governor swore to keep every law and to use his utmost ability in

the service of the State, when the herald announced the election of a Governor and publicly called all men to take notice and govern their conduct accordingly, we got a new glimpse of the oft-forgotten sanctity of government.

The Governor's inauguration led naturallly to a study of the legislative work. Í looked up the various committee hearings and took the class to a hearing on patent medicines.

The schools and libraries of Boston came next on our list. Boston has had an exceptionally interesting school history to study, ever since 1635 when the vote was passed that "Brother Philemon Pormont shall be entreated to become school-master for the teach ing and nurturing of the children with us." We visited four characteristic schools. The first I chose was the so-called "Steamboat School" in the foreign North End. It was the kind of school that little Mary Antin went to when she first found in America her Promised Land. Every darkeyed child in the small class was joyously struggling to learn English. In a few months they would graduate into regular classes; in a few years they would become voting citizens, the makers of the future United States. My girls saw the need of education with new eyes.

It was Lincoln's birthday when we visited the Perkins School for the the Blind. Slowly but intelligently the the class was fingering out the Gettysburg address, and its message thrilled with added meaning.

After visiting the schools for the handicapped we took up the new movement for industrial education, making a study of an interesting report by the Massachusetts Commission on Industrial Education. Then, to show the value of training, we went as visitors to the Girls' Trade School.

Our visit to and study of the Public Library and some of its branches came next. Few people realize how short an existence public libraries in our country have enjoyed, nor, on the

other hand, how active is the social work of our libraries now.

I asked different members of my class to look up:

The history of the Public Library.
The use of the library.

The art treasures.

What the library does for schools. The branch libraries and their management.

The use of libraries for evening lectures and exhibitions.

Traveling libraries.

I gave as a final paper on libraries the topic, "What is the widest and best use of libraries?"

Throughout the course I tried to suggest the fascinating variety of a city. The girls must rediscover Boston with the zeal of a new settler. It is but our blindness that makes us tread the streets with vision darkened to their meaning.

I found through a lawyer friend what court trials then in session were suitable and interesting, and took my group to hear the arguments in an accident case. When the little boy darted across the street and was hit by an express-cart was it or was it not his own carelessness? The air bristled with social and moral questions.

Nor were there fewer moral, civic, and social questions in our trip to a conference of the Associated Charities. My girls were interested; in five minutes they felt the human appeal back of the problems presented to the conference; they realized for the first time how many and how needed are the charitable agencies in a great city. Even our study of a directory of charities budded tiny green leaves like Aaron's wand in the light of actual cases of need.

Our study of a city was necessarily superficial, but it was a significant surface, like the surface of a great painting or of a field of wild flowers. The course let us taste of many experiences, nibbling a bit of each to see how it nourished us. It helped a little to make the class feel that the