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teachers are the leaders, and this is as it should be. They guide and direct the Union; but the girls may hold the minor executive offices, form their own committees, and take just as much share in the management and the development of the work as it is right that they should. A wise leader A wise leader soon makes the girls feel that the Union is theirs to make or mar; yet she never loses touch with any single part of the work, or "forces" her girls by allowing them to do more than their age and experience warrant.

Through all Christian Union work run three great aims-daily Bible study, the spread of intelligent missionary interest (using the word "missionary" in its very widest sense), and the practical development of the ideals of love and of service. Not all Unions are able to work fully along all three lines, but in every Union the main thing is Bible study. This is done wherever possible by the circle method; but sometimes for lack of leaders, a class method has to be used. Graduates teaching in small mixed schools, where they can easily get to know all the girls, have great oppor

tunities here. In one year, two graduates in a country high school had all their girls (between thirty and forty) except two or three for whom it was impossible, enroled in study circles.

The second aim of the School Christian Union, "the spread of intelligent missionary interest," is accomplished by regular general meetings, weekly or fortnightly for the most part, in addition to the weekly circle meetings. At these general meetings, a visitor or perhaps one of the teachers, speaks to the girls on some missionary topic, on some aspect of social work, or on some subject touching Christian ideals of life and character. This side of Union work is developed only in the larger and longer established Unions. The value of, and the possibilities in a good syllabus, are matters that it takes a little experience to find out.

The third aspect of Union work, "the practical development of the ideals of love and of service," is one that receives attention everywhere, but in many different ways. Teachers eager to make their girls realize that loving service is the only true expression of Christianity are constantly

guiding them towards fuller realization of what this means in the daily life of home and of school, and finding for them outlets for their missionary interest. "Doing" appeals very strongly to girls; and in no other way can one so well bring home to them the meaning of the highest ideal of "being," as springs from that "being." In one high school, where many girls have to wait a long time for the evening trains that take them to their country homes, the Christian Union has, during part of the year, a League of Good Service, that holds happy, informal weekly meetings, with missionary sewing to do. From another Christian Union, this time in a large boarding-school, girls go to visit old people in their cottages, or invalid children in the hospital; each girl who is allowed to do such visiting keeps to it regularly, so that her particular elderly friend, or little invalid friend, gets to know her well, and to look forward to her visits and the half hour's talk, reading, teaching, or play, as the case may be. In yet another school, this time a big city day-school, some of the girls find an outlet for their activities in the fine junior work carried on by the Young Women's Christian Association.

The Schoolgirls' Camp Movement is as yet very young in New Zealand. In 1910 the first organized attempt was made, and a camp that was really a kind of Christian Union Conference

was held in the May vacation at a large boarding school, the Wanganui Girls' College. It was for the whole. of New Zealand, and six large schools were represented. The influence of that Camp-Conference was very farreaching, but so far no other of that kind has been attempted. However, real schoolgirls' Camps, after the pattern of British and Australian Ûniversity Women's Camps for schoolgirls, were held in 1912, one in the North Island and one in the South; and for 1913 still more camps are in prospect. The movement is taking root, and seems likely to flourish. From many points of view a camp is a good thing. It brings together girls from schools very differently situated; it rubs off parochial corners; it makes possible close and friendly contact with women's work and women's experience; it is a happy, wholesome holiday week; and, above all, it presents religion as the happiest, most natural thing in the world.

These then are the ideals of the Christian Union Movement in the girls' schools of New Zealand-Bible study, missionary interest, loving service. How far the movement as a whole falls short of these ideals is best known to those who have it most at heart; but these, too, have the greatest thankfulness for what it has accomplished and is accomplishing, and the clearest vision and the brightest hopes of what it may yet attain.

DON QUIXOTE BY RICHARD BURTON

Smiles for him, yes, and tears-but most of all

Envy, for that he set his soul to win Virtue and love and valor, and their call Upbore him ever above sleight and sin.

Shiningly sure the Spanish Don was right, Who saw the world through eyes with faith agleam;

This melancholy, madcap, errant knight, Who wrought so beautifully-in his

dream!

(In Outlook for May 24, 1913.)

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Ourselves as Others to go past when you can see the leath

See Us

Florence T. Waite

HIS, be it said, is the utter

ΤΗ

ance of a rank outsider-one who holds an Association membership to be sure, but who can still view the Association's work with an unimpassioned and unprejudiced eye. A modest general secretary is thus saved the embarrassment of self-appreciation. The article professes to submit reasons why the girls of one city-a city of about ninety thousand are always to be found in numbers about the Association building.

In the first place, this Association is a comfort station, with the comfort well to the front. Upon entering the building one finds the parlor and reading room on either hand. There is no long corridor to be traversed, no secretarial gauntlet to be run. The rooms are comfortable and good to look at, but their first quality is their "thereness." It takes real strength of mind.

er chairs through the front windows.

It must not be assumed, however, that the secretaries are invisible. On the contrary, they are to be found behind the counter in the back of the reading-room-an unobtrusive but perfectly strategic point. Thus they are immediately accessible to the visitor who wants them, without being in the way of the one who does not. Might one also suggest that youth attracts youth? Our secretaries are

young.

But naturally all the girls who come to the Association do not come to sit in the parlor. They want "something doing." Probably this Association's activities are in the main those of other Associations. Clubs, classes, socials, outings, information bureau, meals and religious meetings sound too familiar to require elaboration. Perhaps the emphasis here is on distribution. The aim seems to be to avoid periods of "drouth" by a more or less steady succession of events. And so you do well to keep your weather eye cocked toward the bulle

tin board, even at an unlikely time of the week or an unlikely season of the year. Also it might be said that the Association, although without a boarding department, is open for business seven days to the week and three hundred and sixty-five days to the year. It works on the assumption that it is there to serve the girl public, and that the girl public is not less-perhaps even more-in need of service on Sunday and Thanksgiving than on, say, Tuesday or Friday. Office hours are the same, summer and winter. The Association figures that the "girl problem" knows no closed season, not even on hot summer nights or prayermeeting evening. It is certainly imposing a breaking strain on logic to infer that closing the Association will send to prayer-meeting those who do not want to go.

After all, there is only one lure that operates continuously. Without this you can make your equipment as attractive and your activities as varied as you please, only to find your parlor deserted and your class-rooms empty. And that thing is a cordial atmosphere just the thing that makes a visit on Aunt Mary seem infinitely preferable to one on Aunt Jane.

One is reminded of the indignant protest of an old lady against the curtness of a dapper young clerk in an information bureau: "Young man, I wish you had time to be decent!" Nowadays we are be-deviled with the "efficiency" idea, the demand for a large output of work that can be run into the mould of a monthly report. Someone should invent a process of recording the intangible results of courtesy, friendliness and democracy.

This particular Association seems to have realized that its secretaries are there to be used as well as its physical equipment. They all have "time to be decent" and that "I'm-a-busywoman-shall-we-terminate-the - inter view" expression is pleasantly absent. Nor is there any perceptible chasm to be bridged between the secretaries

and the girls. One practical form which this sense of solidarity takes is in the placing of employed young women on committees along with women of leisure. This makes for balanced as well as democratic judgment. Committee meetings are held at times that enable the business young women to attend, often in the evenings.

The undertaking is a co-operative one, you note, founded upon the realization that the development of every individual must come from within. It cannot be applied with a paint brush by an ever so well-intentioned board or group of secretaries. But together they are engaged in demonstrating the "Great Theorem of the Liveableness of Life."

Can you dislike a rainy day in the country after reading this?

A RAINY DAY. L. H. BAILEY.

The soft gray rain comes slowly down,
Settling the mists on marshes brown,
Narrowing the world on wood and rill,
Drifting the fog down vale and rill.
The weed-stalks bend with pearly drops,
The grasses hang their misty tops,
The clean leaves drip with tiny spheres,
The fence rails run with pleasant tears.

Away with care! I walk to-day
In meadows wet and forests gray;
'Neath heavy trees with branches low,
'Cross splashy field where wild things grow,
Past shining reeds in knee-deep tarns,
By soaking crops and black-wet barns;
On mossy stones in dripping nooks,
Up rainy pools and brimming brooks
With waterfalls and cascadills
Fed by the new-born grassy rills;
And then return across the lots
Through all the soft and watery spots.

Away with care! I walk to-day
In meadows wet and forests gray.

"There is nothing further from natural man than frank and devoted love, forgetfulness of self, sacrifice. Instinct conserves self; all the natural tendencies conserve self; evolution conserves and enlarges self. Who then will sacrifice himself for some superior ideal."

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A Student's Litany boasting, from delight in supposed

F

of Character

AROM infirmity of purpose, from want of earnest care and interest, from the sluggishness of indolence, and the slackness of indifference, and from all spiritual dead

ness of heart,

Save us and help us. we humbly be

seech thee, O Lord.

From dulness of conscience, from feeble sense of duty, from thoughtless disregard of others, from a low idea of the obligations of our position, and from all half-heartedness in our work, Save us and help us, we humbly be

seech thee, O Lord.

From weariness in continuing struggles, from despondency in disappointment and from morbid brooding over failure, raise us to a lively hope and trust in thy presence and mercy, in the power of faith and prayer, and from all exaggerated fears and vexations,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

success and superiority, and from ali the harms and hindrances of offensive manners and self-assertion, Save us and help us, we humbly be

seech thee, O Lord.

From love of flattery, from overready belief in praise, from dislike of criticism and from the self-deception of persuading ourselves that others think better than the truth of us, Save us and help us, we humbly be

seech thee, O Lord.

From all jealousy, whether of equals or superiors, from grudging others success, from impatience of submissions and from all insubordination to law, order and authority. Save us and help us, we humbly be

seech thee, O Lord.

From all hasty utterances of impatience, from the retort of irritation and the taunt of sarcasm, from all infirmity of temper in provoking or being provoked; from love of unkind gossip, and from all idle words that may do hurt.

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

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