It will be noticed that a whole new nation has been added to those on the inside back cover of THE ASSOCIATION MONTHLY, where our foreign secretaries are listed with the posts at which they are at work. With pride we add Turkey to the number and with a sense of fitness that this should be announced just at the close of the World's Week of Prayer. When Miss Frances Gage went back to Turkey this summer it was with the intention of returning to serve again as a special worker for the foreign department of the National Board. When once in the midst of the shifting and challenging conditions in this part of the near East, however, Miss Gage felt so keenly that this was a field not to be deserted that she has remained to give herself to the work. in parts of the country outside of Constantinople. Miss Anna Welles, a graduate of Bryn Mawr, who has in the past done a good deal of volunteer work in the student hostel in Paris, has been appointed to Constantinople itself, where she will do full secretarial work though partly in a volunteer capacity. mem We welcome the two new bers to our national staff at work in other lands and rejoice in this increase in our world's interests. The National Board is now at work in six nations. Our Heraldry Two letters chance to lie on the editorial desk, and there have been others in time past, which run somewhat like this: "There seems to be some doubt here as to just what is the Association color-blue, blue and gold, or just what kind of blue?" One may remember that it is the royal blue of daughters of a king. There are three things we all might just as well memorize for all time:the Association color, and where to find the national and world's mottoes. We all know them as we know our given names, but a headquarters secretary was seen not long ago in a fifteen-minute search through her concordancefor "abundant" is not satisfactorily listed in the concordance of either version! This may be the appointed hour to copy or memorize these three cornerstones of our symbolism: The Association color: Royal blue. they might have life, and have it more abundantly. John 10:10. The world's motto: Not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts. Zechariah 4:6. A New Field Conference One of the many of our field conferences of various sorts merits a special word, as it is the first in a new territory. The Central Field Committee convened 320 representatives of Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and Indiana Associations at Chicago in early November. The especially cheerful part about this number was that it represented seventy-seven Associations. Miss Jontz, executive for this field, writes, "Two days after the conference a man came into our office with a check for $1,000, saying it was from some one who had attended a session of the conference and gone away greatly impressed with the possibilities for industrial work in this field. This was told at a membership banquet at Evansville, Indiana"-but for the rest of this story see the note about Evansville under City News Items, page 412. For House Secretaries and Lunch Room Directors Although for fifty years Young Women's Christian Associations have been offering shelter and serving food to girls, the summer of 1914 will be the first time that any course of study has been offered by a national or ganization. AS THE ASSOCIATION MONTHLY announces elsewhere, a Short Course will be offered from July 15th to August 12th distinctly for these important and numerous members of every Association employed staff. It is hoped that vacation schedules may be arranged so that from every Association one or more students can come to take advantage of this course. The sum of fifty dollars covers registration, tuition, room, and two meals daily and all Sunday meals at the National Training School. The course will be given at headquarters, which will make possible an acquaintance with the whole national work and the place of the lunch room and residence hall in the Association scheme. One whole day and two afternoons each week will be devoted to visiting in New York and vicinity. Several splendid new administration buildings, with lunch room, new Association residences, etc., are being erected in addition to the Association and other kindred buildings already here. Incidentally residence in the Training School will give first-hand acquaintance with a model students' dormitory, and the cafeteria on the office side of the building will show a type of lunch room for women employees. The program is being carefully worked out for the best needs of the prospective students, including those who have had technical training and wish to learn more of the Association point of view and those who have had Association experience and wish. the help of authorities in household management. Consequently, the Secretarial Department is inviting teachers and speakers of reputation both outside and inside the Association movement. The lectures will cover the question of committee organization; location, equipment, management, and publicity of both types of Association residences and of the lunch room; economic questions, accounting, Association standards, etc. Institutional housekeeping will take up buying, institutional cookery (not experimental) and institutional management. The arrangement of menus will have a large place here. Nutrition, cafeteria management, building administration and the house director's work will also be provided for. For the particular benefit of those who have to do with tea room management, serving of membership suppers, etc., certain domestic science demonstrations are being arranged. A Bible study course two hours a week and general Association lectures also find a place in the curriculum. Circulars will be issued later and the current numbers of THE ASSOCIATION MONTHLY will give more detailed information. The Secretarial Department will be very glad to answer questions. This does not mean that the National Board is offering professional institutional management courses as a part of the general training system. It does mean, however, that for the summer of 1914 there will be a course adapted to the needs of every member of these staffs in the Young Women's Christian Associa tion. First Aid to the Injured, 1913-1914 There has been a demand for an elementary course in First Aid to the Injured for younger girls. Such a course is now offered. It is intended for girls from twelve to sixteen and covers the emergencies girls of that age may be trained to understand and handle intelligently. The course covers eight lessons, and when completed an examination is given. For those who pass the test a certificate will be given by the National Board which will contain the facsimile signatures of the President of the National Board and the Educational Secretary. While the general course is given by a physician, the elementary course may be given by a graduate physical director or other specially qualified person under the general supervision of a physician. The dates of examination will be the same for the elementary as for the general course for which the joint certificate of the Red Cross and the National Board is offered. In order to avoid special examinations at irregular dates, four regular examinations will be provided for 1913-1914. They will occur on December 19, 1913, January 23, April 24 and May 15, 1914. New folders have been published outlining both the general course and the course for younger girls together with examination regulations, and copies may be had upon application to the Publication Department. Once Upon a Time Who likes to tell stories to her club girls, even if they are grown up? Who racks her brain for the juniors, to satisfy the imperious words, "Now tell us another, please"? Or who goes home from a board or committee meeting to a group of her own small folks who want to be told "precious and mysterious and comfortable things in mother's lap"? To all such we bring word of a compact, pick-upable, picturefilled little magazine of joy, which should be side by side with THE ASSOCIATION MONTHLY on the reading table. This is The Story Tellers Magazine, started only in June by the president of the National Story Tellers League, Richard T. Wyche. Write to 27 West 23d Street in New York for a copy and see if it is not a gift for your need. To the Story Tellers Magazine may it live happily ever after! It is only a step from story telling to story living, or play. Those who have lost the play spirit are beginning to die, said Dr. Cabot to the last Play Congress. "Recreation Bibliography" is rather a heavy title for just books on play, but this is another publication that we commend as being one of the really usable reference pamphlets. Ten cents and an order sent to the Russell Sage Foundation at 400 Metropolitan Tower in New York will bring you this splendid little compilation of all books bearing on plays and games, folk dancing, sports, festivals, recreation centers, clubs and camps, and all public facilities for recreation. CAMPAIGN CONDITIONS In comparing THE ASSOCIATION MONTHLY clubs this year with last, the increase in the number of Associations taking advantage of the campaign conditions is gratifying in the extreme. Of those taking the fifty-club member rate the increase is from 12 to 22, of which seven continued from the year before. If only we might have kept the five Associations which did not continue! Or, barring that, if only they would renew! And if only the whole 22 would renew, with some added ones! Oh, optimism, thy wants are legion! Of the Associations taking advantage of the twenty-five club member rate, there is an increase from 9 to 18. Doubled! However, there were five who did not renew from the year before, and we could reiterate the same wails and the same hopes as close the paragraph above if we were not fearful of boring our readers. Of the Associations using the tenclub member rate, we wish the increase could have been greater. There is a jump, but not a sufficiently large jump from 19 to 28-but alas, 16 did not renew from the year previous! Although three of these did not renew under the ten-club member rate, but under the fifty-club member rate. If only, to pack more hope in a little space, all the ten-club member rate Associations would take such a leap! Elsewhere in THE ASSOCIATION MONTHLY will be found under "Intelligent Efficiency" the reasons why we think an effort to get readers is weil worth time and thought. We realize fully the duties of the general secretary, and we know they are too arduous for her to take any added responsibility. But could this task not be delegated to a special committee or even to one young woman anxious to serve the best interests of the Association. With lists of board and committee members, secretaries, special departments of the Association, active and interested members, fur nished by the secretary, the task of getting a club of 25, 50 or even 100 subscribers ought not to be difficult. The club conditions are as follows: In clubs of 10 from one Association, $0.90 a year. In clubs of 25 from one Association, $0.75 a year. In clubs of 50 from one Association, $0.50 a year. Single subscriptions, $1.00 a year. A commission of five per cent is offered to the person getting up the club. It is possible to have more than one club in the same Association, for instance, a club of fifty, all of whose subscriptions begin in February, and another club of fifty whose subscriptions begin in October. It is necessary that all the names of members in the same club be sent in within a month's time, so that their subscriptions may all begin with the same issue. If in forming a club in your Association there are those whose subscriptions expire several months before the date of the club subscription, it will be possible for them to pay for the intervening months at the single copy rate and have the renewal begin with the club. During January we hope to add many subscribers to our list. For the reasons already given in another part of the magazine would not a large club be an easy possibility for your Association? Can any active worker afford to be without it? A FEW CHRISTMAS BOOKS To divert at any time a troublesome fancy, run to thy books; they presently fix thee to them, and drive the other out of thy thoughts. They always receive thee with the same kindness.Thomas Fuller. Crowds. By Gerald Stanley Lee. "A pick-up-book," but a book that makes one think. $1.35 net. The House of Happiness. By Kate Langley Bosher. Another charming story by the author of "Mary Cary." $1.25 net. My Lady of the Chimney Corner. By Alexander Irvine. A book with a human appeal. A son's record of a mother's influence. $1.20 net. Martha By-the-Day. By Julie Lippmann. A book of cheer and optimism. A good book to read aloud. $1.00 net. Making Over Martha. By Julie Lippmann. "A bigger and even better story than Martha-By-the-Day." $1.20 net. The Friendly Road. By David Grayson. Pictures of country life which breathe a cheery philosophy. $1.35 net. Things that Matter Most. By J. H. Jowett. Brief devotional messages characterized by simplicity and earnestness. $1.25 net. Beyond the Natural Order. By Nolan Rice Best. Essays on Prayer, Miracles and the Incarnation. $0.75 net. The Story of Waitstill Baxter. By Kate Douglas Wiggin. A novel possessing rare charm, by the author of "Rebecca." $1.30 net. Associations Having Clubs at 10 Member Rate: Kansas City, Mo. ΙΟ Ithaca, N. Y. (student). ΙΟ Kansas City, Kans. 12 Laurel, Mississippi 10 Quincy, Ill. Lynchburg, Va. 1Ο Fort Wayne, Ind.. 15 Richmond, Va. 21 10 |