thousands-Galicians, Crechs, Bulgarians, Serbs, etc.

The women students of to-day are the future mothers or teachers of the next generation in these countries, many of whom are certainly future citizens of the United States. This is a matter which touches American national life in a very vital way; it is impossible to estimate the enormous reflex of all that is done (and left undone) to send these students home from Switzerland to their own lands

with their hearts turned towards the Saviour of all the nations.

Gospel of Jesus Christ? "Who is Jesus Christ? What is the Tell me

quickly, I have never heard of it, but surely it is what I am seeking," said a woman student in one of these Swiss centers. This work needs all the interest and the prayer we can put into it, so that a personal faith and a life purpose may be brought to these strangers within their gates.

An employed officer?

One paid to command, or is it to lead?

Who employs her? Who pays her? Whom does she command, or whom may she lead?

Does she command by use of the imperative or of the hortatory subjunctive or of the co-operative mood, e. g., "Come, now, let us do thus together"?

"What's in a name?"

We assume for purposes of spacesaving that the reading public knows that the Young Women's Christian Association arch rests upon two pillars, the volunteer worker and the employed officer; also that there are about 1,200 American employed officers at the present time distributed throughout eleven countries and in every possible type of community; also that these officers may be executive or departmental workers, and have received Associational or merely technical preparation.

Now these 1,200 workers will have each about 280 working days each. year, counting out a month's vacation, a weekly rest day and few holidays, and that makes 336,000 working days, of which it may well be said:

"The trivial round, the common task
Will furnish all we need to ask;
Room to deny ourselves, a road
To bring us daily nearer God."

Another hymn states the problem of the secretary:

"To serve the present age,
My calling to fulfill,

Oh, may it all my powers engage
To do my Master's will!"

Who can analyze one of these days? What is temporal, what eternal? What secular, what religious? What personal, what professional? What for the glory of the Association of which she is executive, and what for one of these little ones for whom the great head of the Young Women's Christian Association gave his life? No two days are alike. Here is one program.

8:45. Some personal shopping for the spring wardrobe planned long enough in advance to avoid frantic haste on the part of saleswoman or dressmaker.

9:15. Selection of a trophy cup to be given an educational club by an anonymous benefactor who relied upon the secretary's

taste.

9:45. An appointment in the legal adviser's office relative to incorporative matters?

II:00. At the building, informal conferences with staff members, filling in the last words for the weekly bulletin, tele

phoning about dates of an important speciai meeting.

12:30. Conferring about a recital, when a young rusician will make her debut in the Association auditorium.

1:00. Three important but Association ally uninformed guests at luncheon in a corner of the main dining-room and a

tour of the building with minute explana

tions of the activities and equipment.

2:30 Personal conferences with a prospective volunteer worker, with a member of the staff who wishes to resign in order to contract a most unsuitable marriage, with the president of a neighboring Association who happens to be in town.

4:00 Office routine involving a dozen people and a dozen measures operative any. where from an hour to twelve months ahead.

(She leaves the building.)

5:00 A committee at the college club. 8:00 Church prayer meeting.

9:00 Committee to confer about a Lenten meeting for introducing girls to Christ. 9:30 A social hour at the home of a volunteer worker, where the accidental and absorbing topic of discussion at refreshments and afterwards is "scientific management.'

It may be noticed that much of this day is the voluntary activity of a capable woman who recognizes and enjoys her share of community responsibility.

Every year a considerable per cent of the whole employed staff must be recruited from from two sources; the younger women who prepare for this as their first choice and the older women who gave whole hearted service in some other vocation for a longer or shorter time, but were constrained by various recognized and unrecognized means to turn into this path. Why? They speak for theinselves as follows:

A girl of leisure: "I became a secretary for reasons so commingled in altruism and selfishness it is hard to separate them. My volunteer work in my home city Association was beset with difficulties, the conflicting demands of church, society, clubs and friends. A temporary secretarial position showed me a latent talent for work with girls and possibilities of growth within myself. I wanted to prove I could support myself. Be

cause it was not necessary for me to be independent I had no right to enter teaching or any other overcrowded profession, but here I should not deprive another of the means of existence and this work would develop me

along business, executive, philanthropic and religious lines."

An employed business woman: “My first impulse for Christian service was received at a summer conference when I was a delegate from a student Association. Those whom I knew in Association work seemed to have great satisfaction of heart in it. A business career in its compensations, aims and relationships is unsatisfactory; its strain of competition, its weariness to the flesh, its exhausting demands left. neither time, strength nor opportunity for the Christian service to which I felt impelled. The Young Women's Christian Association was chosen as my own field of such service because of its active propaganda for the employed young woman, and I felt I understood her temptations and her lack of ideals and purpose in life."

A woman owning her own business: "Chances for social or religious work were very small as I was in and out of town irregularly. Attendance upon a National Federation of Women's Clubs turned my thoughts to social service. An aunt who was a member of a Young Women's Christian Association board frequently suggested possibilities and a catalogue of the National Training School showed me opportunities in the Young Women's Christian Association. My prayer for guidance as to where my experience would count most in women's lives asked for a definite sign: I would go if the sales continued good, so that there might be no suggestion of dropping into Association work as an easy berth after trying experiences. One idea I had, has been completely reversed. I thought I was bringing to this work more in valuable help and experiences than I would receive. I expected to make a speedy impression upon humanity, but I am thankful that

I now understand that only what God is allowed to do through me will count."

A normal school teacher: "Teaching gave a splendid opportunity to help young women learn to live the most efficient life, but the Young Women's Christian Association holds still greater opportunity. Routine work left little time and strength for the personal touch. The barrier between those in authority and those under authority hindered personal work. Association work does not possess these objectionable features in the same dcgree, but is brimful of the blessed privilege of being friends with girls, giving a turn here, a hand there, when young life is adjusting itself to its own responsibilities and forming character."

A college dean: "I am eager to state why I am a secretary, but cannot seen to get the time to do the subject justice, but I will say that I have not seen the smallest fraction of a second when I have regretted giving up working for my Ph.D. and all that would have come afterwards."

A social worker: "I came into the Association because it is preventive, and where such work is done there will be less rescue work to do. This work gives the opportunity to offer the high

est

and best by directing young women to Christ; it is also doing more to build up the young womanhood of the country than any other organization. Better women mean better homes and a better world. Then, too, the splendid organization of the Young Women's Christian Association enables it to carry on the work systematically."

One general reason for taking up the Association career explains, by its obverse statement, why many leave it, namely, "I should be doing this as a volunteer if I were not a professional factor." So say hundreds upon hundreds of the most efficient secretaries and department directors. Those who retire for other reasons than personal health considerations or family circumstances have frequently failed to catch the spirit and have been discontented with the latter. Such do not become volunteers when they cease to be professional workers.

God is not calling every qualified young woman to prepare for this particular service, but many able young women if they listen may hear his voice through the confused number of human needs, of daily emergencies, of latent possibilities and of unsatisfied self-expansion.

A

TTENTION is called to Miss Gertrude Jacob's article on Posture in the February number of the American Physical Education Review. One of the chief criticisms of ordinary methods of physical training has been its failure to produce good carriage of the body outside of the gymnasium. The teacher of gymnastics has seemed content to secure precision of movements. In fact physical training has been a term synonymous with muscular exercise.

The upright position to which the human body has to be trained causes the organs within the trunk to be suspended one above another by their membranal supports. Gravity causing them to drop to the lowest point, they are constantly in danger of encroaching upon the territory of the organs next below. This may actually occur through severe jars due to accident or violent exercise which stretches the supporting membranes. Proper position of these organs depends upon the strength or tone of their supports to some extent, but much more upon the support of the trunk muscles.

To quote from Miss Jacob's article: "A young woman who had cultivated good carriage until it has become a habit will always stand a better chance in the struggle for existence than her round-shouldered, hol-low-chested sister. The proper position of the chest insures a greater lung capacity, and increased facility. for breathing means better oxygenation of the blood, stronger powers of resisting disease, and higher physical efficiency. With the chest held correctly, the abdominal viscera are more likely to be in place, digestion and circulation normal, and the chances for assimilation greatly improved. The restrictive dress dress so generally

worn by women and girls renders impossible the free development and use of the abdominal muscles, crowds and even at times displaces the abdominal organs, and retards the intestinal functions and the elimination of the excretions."

"Turning to the economic side of the question, we find that good posture has a real commercial value. The applicant for a place in business who carries herself well will always stand a better chance than one who does not, for appearance counts for a great deal, and especially so when an employer has to choose from large numbers. This fact was recently illustrated by two girls who graduated from the business course in our high school. school. One, an erect, neat, wellbuilt individual, has received many offers of attractive positions. other, while superior to the first in mental ability, is inferior in carriage, and careless in appearance, and consequently has had difficulty in securing a position at all."

The

Miss Jacobs well says that posture is more than a matter of muscles, though they should be strengthened. It is more thain a matter of exercise

the secret lies in the development of the sixth or muscular sense.

To develop this sense she has her pupils practice posture before a mirror, because by no other means can they be made aware of defects or how far their efforts succeed in correcting them.

A few years ago a number of slides were prepared by us to emphasize the need of this training. In a western factory some photographs of employees were found which 11lustrated the importance of correct posture. The employees ranged in ages from sixteen to seventy. Some of the older women had settled into the characteristic pose of the habitu