804 



YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION. 



committees of later institution. Another bond of 

 united activity is furnished by the district, State, 

 and international conventions. As the importance 

 of the work of the associations increased, the 

 voluntary helpers upon whom it was at first de- 

 pendent gave way to trained secretaries who have 

 made their work a life calling. Men were em- 

 ployed by the associations of Boston and New 

 York to look after the details of their work as 

 early as 1852 and 1853. In 1871 a conference of 

 13 of the officers thus employed under various 

 designations was held, and an organization of 

 general secretaries was formed, and general secre- 

 tary has since been the title of the office. The 

 number of these secretaries is now about 1,500. 

 About 75 secretaries, including those laboring in 

 foreign lands, are employed by the International 

 Committee. A training-school for general secre- 

 taries and physical directors or trainers in physi- 

 cal culture was established in Springfield, Mass., 

 in 1885, and afterward another one in Chicago, 

 111. As the functions of the associations have 

 been extended, it has been found expedient to in- 

 stitute several branches and departments, with 

 the work specially adapted to the needs of men of 

 diiferent callings and spheres of life, the history 

 and functions of which have been briefly set forth 

 by the Rev. Edwin F. See in the Boston Congre- 

 gationalist. In the beginning the chief and prac- 

 tically only work of the associations was with 

 clerks and mechanics in the cities and towns, and 

 >rtion of the associations in the coun- 



try are of that kind, and are cared for, "as a whole, 

 by the field secretary. In 1872 attention was 

 called to the railroad men of the country as con- 

 stituting a field calling for a special adaptation of 

 work; and the railroad department was insti- 

 tuted. It has had a vigorous growth, and now 

 includes, according to Mr. See, about 150 asso- 

 ciations at railroad centers. According to the 

 report of the International Committee to the 

 present conference, " it alone has furnished over 

 50 per cent, of the growth during the past two 

 years in the total number of associations of all 

 kinds in North America and over 24 per cent, of 

 the total increase in membership." The students' 

 department was organized in 1877, largely 

 through the instrumentality of Mr. Luther D. 

 Wishard, and is represented in nearly 600 institu- 

 tions, while the World's Student Christian Fed- 

 eration comprehends representatives from nearly 

 all the countries of the globe. Special work for 

 colored men was begun in 1888. Important work 

 was done among the soldiers and sailors of the 

 United States during the civil war, and was most 

 prominently exemplified in the services of the 

 Christian Commission. It assumed a more sys- 

 tematic and permanent form in 1898, and has 

 been extended to military and naval posts and 

 Government reservations at home and abroad. 

 Two important centers of it are the building 

 erected by Mr. William E. Dodge for the soldiers 

 on Governors Island, New York harbor, and that 

 built by Miss Helen M. Gould for the sailors near 

 the entrance to the Brooklyn Navy-Y 7 ard. Twen- 

 ty army branches have been established. The 

 work with boys carried on for many years by the 

 association had been put under the charge of an 

 international representative during the past year. 

 Special buildings have been set apart for boys in 

 New York city and in Cleveland, Ohio. Work for 

 young men in missionary lands, which has been 

 carried on for about fifteen years, is represented 

 by about 20 agents in Brazil, Ceylon, China, India, 

 and Japan. 



The international convention in Boston was at- 

 tended by 2,101 fully accredited delegates and cor- 



responding delegates, of whom 187 were from for- 

 eign countries, including, besides Great Britain, 

 its colonies and India, Holland, Italy, France, 

 Austria, Finland, Russia, Switzerland, Germany, 

 Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Bra- 

 zil, China, Japan, Denmark, and Cuba; 94 from 

 the Canadian provinces; and 1,921 from the United 

 States. Mr. William E. Dodge, of New York, 

 was chosen president of the convention. Con- 

 gratulatory messages were read from the Presi- 

 dent of the United States, the King of Great 

 Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India, the 

 Emperor of Germany, the King of Italy, the 

 Synod of Russia, Lord Roberts, and the German 

 ambassador at Washington. The International 

 Committee reported the following statistics for 

 1901: Number of associations, 1,404; of members 

 reported, 268,477; of buildings owned, 391, valued 

 at $22,733,400; of general secretaries, 1,522; of 

 volumes in libraries, 523,215; of educational 

 classes, 2,060, with 26,906 students; of attendants 

 on religious meetings, 2,720,221; of student asso- 

 ciations, 577; of colored men's associations, 88; 

 of Indian associations, 44; of boys' departments, 

 401; expense of home work, $136,761; expense of 

 army and navy work, $36,298. It was represented 

 in the report that the association was now more 

 fully anchored in the confidence of the community 

 and the churches than at any previous time. Its 

 most important and aggressive work was in the 

 cities, but the report set forth that, in strong 

 contrast with this city association growth, an ap- 

 parently opposite tendency was discovered to de- 

 cline and loss in some of the smaller cities of 5,000 

 population and less, and in the country neigh- 

 borhoods generally. In the smaller communities 

 associations had from the beginning shown a 

 tendency to decay and revival. Not less than 100 

 associations were organized each year and a some- 

 what larger number were out of existence, so that 

 during the past five years associations in the 

 small towns had shown a net loss of about 200. 

 Measures had been adopted to counteract this 

 tendency by the formation of local " sections " 

 or " bands " under the direction of several of the 

 State committees, whose names did not appear on 

 the rolls of the associations, although they were 

 really doing association work; and in the organi- 

 zation of county organizations. " The encourag- 

 ing growth of the State organizations is, however, 

 a strong factor tending to develop all parts of 

 the American association movement." Among 

 the addresses delivered at the meetings of the con- 

 vention were those on Great Facts in the Half Cen- 

 tury of Work of the Young Men's Christian Asso- 

 ciation in North America, by Col. John J. Mc- 

 Cook, of the railroad department; The Contribu- 

 tion of the Association toward the Solution of 

 the City Problem, by the Hon. Herbert B. Ames, 

 of Montreal; The Contribution of the Young 

 Men's Christian Association to the Welfare of the 

 Commercial and Industrial Classes, by E. L. 

 Stacy; its Contribution to the Physical Develop- 

 ment of Young Men, by President G. Stanley 

 Hall, of Clark University; its relations to the 

 churches, by President W. H. P. Faunce, of Brown 

 University, and President Francis E. Olark, of the 

 United Society of Christian Endeavor; The 

 Fundamental Principles of the Young Men's 

 Christian Association, by the Hon. Cephas 

 Brainerd; addresses on religious life, by the Rev. 

 E. I. Bosworth, D. D. 3 the Rev. W. W. White, 

 D. D., Mr. W. D. Spear, and Principal Caven, D. D., 

 of Knox College, Canada; The Need of a More 

 Aggressive Warfare against the Forces which are 

 Destroying Young Men, by the Rev. J. M. Buck- 

 ley, D.D.; The Boy, by the Rev. Dr. J. H. Can- 



