yside is the Young Women's Christian Association--an
association that now includes a glorious company of two hundred and
eighty thousand young women. The fundamental thought in their work is
"character-contagion"; first the contagion of the character of Christ as
an influence in the world; second, the contagion of the character of a
Christ-like human being among others. This thought is expressed in their
handbook in these words: "With the contagion of Christian character as a
definite object the very first ideal of the Association is that every
person placed in a position of responsibility for any part of the work
shall embody the spirit of Christ."

Flaming with enthusiasm for this ideal, over a hundred national
secretaries are carrying on the work among nine hundred local societies
in this country, and over thirty are sent to Turkey, Japan, India,
China, and South America, that the girls of other lands also may learn
to know the good that girls can do for girls.

For this association follows the theory that "every girl needs help, and
every girl can give help." The declaration strikes to the bottom of
things psychological in girl-life. Girls need each other. No one can
help a girl like a girl. If there is any trouble with any girl or with
any pair or group of girls, get a girl--the right kind of girl--to come
and redirect the group. If new thoughts, new ideals, new enthusiasms
embodied in a new girl can be brought in, the old thoughts will
disappear themselves. There are trees on which the old leaves hang
withered and dead all winter long: the rains cannot rot them away, the
winds cannot whip them off. But when in the spring the new life begins
to come coursing up the trunk, runs out through the branches, and
presses a new end against the root of the dead stem, it yields at last
and makes way for the leaf and flower and fruit that imperatively insist
upon having more room. Those who wish to redirect young human life may
find a practise lesson in this example of nature. To make faulty habits
or low ideals or dangerous inclinations disappear, bring in new life.
And experience teaches that new life can be imparted in no way more
effectively in the field of girl-life than through good noble girl
associates. To associate girls under some noble banner that will assure
their enthusiasm and loyalty, will therefore be one of the most direct
means of lifting their standard of living.

This Association more than any other has