CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION WORK

The Christian Association in the last four years has grown and broadened in all its religious and philanthropic activities. The devotional meetings and the Bible classes are more numerous and better attended each year, and through the philanthropic work an increasingly large number of men are brought into touch with charitable work in Cambridge or Boston. Thirty or forty men, for instance, are sent annually to assist with boys' clubs and men's clubs at the Riverside Alliance. Other men go to assist at the East End Christian Union, at the Francis E. Willard Settlement, at Dennison House, the Civic Service House and other settlements in Boston. On T. Wharf, at the foot of Atlantic Avenue, the Association superintends a reading-room for the fishermen and sailors who come into Boston harbor, and several Harvard men by giving there monthly entertainments and smokers keep in touch with the life about the wharves. About 800 fishermen have their mail addressed to the reading-room, and from 25 to 150 men frequent it daily. Anyone who knows the peculiar temptation of the saloon for newly-landed sailors will understand the province and value of a place where these men can profitably spend their time ashore.

Several men are acting in the industrial and religious work at the Boston Industrial Home, an institution at which tramps are given food and shelter in return for work. About twelve men are teaching in the Chinese Sunday School on Beacon Hill. Chinamen come there at first to learn the English language but a large number of them, attracted by the spirit of the place, continue to come back for the religious teaching of the school. Through the Boston Children's Aid Society other men are meeting groups of children, usually in some room of a tenement house, for an hour or so each week--to read to them, play games and distribute the books from the little circulating libraries which the Society furnishes. In these, and a number of other ways, Harvard men are helping simply and unostentatiously in philanthropic work.

The Bible Study Department aims to stimulate more interest in the Bible and provide means for more general study of it. Addresses on the Bible are arranged from time to time. Professor G. H. Palmer and Dr. Henry Van Dyke have already spoken this year. Three then sand printed slips, suggesting daily reading, edited this year by Dr. Lyman Abbott in the University.

The following classes are conducted in co-operation with the St. Paul's Society: Freshman course--Life of Christ. Leader. R. S. Wallace '04; Friday, at 6.30 o'clock. Sophomore course--Studies in the Act and Epistles Leader. H. McLean 1L.; Wednesday at 7.15 o'clock. Junior course--Old Testament Characters. Leaders, Dr. W. W. Baker; Wednesdays at 6.45 o'clock. Senior course--Teachings of Jesus and His Disciples, Leader, W. M. Cranes '01; Wednesdays at 9.30 o'clock. Div. School course--Leader, Professor W. W. Fenn; Mondays at 7 o'clock. Dean Hodges' course--Tuesdays at 7 o'clock. Mr. Copeland's class in reading the Bible--First meeting, Thursday at 4.15 o'clock in Sever 5. The Senior course meets in Hollis 8. The other, except Mr. Copeland's course, meet in Phillips Brooks House.

The Foreign Work. Department aims to present the claims of foreign missions upon the intelligent interest and co-operation of College men. A class, which studies foreign mission conditions in their economic, social and religious bearing, meets on Saturday mornings at 8 o'clock, under the leadership of Professor E. C. Moore. Through this department the Association obtains the salary of E. C. Carter '00, who having been sent from Harvard to India in the fall of 1902 as one of the travelling secretaries of the Christian Association movement, has recently been put in general charge of this work for all India.

Many men in College find informal meetings of classmates for scripture reading and prayer a means of keeping alive their best purposes. To meet this recognized need class devotional meetings are arranged for men in the several classes as follows: 1905--Tuesdays at 6.55 o'clock. 1906--Mondays at 7 o'clock. 1907--Tuesdays at 6.55 o'clock.

A somewhat different type of religious meeting is the occasional address by a distinguished clergyman or layman on the peculiar problems of college men. Among the speakers during the past year were Dr. Henry Van Dyke, Dr. Lyman Abbott and Professor F. G. Peabody.

Preparatory schools, Young People's Societies, Bible classes, men's clubs, churches, settlements, and other organizations are continually seeking speakers from the University. The Deputation Committee attempts to secure capable men who are willing to do this work. As an example of the calls which the committee fills may be mentioned a series of addresses before a Young Men's Socialistic Club in Boston, for which men from the argumentation and debating courses in College have been secured.

In the fall, before College opens, the Association holds in Phillips Brooks House a three-days conference for the men most interested in its work. The plans for the year are discussed, and the activities of the Association put in operation. At the opening of College, and in the week before, a bureau of information for new students is maintained in Brooks House: lists of boarding places in Cambridge are on file, and upperclassmen are present to give on this subject and on others such help as a man who has known the University can give to one who comes in for the first time. On the first Friday of the year a reception to all new students is held in Phillips Brooks House; this year the speakers were Dean Hurlbut, O. G. Frantz '03, G. E. Huggins '01, F. D. Roosevelt '04, and Head-Coach Cranston, of the University football team