own groove on the team.

This gives the shy or the weak boy an equal chance to make good. Physical training differs in different camps; in boys' camps, sports fill a great part of the day; but in the girls' camps many other features are added to the daily routine. Esthetic dancing, archery, and such activities serve to strengthen the girls physically and make them fitted for the winter's campaign. The boys' camp lends itself to the sturdier sports which provide more violent exercise, yet during the summer months there are often tournaments in which both boys and girls participate. The present-day tendency for girls to indulge in men's sports is an advantage to both sexes, for it makes the boy more respectful to his sisters and gives the girl a confidence in her own power which otherwise she would never have had.

Swimming and boating are also recreations that should be carefully watched by mothers. They should be indulged in only under competent teachers who study each child's condition and guard against overexertion. In the poorly conducted camps there is no timelimit to the bathing hour and the child often comes out of the water shivering and blue and much harm results. In one class should be those who are being taught by the instructors and who, slowly but surely, are learning the proper way of handling themselves, not learning the strokes blindly, but being taught what each stroke means for each muscle. The experienced swimmers form another group; tests are often conducted, in which the participators are followed by competent instructors in boats, so that no accidents can Occur. With such careful instruction in swimming and boating the campers learn to understand not only themselves but the care of others placed in their charge. Parents should see that the camp to which they purpose sending their children is fully supervised in this respect.

The rest hour, which is insisted on in every camp, is a great safeguard for both boys and girls. It is not an irksome period, for, while obliged to be quiet, they are allowed to read, write, or sew, with the exception of the delicate boy or girl, who is encouraged to lie down and take complete rest. The length of the rest hour for each person is carefully regulated in a good camp; if any girl has been off on a long tramp, she is allowed to rest for a longer period in order fully to recover.

It must be remembered that properly conducted camps have connected with them a

physician whose duty is to look after the health of the children, and every one has to pass a physical inspection in order to see how much he or she is able to stand. This is neglected in some camps, and a delicate child, if allowed to do as much as the strongest, may overexert itself with serious results that end in permanent harm. In the well-conducted camp the standard of right living teaches a girl how to handle herself, how to avoid overdoing, and so insures her good health through the conservation of her strength and the knowledge of when to rest and when to work.

There are many enjoyable sides to camp life which the practical mother appreciates. In the evenings those who play the mandolin, guitar, or banjo sit around the open fire in the large hall strumming their instruments while the rest of the crowd gather about and break forth into camp songs, many of which have been written by themselves. There are Saturday evening entertainments in some of the camps; each group of girls selected for this purpose are put to their wits' ends to think out some original scheme to amuse the rest of the campers, and it is really wonderful how their efforts are rewarded and how much entertainment and fun is derived from these latent talents. Comradeship is a great thing in the life in summer camps; naturally the campers are drawn together and friendships are formed that often continue through life. Many a "sissy" or a spoiled society darling is developed into a strong, wide-awake boy or girl who learns to play, work, and live with other people in a manly or womanly way. Many mothers worry when they send their girls to camp lest they become rough, boyish, and forget their gentler feminine qualities. But under the right kind of supervision there is little danger of the wholesome outdoor play becoming hoydenish; on the contrary, the close companionship awakens unselfishness and consideration for others. Camp life assures a simplicity of living that encourages democracy; a child is helped to understand true values from his close association with nature and his study of it.

Parents should find out if there is any definite course of nature study in the camps which they are considering. In many there are councilors specially engaged to talk to the campers of the wonders about them; on their walks and tramps they are shown the flowers, the trees, birds, beasts, and insects; the world about them is explained and they are taught to observe for themselves. This

study of nature in all its phases arouses a wholesome interest in life, and the children learn more from their lessons out of doors than they would in years with their books.

Camp life tells its own story. No matter how hard the boy or girl may try to hide the thoughts, if they are in the wrong it always. leaks out.

There is some phrase that creeps into the letters which shows wary parents that something is wrong; they can read between the lines and realize that they have made a mistake. If everything is right, the letters home will be jolly, happy, full of interesting experiences, comforting the hearts of the parents and relieving them of anxiety lest they have made a mistake in separating themselves from their children for these two months of the year.

Homesickness, often feared by the mother, rarely, if ever, worries the camper; he becomes so fascinated with the pleasant outdoor life and the companionship of others that the days seemingly fly by.

The question of sending boys and girls to summer camps is not a matter that is easily decided. Parents should study the subject very carefully, lest they send their children away when they would be better at home. But they should realize, with a boy possibly more than with a girl, that there is danger in the restraint of home; the boy feels a lack of freedom to exercise his natural energy; he wants to be noisy and active and busy, and these instincts, if properly developed, will round out his whole character; curbed, they may lead him to alien paths. While this is true concerning the life of the boy, it is in a measure the same idea that underlies the girls' camps. The formation of girls' camps was a much harder problem to deal with than that of the boys', for mothers had to become accustomed to allowing their daughters the freedom of life a way from home. Fortunately, the outdoor movement of to-day which has spread throughout our country has made the daughter of the twentieth century associate in outdoor sports with her brothers. By so doing she has developed health and love of the open that was wanting a quarter of a century ago. The wise mother has come to realize the importance of encouraging these instincts, so that her daughter may grow into a strong, healthy woman and her boy into a manly fellow able to take his place successfully in the world. It is to mothers such as these that the summer camp appeals, but it is

equally desirable for the children of mothers who are over-indulgent.

Modern parents are growing to realize that through anxiety for their children's welfare they often become tired and impatient from the monotony of caring for the many details of their lives. A short separation does both the child and the parents good, and reunites them again even more closely. The camp movement has so grown that parents all over the country realize that it is not an experiment but a well-established factor that has brought about a vast amount of good to every member of the family. Fathers and mothers have been able to take outings which otherwise they would have foregone while the children, safe under careful surveillance, are costing them no more than if they had sent them to some seashore resort. The children are filled with new ideas, new outlooks upon life, and are by the living in the open ready and anxious to take up the work of the winter with earnestness and vim.

In the studying of the circulars that are issued by the various camps one should not overlook the special features which appeal most to the child's natural instincts. Nearly every camp has some particular activity; in one it is nature study; in another, arts and crafts or some sport-baseball, horsebackriding, swimming, Indian life. The child should be allowed to select the one of these that appeals to him most. This is the advantage of having so many camps run on so many different lines: there is a chance for every temperament and every taste to find the congenial place. This point is one that the parents should never neglect. The boy who loves to "make things " will get the most out of a camp in which wood-carving, wood-working, and the like are taught. The girl who adores dancing should be sent where there is a professional teacher of æsthetic and folk dancing. The tennis enthusiast should have it assured that there is a good court and other players of equal ability in the camp. If the camper is in uncongenial surroundings, where the activities he most enjoys are neglected, his interest will be lost, he will very likely be unhappy, and will not improve from his summer's vacation.

All of these things should be consideredlocation, living and sanitary conditions, food, the character of the director and the councilors, the general environment, and the special activities. The lack of any one of them will mar the summer's pleasure and benefit.

ENRY WARD BEECHER was, in my judgment, the greatest orator I ever heard, and easily takes a place among the greatest orators of the world. Less persuasive than Gladstone, less keen and rapier-like than Wendell Phillips, less dramatic than John B. Gough, less polished than George William Curtis, less weighty than Daniel Webster, he combined in one ever-variable oratory the qualities of all, and was alternately persuasive, keen, dramatic, polished, weighty. His kaleidoscopic mind kept the habitual hearer always wondering what surprise would greet him next Sunday, and the occasional hearer equally wondering what surprise would greet him in the next sentence. It was not, however, chiefly these oratorical qualities that gave him his permanent influence; it was his rare combination of practical common sense and spiritual vision. He disregarded the phrases and forms of religion and cared only for its essential spirit. Under his leadership there was developed a church whose bond of union was spiritual, not intellectual. In its membership were both Calvinists and Arminians, Unitarians and Trinitarians, believers in universal restoration, in conditional immortality and in eternal punishment, in adult baptism and in infant baptism, in the Bible as an infallible rule of faith and practice and in the Bible as the history of the development of a nation's religious experience, some men and women temperamentally Episcopalians and others temperamentally Friends. There was a baptistery under the pulpit, and unbaptized candidates for admission to the church decided for themselves whether they would be baptized by sprinkling or by immersion. A more harmonious church I have never known: a more independent membership I have never known. The church solved the problem of uniting individual independence and organic unity.

Some understanding of the spirit of this church and of the character and temperament of its first pastor seems necessary to enable Copyright, 1914, by the Outlook Company.

the reader to understand the nature of the problem which confronted me during my eleven years of pastoral labor.1

When I came down to my breakfast on Sunday morning, March 6, 1887, my wife handed me the morning paper containing the statement that Henry Ward Beecher was dying at his home in Brooklyn-cause, the bursting of a blood-vessel in the brain-of recovery no possibility. As a pastor I had been familiar with death. I had been accustomed from early youth to look forward to dying myself with interested curiosity-not with dread, hardly with awe. Death has always seemed to me simply a journey to another land. But I had never associated death with Mr. Beecher. He was so full of life. That it would ever ebb had never occurred to me. Like others, I had always thought of Plymouth Church as Beecher's church, and could not picture it to myself as going on without him. The paper announced that on Sunday evening the members of Plymouth Church would meet for prayer in the lecture-room.

After my morning church service in Cornwall I took the train to New York to attend this meeting. Not for many years had I been an enrolled member of Plymouth Church, but it was the church of my first love and my church still.

A more solemnly sacred meeting I have never attended. There was neither priest nor preacher to conduct it. It was a meeting of laymen. Its utterances were not addressed by a teacher to the church, but were the spontaneous expression of the church's feeling. Its spirit was one of strange exaltation; its thoughts not so much. of the life which was closing as of the life which was beginning. In the account in the Book of Acts of the martyrdom of Stephen it is said, "He, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God." Something of the spirit

In my "Life of Henry Ward Beecher " I have given an account of the organization and history of this church, of which Mr. Beecher was the first pastor, and which partook of his broad and progressive spirit.