Within the Association there might be quite a variety of common interests which would tend to bring us together for our mutual good and, I feel confident, for our very great pleasure. It is only in "getting together'—if I may be allowed to use this trans-Pacific phrase—that women capable of public service can be discovered and organized. Has it ever occurred to you how very little British women have_in the past been represented by British women on the various committees that have dealt with public affairs in the Settlement? British women have done and are doing extra ordinarily little, and yet there happen to be something like thirty-three times as many British women employed by the Municipal Council as of all other nationalities put together. We are not lasa capable of administrative work, or of carrying out investigations than others. I venture to suggest that it is due to nothing more noe less than our utter lack of organization.
Some Arrractive Possti.itiss.
After remarking that many women in Shanghai felt they were missing something in living out, of the Western world, and stagnating mentally, Mrs. Gull went on to enumerate various subjects on which lectures, papers and debates would evoke warm interest. Thus there would be space for a_ literary section, a magazine exchange and library, a gardening section, musical and artists' sections, and one devoted to the interests and study of children would certainly have its uses: it might run a children's rary. and possibly inaugurate idren's gardens in those populous parts of the Settlement where they now play about on the pavements while their amahs gossip together. They might too institute a little more supervision from the point of view of children's welfare in the public parks and gardens. And especially should the Association take a very practical interest in our Girl Guides—our British—women of the very best type in em-bro.
Another matter in which she hoped the Association would interest itself is in fostering more friendly relations with the modern, Englisispeaking, Chinese women and girls, and in affording information, encouragement and assistance io those Chinese girls who wished_ to imbibe western education. Very few of them go to England at present but—were they not a little to blame for this?
One of their most important sections would necessarily be the social department. which would make all arrangements to get into touch with, receive and entertain the interesting and distinguished people, men and women, who pass through the port from time to time.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.