LARS 
 
 .MO 
 

Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 of the 
 
 Young Men's 
 
 Christian Associations 
 
 of North America 
 
 ___ 
 
 v 
 
 RICHARD C. MORSE 
 
 General Secretary of the International Committee 
 
 New York 
 
 The International Committee of Young Men's 
 
 Christian Associations 
 
 1905 
 
The story of the fifty years of federation, com- 
 memorated in the Jubilee convention of 1904, is 
 summarized in this volume from the point of view 
 of the writer's experience and his personal relation 
 to federation effort during the last thirty-five years. 
 It is offered to his fellow workers in the Young 
 Men's Christian Associations as a contribution to 
 the history of this important agency of the North 
 American associations. Its preparation was begun 
 in connection with a brief paper on the subject read 
 by the writer at the Jubilee International Con- 
 vention held in Buffalo, May 11-15, 1904. 
 
 R. C, M. 
 
 Copyright, 1905, by 
 
 the International Committee of 
 
 Young Men's Christian Associations 
 
 5-I-P2178-1-05 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 Introduction. — The Meaning and Mission of Christian 
 
 Federation 5 
 
 I. The First Convention, 1854 7 
 
 Its author and object. The call and the response. The 
 
 Confederation and how it was formed. The value and 
 spirit of the convention. The Central Committee, its 
 work and general secretary. The early associations. 
 
 II. The Three Periods of Association Federation, 
 1854-1904 22 
 
 III. The First Period of Federation, 1854-1866. The 
 Civil War Episode 23 
 
 The ten conventions. The story of the first six and 
 their conception of association work. The career of 
 Mr. Langdon. The seven central committees. World 
 federation, World conferences and European visita- 
 tion by R. C. McCormick, W. C Langdon and W. 
 H. Neff. The United States Christian Commission. 
 The conventions of 1863 and 1864. 
 
 IV. The Second Period of Federation, 1866-1883 . . 40 
 The convention of new departures, 1866. Concentration 
 
 on work for young men. The first term of the Inter- 
 national Committee; its chairman, Cephas Brainerd; 
 secretarial member and first agent. The career of H. 
 Thane Miller. Establishment of state and provincial 
 conventions. The second to the sixth terms of the 
 International Committee. Its general secretary. The 
 evangelical test adopted. William E. Dodge, presi- 
 dent of the convention of 1869. The first association 
 buildings and secretaries. Two phases of local, state 
 and provincial work. Visitation in the South. Gen- 
 eral Secretaries' Conferences and secretarial training. 
 International German speaking, office, traveling, 
 Negro, student and railroad secretaries. D. L.Moody. 
 
Contents 
 
 Page 
 Growth of state, provincial, secretarial and building 
 movements. World federation and conferences. 
 Associations started in foreign mission lands. 
 
 V. The Third Period of Federation, 1883-1904 . . .65 
 The time of greatest enlargement. Incorporation of 
 
 International Committee. Specialization on internal 
 development of local associations, in buildings and 
 secretaries, in organization of student, railroad and 
 other classes of young men, and in the physical, edu- 
 cational and religious work. Metropolitan and county 
 organizations recognized and fostered. Federation 
 relationships defined. The Grand Rapids (1899) and 
 Buffalo (1894) convention resolutions. Growing fel- 
 lowship with association work on other continents. 
 
 VI. Summary of the Fifty Years of Federation ... 82 
 Federation Work has specialized on concentration upon 
 
 work for young men, training employed officers, con- 
 trol by laymen, buildings, departments of local work 
 and classes of young men. Federation work, state, 
 provincial and international and its financial support 
 (with diagrams). Objective of this work, the develop- 
 ment of strong local associations. 
 
 VII. Concerning Centralization 99 
 
 Advisory relation of federation agencies. Their lack of 
 
 legal or governmental power or control. Superior 
 resources of individual local associations. 
 
 VIII. The Value of Association Federation . ... 103 
 Shown by the many transient features of the local asso- 
 ciations, by the price paid for supervision and by the 
 growth of conventions and conferences. The influence 
 and results of international conventions. 
 
 IX. Summary 109 
 
 Table of International Conventions 112 
 
 Supplement i 
 
 Index xxv 
 
 4 
 
The First Fifty Years of Federation of the 
 Young Men's Christian Associa- 
 tions of North America 
 
 RICHARD C. MORSE 
 
 Meaning and Mission of Christian Federation 
 
 All federation, both of Christian men and Chris- 
 tian organizations, finds its reason for existence in 
 the sentiment of brotherhood. No individual or 
 association bearing the Christian name lives at its 
 best when it lives wholly unto itself. As one of a 
 brotherhood, each association owes mutual care and 
 help to its fellow members. The Bible command 
 is : " Love thy neighbor as thyself." " Bear ye one 
 another's burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ." 
 "We that are strong ought to bear the infirmities 
 of the weak, and not to please ourselves .... 
 for even Christ pleased not Himself. " 
 
 It is possible for any member of the association 
 family to isolate itself and live a hermit existence, 
 just as it is equally possible for a young man to iso- 
 late himself selfishly from parents, brothers and sis- 
 ters. But the course of each is equally unnatural. 
 The unit in the association family, or in the human 
 family, pursuing this hermit course dwarfs itself and 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 loses a development of life and character which it 
 can gain only as a sympathetic member of the family 
 it belongs to. Young Men's Christian Associations, 
 therefore, obeyed the law of their own existence and 
 of divine appointment in seeking the benefits of fed- 
 eration. 
 
 The North American associations sought these 
 benefits earlier in their history than others, and an 
 international federation was formed by them on this 
 continent a year before the older associations across 
 the Atlantic called together at Paris, in 1855, their 
 first " General Conference," composed of ''delegates 
 from various Young Men's Christian Associations of 
 Europe and America." 
 
CHAPTER I. THE FIRST CONVENTION, 
 
 1854 
 
 Its Author and Object. The Call and the Re- 
 sponse. The Confederation and How It was 
 Formed. The Value and Spirit of the Conven- 
 tion. The Central Committee, Its Work and 
 General Secretary. The Early Associations. 
 
 1. Its Author and Object — the Obstacles 
 
 More than fifty years ago, when the number of 
 Young Men's Christian Associations on this continent 
 was less than thirty, a young man, twenty-two years 
 of age, residing in the capital of the United States 
 and a member of the Washington association, be- 
 came possessed with a conviction of the great value 
 of an alliance of North American Young Men's 
 Christian Associations, conceiving of such an alliance 
 <( asa union of independent, equal but cooperating 
 societies." He corresponded with the stronger or- 
 ganizations in New York and Boston and with older 
 associations across the Atlantic. His foreign cor- 
 respondence at this time was an influential factor in 
 calling later, in 1855, the first "General or World's 
 Conference " at Paris, above referred to. 
 
 This young man received no sympathy from the 
 stronger American associations when he earnestly 
 urged them to take the leadership in this movement. 
 He was, however, one of those who in a good cause 
 are possessed by an enthusiasm which obstacles 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 stimulate rather than discourage. He was content to 
 go forward without the sympathy of the four societies 
 in Boston and New York, Brooklyn and Baltimore, 
 which then contained more than half the member- 
 ship of the North American associations. Among 
 the objections which prevailed with these dissenting 
 associations was the belief that conventions and a 
 general organization would draw off attention from 
 local work, would foster a centralizing spirit at war 
 with the independent action of local associations, 
 would involve financial expenditure unauthorized 
 by the main object of the society, and would tend to 
 produce unpleasant scenes and ruptures on the sub- 
 ject of negro slavery — then a topic of heated dis- 
 cussion, public and private, political and ecclesiasti- 
 cal, reaching all communities and households with 
 its agitation. The successful federation of the as- 
 sociation brotherhood, therefore, owes its origin to 
 sympathy and cooperation from the smaller associa- 
 tions of fifty years ago. This young man, William 
 Chauncy Langdon, also encouraged himself in his 
 disappointment by the consideration that it was, for 
 many reasons, very fitting that this movement for 
 federation should proceed from such a federal and 
 federating city as the capital of the republic. 
 
 2. The Call and the Response to It 
 
 Under his leadership, and as a result of his visita- 
 tion and correspondence, the Washington association 
 received favorable replies from Buffalo, Cincinnati 
 and seventeen other cities. The Buffalo association 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 offered to entertain the delegations and joined 
 Washington in issuing the call for the first inter- 
 national convention of Young Men's Christian Asso- 
 ciations ever held on this or any continent. For 
 Washington and the other favoring associations the 
 call was signed by Mr. Langdon. For the Buffalo 
 association, as host, it was signed by an older young 
 man, Oscar Cobb, who, while his younger com- 
 panion had passed away, was graciously spared to 
 sign — at the age of eighty-three years — the call to 
 the jubilee convention of 1904. 
 
 In response to this call to ' ' form an American 
 Young Men's Christian Association Alliance, " thirty- 
 seven delegates, all young men, from nineteen as- 
 sociations, met in Buffalo, June 7, 1854. Of the 
 seventeen cities represented, besides Buffalo and 
 Washington, five were in New England: Boston, 
 Worcester, Springfield, Portsmouth and Portland; 
 one on the Pacific Coast : San Francisco ; one on the 
 Gulf: New Orleans; two in Kentucky: Louisville 
 and Lexington ; two in Ohio : Cincinnati and Cleve- 
 land; three in Illinois : Chicago, Peoria and Quincy ; 
 one in Missouri : St. Louis ; and one in Pennsylvania : 
 Pittsburg. Few of these associations have since 
 maintained an uninterrupted existence. Only six 
 now report their present organization as existing in 
 1854. 
 
 Of the thirty-seven delegates, seven beside Mr. 
 Cobb survive, and four of these were present at the 
 Jubilee Convention, May, 1904: Oscar Cobb of Buffa- 
 lo; Professor W. J. Rhees of Washington; Rev. 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 Samuel T. Lowrie, D. D., of Philadelphia, then of 
 Pittsburg; and J. L. Eldridge of Topeka, then of 
 Boston. The four who could not attend were: 
 Samuel Lowry of St. Louis, then of Cincinnati; Rev. 
 J. H. Marshall of Lincoln, Nebraska, then of Cincin- 
 nati; H. A. Robinson of Springfield, and E. A. 
 Swan of Toledo, Oregon, then of Buffalo. 
 
 3. The Object Achieved — a Confederation Formed 
 
 The lively interest and enthusiasm characteristic 
 of association conventions were happily realized in 
 this first meeting. Any fear concerning agitation 
 of the slavery question was removed at the outset 
 by the election, as president, of George W. Helme 
 of New Orleans, and by a refusal to take action up- 
 on the subject as irrelevant. 
 
 The most stirring question before the convention 
 naturally related to what the call had proposed : ' ' the 
 formation of an American Young Men's Christian 
 Association Alliance. " Delayed on his way to Buffa- 
 lo, Mr. Langdon did not reach there until the second 
 day of the meeting. On the first day, owing in part 
 to his absence, a proposition prevailed which pro- 
 vided only for the call of a second convention. This 
 action was deemed inadequate by the friends of fed- 
 eration who had called the convention, and an ad- 
 journment without forming the desired alliance was 
 only prevented by a reconsideration, accomplished 
 through the vigorous exertions of the Cincinnati 
 delegation. 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 4. The Story of William H. Neff 
 
 A member of this delegation, William H. Neff, 
 gives the following graphic account of this historic 
 incident : — 
 
 " My knowledge of the Young Men's Christian Associations 
 dates from the spring of 1854, when I united with the Society of 
 Religious Inquiry of Cincinnati. It was composed of about 
 twenty-five members of various denominations and met in the 
 second story of the Bible Depository. 
 
 "Soon after I joined, we received a communication from 
 William Chauncy Langdon, secretary of the Washington asso- 
 ciation, informing us that a convention of associations would 
 be held in Buffalo, to consider closer union or interchange of 
 thought among the associations, especially through an annual 
 convention and perhaps some kind of Confederation for mutual 
 support and sympathy. He asked us to appoint delegates to 
 represent us if we entertained the idea favorably. We were 
 pleased with the suggestion and three delegates were ap- 
 pointed — Samuel Lowry, Joseph H. Marshall and myself. We 
 arranged to divide among us the topics suggested — Samuel 
 Lowry to represent us in reference to an annual convention, 
 Joseph Marshall to present the mission Sunday-school work 
 in which our association was greatly interested, having charge 
 at this time of seven schools, and the topic of the Confederation 
 was given to me. 
 
 11 We were very kindly received in Buffalo, found over thirty 
 delegates in attendance, and made George W. Helme, of New 
 Orleans, who had come the greatest distance, president of the 
 conference. That afternoon, while I was absent in a committee 
 meeting, the business committee reported unfavorably on the 
 subject of a Confederation, and the report was adopted. Lowry 
 had been outvoted. Nothing remained but to accept the minutes 
 and say good-by to each other, and this was to be done the next 
 morning. 
 
 "To say that the Cincinnati delegation was disappointed 
 would be a very mild expression. What was to be done? What 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 could be done? The first thing was to get the decision of the 
 convention reconsidered. Who would move the reconsideration? 
 The matter of the Confederation had been assigned to me in 
 our delegation, but I had not voted for the report or even been 
 present when the vote was taken. Would the president enter- 
 tain a motion to reconsider from a member who had not been 
 present? Mr. Helme said that as I had been absent on work 
 for the convention, and from no fault of my own, he would en- 
 tertain the motion if made promptly before the minutes were 
 approved. Then we went to work. Lowry and Marshall but- 
 tonholed the delegates. I began work on the resolutions. That 
 night I spent in prayer and preparation. When the resolutions 
 and the address to support them were ready, the gray dawn of 
 the morning was appearing in the east. A short rest, a hurried 
 breakfast, and we were ready for the battle. Langdon had ar- 
 rived early in the morning of this second day. He approved 
 heartily of the resolutions and promised to second them. As 
 soon as the convention was called to order I moved the recon- 
 sideration. It was not debatable, but curiosity, love of fair 
 play and the labors of Lowry and Marshall gave us a majority. 
 Then I introduced my resolutions as an amendment to the re- 
 port of the business committee, and advocated their adoption. 
 Langdon handsomely supported me. The resolutions were re- 
 committed along with the report to the committee, and Lang- 
 don and myself were added to it in place of two members who 
 had left the city. As soon as we entered the committee room 
 I proposed that we should recommend nothing on which we 
 were not unanimous. This gave each one a veto power and 
 disarmed opposition. In two hours we had agreed to recom- 
 mend a Confederation, an annual convention and a Central 
 Committee of correspondence. The convention adopted our 
 report with but one dissenting vote, and then, on the motion of 
 that delegate, the action was made unanimous." 
 
 5. The Value and Spirit of the Convention 
 
 Thus a confederation of "independent, equal but 
 cooperating associations " was formed, subject to a 
 
 12 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 ratification of this action by twenty- two associations. 
 Any authority over the local organization was ex- 
 plicitly guarded against. The equality of the indi- 
 vidual associations also was guaranteed, each one, 
 however large or small its membership or delegation, 
 being entitled to but one vote in the convention. 
 The proposal to make the evangelical church test of 
 membership, which was already in force in many of 
 the associations, a test of membership in the Confed- 
 eration was rejected as threatening the independence 
 of the local association. 
 
 What chiefly impressed the delegates with the 
 value of the convention was the reports made con- 
 cerning the work of the various societies repre- 
 sented. This gave to each a knowledge of the work 
 all were doing, a knowledge full of lively suggestion 
 and exciting useful discussion. Both report and 
 discussion revealed above all else to the delegates 
 the unity of their faith in Christ, their loyalty to His 
 church, and their unanimous central purpose to 
 bring young men and all others whom they could 
 influence into His kingdom. Congenial personal 
 intercourse also began the formation of lifelong 
 friendships. Deep spiritual feeling characterized 
 the farewell meeting and established conviction of 
 the great value of this federation and of what might 
 grow out of it. 
 
 6. The Committee of the First Convention ; Its Location, Work and Gen- 
 eral Secretary 
 
 A second agency of federation was created by the 
 
 convention to act between its meetings. This con- 
 
 13 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 sisted of the Executive or Central Committee, com- 
 posed of five members resident in Washington and 
 five in as many other cities, each of the five to rep- 
 resent and care for a specified district or section of 
 the continent. 
 
 The Committee was instructed to canvass for and 
 complete the organization of the Confederation. Of 
 the beginning of this effort Mr. Neff writes : 
 
 ' ' The Confederation was to go into operation 
 when two-thirds (twenty-two) of the associations in 
 the United States and the British Provinces ratified 
 the action at Buffalo. There was then a race to see 
 which would first ratify. A meeting of our associa- 
 tion was called for the evening after our return, and 
 the Buffalo action was unanimously approved. Cin- 
 cinnati was thus the first to ratify." Washington 
 and some ten associations speedily followed. But it 
 was only after seven months of wise effort by Sec- 
 retary Langdon in correspondence, consultation and 
 visitation that ratification by the desired twenty-two 
 associations, including that of New York City, was 
 happily secured. Of these critical negotiations Mr. 
 Langdon modestly writes : " As Mr. McBurney says: 
 ' To overcome such prejudices and objections as yet 
 remained was no easy task. ' I did indeed ' conduct 
 the negotiations,' yet the ultimate success of these 
 and the first triumph of the plan matured at Buffalo 
 was largely due to the hearty cooperation of Messrs. 
 Neff and Helme, and so far as New York was con- 
 cerned, of Mr. McCartee. " But the writer of these 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 lines was the responsible leader wisely and effectively 
 uniting the efforts of his associates.* 
 
 The Central Committee was also instructed to call 
 the next convention, correspond with American and 
 foreign associations, form new associations, and rec- 
 ommend new measures to existing associations. 
 But in the first year of its existence it was care- 
 fully defined as ' ' not a governing function or agency 
 authorized to assume any control, but rather a crea- 
 ture of the confederated associations for certain 
 definite and limited purposes." 
 
 The committee upon its appointment chose Mr. 
 Langdon as its executive officer. It is interesting 
 to note that this first executive officer of the federa- 
 tion committee was also the first to bear the name 
 of general secretary, though he did so as a volun- 
 teer worker and not as an employed officer. The 
 call to the first convention he had signed as corre- 
 
 *The action of the Buffalo convention favoring the forming of the Con- 
 federation was ratified by the associations in the following order : 
 
 (1) Cincinnati. (.13) Alexandria. 
 
 (2) Washington. (14) New York. 
 
 (3) St. Louis. (15) Concord, N. H. 
 
 (4) Buffalo. (16) Rochester. 
 
 (5) Louisville. (17) Cleveland. 
 
 (6) Toronto. (18) Harrisburg. 
 
 (7) New Orleans. (19) Richmond. 
 
 (8) Pittsburg. (20) Ellicott's Mills, Md. 
 
 (9) Quincy. (21) Lexington, Ky. 
 
 (10) Charlestown, Mass. (22) Charleston. 
 
 (11) Philadelphia. (23) San Francisco. 
 
 (12) Georgetown, D. C (24) Montreal. 
 
 On February 20, 1855, a circular was issued by the Central Committee, 
 through General Secretary Langdon, announcing the completed organ- 
 ization of the Confederation. 
 
 15 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 sponding secretary of the Washington association. 
 But it is as general secretary of the Central Com- 
 mittee of the Confederation that he signs his name 
 to the call for the second convention in 1855. For 
 when the committee met for organization in Wash- 
 ington, in view of the fact that the Washington asso- 
 ciation had both a corresponding and recording sec- 
 retary, the term general secretary was employed to 
 designate the executive officer of the Central Com- 
 mittee of the Confederation. This title was used 
 only of and by Mr. Langdon during the single year 
 (1854-55) in which he held the office. It was not 
 adopted by his successors.* 
 
 7. The Constituency of the Convention — the Early Associations 
 
 These associations of fifty years ago thus happily 
 confederated were composed wholly of laymen as 
 
 ♦Fourteen years later, when the Washington association, in 1868, 
 called George A. Hall to become its employed executive officer, it had 
 need of a new title for the new office, and again in Washington 
 there was resort to the name of general secretary. Three years later, 
 in 1871, was held in Washington, after the adjournment there of the in- 
 ternational convention of that year, the first meeting of the salaried 
 officers of the North American associations. No two of the thirteen who 
 then met were called by the same name. The title of the Washington 
 member, general secretary, seemed to all the preferable one and was 
 adopted. It slowly commended itself to the choice of the associations. 
 In the Year Book of 1873 is given the first list of employed officers under 
 this title. The name being not yet generally applied it seemed at that 
 date needful to put in a foot note the following statement : " By this 
 name is intended the officer of the association who is salaried to give all 
 or a specified portion of his time to the work of the society." 
 
 Gradually the name commended itself to the associations of this and 
 other continents. In 1882 the New York association changed the official 
 title of Mr. McBurney from corresponding secretary of the board of 
 directors to general secretary. In 1878 the committee of the World's 
 Conference gave the name to the first officer employed by it. This also 
 helped to give to the title its present world currency. 
 
 16 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 volunteers. The place of the trained employed 
 officer or general secretary was not yet filled. No 
 association building had been or for more than ten 
 years was to be secured. ' ' The Boston association, " 
 writes Mr. Langdon, "is the first, the largest and 
 the most prosperous in the United States." It re- 
 ported in 1854, a membership of 2,500, fine rooms 
 in Tremont Temple, and large meetings of young 
 men. Its committee on visitation of the sick num- 
 bered 150. It had formed plans to engage in the 
 work of home missions and mission Sunday-schools, 
 after the example of the London society. Later, 
 on Boston Common, it held large "out-door 
 services " — evangelistic meetings for all classes — 
 occupying a mammoth tent for the purpose. 
 
 To the convention of 1854 the Cincinnati associa- 
 tion reported seventy active members, beside honor- 
 ary and associate, "rooms handsomely furnished, 
 open every evening. The library contains 400 
 volumes of select works, and the reading room 
 forty papers and magazines. " The association was 
 conducting seven Sunday-schools attended by five 
 hundred children. A strong emphasis was placed 
 upon the self -improvement of active members. 
 
 Toronto reported 120 members, weekly meetings 
 and tract distribution. 
 
 The reports of this work so impressed Mr. Lang- 
 don that on the floor of the convention he eulogized 
 Toronto and Cincinnati as the two associations most 
 worthy of imitation. 
 
 New Orleans reported a ministry to sufferers from 
 
 17 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 the plague of yellow fever, so courageous, wide and 
 effective that it had commended the association to 
 strong popular approval. 
 
 The New York City association — the fourteenth in 
 the list forming the Confederation — was not repre- 
 sented at the convention. It had, in 1854, 1,600 
 members. Its work was wholly by and for young 
 men, with reading room, library, parlors, prayer 
 meetings, Bible classes, lectures and committee work, 
 calling for an annual expenditure of $2,100. This 
 concentration upon work by and for young men was 
 from the beginning the marked characteristic of this 
 association. 
 
 The Montreal association, the first organized in 
 North America, and the host of the third convention, 
 in 1856, was not represented at Buffalo, but was 
 among the most vigorous and active of the early as- 
 sociations. It was the twenty-fourth on the list of 
 those joining the Confederation. 
 
 Of the association in Richmond, Virginia, formed 
 a few months after the convention, the following ac- 
 count appeared in the Richmond Central Presbyterian 
 in 1857, when the association was three years old, 
 and entertained the convention of that year : 
 
 "One of the noblest institutions in this city is the Young 
 Men's Christian Association. . . . It has its committees for 
 seeking out and relieving the destitute, for visiting the inmates 
 of poor-houses and hospitals, for making the acquaintance of 
 young men on their first arrival in the city, for the purpose of 
 aiding them in finding employment and surrounding them with 
 moral and religious influences; it furnishes teachers to Sabbath- 
 schools, it conducts strangers to the house of God. . . . For 
 
 18 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 the entertainment and profit of its members, it has established 
 a library and reading room ; it has its meetings for friendly in- 
 tercourse, its rhetorical society for literary exercises and foren- 
 sic discussions, its meetings for business and its meetings for 
 prayer; and, in addition to these means of mental and spiritual 
 improvement, it has formed another circle for the study of the 
 Holy Scriptures. On every Thursday night, the hall of the as- 
 sociation is thrown open to all who are willing to attend infor- 
 mal lectures and examinations on portions of Scripture selected 
 for the occasion. This Bible class is under the direction of one 
 of the pastors of the city ; and any young man who desires to 
 become a member of it is at liberty to do so, whether he is a 
 member of any church or not, and whether he is a member of 
 the association or not. " 
 
 In all the work of this period, in every description 
 and advocacy of it, the dominant note is religious, 
 with an emphasis on loyalty to the church of Christ. 
 
 From Charleston comes to us the most enthusias- 
 tic description and advocacy in literary form of the 
 associations of this period. It appears in a volume 
 of 123 pages entitled "Young Men's Christian Asso- 
 ciations," and published in 1858. Its author was 
 an eminent minister, Dr. Thomas Smyth, of Charles- 
 ton, South Carolina, who writes: 
 
 "Already these associations have done much, and have de- 
 vised many hitherto unpractised, if not unthoughtof, ways and 
 walks of usefulness. They are now found in the lanes and 
 streets and thoroughfares of our cities, gathering the outcast, 
 ragged children into schools, visiting the sick and the dying, 
 the fatherless and the widow, and, by tracts and books and lec- 
 tures, carrying the gospel to every house and hovel and garret 
 and chamber. 'Like a sunbeam passing undefiled through the 
 foulest atmosphere,' they are seen laboring in Christian purity 
 and love where the basest of the race are perishing, not shrink- 
 
 19 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 ing from their loathsome guilt, but, with Jesus' pity and Jesus' 
 tears, offering to the very chief of sinners the cup of salvation, 
 the bread of life, the manna of heaven, the living water, and 
 the healing balm. 
 
 " Under their auspices, we find outdoor preaching in the 
 streets or parks or commons of some of our large cities. They 
 have given rise also to many valuable series of public lectures 
 to young men. And by their annual conferences they are now 
 converging into one center the light and heat, the enterprise 
 and experience, of all the affiliated societies, and giving the best 
 opportunity for awakening and diffusing the spirit of ever- 
 widening charity." 
 
 After an eloquent description of association agen- 
 cies of hospitality, Dr. Smyth says as to the future 
 of this work : 
 
 • ' Every association ought to have a very comfortable, spa- 
 cious, well-aired and well-situated house — A Home. This 
 building should be so arranged as to provide a convenient read- 
 ing room, well supplied with papers and one or more periodicals ; 
 a sitting room, commodiously furnished and suitably aired and 
 warmed; a library supplied with fresh, attractive and profitable 
 books ; and a hall for social meetings, private lectures, essays 
 and debates, Bible classes, and for whatever other exercises may 
 be suggested by a wise experience. 
 
 ' * Every association should have the means also of providing 
 lectures from distinguished men in all parts of the country, and 
 of publishing and circulating such lectures, addresses, or tracts 
 as would be found useful to young men. 
 
 ' ' There is thus a necessity for means far beyond those hither- 
 to provided, both for making such associations what they have 
 not yet been, and for opening to them ways of usefulness and 
 sources of attraction not yet contemplated. 
 
 11 1 appeal, then, on behalf of the Young Men's Christian As- 
 sociation among you, to every merchant and man of business 
 in the community. Here is a way in which you may greatly 
 benefit the young men of your adopted and cherished city. " 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 Nearly fifty years have passed away since these 
 words were written, but they give a bright and accu- 
 rate forecast of scores of association buildings now 
 to be found in ''adopted and cherished cities" of 
 the donors, who have in this way generously ac- 
 knowledged their obligation to promote the best 
 welfare of the young men of these cities. 
 
 The convention of 1854 opened before these young 
 associations the first period of their federation. 
 
CHAPTER II. THE THREE PERIODS OF 
 ASSOCIATION FEDERATION, 
 
 1854-1904. 
 
 For the purposes of this narrative the fifty years 
 of federation commemorated in the Jubilee con- 
 vention of 1904 may be divided into three periods. 
 
 The first, 1854-1866, lasting twelve years, includ- 
 ing the period of the Civil War and the United States 
 Christian Commission, was a time of testing and 
 experiment for both the associations and their agen- 
 cies of federation. It terminated at the opening of 
 the era-making convention of 1866, which might be 
 termed the convention of new departures. 
 
 The second period, from 1866 to 1883, was one of 
 consolidation — during which both associations and 
 federation agencies gradually grasped more fully 
 their distinctive mission as a work by young men of 
 many classes for young men of many classes. It 
 was also the period of the employed officer, the 
 building and the group or class organization. 
 
 The third and latest period, from 1883 to 1904, 
 comprises twenty-one years of rapid growth visible 
 in the internal development both of the individual 
 associations and of the agencies of supervision they 
 had created. 
 
 22 
 
CHAPTER III. THE FIRST PERIOD OF 
 
 FEDERATION, 1854-1866. THE CIVIL 
 
 WAR EPISODE 
 
 The Ten Conventions and Their Conception 
 of Association Work. The Career of Mr. 
 Langdon. The Seven Central Committees. 
 World Federation, World Conferences and 
 European Visitation by R. C. McCormick, 
 W. C. Langdon and W. H. Neff. The United 
 States Christian Commission. The Conven- 
 tions of 1863 and 1864. 
 
 (1) The Ten Conventions and Their Conception 
 of Association Work 
 
 During the twelve years of the first period, ten 
 conventions, including the first, met in ten different 
 cities — three in the South, at Richmond, Charleston 
 and New Orleans ; two in the West, at Cincinnati 
 and Chicago; two in the state of New York, at 
 Buffalo and Troy; one at Boston, one at Philadel- 
 phia, and one in Canada, at Montreal. More than 
 200 associations were organized during these years, 
 but so many of them ceased to exist during the 
 Civil War that not over sixty survived that struggle 
 and were reported at the Albany convention of 1866 
 as still in existence. The three associations in 
 Washington, Buffalo and Cincinnati were the only 
 ones represented at all these ten conventions. 
 
 23 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 (2) Story of the Second, Third and Fourth Con- 
 ventions (/<?55-57) 
 
 Of the second and third conventions Mr. Neff 
 writes : — 
 
 "The next year (1855) the convention was held in Cincin- 
 nati, with about sixty delegates in attendance, and was a great 
 success. The best private houses in Cincinnati were thrown 
 open to the delegates. Langdon was chosen president. Cap- 
 tain (afterwards General) W. Hatt Noble, of the Royal En- 
 gineers, was chairman of the Montreal delegation and attracted 
 great attention by his manly bearing and interest in the cause. 
 Montreal was selected as the next place of meeting and the 
 Central Committee was located at Cincinnati. H. Thane Mil- 
 ler was chairman of the Committee, Lowry and myself were 
 members, and Langdon and Rhees were among the correspond- 
 ing members, Langdon being made the foreign secretary. That 
 was a memorable year in the history of the Young Men's Chris- 
 tian Associations. Many new associations were organized, 
 largely through the exertions of the Central Committee. A 
 paper was published, edited by Samuel Lowry, and had a wide 
 circulation." 
 
 The transfer of the Central Committee from 
 Washington was due to the determination reached 
 during the previous winter by Mr. Langdon "to 
 withdraw from further official work." In his Story 
 of the Confederation he writes : — 
 
 "My motives in all I had so far done and tried to do had been 
 
 severely characterized in certain societies It had been 
 
 publicly charged that there was little real object in the scheme 
 but my own personal aim to open an arena for my own am- 
 bition. To Mr. Helme I wrote (February, 1855) : 'I have 
 thought my continuance as general secretary was, perhaps, 
 positively detrimental to our dear cause, and the removal of 
 
 24 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 the Central Committee from Washington and the appointment 
 of some one else as general secretary would free the Confedara- 
 tion from many disagreeable and serious drawbacks upon its 
 unanimity and strength.' My wish and purpose, however, to 
 retire were most earnestly resisted. Messrs. Neff, Helme and 
 Lowry combated my intention. The last named wrote: 'I 
 could not but consider it fatal to the union of our associations.' 
 Mr. Neff visited me and I consented to write the report for 
 the Paris Conference (the first General Conference, August, 
 1855), and to retain the general secretaryship until the next 
 convention (September, 1855), on the understanding that the 
 Central Committee should then be removed from Washington 
 and I be permitted to retire from official position and duty." 
 
 The story of Mr. Neff continues : — 
 
 "To the convention of 1856 at Montreal, New York, Phila- 
 delphia, Boston and Brooklyn sent representatives, though all 
 did not become full members of the Confederation. The peo- 
 ple of Montreal gave us a hearty welcome. Three hundred 
 delegates were in attendance. Among the vice presidents were 
 George H. Stuart of Philadelphia, R. C. McCormick of New 
 York (afterward governor of Arizona), who in the previous 
 year had been welcomed in a tour among the European so- 
 cieties as the first representative among them of the associa- 
 tions on this continent, and Major R. C. Gilchrist of Charles- 
 ton. Our meetings were held in the largest church in Mon- 
 treal, and the evening audiences numbered fifteen hundred 
 people. Lord Frederick Bruce, the brother and representative 
 of the Earl of Elgin, then governor-general of Canada, gave us 
 a reception at the viceroy's residence on Montreal Mountain. 
 The Confederation was now a success, and from that day went 
 on increasing in power, influence and usefulness. 
 
 "An amusing incident shows the spirit of the convention. 
 The Cincinnati delegates, with those from Cleveland and sev- 
 eral other Ohio cities, went by boat down the St. Lawrence 
 river. A fog detained the steamer and, instead of arriving 
 
 25 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 early in the morning in time for the first session, we did not 
 reach Montreal until late in the afternoon. A reception com- 
 mittee met us at the gangway, and much to my surprise, in- 
 formed me that I had been elected president of the convention 
 and was expected to take charge of the public meeting in the 
 American church that evening. The church was filled with a 
 large audience. I gave out the hymn 'Blest be the tie that 
 binds.' Immediately there was a titter in the audience. But 
 everything seemed right and I read the twelfth chapter of 
 Romans. The titter had now broadened almost into a laugh, 
 but the audience seemed in a very good humor and there were 
 unmistakable symptoms of suppressed applause. After prayer 
 the meeting was thrown open. Immediately Jeremiah Clements 
 of Buffalo, the oldest delegate present, arose and said: 'Mr. 
 President, I came to this convention with grave misgivings. 
 I thought that three hundred young men, gathered from all 
 parts of the country, quick-tempered and hot-headed, would 
 certainly quarrel and the convention would break up in a row, 
 but when the first vice-president from Charleston, S. C, gave 
 out a hymn and read a chapter, and in the evening of the same 
 day the president of the convention, residing in Cincinnati, O., 
 a thousand miles away, not knowing what had been done be- 
 fore his arrival, gave out the same hymn and read the same 
 chapter, I saw that my fears were groundless, and that we 
 were of one heart. I predict a harmonious and successful 
 convention.' " 
 
 Of the following convention at Richmond in 1857, 
 one of the surviving delegates, Mr. Samuel Lowry, 
 writes: "It was a meeting second in importance 
 only to the first at Buffalo. The brethren who wel- 
 comed that convention formed as fine a body of 
 Christian young men as I have ever met, and their 
 constant and faithful support of the general work 
 during the Confederation period was invaluable." 
 
 26 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 (3) Conception of Association Work — Fifth and 
 Sixth Conventions 
 
 Work for young men during this period was an 
 emphasized part of association effort, but federation 
 sentiment was not yet favorable to concentration 
 upon work for young men exclusively. It stood for 
 a work by young men, banded together interdenomi- 
 nationally. The association agencies reported to the 
 convention at Buffalo, as we have enumerated, were 
 twofold : First and of first emphasis, the reading 
 and social rooms, the library, the literary society 
 and lyceum or lecture course, the prayer meeting 
 and the Bible class — all agencies of work for young 
 men. But, also, union Sunday-schools were vigor- 
 ously advocated by the Cincinnati and other dele- 
 gates and heartily approved by this and succeeding 
 conventions, which agreed in authorizing city mis- 
 sion work, religious tract distribution, general evan- 
 gelistic, tent and other outdoor meetings, neighbor- 
 hood and district evangelization, and philanthropic 
 work. 
 
 At the convention of 1858 in Charleston during 
 the year of the great revival, in the warm spiritual 
 atmosphere of the sessions, the question, "What is 
 the true sphere of the Young Men's Christian Asso- 
 ciations ?" was carefully discussed. After long de- 
 bate the answer was given : ' ' The formation and 
 development of Christian character in young men. " 
 
 At the Troy convention, 1859, occurred a more 
 agitating discussion of the subject. This convention 
 
 27 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 has been termed by Mr. Langdon "the climax of 
 the Confederation period." It was more numer- 
 ously attended than any other, having three times 
 as many delegates as its predecessor. At the sug- 
 gestion of the Central Committee certain revised 
 articles of confederation were adopted, incorporating 
 the basis adopted by the World's Conference at 
 Paris in 1855, and already approved by the conven- 
 tions of 1856 and 1857. At the same time "the 
 wisdom and efficiency of the present system of 
 confederation " was reaffirmed, with the declara- 
 tion "that especial care should be taken to preserve 
 inviolate the principles and essential form of the 
 original organization " effected at Buffalo in 1854. 
 
 But the critical discussion related to the true 
 sphere and object of the association. The topic was 
 presented in an elaborate paper by the Confedera- 
 tion founder and leader, William Chauncy Lang- 
 don. He contended that the association was "an 
 institution for the formation and development in 
 young men of Christian character and Christian ac- 
 tivity," and also that "no association has any con- 
 stitutional right to pursue any course whatever con- 
 trary to the denominational principles of any one of 
 the ecclesiastical organizations which we represent," 
 and "as certain of these organizations hold to the 
 exclusive right of a divinely organized church of 
 Christ solely to undertake the propagation of the 
 gospel, therefore the Young Men's Christian Asso- 
 ciation is not an institution for the general propaga- 
 tion of the gospel, but is a function of the church, 
 
 28 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 under the church's entire control and incapable of 
 entering upon any field of labor which may not be 
 also the common field of each and every denomina- 
 tion in the association. Only such association agen- 
 cies are legitimate as are consistent with the princi- 
 ples of any of our denominations and which are de- 
 signed to bring young men under the influence and 
 into the communion of the church of Christ and to 
 develop their usefulness in the church." 
 
 Mr. Langdon, while favoring a concentration of 
 association effort upon young men, seems also to 
 have become at this time one of those high church- 
 men who in every denomination find it impossible 
 to justify aggressive religious work by the associa- 
 tion or by any agency which is not a denominational 
 church. There was almost unanimous disapproval 
 of the position he took, and the following resolution 
 was adopted without dissent save from him : 
 
 ' ' Resolved, That while we should work specially 
 on behalf of young men, for the sake of our associa- 
 tions as well as for the sake of our Master's cause, 
 we should be ready to enter upon any work which 
 He shall open before us." By "any work" the 
 association men of that day understood mission, 
 Sunday-school and general evangelistic work and 
 various forms of philanthropic endeavor — all of 
 which were then part of the activity of the associa- 
 tions. 
 
 At the close of this discussion an unnoticed but 
 what is now to us a very interesting incident 
 occurred. Mr. Langdon, the young father of the fed- 
 
 29 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 eration, who had been for five years and six conven- 
 tions among its foremost leaders, was closing his 
 connection with the brotherhood after an exciting 
 discussion. In this he had stood alone in disagree- 
 ment with all his associates, who nevertheless were 
 under the spell of that respect and love for him 
 which was justly called forth by his invaluable ser- 
 vice to the whole brotherhood. The discussion had 
 occurred in the committee of the whole. At its 
 close, one of the younger delegates — a lawyer from 
 New York — rose, and, to use the words of the con- 
 vention report, ''after brief remarks, complimen- 
 tary to Brother Langdon, and generally conciliatory, 
 moved that the committee rise and report all reso- 
 lutions to the convention." 
 
 That young delegate, who forty-five years ago 
 gracefully expressed fitting appreciation of the 
 father of association federation, was Cephas Brainerd, 
 who in the succeeding period of association history 
 as chairman for twenty-five years (1867-1882) of 
 the International Committee, was to prove himself 
 a wiser and greater leader in federation work and 
 to awaken toward himself such esteem and love 
 from the whole association brotherhood as he him- 
 self there expressed for his distinguished prede- 
 cessor. 
 
 These two young men, as they stood on the floor 
 of the convention of 1859, were fitting representa- 
 tives of the group of federation leaders, interna- 
 tional, state and provincial, to whom the brother- 
 hood on this continent owes so much of its own 
 
 30 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 leadership among the associations of all countries 
 and continents. 
 
 Mr. Langdon now withdrew from connection with 
 the associations. He was already an ordained cler- 
 gyman of the Protestant Episcopal church and in 
 that year (1859), he went to Italy for prolonged resi- 
 dence and labor in the interests of his church. 
 After his return, nearly thirty years later, as Rev. 
 Dr. Langdon, he came into brotherly intercourse 
 with the International Committee and with the donor 
 and custodian of its Historical Library, Jacob T. 
 Bowne. At Mr. Bowne's request, as one of the in- 
 structors of the Secretarial Training School at 
 Springfield, Mass. , he prepared and delivered to the 
 students of the school in 1887 his interesting story of 
 the early years of the Confederation, and of his own 
 connection with its origin and development* This 
 story was published in the Year Book of 1888. He 
 also gave to the Historical Library the valuable 
 pamphlets and correspondence in his possession re- 
 lating to the first period of association history. In 
 1895 he accepted the invitation of the committee to 
 attend the international convention of that year in 
 Springfield, Mass., and received a hearty greeting 
 and welcome at its opening session. Not long after 
 this event he died. His work of federation abides 
 as both a tribute and a monument, testifying in its 
 ever increasing usefulness to the undying value of 
 the service rendered fifty years ago by a man of 
 
 ♦Extended extracts from this paper are given in the Supplement. 
 
 31 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 twenty-two to the whole association brotherhood in 
 every land and for all time. 
 
 (4) The Agencies of American Federation 
 
 a. During the first period two strong agencies 
 of federation were created. The first was the con- 
 vention. Its annual meetings were the only stated 
 meetings of association representatives then held. 
 It proved an effective bond of union, associating a 
 group of strong leaders, some of whom long sur- 
 vived that period and a few are still living. 
 
 b. The second strong federation agency con- 
 sisted of the seven successive Central Committees 
 of this convention, located in turn in the following 
 six cities: (1) Washington, 1854-55; (2) Cincinnati, 
 1855-57; (3) Buffalo, 1857-59; (4) Richmond, 1859-60; 
 (5) Philadelphia, 1860-64: (6) Boston, 1864-65, and (7) 
 a second time in Philadelphia, 1865-66. The terms 
 of service of these Committees were too brief to 
 allow of their accumulating experience and becom- 
 ing expert as agencies of federation. Each Com- 
 mittee realized these limitations. But each was able 
 to make some effective use of correspondence, and 
 several of a periodical which reinforced correspond- 
 ence in promoting useful and suggestive intercourse. 
 
 The visitation which Committee members could 
 accomplish was very limited. No visiting or office 
 secretary was employed. 
 
 (5) World Federation Fostered 
 
 But neither correspondence nor visitation were 
 confined to the American continent. Promptly in 
 
 32 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 this early period, association leaders recognized that 
 they belonged to a world brotherhood. Indeed, the 
 Confederation Committee appears to have accom- 
 plished more visitation on the continent of Europe 
 than in North America. 
 
 a. In 1855, the year following the first Ameri- 
 can convention, a strong delegation, including 
 George H. Stuart and Abel Stevens, represented the 
 North American associations at the first General or 
 World's Conference in Paris, and took a prominent 
 part in framing and adopting the Paris basis, which 
 continues to be the basis and platform of the world 
 brotherhood. At the other World's Conferences of 
 1855, 1858, 1862 and 1865, the American associations 
 were also represented. Mr. Thomas H. Gladstone 
 of London, a strong leader in the parent associa- 
 tion, was very cordially welcomed to the North 
 American convention of 1856, at Montreal. 
 
 b. Richard C. McCormick, one of the vice presi- 
 dents of the New York association, made an exten- 
 sive tour in 1854, visiting associations in all parts of 
 Great Britain and in France, Italy, Switzerland and 
 Syria. He was the first representative in these 
 countries of the American associations. Every- 
 where he was hospitably received and greatly 
 promoted useful intercourse between association 
 workers on both sides of the Atlantic. Upon his 
 return, he made a full report of his tour. 
 
 Mr. Langdon preceded, accompanied and followed 
 Mr. McCormick's tour by extensive foreign corre- 
 spondence. He proposed a carefully arranged sys- 
 
 33 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 tern of international correspondence and the proposal 
 was approved and recommended by the first World's 
 Conference in Paris. Already his own correspon- 
 dence had been a strong factor in promoting the call 
 of that conference in 1855, and it was at that early 
 period extensive enough to enable him also to pre- 
 pare and submit to the same conference a very 
 interesting report of Young Men's Christian Asso- 
 ciations not only in North America but throughout 
 the world, the fullest statement of the kind which 
 up to that time had been published. He continued 
 to be the foreign secretary of the Central Committee 
 until the close of his connection with the work in 
 1859. 
 
 The first six months of 1857 Mr. Langdon spent 
 in a tour of the European associations, receiving 
 hearty welcome in Great Britain, France, Holland, 
 Germany and Switzerland. To his presentation of 
 the methods and advantages of federation as realized 
 by associations on this continent, can be traced the 
 origin and call of the first conference of British 
 Young Men's Christian Associations, held at Leeds* 
 in September, 1858. This resulted later, in a gen- 
 eral union of the British associations consummated 
 in a conference at London in July, 1859. This con- 
 ference W. H. Neff attended during a European 
 tour, of which he gives the following account : — 
 
 "In 1859 I visited Europe as the representative of the Cen- 
 tral Committee. I was kindly welcomed in Chester. In Lon- 
 don, I was hospitably received by Thomas H. Gladstone and 
 William Ferguson, whom I had entertained in Cincinnati. 
 
 34 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 W. Edwyn Shipton, the accomplished secretary of the London 
 association, took me to call upon the Earl of Shaftesbury, 
 whom I afterwards met at the annual banquet of the London 
 association, of which he was the honorary president. I met 
 Mr. (now Sir) George Williams, the founder of the London 
 association, and his employer, Mr. Hitchcock, and spent a 
 pleasant evening in company with Rev. James Hamilton. In 
 Geneva, I had a delightful afternoon with Henri Dunant, a 
 pioneer in the continental work of the associations and after- 
 wards the founder of the Red Cross. On my return, I re- 
 ported to the Central Committee what I had seen and heard." 
 
 (6) The Civil War Episode, 1861-65 
 
 a. The Civil War in the United States occasioned 
 a remarkable episode in association activity and the 
 work of federation organized was confined neces- 
 sarily within the limits of the field of conflict. The 
 breaking out of the war in April, 1861, made it im- 
 practicable for the Central Committee of the Con- 
 federation, resident in Philadelphia, to call during 
 that year or the next the usual convention, and the 
 same absorbing event suspended the home activities 
 of most of the associations in the United States. 
 But a new field of engrossing effort was opened. 
 Within a month after the war began, the association 
 in New York City appointed an army committee, 
 which began to labor at once among the soldiers in 
 the numerous camps near that metropolis. Devo- 
 tional meetings were held in camp and tent. A 
 pocket edition of a Soldiers' Hymn Book was widely 
 circulated. Of twenty-two camps visited, only four 
 had chaplains. News of the first battle drew at once 
 
 35 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 two members of the New York committee to the 
 scene of suffering. 
 
 Urgent need was widely felt of cooperation on the 
 largest scale by associations and the Christian pub- 
 lic in the United States. At the suggestion of the 
 New York association, the Central Committee called 
 a convention of delegates to meet in that city. 
 The extraordinary nature of the emergency made 
 this a sectional or district, not an international meet- 
 ing, and it is, therefore, not numbered in the official 
 list of the North American conventions. Forty-two 
 delegates from fifteen associations came together 
 and resolved to take active measures to promote the 
 temporal and spiritual welfare of soldiers and sailors 
 in the army and navy of the Union. To this end 
 the convention appointed a new executive agent to 
 act for and with not only the associations but the 
 Christian churches and communities of the section 
 of the continent represented by the delegates. To 
 this agent it gave the name of " The United States 
 Christian Commission" and instructed it to enlist as 
 far as possible the entire Christian public in the wide 
 and important service to be rendered. The Com- 
 mission thus appointed consisted of twelve gentle- 
 men from eight leading cities. Its chairman was 
 George H. Stuart of Philadelphia, the president of 
 this convention and the chairman of the Central Com- 
 mittee which had called it together. The Commis- 
 sion proved to be one of the most beneficent agen- 
 cies ever devised to alleviate the miseries of war. 
 It communicated with associations through their 
 
 36 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 army committees and cooperated with the United 
 States Sanitary Commission in its medical and hos- 
 pital work. It served as the medium by which 
 Christian homes, churches and communities minis- 
 tered spiritual mingled with material comfort to the 
 Union soldiers in field and hospital. During the 
 war the Commission received and distributed volun- 
 tary contributions in the shape of stores worth nearly 
 three millions of dollars. Two and a half million 
 dollars in money was received and expended. It 
 sent out as helpers, both in hospital and gospel work, 
 a multitude of Christian men and women, including 
 many pastors, for such periods of time as they could 
 volunteer their services. Among them were D. L. 
 Moody and George A. Hall and many other asso- 
 ciation workers, who began during the war a fellow- 
 ship in Christian service which they continued for 
 many years afterward in the Young Men's Christian 
 Association, local, state and international. 
 
 The work of the Christian Commission belonged 
 distinctively to the Young Men's Christian Associa- 
 tion only in its origin. Every assistance in their 
 power associations rendered through their army 
 committees. But they were still a feeble brother- 
 hood, without permanent property and employed 
 officers. Their Central Committee had not yet se- 
 cured expert salaried officers and become such a 
 strong agency of supervision as the brotherhood pos- 
 sessed in its International Committee in 1898, 
 when the Spanish-American war broke out, and an 
 army and navy department with expert secretaries, 
 
 37 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 international, state and local, was immediately or- 
 ganized, commanding the confidence of the national 
 authorities, and speedily reaching with an effective 
 association ministry the needs of both soldiers and 
 sailors in camp and field, on shipboard and at naval 
 station. 
 
 The Christian Commission of 1861-65, however, 
 commanded generous popular sympathy and sup- 
 port. The magnitude of its work is indicated in the 
 following summary statement : 
 
 Delegates commissioned and sent out 4,859 
 
 Cash expended $2,513, 741 
 
 Value of stores donated and distributed 2,839,445 
 
 Value of Bible reading matter donated and dis- 
 tributed 299, 576 
 
 Number of Bibles and parts of Bibles distributed 1,466,748 
 
 Number of bound books distributed 296,816 
 
 Number of hymn books distributed 1,370,953 
 
 Number of papers, magazines, etc., distributed 19,621,103 
 
 Number of pages of tracts distributed 39, 104,243 
 
 Number of knapsack books, in flexible covers, 
 
 distributed 8,308,052 
 
 Number of sermons preached by delegates 58,308 
 
 Number of prayer meetings held by delegates 77,744 
 
 During these years of war, some of the associa- 
 tions in the South, notably the society at Richmond, 
 were individually active in Christian work among 
 the soldiers of the confederate army, but no general 
 organization of this work was attempted, although a 
 number of useful regimental associations were 
 formed. 
 
 38 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 b. During this war period two regular interna- 
 tional conventions were held. The first was the 
 ninth in order since the Buffalo convention of 1854. 
 It met in Chicago, June 4-7, 1863, George H. Stuart 
 of Philadelphia, chairman of the Commission, pre- 
 siding. Thirty associations were represented. This 
 convention refused to recognize the qualifications for 
 membership in it established by the Confederation 
 and the rule giving to each association equality in re- 
 presentation with every other. This ended the life 
 of the Confederation. The convention of 1864 was 
 held in Boston, Massachusetts, Joseph A. Pond of 
 Boston, presiding. Twenty-eight associations were 
 represented by 136 delegates. These meetings were 
 full of Christian enthusiasm, and from all the reports 
 given it appeared that the main activity of the so- 
 cieties represented was being absorbed in the army 
 and commission work. In both conventions earnest 
 appeals were made in advocacy of that distinctive 
 and exclusive work for young men, the promise and 
 usefulness of which were already clearly discerned 
 by many association leaders. 
 
 39 
 
CHAPTER IV. THE SECOND PERIOD OF 
 FEDERATION, 1866-1883. 
 
 The Convention of New Departures, 1866. Con- 
 centration on Work for Young Men. The 
 First Term of the International Committee; 
 Its Chairman, Secretarial Member and First 
 Agent. The Career of H. Thane Miller. Es- 
 tablishment of State and Provincial Conven- 
 tions. The Second to the Sixth Terms of the 
 Committee. Its General Secretary. The Evan- 
 gelical Test Adopted. William E. Dodge, 
 President of the Convention of 1869. The First 
 Buildings and Secretaries. Two Phases of 
 Local, State and Provincial Work. Visitation 
 in the South. General Secretaries' Confer- 
 ences and Secretarial Training. Interna- 
 tional German-Speaking, Office, Traveling, 
 Negro, Student and Railroad Secretaries. D. 
 L. Moody. Growth of State, Provincial, Sec- 
 retarial and Building Movements. World 
 Federation and Conferences. Associations 
 Started in Foreign Mission Lands. 
 
 (1) The Convention of 1866 
 
 The second period of federation opens with the 
 convention of 1866 at Albany, which may be justly 
 called the convention of new departures — depar- 
 tures, however, which were wisely based on the ex- 
 perimentation of its predecessors. 
 
 40 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 a. Concentration on work for young men. 
 
 Already in the conventions of 1863 and 1864, con- 
 centration upon work by young men for young men 
 exclusively had been vigorously advocated by Rev- 
 erend, now Bishop, Henry C. Potter and Cephas 
 Brainerd. Again in 1865 and in this convention of 
 1866 it was advocated so effectively under the leader- 
 ship of Mr. Brainerd and Mr. McBurney, who had 
 now been for four years the employed executive of 
 the New York association, that methods outside of 
 this distinctive work for young men began to lose 
 some of the hold which they had upon the associa- 
 tions. 
 
 b. More conventions established. 
 
 Another new departure was due to the high valua- 
 tion put upon the convention and what it had 
 already accomplished in its ten annual meetings. 
 This valuation led to a desire to multiply conven- 
 tion influence by increasing the number of such 
 delegated meetings. If all the associations in all 
 parts of the continent were to benefit by this agency, 
 a single annual meeting was inadequate. There- 
 fore, the convention's new Committee was instructed 
 not only to call annually the international conven- 
 tion and improve its program, but also to call, 
 through its corresponding members in each state 
 and province, state and provincial conventions, — 
 a new departure destined to greatly promote effect- 
 ive federation supervision. 
 
 c. Convention Committee localized for three 
 years. 
 
 41 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 A second approved federation agency had been 
 the seven successive Central Committees of the con- 
 vention. The last of these called and reported to 
 this convention of 1866. Its headquarters were in 
 Philadelphia, which had been the residence of a 
 Central Committee for a longer period than any 
 other city. On the basis of its own experience and 
 that of its six predecessors, the Philadelphia Com- 
 mittee urged in its report that betterment of the 
 Committee's work would be secured by a new de- 
 parture in locating its headquarters in one city for 
 at least five years. In response to this recommenda- 
 tion, the Albany convention conservatively estab- 
 lished the Committee for only three years (1866-1869) 
 in New York City, where it had never yet been 
 located, and instructed it to call state and provincial 
 conventions through its corresponding members, to 
 publish a quarterly magazine, and to invite the as- 
 sociations to observe the first Lord's day in No- 
 vember as a day of special prayer for young men 
 and Young Men's Christian Associations. After an 
 experience of two years the second Lord's day in 
 November was substituted for the first. 
 
 (2) First Term of the International Committee — 
 i866-n 
 
 This appointment proved to be the beginning of a 
 Committee which, from time to time enlarged, has 
 continued in office ever since. During its first 
 triennial period it consisted of five members — all 
 resident in New York City — with a corresponding 
 
 42 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 member, as had been true of its predecessors since 
 1863, in each state and province. It continued 
 correspondence and issued as a periodical T/ie 
 Quarterly, containing association intelligence and 
 discussion. 
 
 a. The Chairman. 
 
 In its second year Cephas Brainerd was chosen 
 chairman, and continued for twenty-five years to 
 render invaluable service in that office. Of this 
 service R. R. McBurney, associated with him on 
 the Committee during the entire quarter century, 
 wrote: "In the beginning and when it was un- 
 popular, he grasped the basal idea of association 
 work as a work by young men for young men, and 
 clung to it tenaciously. Every report of the Com- 
 mittee to the conventions, during his chairmanship, 
 was written by him. For five years, until 1872, he 
 conducted the entire correspondence, and until his 
 resignation, twenty years later, it was under his 
 careful supervision. The work of the international 
 secretaries was prosecuted under his direction. 
 This remarkable unsalaried service for so many 
 years, by one thoroughly qualified leader, was of 
 incalculable benefit to the work for Christ amonof 
 young men in this and other lands." 
 
 b. The Secretarial Member. 
 
 The service of Mr. McBurney himself upon the 
 Committee from 1866 until his death in 1898 is 
 worthy of special mention. It was a service ren- 
 dered vigilantly and industriously by one who, be- 
 ginning in 1862, was for thirty-six years secretary 
 
 43 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 in New York City of the largest and strongest of 
 the North American associations, and who during 
 all this period was himself the most expert, success- 
 ful and influential of association secretaries on this 
 continent.* 
 
 c. The first Employed Agent. 
 
 In its third year (1868-69) the Committee, as in- 
 structed by the convention of 1868, secured its first 
 employed agent, selecting for the office Robert 
 Weidensall, still its honored senior secretary. His 
 
 *Mr. McBurney continued as one of the most active members of the 
 Committee until 1895, serving effectively on its subcommittees and for 
 tie last three years as chairman of the committee on the foreign work. 
 His resignation was accepted with the greater reluctance because at the 
 time of it— as his biographer, Dr. Doggett, says — he seriously ques- 
 tioned the wisdom of the Committee in increasing so steadily the num- 
 ber of its secretaries and the size of its budget. " Two divergent theo- 
 ries were held," writes Dr. Doggett; "one that the chief agency of 
 supervision ought to be the State Committees; the other, as Mr. Mc- 
 Burney described it, held that the more state work is developed the 
 more need there will be for the international work. Mr. McBurney 
 strongly opposed the latter view." "But," Dr. Doggett adds, "he ac- 
 cepted a position as a member of the advisory section of the Committee 
 and continued in this relation until his death." Also in the year fol- 
 lowing his resignation, Mr. McBurney attended the annual conference 
 of all the international secretaries. For three days he listened to the 
 reports submitted in turn by each member of the force. He participated 
 in the discussions. " At the close of the conference he expressed his 
 enthusiastic appreciation of the work the Committee was doing." On 
 this occasion he confessed to the writer the disappearance of his feeling 
 of solicitude about the expansion of the work. And at the next in- 
 ternational convention (1897), the last one he attended, in the year before 
 he died, when it was proposed to expand the international work still 
 further by creating a new department and adding a Bible secretary, he 
 not only advocated this new departure, but pledged a personal contri- 
 bution of $250 toward the salary of the new secretary. He was the first 
 to pay his subscription, though the office was not filled until after his 
 death. Thus by his last subscription to the international work he advo- 
 cated its expansion as no menace to the best interests and welfare of 
 that work for young men in the love and service of which he lived, la- 
 bored and died. 
 
 44 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 first field of visitation was not in the East or South 
 or in the Central West, but in the territory beyond 
 the Mississippi, in towns springing up along the 
 line of the Union Pacific Railroad, then in course of 
 construction. He was at first known as " the west- 
 ern agent" of the Committee. 
 
 d. State and Provincial Conventions. 
 
 In its first year (1866-67) the Committee called 
 through its corresponding members five state con- 
 ventions, in its second year ten and in its third year 
 fifteen state aud provincial conventions. Each of 
 these followed as far as practicable the procedure of 
 the international. At each of them the Committee 
 was represented by its corresponding member and 
 at many by some other members or representatives. 
 These meetings fulfilled expectation in multiplying 
 the benefits of federation intercourse. 
 
 e. The Career of H. Thane Miller. 
 
 During this period the Committee called together 
 the conventions of 1867, 1868 and 1869 — meetings 
 which, under its leadership, steadily improved in pro- 
 gram, attendance and discussion. One important 
 factor in this improvement was the service as presi- 
 dent in 1866, 1867 and 1868, of H. Thane Miller of 
 Cincinnati. He was not only president of these three 
 critical meetings and of the convention of 1872, 
 making such a record as to win affectionate respect 
 and confidence throughout the continent, but he 
 came to all succeeding conventions until his death in 
 1898, receiving cordial welcome to the platform from 
 his presidential successors and equally from the dele- 
 
 45 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 gates. During these thirty years, he was also a 
 familiar figure and leader on the platform of state 
 and provincial conventions and of city associations, 
 North, South, East and West. At one Canadian con- 
 vention his election as president was insisted upon. 
 Federation work in all its phases, international, state 
 and provincial, had no other convention friend and 
 promoter so efficient. With every phase of associa- 
 tion effort he became familiar. With each he was 
 sympathetic. In the promotion of each he was 
 skillful and influential. 
 
 (3) Second and Third Terms of the International 
 Committee, 1869-1875 
 
 The Committee was continued for its second and 
 third terms of three years each by the conventions of 
 1869 and 1872. It was instructed to secure in addi- 
 tion to Mr. Weidensall a second employed agent to 
 act as secretary and editor. 
 
 a. The second Employed Agent. 
 
 This officer was secured, December, 1869, in the 
 person of the Committee's present general secretary, 
 who for the first two years was almost wholly occu- 
 pied in editing the monthly periodical of the Com- 
 mittee, then known as The Association Monthly. 
 
 b. The Evangelical Test Adopted. 
 
 The Portland convention, carefully disclaiming 
 any " authority or control over the affairs of associa- 
 tions" already organized, conditioned representation 
 in the convention of associations which should be or- 
 ganized after that date (July, 1869) upon their adopt - 
 
 46 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 ing the evangelical test of active membership, — a 
 test already widely prevailing. The associations in 
 convention assembled thus prescribed for associa- 
 tions yet to be organized a condition relating to their 
 voting membership upon which alone they could en- 
 joy full fellowship in the brotherhood. The corre- 
 spondence of the Committee bears witness to the 
 strong influence of the convention in gradually in- 
 ducing the general adoption of this rule of member- 
 ship, both by associations organized before, and by 
 those organized after 1869. The act of the conven- 
 tion, followed up by the influence of its agency of 
 supervision, thus helped to shape a fundamental 
 feature in the constitutions of the local associations. 
 Each association, however, has continued free and 
 independent in its relation to the test. Some in the 
 exercise of their freedom have given it up and with- 
 drawn from the brotherhood, and later by re-adopt- 
 ing it have resumed full fellowship. The present 
 practical unanimity is the result of the free action of 
 the local associations. 
 
 The president of the convention of 1869 was 
 William E. Dodge, to whom as president of the New 
 York City association, that society was already in- 
 debted for a leadership which was then securing for 
 it the first distinctive association building. En- 
 grossing attention to the city organization had for- 
 bidden his acceptance of membership on the Inter- 
 national Committee. But from the beginning of its 
 work, and until his death thirty-six years later, he 
 stood in an influential advisory relation to this parent 
 
 47 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 federation work. During all its early, most difficult 
 financial years he made the largest stated contribution 
 to the Committee's treasury, steadily increasing this 
 annual gift until the end of his life and giving also 
 one tenth of its Jubilee fund. In every difficult 
 financial emergency he was ready with additional 
 help. His sympathy was also made effective by 
 words fitly spoken at critical times, when such 
 words from him carried unusual weight and in- 
 fluence. So that it is impossible to express the value 
 of his generous gifts, his wise counsel and that un- 
 failing brotherly sympathy which had in it more of 
 helpfulness than comes from words of commenda- 
 tion, warning and counsel. He was again chosen 
 president of the Jubilee Convention which met in 
 Boston in 1901. 
 
 c. The first Association Buildings and the Work 
 and Secretaries in them. 
 
 In 1869 the New York City association entered its 
 first building, which was also the first genuine asso- 
 ciation building ever specially erected to accommo- 
 date the fourfold work, social, physical, educational 
 and spiritual. The Washington association at this 
 time also secured a building, commodious, but less 
 complete in its appointments. In these buildings, 
 Robert R. McBurney and George A. Hall, as secreta- 
 ries of growing qualification, began to erect that 
 standard of secretarial efficiency to which their asso- 
 ciates in other cities gradually conformed as associa- 
 tions with secretaries multiplied. 
 
 In the New York building, on its completion in 
 
 48 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 December, 1869, the International Committee occu- 
 pied as its first office a room granted to it by the New 
 York association. The Committee continued to oc- 
 cupy it free of rent for eighteen years. 
 
 In other cities buildings and rooms were secured 
 more adapted to general evangelistic uses than to 
 distinctive work for young men. A visit to such a 
 building is thus described by the general secretary 
 of the International Committee : 
 
 "In the year 1870, soon after the New York building had 
 been dedicated, I visited Chicago and as a beginner in asso- 
 ciation work was deeply impressed with the contrast between 
 the building which I had just left and the Chicago building, 
 which in its very large hall had ample provision for the evan- 
 gelistic services, held there every Sunday. But there was 
 comparatively little accommodation in this ample building for 
 the fourfold, distinctive work for young men. These two 
 buildings stood, in 1870, for two differing phases of work then 
 prevalent in the associations. 
 
 "The constitutions of the two associations also gave evi- 
 dence of this difference. Before 1867 the Chicago constitution 
 had stated as the object of the society 'the improvement of the 
 spiritual, intellectual and social condition of young men.' But 
 soon after that date this statement was amended to read : 'the 
 spiritual, intellectual and social improvement of all within its 
 reach, irrespective of age, sex or condition.' The New York 
 constitution had been amended by the addition of the adjective 
 'physical' to read : 'the improvement of the spiritual, mental, 
 social and physical condition of young men.' " 
 
 d. Two Phases of State and Provincial Work in 
 1873. 
 
 These two phases of work also appeared in a 
 marked way in the development of the state and 
 
 49 
 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 provincial organizations, which continued to grow 
 in number and efficiency. On the floor of the inter- 
 national convention in the summer of 1873, at Pough- 
 keepsie, the state work, as then conducted, was re- 
 ported and discussed. Though eighteen state and 
 provincial conventions were held that year, only that 
 of Pennsylvania had a state secretary. The chairman 
 of the Massachusetts Committee reported the em- 
 ployment by it of an evangelist, with whom mem- 
 bers of the Committee had spent 101 days and 
 evenings, visiting forty-eight of the cities and larger 
 towns of the state, awakening churches and com- 
 munities. Four hundred conversions had resulted. 
 Some members of the Committee had given between 
 twenty and thirty days of their time to this work, and 
 a leading pastor in Massachusetts had declared that 
 "an organization which had originated and carried 
 forward such a canvass as this had proved its right 
 to exist." The aggregate time given by the mem- 
 bers of the State Committee was 161 days; they 
 travelled collectively 20,000 miles during the can- 
 vass. Such a report made a profound impression 
 upon the convention and presented a type of state 
 work commanding wide attention and approval. 
 
 The Ohio state work was reported with special 
 emphasis upon the state convention. The evange- 
 listic influence of its meetings was conspicuous. 
 It was then the only state convention which fol- 
 lowed the international in tarrying over the Lord's 
 day in the place of meeting. It impressed the 
 whole community where the delegates met beyond 
 
 50 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 what was accomplished in this direction in any other 
 state. In fact, Ohio was setting an example which 
 has since been followed generally elsewhere. In 
 Ohio, also, there had been considerable evangelistic 
 visitation similar to that reported from Massachu- 
 setts, and much inter-visitation of associations by 
 delegates and representatives for the purpose of 
 holding stirring gospel meetings of a general 
 character. 
 
 Pennsylvania was represented in this discussion 
 by its state secretary, for the Pennsylvania Com- 
 mittee was the first to follow the local organizations 
 and the International Committee in securing as early 
 as 1871 an employed officer. Happily this pioneer 
 state secretary was Samuel A. Taggart, who for 
 nearly eighteen years was to define and illustrate 
 satisfactorily the functions of this important office. 
 For the first five years he stood alone among the em- 
 ployed agents of State Committees in emphasizing 
 as of first importance work for young men exclu- 
 sively. At Poughkeepsie, in 1873, he reported that 
 under his leadership, each year, a series of public 
 meetings was held throughout Pennsylvania, which 
 exerted a strong evangelistic influence and was ac- 
 companied by many conversions. But in each of 
 these meetings much attention was given to the work 
 of the local association, and Mr. Taggart con- 
 tended — to use his own words — that "the state sec- 
 retary is not a missionary nor an evangelist, though 
 he should always be evangelistic in spirit, but this 
 spirit should be manifested in specific efforts to bene- 
 
 5i 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 fit and build up Young Men's Christian Associations. 
 It is comparatively easy to awaken great temporary 
 enthusiasm, but it is quite a different thing to count 
 correctly upon the patient continuance of the mem- 
 bers in the work and upon their not expending all 
 their zeal during the first three months of the first 
 year." 
 
 In the same discussion a member of the New York 
 State Committee spoke in a disheartened way about 
 the convention in that state and the work of its Com- 
 mittee during the past seven years. Neither con- 
 vention nor visitation had given the apparent results 
 reported by the brethren from Massachusetts, Ohio 
 and Pennsylvania. The type of work presented in 
 Pennsylvania was the type toward which the New 
 York methods pointed. But the New York Com- 
 mittee, under the leadership of Mr. McBurney, was 
 unwilling to resort to general evangelistic methods 
 and had not yet secured the qualified state secretary 
 whom they were seeking and were soon to find. 
 
 The wide outlook over the whole field from the 
 standpoint of the convention of 1873 was at the mo- 
 ment bewildering. The double objective prevailing 
 in the first confederation period of association his- 
 tory was still in evidence. The excellent feature 
 in Pennsylvania and New York was emphasis upon 
 the individual local association, and the importance 
 of its being studied and helped by the agency of 
 supervision to a definite fourfold work for young 
 men. The strong feature in Massachusetts and Ohio 
 was the presence of the evangelistic fervor and 
 
 52 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 spiritual results of first importance in all Christian 
 work. But distinctive work for young men was not 
 fostered. 
 
 The two tendencies, however, while in conflict as 
 to form and methods, were advocated by friends 
 who had the same supreme aim. For in Pennsyl- 
 vania the desired emphasis on work for young men 
 was accompanied by such evangelistic effort for 
 them as was necessary to fulfil the supreme spiritual 
 purpose of the association. And in New York a 
 few years later, as state secretary, George A. Hall 
 accomplished the same evangelistic result while 
 organizing work for young men in that state. Soon 
 afterwards several state organizations, including 
 Wisconsin, Ohio, Massachusetts and Illinois, 
 adopted these lines of effort. The Chicago associa- 
 tion gradually concentrated upon work for young 
 men. The general evangelistic work continued for 
 a time popular in some states, but ultimately work 
 for young men exclusively and emphasis upon the 
 evangelistic spirit in this work prevailed. 
 
 e. Relations of the Federation Agencies. 
 
 The state and provincial organizations, while in- 
 dependent of the international, early began to fol- 
 low its example by creating each an Executive or 
 State Committee of its own, by adopting the same 
 test of active membership and by holding a direct 
 relation to the independent local associations. Later 
 they secured incorporation, with permission to hold 
 property for individual associations as well as for 
 themselves. These federation agencies also from the 
 
 53 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 beginning, as parent and children, so supplemented 
 one another by wise consultation and cooperation 
 that the best local association work was accom- 
 plished, as a rule, where both agencies harmoniously 
 exerted their joint ministry of help * 
 
 f. Visitation in the South. 
 
 In the winter of 1870-71, the International Com- 
 mittee's work of visitation was extended to the South. 
 One of its members, William F. Lee, and the secre- 
 tary of the Washington association, George A. Hall, 
 effectively visited on behalf of the Committee some 
 of the leading cities of the South. This led to 
 southern tours yet more extended and fruitful in 
 succeeding winters by Mr. Hall, accompanied by 
 Thomas K. Cree, then under government appoint- 
 ment as secretary of the National Indian Bureau at 
 Washington. Steady progress in the work at the 
 South resulted. Their experience in this visitation 
 also led these two friends a few years later to devote 
 themselves wholly to association supervision, Mr. 
 Cree in the international, and Mr. Hall, as already 
 mentioned, in the state work of New York. 
 
 g. General Secretaries' Conference and Secre- 
 tarial Training. 
 
 In 1871 — after the adjournment in Washington of 
 the international convention — the salaried officers of 
 
 ♦Polity of Young Men's Christian Associations, p. 12. The relations of 
 the agencies of federation to one another and to the associations and the 
 acts of conventions relating to them are so fully treated by the author 
 in this Polity pamphlet that the subject is only briefly referred to in this 
 sketch of association federation. 
 
 54 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 the associations met in conference for the first time. 
 Thirteen were present, and formed "The General 
 Secretaries' Association." This was the beginning 
 of a series of annual meetings which proved to be 
 institutes for the training of secretaries and of can- 
 didates for the office. At its first meeting the name 
 of general secretary — then borne by only one of 
 their number — was chosen by these officers. For 
 the first fifteen years the program of the annual 
 meeting was carefully prepared in consultation with 
 the International Committee and its office force. 
 For the Committee Mr. McBurney was the chief coun- 
 selor. The valuable secretarial pamphlets and litera- 
 ture of the conference were edited or carefully re- 
 vised in the international office. In those early 
 years, the number of assistant secretaries was very 
 small and the chief source of secretarial training and 
 supply was the secretarial bureaus of the Inter- 
 national and State Committees, reinforced by the 
 annual meeting of the secretaries' conference as an 
 efficient auxiliary. 
 
 In 1879, out of 161 secretaries then holding the 
 office, 124 were present at the secretaries' con- 
 ference — this was owing in part to formal request 
 for their attendance by the International Committee, 
 a request which the Committee annually made of 
 boards of directors employing secretaries. 
 
 h. A German-speaking International Secretary. 
 
 A German-speaking secretary was authorized by 
 the convention of 1874, and secured by the Committee 
 in the person of the late Rev. Fred, von Schluem- 
 
 55 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 bach. For seven years, during a period of very 
 large German immigration to the continent, he or- 
 ganized and promoted the efficiency of German- 
 speaking branches of associations in cities where 
 German-speaking young men were most numerous. 
 These branches served a valuable though, as it 
 proved, a temporary purpose, most of them having 
 now lost their exclusively German name and charac- 
 ter without losing their attractiveness to young men 
 of German birth and descent. 
 
 (4) The Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Terms of the 
 International Committee, 1875 to 1883 
 
 The conventions of 1875, 1879 and 1881 reelected 
 the Committee for its fourth term of four years, 
 and its fifth and sixth terms of two years each. The 
 length of these terms was regulated by the fact that 
 the meetings of the convention became biennial 
 after the year 1877. The Committee was also grad- 
 ually enlarged by increasing the number resident 
 in New York to nine and by adding in 1875 a group 
 of fifteen members resident in representative cities. 
 The convention of 1879 formally adopted for the 
 Committee its present designation, International, 
 a name which usage had given it for many years 
 and by which it had been widely known. 
 
 a. Office and Traveling Secretaries added to the 
 International Force. 
 
 During this period, in 1875, Erskine Uhl became 
 the office secretary of the Committee and Thomas 
 
 56 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 K. Cree a traveling secretary. Both still continue 
 active members of the Committee's force. 
 
 b. International Secretaries for the Negro, Rail- 
 road and Student work. 
 
 The conventions of 1875 and 1876 authorized the 
 employment of international secretaries for work 
 among railroad and colored men, and the convention 
 of 1877 of a college student secretary, Luther D. 
 Wishard, to form and strengthen associations in col- 
 leges and to foster among them intercollegiate fellow- 
 ship and cooperation. This was an important new 
 departure, occasioned by the fact that in the early 
 seventies specially vigorous efforts were being made 
 to adapt the principles and methods of the association 
 to organizations composed exclusively of members 
 from these important classes of young men. This 
 involved a certain segregation and isolation of these 
 societies and their members, uniting them to one 
 another in each group by peculiar ties of fellowship. 
 On the other hand it equally involved a union of 
 these class societies with the whole association 
 brotherhood which was essential to the unity and 
 highest usefulness of that brotherhood. Both the 
 segregation and the unity have been happily con- 
 served and harmonized. This is among the results 
 of wise federation supervision promptly undertaken 
 at the beginning of the movement among each of 
 these groups and later among other classes of 
 young men. It would be difficult to exaggerate the 
 importance of both the segregation and the unity 
 thus accomplished. Every new achievement in this 
 
 57 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 direction strengthened confidence in the ultimate 
 adaptation of association organization and methods 
 to all classes of young men. 
 
 c. Further growth of State and Provincial Work. 
 
 State and provincial conventions continued to 
 grow in influence. Emphasis upon general evan- 
 gelistic meetings and canvasses gradually dimin- 
 ished. These meetings were attended very widely 
 with blessed results in numerous conversions and 
 were gratefully appreciated by many pastors and 
 communities. But they did not result, as their ad- 
 vocates had confidently hoped they would, in multi- 
 plying and strengthening associations and their dis- 
 tinctive work for young men. In 1878 twenty-six 
 state and provincial conventions were held and six 
 State Committees were employing state secretaries, 
 five of whom were chiefly occupied with holding 
 general evangelistic meetings. In 1879 twelve 
 State and Provincial Committees were employing 
 secretaries, of whom only four were chiefly occu- 
 pied with the work of an evangelist. The remainder 
 were engrossed in distinctive association work. In 
 1883 thirteen State and Provincial Committees were 
 employing state secretaries, of whom all but one or 
 two were devoting themselves to distinctive associa- 
 tion work. The international secretaries, now nine 
 in number, were from the beginning wholly occu- 
 pied with this work. To this happy result careful 
 and thorough specialization during the seventeen 
 years since 1866 had brought the agencies of federa- 
 tion and the brotherhood they were serving. 
 
 58 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 d. D. L. Moody and the Associations. 
 
 The career of Dwight L. Moody and his relation 
 to the associations, first as a leader among them and 
 then as the preeminent evangelist, vividly illustrates 
 the change which has just been described. Mr. 
 Moody was a lifelong friend of the association and 
 frequently testified : "It has done more, under God, 
 in developing me for Christian work than any other 
 agency." As the head of the Chicago association, 
 he was until 1870 its conspicuous delegate on the 
 floor of the international convention, advocating the 
 general evangelistic type of work. After that year 
 he ceased to attend, becoming wholly absorbed in this 
 work within and outside of the association. After 
 nine years he reappeared in the international 
 convention of 1879 at Baltimore, not as an association 
 officer but as a world-famous evangelist, who, on 
 both sides of the Atlantic, had so contributed to 
 the growth and development of these associations by 
 encouraging their formation, procuring buildings for 
 them, stimulating their evangelistic work for young 
 men and the spiritual life of their leaders, that he 
 was unamiously and enthusiastically welcomed to the 
 presidency of the convention. 
 
 A few days before, meeting the secretaries of the 
 continent in their conference and speaking of his ex- 
 perience as an officer of the Chicago association, he 
 said he became satisfied as early as 1873 that as an 
 evangelist his field of service was not that of an as- 
 sociation secretary. In answer to the question: 
 " What agencies do you think the association should 
 
 59 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 use?" he said: "There are many ways of reaching 
 young men. I would recommend a gymnasium, 
 classes, medical lectures, social receptions, music, 
 and all unobjectionable agencies. These are for 
 week days. We do not want simply evangelistic 
 meetings. I have tried that method in association 
 work and failed; so I gave it up and became an 
 evangelist. You cannot do both and succeed." In 
 answer to the question: "What do you consider the 
 great need of the association work now?" looking in- 
 to the faces of seventy-six association secretaries, he 
 answered: "More trained secretaries, and more 
 training schools such as this conference. Every sec- 
 retary ought to be training suitable young men for 
 secretaries. There are many places in this country 
 where such men could be placed and the money 
 raised for their support. The general secretary 
 needs training for his work. A man cannot be an 
 evangelist and a general secretary without spoiling 
 his work in both." 
 
 While accomplishing his wonderful work as an 
 evangelist, Mr. Moody always showed himself to be 
 the friend of the association secretary in the place 
 where he was working and of the association move- 
 ment there and elsewhere. It might be justly said 
 of the secretaries whom he addressed in Baltimore 
 that he had influenced the spiritual life and evan- 
 gelistic activity of so many of them as to make his 
 personal influence upon them a strong factor in giv- 
 ing to the work of the brotherhood its evangelistic 
 character. 
 
 60 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 He was always an efficient, helpful friend of the 
 International Committee in its federation work. In 
 some of the early critical years he secured the largest 
 annual contribution to this work. In his later life 
 he was one of the most helpful friends of the student 
 work, as host and leader of the parent student sum- 
 mer conference at Northfield. In those difficult years 
 of the movement he made possible the employment 
 of additional and sorely needed international student 
 secretaries. And as the friend of students and of 
 Christian leaders among them he gave evangelistic 
 impulse to the entire student association movement 
 and its supervision. 
 
 e. Training and Securing Secretaries. 
 
 During all this period increasing emphasis was 
 laid in federation work upon training and securing 
 association secretaries By careful visitation the 
 demand was created for such secretaries in cities, 
 colleges and railroad communities, and in states 
 where the support of state secretaries could be se- 
 cured for part or all of their time. The demand 
 having been created it was supplied with men as 
 qualified as could be obtained. The supply of this 
 demand involved keeping in the office of the Com- 
 mittee careful registry of the names and records of 
 secretaries already in office, correspondence with 
 them, making inquiry for candidates, and vigilant 
 relation to the meetings and publications of the 
 secretaries' conference, especially during the first 
 fifteen years of that conference. 
 
 In 1881, 161 candidates were dealt with through 
 
 61 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 the international office, forty-nine of whom became 
 secretaries. In this year the census told of 206 
 cities in the United States and the Dominion of 
 Canada with a population of 7,500 and over. Less 
 than half the number (ninety-four cities) had asso- 
 ciation secretaries. Three years later, 193 cities had 
 secretaries, secured largely through this specializa- 
 tion on secretarial training by both International 
 and State Committees. At this time, before the 
 training schools had been founded, the International 
 Committee sent candidates to four cities of 50,000 
 or less population, in each of which the secretary 
 had the gifts of a teacher. In 1883, sixty-four can- 
 didates were trained at these points and fifty-two of 
 them entered the work. Some years later, when 
 the first training school was being established, the 
 head of the secretarial bureau of the International 
 Committee, Jacob T. Bowne, was sought and ob- 
 tained as its first secretarial instructor. 
 
 f. Growth of the Building Movement. 
 
 For associations with good secretaries adequate 
 buildings were needed, and vigorous campaigns for 
 them were entered upon by the supervisory agencies. 
 Some associations had secured buildings fitted for 
 evangelistic work rather than for the all-round work. 
 Information regarding the best buildings, adapted 
 to the four-fold work for young men, was always 
 accessible in the international office. Every effort 
 was made to embody in new buildings the best 
 features of their predecessors and to create that 
 
 62 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 genuine evolution which has strongly characterized 
 the association building movement from its be- 
 ginning. 
 
 (5) World Federation — World's Committee 
 Formed 
 
 Active and increasing intercourse with the associa- 
 tions of other continents was also maintained during 
 this period. An extensive tour of the European 
 associations was happily accomplished by one of the 
 members of the International Committee, Mr. 
 James Stokes, Jr., and fully reported by him to the 
 convention of 1869. 
 
 The triennial meetings of the World's Conferences 
 were attended on behalf of the International Com- 
 mittee by Mr. McBurney, by its general secretary, 
 and other representatives. At the conference of 
 1878 at Geneva, in Switzerland, forty delegates from 
 North America were present, and under the influ- 
 ence of American precedent the conference ap- 
 pointed for the first time an Executive Committee 
 with a working quorum of its members resident in 
 Geneva. Owing to hearty support from the British 
 and American delegates this Committee was able at 
 once to employ as its general secretary Mr. Charles 
 Fermaud. He came as the guest of the American 
 secretaries to attend the international convention and 
 secretaries' conference of 1879, and to study associa- 
 tion work on this continent. 
 
 In this period, also, some of the students who had 
 been in association work during their college life 
 
 63 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 graduated and reached the foreign field as mission- 
 aries. They organized several student associations 
 on the American plan in missionary colleges with 
 which they became connected, and began corre- 
 spondence with the student secretary of the Interna- 
 tional Committee concerning the extension of this 
 college work into foreign mission lands. 
 
CHAPTER V. THE THIRD PERIOD OF 
 FEDERATION, 1883-1904 
 
 The Time of Greatest Enlargement. Incorpora- 
 tion of International Committee. Specializa- 
 tion on Internal Development of Local Asso- 
 ciations, in Buildings and Secretaries, in Or- 
 ganizations of Student, Railroad and Other 
 Classes of Young Men, and in the Physical, 
 Educational and Religious Work. Metropoli- 
 tan and County Organizations Recognized and 
 Fostered. Federation Relationships Defined. 
 The Grand Rapids (1899) and Buffalo (1904) 
 Convention Resolutions. Growing Fellowship 
 with Association Work on Other Continents. 
 
 The third period of North American association 
 federation opened with the international convention 
 of 1883 at Milwaukee. Obeying the instructions of 
 the previous convention, the International Commit- 
 tee brought to Milwaukee for approval an act of the 
 New York legislature incorporating the Committee, 
 creating a board of trustees to hold property in trust 
 for the associations and for their Committee, and 
 providing for the election thereafter at each conven- 
 tion of one-third of the members of the Committee. 
 This charter was discussed, approved and adopted. 
 A group of advisory members was also elected by 
 the convention. 
 
 This third and longest period of association fed- 
 
 65 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 eration, lasting- twenty-one years, has witnessed the 
 greatest enlargement of association work. 
 
 In 1883 the total expenditure of the North Ameri- 
 can associations was $681,347. 
 
 In 1903, an increase of sixfold, $3,913,239. 
 
 In 1883, total property in buildings, $3,641,500. 
 
 In 1903, an increase of nearly eightfold, $28,477,205. 
 
 In 1883, total number of employed officers, 388. 
 
 In 1903, an increase of nearly fivefold, 1,729. 
 
 In 1883, state and provincial secretaries, seventeen. 
 
 In 1903, an increase of over fourfold, seventy-four. 
 
 In 1883, number of international secretaries, ten. 
 
 In 1903, number of international secretaries on 
 home field, forty-one; on foreign field, thirty-five, 
 an increase of fourfold on home field alone. 
 
 In 1883, twenty-four members of the International 
 Committee. 
 
 In 1903, forty-five members of the International 
 Committee. 
 
 (1) Emphasis on Internal Development of Local 
 Associations 
 
 a. Throughout this period increasing emphasis 
 by both international and state organizations was 
 laid upon securing and training association secreta- 
 ries, local, state and international. In its opening 
 years the two training schools — independent institu- 
 tions, but receiving hearty sympathy and coopera- 
 tion from the federation agencies — were welcomed 
 as reinforcements to the secretarial bureaus, inter- 
 national, state and provincial. These schools have 
 
 66 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 been slowly and patiently built up to their present 
 encouraging proportions in Springfield, Mass. , and 
 Chicago, 111. 
 
 The secretarial bureaus vigilantly continued their 
 work. Between 1895 and 1897, 451 persons were 
 dealt with by the international bureau. Through 
 that bureau 120 of these found secretarial positions 
 in all departments, and ninety-five of them obtained 
 positions through state and other agencies. In 1903, 
 181 men were aided by international secretaries in 
 entering association service; personal intercourse 
 with 478 yielded this result. Three hundred and 
 ninety-four applications for men were received. 
 
 b. Careful promotion of the building movement 
 and its evolution was continued. 
 
 c. Equally upon work for special classes of young 
 men emphasis was laid. To the international and 
 to some state secretarial forces were added special 
 student and railroad secretaries, greatly increasing 
 this section of federation employed officers. The 
 international student secretaries increased from one 
 to ten under the leadership of John R. Mott, and 
 the railroad secretaries from one to six with Clarence 
 J. Hicks as senior secretary. The international force 
 was also increased by a secretary for work among 
 men of the industrial classes ; also for work among 
 Indian young men, first by Dr. Charles A. Eastman 
 and then by Arthur T. Tibbetts, both men of the 
 Indian race. For work among Negro young men 
 two rarely qualified secretaries of that race were 
 secured, W. A. Hunton and J. E. Moorland. 
 
 67 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 Early in the period at militia summer camps sev- 
 eral State and Provincial Committees organized and 
 carried on an effective tent work among- the Ameri- 
 can and Canadian soldiers in these camps — a work 
 on association lines which commands increasingly 
 the approval of both officers and men. 
 
 Upon the outbreak of the Spanish-American war 
 in 1898 the International Committee, adding an 
 army and navy secretary to its force, organized and 
 carried on a similar work among the United States 
 troops in their camps and among the sailors of the 
 navy. During the South African war association 
 army work was also promoted in the Canadian con- 
 tingent of the British troops, with the hearty ap- 
 proval of the authorities 
 
 Under vigilant supervision by the International 
 Committee and its secretaries this phase of associa- 
 tion work has been continued and developed at the 
 permanent army posts and naval stations and upon 
 the war vessels of the United States. It has received 
 strong encouragement from successive international 
 conventions and from the national government 
 authorities. This adaptation of association princi- 
 ples and methods to the life and environment of the 
 soldier and the sailor, from its beginning during 
 the American Civil War, has been preeminently in- 
 debted for both its development and efficiency to 
 the federation agencies of the associations. 
 
 d. But in a fourth and new direction interesting 
 progress was realized. In the previous period, 
 having specialized on the work of the individual as- 
 
 68 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 sociation as a unit, and upon the secretary as the 
 employed officer of each entire association, the time 
 was now ripe for the supervisory agencies to spe- 
 cialize on the different departments and their secre- 
 taries within the individual association, including 
 the physical, educational and spiritual work. 
 
 The physical work was first presented and dis- 
 cussed at an international convention in 1881, by 
 R. J. Roberts, then and still in charge of the physical 
 department of the Boston association. In 1886 the 
 International Committee secured in Dr. Luther H. 
 Gulick a rarely qualified secretary for this depart- 
 ment. In 1892 a similar secretary for the educa- 
 tional department was found in George B. Hodge ; 
 in 1899 a religious work secretary, Fred B. Smith, 
 was added to the force and was followed in 1901 by 
 F. S. Goodman with a special reference to the Bible 
 department; in 1900 Edgar M. Robinson accepted 
 a call to become the first international boys' secre- 
 tary. 
 
 Some of these specialists on the international 
 force were preceded — as has been true of other fea- 
 tures of progress in the work — by similar specialists 
 in a few of the local and state organizations. But in 
 each department international outlook and leader- 
 ship, resting upon a relation to experience covering 
 the whole field, has seemed essential to the best de- 
 velopment of the work. In the training schools 
 also effort was put forth to train candidates for 
 these positions. 
 
 e. This growing emphasis on the internal devel- 
 
 69 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 opment of the local associations is also shown in their 
 expenditures. In 1876 the total sum expended by 
 the 440 associations reporting current expenses was 
 $311,000, or an average annual expense of $680 for 
 each association. In 1883, 416 reported current 
 expenses amounting to $621,500, or an average ex- 
 penditure by each association of $1,494. In 1903, 
 1,150 reported, an increase over 1883 of 176 per cent ; 
 but their expenditure had grown to $3,856,328, or 
 520 per cent. Thus the average expense reported, 
 which in 1876 was $680, became in 1883, $1,496; and 
 in 1904, $3,353. 
 
 This gives financial evidence of the fact that re- 
 cent years are signalized by remarkable growth in 
 lines which call on each association to more than 
 double its yearly expenditure. This means an in- 
 crease not so much in the number of associations as 
 in the number and qualification of employed offi- 
 cers, in the number and equipment of buildings 
 new and buildings improved, in the number and 
 excellence of the physical and educational classes, 
 in the efficiency of the Bible and other religious 
 work, and of the boys' departments. The growth 
 has been intensive rather than extensive, reaching 
 every part of the diversified local work. Upon all 
 these lines specialization by the agencies of super- 
 vision has been emphasized. 
 
 One important result of this growth, especially in 
 religious work, has been an extension of hospitality 
 to an ever increasing number of non-members. 
 Though the association membership is less than 
 
 7o 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 400,000, the enlarged resources of the individual 
 associations enable them to influence helpfully- 
 several million young men in the course of each 
 year. 
 
 f. Periodicals and Publications. 
 
 The Quarterly, as already noted, was issued by the 
 International Committee soon after its location in 
 New York. It was followed (1870-73) by The Asso- 
 ciation Monthly. Later the bulletin of the Chicago 
 Association was expanded into a general paper, 
 under private management, and entitled successively 
 The Watchman, The Young Men's Era and Men. 
 Its lineal successor, Association Men, is now pub- 
 lished monthly from the office of the International 
 Committee. 
 
 In its earliest history the International Committee 
 began to issue also small pamphlets, in addition to 
 full Reports of the Conventions. This form of 
 effort has gradually grown until the publications of 
 the Committee, nearly 300 in number, include not 
 only many technical pamphlets, which are helpful 
 in organizing associations and developing interest 
 in their support, but hand books for the guidance 
 of the officers employed in different phases of the 
 work and a Year Book of over 400 pages. In 1904 
 an Association Hymn Book was issued and favorably 
 received. There is also a list of excellent Bible 
 Study Courses and of personal work and devotional 
 literature, which is believed to surpass in extent 
 and value the similar issues of any denominational 
 or general publishing firm. These are used exten- 
 
 7i 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 sively by churches and other organizations, as well 
 as by the associations. The sales in 1903 amounted 
 to $45,989. 
 
 While these publications have been invaluable to 
 the active workers, the number of such workers has 
 not yet become large enough to cover the expense 
 involved. But the Committee has wisely carried 
 this expense in its annual budgets, assured of the 
 helpfulness of these publications. 
 
 The State and Provincial Committees have is- 
 sued numerous Convention Reports and Bulletins, 
 but the development of other distinctive association 
 literature has, for the most part, been left to the 
 International organization. 
 
 (2) County and Metropolitan Organizations 
 
 During this period two new association organiza- 
 tions, the county and the metropolitan, were formed 
 with secretaries whose office and work related them 
 both to the supervisory and the local secretaryship. * 
 
 The county organization marks an era in the de- 
 velopment of association work among young men 
 in the small town and country neighborhood. From 
 the beginning the problem of a self supporting, 
 permanent organization among these young men 
 baffled the strenuous endeavor of the agencies of 
 supervision. For the problem of the city associa- 
 tion a comparatively early solution was worked out. 
 A strong factor in this solution, as we have seen, was 
 the securing and training of an expert employed 
 
 ♦Polity of Young Men's Christian Associations, pp. 29-32. 
 
 72 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 officer. A similar experience was realized in organ- 
 izing work among young men in the country. 
 
 The State Committees accomplished, and still ac- 
 complish, a good work through the enlistment of 
 corresponding members resident in these country 
 communities, and also through conferences and 
 gospel services known as Young Men's Sundays; 
 but the indispensable employed officer was not 
 secured until, under the leadership of Robert 
 Weidensall, of the International, and his associates 
 of the State Committees, the county organization was 
 formed, with the employed county secretary, inter- 
 national, state and local. This personal factor is an 
 important element in the satisfactory solution of 
 this difficult problem. Not many counties have yet 
 been organized, and careful experimentation is still 
 going forward, but substantial progress has been 
 made. 
 
 The first metropolitan organization, with R. R. 
 McBurney as its secretary, was formed in New York 
 City in 1887. Later the associations with branches 
 or departments in Philadelphia, Chicago and other 
 cities organized their work on the same basis, with 
 such modifications as they deemed desirable. 
 
 During this period these associations sought and 
 obtained from the conventions two important privi- 
 leges and benefits : 
 
 a. The conventions of 1885 and 1889 granted to 
 each branch or department having a distinct roll of 
 membership the number of delegates to which an 
 independent association of equal size was entitled, — 
 
 73 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 a privilege which aided organizations with branches 
 in their worthy endeavor to give to each branch as 
 far as possible the consideration and standing of an 
 association. 
 
 b. Yet more noteworthy action affecting these 
 organizations was taken by the convention of 1891 
 at Kansas City, when, in order to promote the soli- 
 darity of association work in the large cities the 
 International Committee was instructed not to recog- 
 nize in a city where an association already exists 
 another independent association ' ' college and col- 
 ored associations excepted." 
 
 Like the adoption of the test of membership by 
 the convention of 1869, this action conditioned the 
 representation of certain associations upon a com- 
 pliance by them with the requirement of the con- 
 vention regarding an important feature of their 
 constitutions. 
 
 In 1869 the object of the convention related to 
 the voting membership; in 1891 to the unity of the 
 association organization in a city or community. In 
 the latter case two exceptions were made in favor 
 of "college and colored associations." To these 
 exceptions the convention of 1904 added the follow- 
 ing : 
 
 "State, Provincial or International Committees 
 may in exceptional cases, and only while necessary, 
 recognize each for itself provisional railroad, army 
 and navy associations, and also (with the consent of 
 the local associations) provisional industrial and city 
 associations, at points having local associations with 
 
 74 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 which for the time being organic relations cannot 
 be established or maintained."* 
 
 (4) Definition of Association and Federation Re- 
 lationships 
 
 During this period the growth of the federation 
 agencies naturally gave rise to some discussion con- 
 cerning their relation to one another. Occasional 
 friction seemed to call for some formal definition by 
 the international convention of those relationships 
 of consultation and cooperation which usage or un- 
 written regulation had been gradually establishing. 
 In response to this call and discussion, the Inter- 
 national Committee submitted and the convention 
 of 1899, at Grand Rapids, adopted the following, 
 which became known as the ' ' Grand Rapids Reso- 
 lutions: " f 
 
 "Resolved, i. That the International and State Committees 
 exist as independent supervisory agencies, directly and equally 
 related to the local organization, which is the original and in- 
 dependent unit in the brotherhood of the Young Men's Chris- 
 tian Associations, and that the relation of the supervisory 
 agencies to the local organizations is as a rule advisory. 
 
 " 2. That in the relations of comity, which have been well 
 established by usage hitherto, it is understood that the Inter- 
 national Committee as a rule exercises general and the State 
 Committee exercises close supervision, it being also understood 
 that by the terms general and close nothing is intended in- 
 consistent with the direct and equal relation of each local or- 
 ganization to both the international and state organizations. 
 
 "3. That it is desirable that the International Committee, 
 
 ♦Polity of Young Men's Christian Associations, pp. 11, 12 and xxi. 
 tPolity of Young Men's Christian Associations, pp. 25, 33 and 34. 
 
 75 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 in each department of its work, plan to meet the needs of fields 
 where state and provincial organizations exist, in conference 
 with such organizations, in such a way as to supplement, not 
 duplicate, the corresponding department of state or provincial 
 work, and to secure by such adjustment of forces economy of 
 effort, time and money. 
 
 "4. That the International Committee in forming and de- 
 veloping state and provincial organizations, place emphasis 
 upon the responsibility vested in these organizations and that 
 cooperation with them be carefully cultivated." 
 
 After adopting these resolutions the convention 
 appointed a Committee of Seven, enlarged by the 
 convention of 1901 to a Committee of Twenty-one, 
 to report any fuller definition that might be deemed 
 desirable of the relations and functions of interna- 
 tional, state and local organizations. 
 
 As a result of further deliberations this Com- 
 mittee submitted to the convention of 1904 majority 
 and minority reports. The majority report, amended 
 into the following form, was adopted : 
 
 "First. — The 'Grand Rapids Resolutions' unani- 
 mously adopted by the international convention of 
 1899 and reaffirmed without change by the inter- 
 national convention of 1901, fairly interpreted, 
 express the historic basis of relationship upon which 
 the associations have developed and have been so 
 abundantly blessed of God. 
 
 "Second. — Radical organic changes in the polity of 
 the associations are neither necessary nor desirable. 
 
 "Third. — Efficient state and provincial organiza- 
 tions have long been recognized as essential factors 
 
 76 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 in the successful development of the local associa- 
 tion, and an important part of the work of the Inter- 
 national Committee has been to establish and assist 
 these organizations. This policy becomes increas- 
 ingly important with the development of the associa- 
 tion work. It is, therefore, the duty of the agents 
 of the International Committee, when working in 
 fields having state or provincial organizations, to 
 aid and strengthen those organizations. It is equally 
 the duty of the agents of the state and provincial 
 organizations to support and aid the International 
 Committee in its relation to the associations and in 
 its work for the North American association brother- 
 hood. 
 
 "Fourth. — The local association, as the independ- 
 ent unit, has the right to apply for aid to either 
 supervising agency, and it is the right of each agency 
 of supervision to respond directly to the calls of the 
 local associations. 
 
 ' ' It is desirable that the local associations should 
 employ the State Committee to the largest practi- 
 cable extent in close supervision of the work. 
 
 1 ' To this end and for the harmonious development 
 and administration of the whole work, save in ex- 
 ceptional cases, the International Committee should 
 respond to applications from the local associations 
 in conference and cooperation with the State Com- 
 mittee. The right of the local association, however, 
 to apply for and receive aid from either supervisory 
 agency should not be denied or abridged. 
 
 "Fifth. — The historic and well-settled autonomy 
 
 77 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 and independence of the local association should 
 and will continue unquestioned; and nothing in 
 this report shall be construed as in any way inter- 
 fering with the right of the local association to or- 
 ganize branches of its own in any department. 
 
 '■'Sixth. — State, Provincial or International Com- 
 mittees may in exceptional cases, and only while 
 necessary, recognize each for itself provisional rail- 
 road, army and navy associations, and also (with 
 the consent of the local associations) provisional 
 industrial and city associations, at points having 
 local associations with which for the time being 
 organic relations cannot be established or main- 
 tained. 
 
 "In the organization of associations or branches 
 on interstate railroad systems, the International 
 Committee should treat with the railroad company 
 and assume the responsibility. In the supervision 
 of the work, when established, the same rule of 
 conference and cooperation with State and Provin- 
 cial Committees shall prevail as in other depart- 
 ments of association work. 
 
 " Seventh. — It is desirable that all local association 
 real estate be held either in fee simple or leasehold 
 by the local association. When this is not practi- 
 cable, it may be held by the State, Provincial or 
 International Committees; but these committees 
 should seek to transfer the same as soon as expe- 
 dient to local associations. This policy should be 
 made plain to railroad officials when leases of rail- 
 road property are made, and to carry this out an 
 
 78 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 assignment clause should, when possible, be incor- 
 porated. 
 
 ' ' Eighth. — In any case of disagreement, where two 
 agencies of supervision are unable themselves to 
 arrive at a satisfactory settlement and where the 
 local association, as the court of final appeal, is not 
 directly concerned and so is not available, the ordi- 
 nary principles and methods of arbitration are rec- 
 ommended — namely, each party to appoint an arbi- 
 trator and these two to appoint a third, no one of 
 whom shall be a salaried officer of an association, 
 and thereupon the three to hear the case and reach 
 a final settlement, the costs of the proceeding to be 
 paid as the arbitrators or a majority of them may 
 determine." 
 
 These eight declarations are consistent with their 
 own assertion that radical changes in existing asso- 
 ciation polity are undesirable. They are in fact an 
 expansion of the Grand Rapids Resolutions, which 
 they reaffirm, defining more successfully because 
 more fully what had been gradually found, by a 
 usage of brotherly consultation and cooperation, to 
 be expedient and practicable in the intercourse of 
 association organizations, local, international, state 
 and provincial. 
 
 (5) Growing Fellow sliip with Association Work 
 the World Over 
 
 With the world brotherhood points of contact mul- 
 tiplied in number and importance during this period, 
 a. Large and influential delegations from North 
 
 79 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 America attended the World's Conferences of the 
 period, and gave encouragement and support to the 
 World's Committee in its work. 
 
 b. Mr. James Stokes manifested an increasing 
 interest in association work abroad. Owing to his 
 initiative and generous cooperation, the associations 
 in Paris and Rome secured buildings equipped on 
 the American plan. A successful organization of 
 work for young men in St. Petersburg was also es- 
 tablished through his friendly agency. 
 
 c. Association buildings on the American plan 
 were erected at Berlin, Paris, Stockholm, Geneva, 
 Stuttgart, and other European cities, and at Tokyo, 
 Tientsin, Calcutta, Madras, and other cities of Asia. 
 
 d. The Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign 
 Missions was organized in 1886, enlisting hundreds 
 of student candidates for the work of the churches 
 and of the associations in non-Christian lands. More 
 than two thousand of these volunteers are already at 
 work in those lands. 
 
 e. In response to the urgency of the missionaries 
 of many churches, and by instruction of the inter- 
 national conventions, beginning with that of 1889, 
 forty-five international secretaries are now at work 
 in Japan, Korea, China, Hongkong, India, Ceylon, 
 Argentine, Brazil, Mexico and Cuba. 
 
 f. The World's Student Christian Federation, 
 owing to American suggestion, was formed in 1895 
 at Vadstena, Sweden, and has been rapidly extended, 
 under the leadership of its general secretary, John 
 R. Mott, who is also the senior student secretary of 
 
 8o 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 the International Committee. Already university 
 and college students on all continents are united in 
 this federation, paralleling the parent Young Men's 
 Christian Association in its world brotherhood, 
 while both of these ecumenical federations of young 
 men begin to give reality to the poet's dream of 
 * ' the parliament of man, the federation of the world. ' ' 
 
 Si 
 
CHAPTER VI. SUMMARY OF THE FIFTY 
 YEARS OF FEDERATION 
 
 Federation Work Has Specialized on Concentra- 
 tion upon Work for Young Men, Training Em- 
 ployed Officers, Control by Laymen, Build- 
 ings, Departments of Local Work and Classes 
 of Young Men. Federation Work, State, Pro- 
 vincial and International and Its Financial 
 Support (Diagrams). Objective of this Work. 
 
 1. Specialization the Key Word in Federation Supervision 
 
 This rapid historical review of the fifty years of 
 federation — though very summary in its treatment 
 of the last twenty years — enables us to seize the 
 main trend of the supervision that federation has 
 created. It is a supervision that has been slowly 
 shaped from decade to decade by patient and thor- 
 ough specializing upon those features of the work 
 which were being tested in the crucible of associa- 
 tion experience. The supervision was successful as 
 far as at each stage of progress it discerned correctly 
 and grasped vigilantly the best features of the work 
 and wisely commended them to associations within 
 reach of the influence which its resources enabled it 
 to exert. 
 
 (1) Concentration Upon Work for Young Men 
 In the first convention, fifty years ago, the ques- 
 tion was discussed : ' ' Shall the associations concen- 
 
 82 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 trate on work for young men ?" For thirty years 
 this continued to be a live question. At first the 
 best experience of the best associations taught that, 
 while emphasis must be laid upon work for young 
 men, various forms of general religious, evangelistic 
 and philanthropic effort were also approved. This 
 was, therefore, the best message which in those early 
 years the agency of supervision brought to the 
 associations. 
 
 Five years later (1859) more elaborate discussion 
 could do no more than justify this conclusion. After 
 another five years however (1864) concentration 
 upon work for young men began to be more insist- 
 ently and intelligently urged. This was due in part 
 to the fact that the stronger associations began to 
 secure the entire energies of employed experts or 
 secretaries who devoted their lives to this distinctive 
 association work, and whose succcess led to a 
 demand for specially adapted association buildings. 
 Under these new conditions the best experience 
 of the best associations altered its verdict. The 
 very beginnings of this change were vigilantly ob- 
 served by the leaders in international conventions. 
 They were joined, slowly at first, by state and pro- 
 vincial organizations, and when the association 
 movement was thirty years old association public 
 sentiment was practically unanimous in favor of 
 work for young men exclusively. 
 
 (2) On Employed Officers 
 
 In working out this central problem vigilant spe- 
 
 83 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 cialization, as already described, discovered and 
 trained the needed employed experts — the secre- 
 taries, general, physical, educational, religious, and 
 later the boys' secretary. 
 
 (3) On Control by Laymen. Secretarialism Dis- 
 countenanced 
 
 Accompanying secretarial specialization, as of 
 equal importance, was specialization on control and 
 leadership in the associations by laymen as officers, 
 directors and committeemen. This fundamental 
 principle of association administration was empha- 
 sized in the discussions, conduct and management 
 of the international convention, and in the work of 
 its Committee. No employed officer has ever pre- 
 sided at an international convention. In 1874 Mr. 
 McBurney was chosen, but declined to serve. The 
 international convention has also set the example of 
 confining its officers to lay delegates, with the excep- 
 tion of the recording secretary. The principal com- 
 mittees of the convention have been manned, as a 
 rule, by laymen. For twenty-five of the fifty 
 years of the convention, the chairman of its Com- 
 mittee was Cephas Brainerd, whose virile lay lead- 
 ership of the international administration has been 
 already mentioned. 
 
 Lay control has also been strongly insisted upon 
 by leaders among the secretaries. The only general 
 secretary who served as a member of the Interna- 
 tional Committee was Robert R. McBurney. In 
 1882, at the meeting of the general secretaries' con- 
 
 84 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 ference for the continent, of which he was the leader 
 during all its early history, he read a forcible paper 
 on * ' Secretarialism " — a word he coined to express 
 what he considered a usurpation by the secretary of 
 that leadership, responsibility and management of 
 the association which belongs primarily to the lay 
 members, officers and directors. He appealed to 
 and successfully enlisted the best secretarial senti- 
 ment to antagonize "secretarialism." 
 
 Fifteen years later — a year before his death — he 
 prepared and read before the secretaries' conference 
 of 1897, another forcible paper on the same theme. 
 The vigorous paragraph on "Secretarialism" in the 
 "Association Hand Book," published in 1892, is 
 from his pen. 
 
 In the recent discussion of important questions 
 relating to association polity, the international con- 
 vention, as the parent and leading agency of federa- 
 tion, has been true to its traditions in constituting 
 its Committee of Twenty-one wholly of lay leaders 
 of the associations. And when the Jubilee Conven- 
 tion of 1904 met, enrolling more delegates than any 
 of its predecessors, the majority of these were lay 
 delegates, and in the great debate of the convention 
 all but two of the speakers chosen to advocate the 
 majority and minority reports of the Committee of 
 Twenty-one were also lay delegates. 
 
 (4) On Association Buildings 
 
 Parallel with and reinforcing this emphasis on the 
 function and work of both secretaries and laymen, 
 
 85 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 has been supervisory specialization on association 
 buildings. Every improvement in successive build- 
 ings was vigilantly observed and registered in the 
 international office. The student of the evolution of 
 these buildings can discover at least five distinct 
 steps or phases of development with specimens of 
 each phase. Buildings satisfactory at the time of 
 their erection have disappeared to give place to sub- 
 stitutes far better adapted to modern association 
 uses. This development from good to better and 
 best has been carefully fostered by the federation 
 agencies. In the city of Buffalo, the Jubilee Con- 
 vention of 1904 was entertained in an association 
 building which, with its neighboring and abandoned 
 predecessor is a conspicuous illustration of the evo- 
 lution here described. 
 
 (5) On Various Features of Local Work 
 
 In addition to the four features already enumer- 
 ated there has been a corresponding specialization 
 on various departments of local association work: 
 On the physical department, in the training of its 
 employed officers, the equipment of the depart- 
 ment, and in the formation of the Athletic League ; 
 On the educational department, resulting in higher 
 educational achievement through international ex- 
 aminations and in other ways, including the contri- 
 bution, since 1883, of the association exhibit as an 
 educational agency of the conventions ; On the re- 
 ligious work, resulting in better organized and more 
 fruitful evangelistic work, and in a steady develop- 
 
 86 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 ment of Bible study and Bible classes ; On the boys' 
 department, securing better equipment, committees 
 of management, boys' secretaries and some boys' 
 buildings. 
 
 (6) On Work among Various Classes of Young 
 Men 
 
 No association development has been more de- 
 pendent upon vigilant supervision than the growth 
 of associations or departments or branches com- 
 posed entirely of members from special classes of 
 young men. Through this supervision steady pro- 
 gress has been achieved among railroad men, stu- 
 dents, Negro and Indian young men, soldiers and 
 sailors, miners, lumbermen and young men of other 
 industrial classes. 
 
 (7) Evolution and Preponderance of State and 
 Provincial Supervision 
 
 Accompanying the specialization already enumer- 
 ated has been an inductive and comparative study 
 of the state and provincial organizations. These 
 were formed and fostered on the basis of the expe- 
 rience of the international. Competent state secre- 
 taries were sought. Experiment slowly discovered 
 the conditions of successful state work. On the 
 floor of the international convention these experi- 
 ences were compared. Diligent effort by the inter- 
 national and other federation workers made the best 
 experience of the best state, provincial, metropolitan 
 and county organizations the property of all. 
 
 In all this specialization by the federation agencies, 
 
 87 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 though the international organization was first in the 
 field as the founder and fosterer of the state organi- 
 zation, still the majority of supervision passes inev- 
 itably to the state and provincial organizations. 
 Most of the lines of specialization already enumer- 
 ated have been followed by the state organizations, 
 each according to its resources. But, with the 
 growth of the whole brotherhood and its work, the 
 international work must also increase, at a steady 
 though less rapid pace. For experience has shown 
 that to most if not all lines of supervision the 
 international agency seems to have a permanent 
 and helpful relation supplemental to and cooperative 
 with that of the state and provincial. This is occa- 
 sioned in the very nature of things by the value of 
 an international outlook over the whole field in the 
 development of every phase of association work. 
 The local association demands the direct benefit of 
 this international outlook and is justly entitled to it. 
 But the aggregate of state and provincial super- 
 vision, when its resources are fully developed, must 
 exceed more and more the total of international 
 supervision. Each is, in the nature of the case, 
 necessary to the highest usefulness of the other, and 
 both should be humble servants and direct helpers 
 of local associations, for the welfare of which they 
 both exist. 
 
 S3 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 Expenditures for (1) International (2) State 
 and Provincial Work 
 
 1 S7A J $ 14 < 500 
 
 Ib/b-j 16,700-^— 
 
 1 qqc 3 $ 38,000 -" — -■ ~™ - ~"~ — - 
 J-oOO ) 39,000 — ^_ 
 
 1896] f affl 
 
 General RR., stu., 
 
 work colored 
 
 i897| $ iS;SS 
 
 1 qoq J $163,733 
 loyO) 133,310 
 
 1899 {SSSS 
 
 1900 1*!| : |? 
 
 1901 \*%& 
 1903 j $ !S 
 
 General RR., stu., Army 
 
 work colored and Navy 
 
 General Jub. RR., stu., Army 
 
 work Conv. colored and Navy 
 
 General RR, stu., Army 
 
 work colored and Navy 
 
 General RR., stu., Army 
 
 work col., indus. and Navy 
 
 These figures indicate the steady increase during 
 twenty-seven years of the work of association super- 
 vision in North America. The resources of the In- 
 ternational Committee enabled it in 1904 to maintain 
 on this field forty-five employed officers while thirty 
 of the thirty- two State and Provincial Committees 
 employed eighty- four. But ten of these committees 
 employ only one secretary, nine employ two, ten 
 
 89 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 between three and six and one seven. This uneven 
 distribution of state and provincial secretaries em- 
 phasizes an important part of the work of inter- 
 national supervision in its relation of cooperation 
 with the State and Provincial Committees. 
 
 The steady increase of supervision, though not yet 
 commensurate with the need of the entire brother- 
 hood, has been attended with such benefit to the 
 associations that in their successive conventions — in- 
 ternational, state and provincial — they have year by 
 year reviewed the work, and enthusiastically voted 
 its continuance. 
 
 (8) Specialization within the International Or- 
 ganization and Work 
 
 To accomplish effective work on these varied lines 
 of association growth, state, local and departmental, 
 it was necessary for the parent federation agency to 
 specialize upon itself and its own work, and it was 
 equally necessary for its children, the state and pro- 
 vincial conventions, to make the same endeavor. 
 
 a. In the convention program and topics, empha- 
 sis was laid in the early international conventions 
 upon those details of local work which a review of 
 the whole field pointed out as most needed. In the 
 beginning it was both work for young men and such 
 other work as the best association public opinion ap- 
 proved. In the second period topics relating to 
 work for young men were more fully discussed. 
 
 Beginning in 1871 special stress was laid upon 
 the Bible topic. One full session was devoted to 
 
 90 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 this subject from convention to convention and 
 decade to decade, with decided effect upon the Bible 
 work of the associations. 
 
 Then as the state organizations grew in number 
 and influence, the different phases of state work 
 were discussed on the platform of the international 
 convention, while the more frequent and numerous 
 state conventions undertook topics relating to the 
 details and development of the local association 
 work. 
 
 As the work intrusted to the Committee increased 
 in size and importance, and departments and secre- 
 taries were added, the international work itself 
 became the theme of discussion, and the field, stu- 
 dent, railroad, German, colored, army and navy, 
 and boys' departments were in turn presented. 
 
 b. In the beginning the Committee expected 
 from international secretaries chiefly study of the 
 association work, both local and state, as a unit. 
 But as the work was distributed into sharply defined 
 organizations of special classes of young men, quali- 
 fied secretaries were sought and trained to specialize 
 on work for each class. Later, as departments 
 within the individual associations were differen- 
 tiated, for each of these departments international 
 secretaries were obtained. To field secretaries of 
 the International Committee were gradually assigned 
 various sections of the country, each secretary re- 
 siding in a convenient city of the section assigned 
 to him. From the beginning the senior secretary 
 of the Committee, Mr. Weidensall, was occupied 
 
 91 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 chiefly, but not exclusively, at the West. But since 
 1889, under the leadership of Charles K. Ober, a 
 more systematic distribution of field secretaries to 
 different sections of the country has been success- 
 fully accomplished. 
 
 c. In further specialization and to facilitate the 
 administration of its work, the Committee began to 
 distribute its own members into subcommittees as 
 early as 1884, each subcommittee having in charge 
 the secretary or secretaries at work in its depart- 
 ment. This arrangement has caused a wise distribu- 
 tion and concentration within the membership of 
 the Committee, promoting also the efficiency of 
 each subcommittee and secretary. 
 
 The latest distribution to subcommittees was re- 
 ported to the convention of 1904. It was occasioned 
 by the growth of the work on the foreign mission 
 field and involved the establishment of a foreign work 
 department coordinate with the home work depart- 
 ment and administered through a group of subcom- 
 mittees. 
 
 d. In this distribution of responsibility it became 
 necessary to make some division of the work of 
 oversight intrusted to the general secretary and two 
 associates were assigned to him, one, C. J. Hicks, 
 in the administration of the home and another, 
 John R. Mott, in the administration of the foreign 
 field. 
 
 92 
 
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 RELICIOUS 
 
 ARMY 
 
 AMO 
 
 NAVY 
 
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 BIBLE STUDY 
 
 Aflt> 
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 ASSOCIATION 
 MEN 
 
 Business 
 
 Ano 
 
 finance 
 
 OFFICE 
 
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 office tor) 
 
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 LATIM 
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 SOUTHERN 
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 EASTERN 
 ASIA 
 
 
 
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 MISSV DEV"T 
 IN AM. ASS. 
 
 
 
 
 
 FINANCE 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 (9) Financial Support of Federation work — the 
 Federation Tenth 
 
 a. All must agree that the federation work neces- 
 sarily depends upon adequate financial support for 
 existence and development. How shall the money 
 be secured to sustain it? This has always been a 
 question of prime importance. During the first 
 twenty years, while the expenses were comparatively 
 small, solicitation at the international conventions 
 and the sums pledged and secured by the delegates 
 proved sufficient. 
 
 But thirty years ago, the work of federation, 
 international, state and provincial, began to call for 
 ten per cent of the total aggregate expenditure for 
 association work in North America. While this ex- 
 penditure of what might be called the federation 
 tenth was found to be wise and desirable, only a small 
 fraction of the sum needed could be expected from 
 the conventions and their delegates. Each conven- 
 tion, therefore, after approving the work reported 
 and the work proposed, authorized the expense in- 
 volved up to a sum always definitely named but never 
 definitely pledged at the convention. The problem 
 of securing the needed balance was therefore re- 
 ferred to the International Committee and later by 
 the state and provincial conventions to their Com- 
 mittees to work out its solution, for convention 
 authorization of the work was always conditioned on 
 the securing by the convention's committee of this 
 balance. 
 
 94 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 By patient and persistent endeavor, a constituenc 
 of donors was built up on the foundation of the con- 
 tributions made at the international convention. 
 Expenditure for the work upon the North American 
 field authorized by this convention steadily increased 
 from $14,500 in 1876 to $153,796 in 1903, and the 
 number of contributors from a few hundred to nearly 
 six thousand. 
 
 b. Such partial endowment of international and 
 state organizations as will give stability to their work 
 without impairing their substantial dependence upon 
 annual contributions has been secured by the Massa- 
 chusetts State Committee in the form of a state as- 
 sociation building in Boston, and by the International 
 Committee in the form of its jubilee fund of a 
 million dollars. Several other State Committees 
 have taken steps in the same direction. 
 
 When work upon the foreign mission field was 
 authorized by the convention of 1889 similar condi- 
 tions as to expenditure for this work were pre- 
 scribed, with instruction to create a separate treasury. 
 Steadily this expenditure has increased from $3,600 
 in 1889, to $87,320 in 1903. 
 
 Upon similar lines of authorization by state and 
 provincial conventions and solicitation by their Com- 
 mittees, often assisted by international secretaries, 
 the expenses of state and provincial supervision 
 have steadily increased from $16,700 in 1876 to 
 $185,990 in 1903. In this as in all other convention 
 methods the financial experience of the International 
 Committee has carried suggestion to the state con- 
 
 95 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 ventions and has been still further tested and modi- 
 fied in the crucible of their experience. 
 
 It would be a great relief and release for Interna- 
 tional, State and Provincial Committees if this money 
 and percentage were provided by the various con- 
 ventions or by direct contributions from the treas- 
 uries of the associations. But on the contrary, 
 associations and conventions have agreed in saying 
 to International and State Committees : " You must 
 engage in the same struggle for financial existence 
 that we are ourselves compelled to engage in. We 
 will give you what approval, authorization and other 
 help we can, but the bulk of your support you must 
 first deserve and then seek diligently for the money 
 you need from those whom you can cause to see 
 and acknowledge that you deserve it from them " 
 Whatever can be said against it, one thing can 
 certainly be said in favor of this method : It has 
 caused the federation work of supervision in all its 
 varied phases to stand upon its merits and has made 
 its growth dependent upon its good behavior. 
 
 (2) Main Objective of all Federation Work 
 
 But the main objective of federation supervision is 
 not to build up itself. Self-preservation and self -im- 
 provement have indeed been necessary to its highest 
 efficiency. But it is true to itself and its mission only 
 when its chief objective is to build up and increase 
 on its field the number and efficiency of independent, 
 growing local associations of many classes of young 
 men. This growth in the number of strong associa- 
 
 96 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 tions and in the strength of each has been steadily- 
 realized during the fifty years of federation. The 
 supervisory agencies have grown steadily, but not 
 so steadily and rapidly as the local associations. In 
 striking illustration of such comparative growth, 
 contrast the employed force and annual expenditure 
 of the International Committee and that of the New 
 York City association, located in only two boroughs 
 of Greater New York. During all these fifty years 
 from decade to decade the annual expenditure of 
 this one principal city association and the number 
 of its employed officers have exceeded the com- 
 bined annual expenditure and secretarial force of 
 the International and the New York State Com- 
 mittees, even when to the expenditure and force of 
 international secretaries on the home field, are 
 added the expenses on the foreign field with its 
 thirty-five secretaries. The endowment of this one 
 local association is nearly threefold that of the In- 
 ternational and New York State Committees. This 
 comparison takes no account of the expenses and 
 endowment of the association in Brooklyn, which is 
 a part of Greater New York. This comparison 
 seems the more remarkable in view of the fact that 
 a very large percentage of the support of both the 
 international and the New York state work has come 
 from the friends of this supervisory work in these 
 two boroughs of New York City. Here, if anywhere, 
 therefore, the support of federation work might have 
 proved a check upon local association development. 
 It should also be noted in this connection that rela- 
 
 97 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 tively to other city associations the New York asso- 
 ciation has successfully maintained that leadership 
 of them all to which it is justly entitled by the fact of 
 its location in the chief metropolis of the continent. 
 
 Not a few strong city associations owe their 
 present strength to timely help from the federation 
 agencies in the crises of their history. In these 
 times of need the better experience of stronger asso- 
 ciations has been so applied to their case that their 
 present standing and efficiency have resulted. 
 
 In the beginning there was apprehension lest 
 federation might mean not unselfish help and 
 strengthening of local associations, but centraliza- 
 tion and building up the federation agency at the 
 expense of the local associations. To this apprehen- 
 sion further consideration should now be given. 
 
 98 
 
CHAPTER VII. CONCERNING CENTRALI- 
 ZATION 
 
 Advisory Relation of Federation Agencies. 
 Their Lack of Legal or Governmental Power 
 or Control. Superior Resources of Individual 
 Local Associations. 
 
 In the growth and influence of federation agen- 
 cies has this dangerous centralization been created? 
 Some have apprehended this, but there is no sufficient 
 evidence that any such centralization or imperialism 
 really exists. 
 
 The relation of the federation committees to 
 all but a small number of the individual as- 
 sociations is only advisory.* It is not in any sense 
 compulsory. At each recurring convention the 
 whole business of the International or State Com- 
 mittee is open, and every convention in its turn has 
 the right and power to issue peremptory instructions 
 and to elect a quota of the members of the Committee. 
 
 A group of Christian young men in any place is 
 free to organize an association. They are not 
 obliged to solicit aid from a State or International 
 Committee. No association has need of a charter 
 from the convention or its Committee, nor is any as- 
 sociation obliged to send delegates to an international 
 or state convention ; neither has any convention any 
 
 *Polity of Young Men's Christian Associations, page 34. 
 
 99 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 power over the local association. It is indeed the 
 duty of the International Committee to invite all such 
 organizations as are Young Men's Christian Associa- 
 tions within the definition fixed by the convention 
 to send delegates. But neither convention nor com- 
 mittee has power in respect to delegates, save the 
 power of determining whether an association is with- 
 in the definition and the number of delegates to 
 which it is entitled. 
 
 As a matter of constitutional law it is not possible 
 for the International or State Committee, as now 
 constituted, or the secretaries of either to accom- 
 plish a centralization by virtue of which governmen- 
 tal power or control is exercised; but " Two of the 
 things which constitute power, morally speaking," 
 it has been correctly said, ''inhere in the work of 
 these federation committees. (1) The power which 
 comes from effective administration, which, as long 
 as it is honest and successful, will have the influence 
 which comes from such work ; and (2) the possession 
 and use of money in administration, with the ability 
 to deserve and collect it from those who give it vol- 
 untarily for the work. But the apprehension about 
 centralization seems to rest upon the assumption 
 that the federation agencies have more than this in- 
 fluence and possess power as the Congress of the 
 United States has power. The facts do not justify 
 this assumption. " 
 
 From another point of view it has been remarked 
 that the dependence of these committees upon their 
 good behavior and good work is apparent: "The in- 
 
 ioo 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 come roll of the agencies of supervision shows that a 
 very large portion of the money comes from a cer- 
 tain number of donors who are in a personal relation 
 to the Committees, and whose subscriptions are se- 
 cured by them only because their work commends 
 it to their benevolent sympathy. Let the work fail 
 to do this and its influence or so-called power is 
 gone." 
 
 This apprehension also disappears when the growth 
 of the federation agencies is compared, as already 
 suggested, with the greater development of the local 
 organizations. The permanent property of the local 
 associations in the two principal cities, New York 
 and Chicago, amounts to over three millions in one 
 and over two millions in the other city. The growth 
 in membership and usefulness has also been far be- 
 yond what in the beginning was anticipated. So 
 that, as already stated, the resources and annual ex- 
 penditure of the New York association alone — not 
 including that of Brooklyn — exceeds the combined 
 expenditure of the international and New York state 
 organizations. Similar association growth has been 
 realized in other large cities, including those in which 
 the metropolitan organizations are located. This 
 growth has been attended by great increase of in- 
 fluence and power to benefit young men, and in its 
 turn has excited an apprehension and criticism from 
 an ecclesiastical point of view not unlike the fear 
 concerning centralization to which reference has 
 been made. Some who are solicitous for the in- 
 terests of the churches have discerned in the growth 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 of these large city associations a dangerous ten- 
 dency to draw from the support and influence of the 
 churches. But intelligent friends of both church and 
 association agree that the growing strength and in- 
 fluence of these city associations do not menace but 
 aggrandize the churches and add to their constitu- 
 ency. The tendency is not dangerous because the 
 growing influence of these city associations — their 
 power to bestow benefit upon young men — is bene- 
 ficial to church and community. A similar conclu- 
 sion concerning the growth of the international and 
 state organizations is justified by the fact that this 
 growth results from decade to decade in increasing 
 the number and developing the strength and effi- 
 ciency of the local associations, without interfering 
 with their independence. 
 
 I02 
 
CHAPTER VIII. THE VALUE OF ASSO- 
 CIATION FEDERATION 
 
 Shown by the Many Transient Features of the 
 Local Associations, by the Price PaiD for Su- 
 pervision AND BY THE GROWTH OF CONVENTIONS 
 
 and Conferences. The Influence and Results 
 of International Conventions. 
 
 This outlook over the half century makes deep 
 impression of the value of federation work. 
 
 1. The transiency of many features of the indi- 
 vidual associations emphasizes the value of this su- 
 pervision and constitutes a strong reason for its 
 exercise. 
 
 (1) Consider how many transient elements exist 
 in the membership, management and working force 
 of the local organization. Absent yourself for six 
 months from the association building and you enter 
 it a comparative stranger. The member of a church 
 joins for his life. His family unite with him in 
 finding a home there. Even the member of a club, 
 while he does not bring his family to it, is a more 
 stable factor than the average young man who joins 
 the association as a working member, for the desti- 
 nation to which this young man is being ever pointed 
 by the association is the church, where he is always 
 welcomed and is eventually, in most cases, absorbed. 
 In the student associations the entire board of offi- 
 cers disappears at the end of each year and the 
 
 103 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 members all tarry for only the few years of student 
 life, graduating rapidly into the young manhood of 
 our cities and towns. 
 
 (2) A similar transiency has characterized the sec- 
 retaryship of most of the associations during the past 
 thirty years. A study of the membership of boards 
 of directors and working committees, where a more 
 stable element might be expected, reveals like 
 transient features. These facts emphasize the 
 necessity for the agency of supervision. 
 
 (3) The metropolitan organizations also consti- 
 tute a striking testimony to this need of supervision. 
 For their central boards and metropolitan secreta- 
 ries are simply the segregation to supervision of the 
 best and most experienced directors and secretaries 
 who can be commanded for the work in these city 
 centers. 
 
 Granted the fact of this transiency and the infer- 
 ence is justified that the very existence of the or- 
 ganization, and certainly its growth and develop- 
 ment, demand agencies of incessant and vigilant 
 supervision. When visitors from abroad and other 
 students of the associations are asked to account for 
 the leadership in resources and efficiency of the 
 North American brotherhood, a reply often given 
 by these friends is that this is due to the early for- 
 mation and steady growth of the international and 
 state agencies of supervision. 
 
 2. The price paid for federation effort in propor- 
 tion to the amount expended for the entire associa- 
 tion work in North America is another strong testi- 
 
 104 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 mony to the great value of federation effort. As 
 already stated, this has been nearly ten per cent of 
 the aggregate expenditure for association work on 
 this continent. It might be correctly termed the in- 
 dispensable federation tenth. 
 
 3. In conclusion, from the outlook of an inter- 
 national convention it is certainly appropriate to 
 point out as one of the most conspicuous testimonies 
 to the value of association federation the accelerat- 
 ing growth in number and helpful influence of as- 
 sociation conventions and conferences. Of all these 
 gatherings in North America the international con- 
 vention is the parent. It was also the forerunner 
 and promoted the origin of association conventions 
 on other continents. 
 
 (1) For the first twelve years (1854-1866) only 
 this one convention was held in North America and 
 it met ten times in these twelve years. 
 
 (2) In the next period of seventeen years (1866- 
 1883) the growth of the state and provincial organi- 
 zations was such that at its close twenty-five met 
 annually, so that some 300 state and provincial 
 meetings were held during the period, and these in 
 turn called together a much larger number of dis- 
 trict and other conferences. A secretaries' confer- 
 ence met annually in many states. College, rail- 
 road and colored men's conferences multiplied. 
 Thus conferences increased a hundred-fold in this 
 period. 
 
 (3) In the last period of twenty-one years, while 
 the international and a few state conventions have 
 
 105 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 become biennial, to all the above named meetings 
 have been added student summer schools, the con- 
 vention of the Student Volunteer Movement, group 
 conferences of secretaries of city and metropolitan 
 organizations and their environment, conferences in 
 the interests of Bible work, physical work, boys' 
 work and county work. 
 
 Federation life and activity, quickened by the agen- 
 cies of supervision and specialization, get ever in- 
 creasing expression in this great variety of meetings 
 in the interests of all departments of the work, and 
 these departments respond to such treatment by 
 growing in the quality and quantity of what they 
 accomplish. This is to be expected, for federation, 
 fraternity and brotherly supervision are modes of 
 obeying the second great commandment, " Love thy 
 neighbor as thyself ," and also the new command- 
 ment, uttered so repeatedly by our Lord in His 
 latest recorded words : " Love one another, as I have 
 loved you." 
 
 (4) It would be difficult to exaggerate the good 
 influence exerted by the international conventions. 
 Benefit from them has been realized throughout 
 the brotherhood. How many discouraged workers 
 have been cheered ! How many ignorant ones have 
 been instructed ! How many leaders for the home 
 work have been secured! How many donors to all 
 parts of the work have been enlisted ! How many 
 discussions at critical times have given wise direction 
 to association public sentiment, better form to asso- 
 ciation work, and timely check to undesirable ten- 
 
 106 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 dencies! Many conventions also are prominent as 
 revivalistic in their effect upon the communities 
 where they assemble. All have exerted blessed 
 evangelistic influence. The use of Sunday as the 
 final farewell day, when delegates are heard in all 
 the churches, in their own meeting for young 
 men and in the farewell service, has greatly contri- 
 buted to evangelistic results. Whatever drift of in- 
 dividual associations and individual workers away 
 from the association's central religious purpose may 
 have been detected, deplored or criticised, no one 
 could attend these conventions without feeling that 
 in them association federation provided a strong re- 
 ligious corrective, keeping warm and loyal the en- 
 thusiasm of the brotherhood for the promotion of its 
 central purpose. 
 
 Within the very sessions of this international con- 
 vention and its many children by the actual conver- 
 sion of young men has been incessantly fulfilled the 
 highest purpose of association work. This feature 
 alone has given to these meetings as an agency of 
 federation a value beyond estimate. At the close 
 of the first fifty years what most signalized the first 
 Jubilee Convention at Boston in 1901? The asso- 
 ciation exhibit, wonderful and thorough, conspicuous 
 and spectacular? Or the foreign delegation from 
 many lands and languages, with the presence and 
 greeting of the son of George Williams? Or the 
 able discussion of great themes concerning our 
 work and its progress? Was it not most characteris- 
 tically that great young men's meeting on the Lord's 
 
 107 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 day, in which scores were brought into the faith, 
 life and kingdom of Jesus Christ? That meeting 
 struck the note of happiest resemblance between the 
 Jubilee Convention and the long line of its prede- 
 cessors. 
 
 And in Buffalo at the second Jubilee Convention, 
 so different from the first in many respects, made 
 memorable by an unparalleled contention of opinion 
 as to methods of administration and equally by a 
 triumph of the spirit of brotherly fellowship, on the 
 closing farewell Lord's day the meeting for young 
 men was attended by over four thousand and was 
 followed by the same blessed results as were realized 
 at the Boston convention and its predecessors, giv- 
 ing fresh demonstration of loyal allegiance to Him 
 who is the bond of our fellowship, the goal of our 
 work, the inspirer of our enthusiasm, and whose 
 benediction and approval is the highest hope of all 
 our association endeavor. 
 
 108 
 
CHAPTER IX. SUMMARY 
 
 These fifty years of association cooperation in 
 North America have resulted in showing that : 
 
 1. Federation and its agencies have constituted 
 a strong international bond of fellowship and union 
 of effort between the associations ; and also 
 
 2. Have defined as the association objective a 
 work by young men for young men, maintaining 
 and developing this objective by fostering 
 
 (1) Each department of this all-round work, 
 physical and educational, social and religious; 
 
 (2) Leadership and control by laymen; 
 
 (3) Training and locating employed officers ; 
 
 (4) Planning and erecting association buildings ; 
 
 (5) Organizing young men of many classes to 
 seek each the welfare of the young men of its own 
 class. 
 
 (6) Fellowship with a world brotherhood 
 
 (a) Through a World's Conference and its 
 
 Committee, and 
 
 (b) By planting in non-Christian nations 
 
 associations with federation agencies 
 of their own. 
 
 3. While the main objective has been the growth 
 of the individual associations, successful effort has 
 been made to increase the efficiency of the federa- 
 tion agencies themselves : 
 
 (1) By wisely multiplying conventions and con- 
 ferences, state and provincial, district and county, 
 
 109 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 student and railroad, developing each group, de- 
 partment and branch; and by so developing the 
 state and provincial organizations that the aggre- 
 gate of their supervision now exceeds that of the 
 international on its home field. 
 
 (2) By providing for international, state and 
 provincial work an amount of money aggregating 
 ten per cent of the total expenditure for association 
 work. 
 
 4. Thus the North American associations in 
 bearing one another's burdens — the strong bearing 
 the infirmities of the weak — have so " fulfilled the 
 law of Christ" that they are in turn receiving ful- 
 fillment of the promise to those who obey this com- 
 mandment of brotherly fellowship. 
 
 These first fifty years of association federation 
 have justified the brightest hopes of the men who 
 came together half a century ago to constitute the 
 first convention. The good results they prayed for 
 have been gradually realized in a brotherhood of as- 
 sociations now stronger, more numerous and aggres- 
 sive in all lines of work for young men than ever be- 
 fore, and intelligently testifying to federation work 
 as one of the most influential factors in promoting 
 this marvelous progress. 
 
 Differences of opinion about methods exist — have 
 always existed, with more or less contention. But 
 the spirit of unity, through the divine presence and 
 help, has in every discussion steadily and invariably 
 prevailed. The achievements of the past are secure, 
 
First Fifty Years of Federation 
 
 wrought out by Him whose name the association 
 bears, and by whose blessing all has been accom- 
 plished. Invoking His continued favor and leader- 
 ship, depending on His forgiving love and the in- 
 dwelling might of His cooperation, seeking that 
 unity in Him which alone brings unity with one an- 
 other, we look forward to a second half-century of 
 federation, confident that its years will witness an 
 ever widening extension of the Kingdom of Christ 
 among young men at home and abroad, among all 
 classes and races, and upon every continent. 
 
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SUPPLEMENT 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM 
 
 The Early Story of the Confederation 'of 
 
 the North American Young 
 
 Men's Christian 
 
 Associations 
 
 By REV. WILLIAM CHAUNCY LANGDON, D. D. 
 
 From the Tear Book of 1888 
 
 For some weeks after our organization in Washington was 
 formed, on June 29, 1852, we were ourselves unaware that there 
 was, in the United States, any other Young Men's Christian 
 Association save only that of Boston ; and these associations 
 were all equally unaware of each other. In Boston alone was 
 it known that there had already been organized seven such so- 
 cieties. A visit to that city, early in August, brought the fact 
 to my knowledge. I wrote at once to the several secretaries of 
 all these societies; and, at a special meeting of our own asso- 
 ciation, held on September 14, 1852 — a meeting referred to in 
 my diary as " most interesting and animated" — I brought up a 
 plan for uniting the Young Men's Christian Associations of the 
 different cities in a fraternity, making us mutually members 
 of each other's association. This proposal caused "very much 
 discussion, but was finally referred to a select committee to be 
 appointed for that purpose and to revise the constitution." 
 
 Pending action in this matter, I wrote unofficially to the sec- 
 retary of the New York association, proposing that that society, 
 
Supplement 
 
 as the larger and more important, should take the lead in it, 
 but I received no reply. 
 
 At a meeting of our association, called for the purpose, on 
 October 18, 1852, the above committee on my proposition "in- 
 volving community of interest between ourselves and other 
 Young Men's Christian Associations," made a report which was 
 " submitted in the form of Section 5 to Article II," of our con- 
 stitution. This was adopted and formally incorporated into 
 our organic law, to the effect that "the members of all other 
 Young Men's Christian Associations, while transiently among 
 us, shall be entitled to all the privileges of this association, 
 eligibility to office and the right to vote only excepted." This 
 action was formally communicated to other societies as they 
 became known to us ; and it would seem that a provision, more 
 or less to the same effect, was soon afterwards embodied in the 
 constitutions of the Brooklyn, Portsmouth, N. H., and Lex- 
 ington, Ky., societies. 
 
 I was now withdrawn from all work for some weeks by serious 
 sickness. I next find a memorandum that at a committee 
 meeting on February 21, I suggested informally that we should 
 request the Rev. Dr. Clement M. Butler, rector of Trinity 
 Church, then about to visit Europe, to represent the association 
 at the anniversary of the London society in May, and also, 
 that we should try to get a meeting of delegates from the 
 American associations in New York, in the same month. The 
 first suggestion was shortly afterwards carried out and Dr. 
 Butler was commissioned accordingly. . . . 
 
 At the quarterly meeting of the Washington association, in 
 April, I presented a report of my work as corresponding secre- 
 tary, giving my earliest account of the associations, of which 
 so far as then known, there were eleven. 
 
 On the twenty-eighth of May, I received a letter from Mr. 
 Shipton, the secretary of the London Association, in reply to 
 my own by Dr. Butler — and accompanied by the eighth annual 
 report of that society and by other documents. These, and 
 a report from Dr. Butler himself shortly afterwards, threw 
 much light upon the subject of our aims and methods, and 
 
Supplement 
 
 filled me at once with new ideas. Among these was a project 
 for a publication, as the channel for the interchange of infor- 
 mation between the societies, through which they might 
 severally be profited by each other's experience. This project 
 furnished me with a new point of departure. The scheme of 
 this journal was deliberately considered, elaborately wrought 
 out, reported on and matured so far as the Washington society 
 was concerned. In this document — my original draft of which 
 now lies before me — the project is commended to the associa- 
 tions on the explicit ground that it would "tend, by bringing 
 each isolated society into one vast cooperating system, to add 
 to the strength and efficiency of every branch of the united 
 work." This report was, in July, unanimously adopted by our 
 association, but, in accordance with its own proposal, action on 
 it was postponed until we should learn to what extent other 
 societies would cooperate with us in sustaining it. 
 
 In the meantime, therefore, I sought opportunities of bring- 
 ing both the scheme of this journal and the larger subject of a 
 convention to consider the whole question of the interrelations 
 of the associations before some of these in person. Within a 
 fortnight I was able to secure such an opportunity in Baltimore, 
 in New York, and in Boston. In Boston and Baltimore noth- 
 ing came of my visits or of my arguments ; the subject was 
 dropped without action of any kind. In New York, the presi- 
 dent, Professor Howard Crosby, courteously presented me to a 
 meeting of the association, where I had the fullest opportunity 
 of submitting my plea, after which he presented as frankly his 
 objections to any such plans, certainly to the project of a con- 
 federation. These objections are given on page xvi. The as- 
 sociation formally declined to give us the cooperation we asked, 
 and no further steps were taken by the Washington society in 
 respect to the journal. In fact, the report on the subject was 
 not even published. 
 
 But, at the quarterly meeting of October 17, 1853, I tried an- 
 other line of approach. This meeting seems to have been ex- 
 ceptionally large, divers ministers being present and taking 
 part. On this occasion I read an unusually full report. I was 
 
 iii 
 
Supplement 
 
 now in correspondence with eighteen of twenty-six American 
 associations, and, indeed, in consequence of the extent of this 
 correspondence, I had printed a circular letter containing such 
 matter as would be common to all such communications. In 
 this report I gave some details of the work in the larger and 
 older societies, and cited some lessons taught by their ex- 
 perience. I also gave some account of the working of our in- 
 stitution in Great Britain and on the European Continent, with 
 some attempt to analyze the characteristics of its influence in 
 different countries. The paper closed with an argument, alike 
 from the needs of the American societies and from the exam- 
 ple of those in Europe, for some definite relations — some al- 
 liance between the former. 
 
 I now threw myself anew into my correspondence, with a 
 view to the annual meeting of January 16, 1854. The hall of 
 the Smithsonian Institute was crowded at that meeting, for 
 Bishop Alonzo Potter, of Pennsylvania, was to make the annual 
 address. I laid before the association at that time, a greatly 
 condensed summary of my annual report, which was printed 
 in the National Intelligeiicer. The report itself was the 
 fullest and most detailed which, up to that date, had been any- 
 where prepared of the institution in all parts of both Europe 
 and America. There were then 230 associations in all known 
 to me. As subsequently published in the Washington annual 
 report for 1853, it was corrected up to May 8, 1854, and supple- 
 mented with long notes and quotations ; and it now remains, 1 
 presume, a substantially reliable statement of what the asso- 
 ciations were at that early date. In this paper I discussed anew 
 the questions of an American Confederation ; and encouraged 
 by the reception which the two reports met as well out of as 
 within our own society, I, for the fourth time, approached the 
 associations of New York and Boston, in the hope that, although 
 unwilling either to act alone, they might consent — one or both 
 of them — to act with the Washington society, in inviting a 
 convention. This proposal also the New York society declined, 
 and no reply was for some time received from Boston. 
 
 About the same time, the Washington association first fur- 
 
Supplement 
 
 nished its members with membership tickets, which should at- 
 test their character as such to any other societies who would 
 honor such a claim. 
 
 I now addressed myself to Buffalo and Cincinnati ; and had 
 just decided to ask the board of managers for authority to act 
 alone, when I received a reply from Buffalo, cordially authoriz- 
 ing the use of the name of their secretary, and also inviting 
 the proposed convention to be held in that city. A circular was 
 in consequence issued at once under the signature of Mr. Oscar 
 Cobb and myself ; and it had scarcely been published, when I 
 received authority from the Boston society to make a like use 
 of the name of their secretary, Mr. Jenks. The original circu- 
 lar was issued under date of February 28, 1854, and was ad- 
 dressed to thirty-two associations The supplemental circular, 
 associating the Boston society in this proposal with those of 
 Buffalo and Washington, bore date March 2. Soon after this 
 I also heard from both Cincinnati and St. Louis, in cordial con- 
 currence with this proposal, even before those societies could 
 have received our circular. It was evident that, however in- 
 disposed the larger eastern associations, those of the west were 
 entirely in accord with that of Washington upon this sub- 
 ject. 
 
 I now began, for the first time, clearly to understand, there 
 were two classes of difficulties obstructing the scheme of a con- 
 vention and a confederation. The first were those which grew 
 out of the question of the resultant relations of the associations 
 themselves. Some of the larger societies feared that any such 
 relations would expose them to the control of a majority of the 
 smaller associations, which would seriously interfere with their 
 local efficiency ; or, if the English idea were adopted, and one 
 association was recognized as metropolitan, all the others being 
 regarded as branches of that one, that the association at Wash- 
 ington would claim such a preeminence. Many of the smaller 
 societies, on the contrary, had the fear that, under such a 
 scheme, they would be reduced to the position of branches, or 
 at all events would be dominated by the greater societies, 
 probably by that in New York. 
 
Supplement 
 
 There were also difficulties which grew directly out of the 
 state of the slavery question. Some of the northern societies 
 were not willing to enter into any relations with those of the 
 south, at least not without making their protest on that subject, 
 and others preferred to discourage any such relations or, cer- 
 tainly, to hold aloof themselves, in the assurance that it would 
 be impossible to prevent trouble and angry disintegration 
 from that cause. Upon this latter point, Prof. Crosby laid 
 emphasis, and this was the ground of the objections felt in 
 Baltimore. 
 
 The whole scheme was, at least in its outlines, already 
 too clearly defined to me to leave me any anxiety on these 
 grounds. 
 
 As for the slavery question, I saw no reason to think -that 
 the subject need give to the associations unitedly any more 
 trouble than it had already made for us in Washington, where 
 we had been entirely able to control it. 
 
 By the twelfth of April I had received twenty replies to our 
 circular ; of these, sixteen were in favor of holding a convention, 
 while the other four, though not advising it, would, if it should 
 be held, probably send delegates. The majority of the sixteen 
 concurred in selecting Buffalo as the place of meeting. On that 
 day, therefore, another circular was issued, announcing these 
 results, and inviting the assembly of delegates from the asso- 
 ciations, on June 7, "to confer relative to the formation of an 
 alliance ; to secure such uniformity of organization and action 
 as may be thought desirable, and to consider such other 
 questions as may arise in connection therewith," at Buffalo. 
 
 The Washington association at once elected five delegates, 
 four of whom met to consider certain propositions, drawn up 
 by me as, in my judgment, obviating all the difficulties and ob- 
 jections which had been urged against the plan of a confede- 
 ration. Of these they heartily approved, and it was agreed that 
 they should be printed and submitted beforehand to the several 
 associations which would probably be represented at the con- 
 vention, as a statement of the proposal which would there be 
 made by the Washington delegation. This was done in a 
 
 vi 
 
Supplement 
 
 special circular, dated April 16. With this step the Washing- 
 ton initiative was closed. ... * 
 
 The adjournment of the Buffalo convention virtually remitted 
 into the hands of the Central Committee — and, indeed, largely 
 into my own, for I was at once chosen the general secretary of 
 that Committee — the task of securing the results of its work 
 and of organizing the proposed Confederation. In this I was 
 from the first earnestly sustained by Mr. Neff, of Cincinnati, — 
 to whose moral support as well as to whose active cooperation I 
 was constantly indebted. 
 
 The Cincinnati society was the first to ratify — on June 12 — the 
 Buffalo resolutions. One week later, the Washington and St. 
 Louis societies unanimously took the same action. 
 
 On June 26, the Central Committee met, organized and au- 
 thorized the issue of Circular No. 1, which I had already drafted, 
 officially announcing to all the associations of the United States 
 and British Provinces, the results of the Buffalo convention, 
 and inviting action thereon. 
 
 This announcement was variously received. On July 18, I 
 wrote to Mr. Neff, that the Pittsburgh, Buffalo and Louisville 
 associations had taken favorable action, but that the society in 
 Brooklyn had categorically declined to do so. About the same 
 time, moreover, the Independent came out in distinct and for- 
 mal condemnation of the whole scheme, and we learned, in- 
 formally, that this utterance was quite in accordance with the 
 feelings which prevailed in the New York society. Soon after 
 this, moreover, the Boston association disallowed the course 
 of its own delegates at Buffalo, and refused participation in the 
 Confederation, and of course by so doing vacated the place of 
 its representative on the Central Committee. 
 
 On August 14, the New York board of managers and a week 
 afterwards that association itself, met and discussed the sub- 
 ject of the Confederation, but without taking any action. A 
 few days later, Mr. Neff and I, meeting in New York, called 
 together upon some of the leading members of that society, and 
 
 *The substance of Dr. Langdon's account of the Buffalo convention 
 has been given in the body of the pamphlet and is therefore omitted here. 
 
Supplement 
 
 discussed the subject with them, but without any immediate 
 result. Referring to this conversation, Mr. Neff subsequently 
 wrote me: (Oct. 10.) " The association occupies so very respon- 
 sible a position, that all the efforts made to induce a ratification 
 by it, would seem to me to be very well directed. In conver- 
 sation with Mr. McCartee (the corresponding secretary) some 
 weeks since in New York, I suggested to him that, if the asso- 
 ciation would not ratify the plan of confederation in the lan- 
 guage adopted by the Buffalo convention — and to which they 
 are inclined to object as clothing the Central Committee with 
 too much power — that they should draw up a preamble and 
 resolutions of their own, which, with a trifling difference of 
 words, might bring them on the same platform. . . . They 
 object, particularly, to the name of the Committee — 'Central.' 
 Now. if you and the other members of the Committee at Wash- 
 ington can remove this impression, perhaps our object can be 
 attained." 
 
 By the latter part of August the report of the Buffalo con- 
 vention was published, thus placing in the hands of all the whole 
 story of the debate on the confederation. Early in September, 
 the Philadelphia association, itself organized since the Buffalo 
 convention, ratified its action at the first constitutional meeting. 
 On October 4, I reported, in addition to those already named, 
 the ratification of the societies in Toronto, New Orleans, and 
 Peoria, 111. , making ten in all ; but although to these were, soon 
 afterwards, added two or three more of the smaller societies, 
 it was now evident that about all had been attained that was to 
 be hoped for, as matters then stood. 
 
 A private letter had been received by me, some two months 
 before, from Mr. C. R. Brooke, corresponding secretary of the 
 Toronto association, urging upon the Central Committee some 
 provision equivalent to the resolution offered at Buffalo by the 
 Toronto delegate, Mr. Holland, with reference to the relation 
 of Christian slaves to the associations " as a principle which, 
 in our opinion, should be adopted as fundamental by any con- 
 federation of Young Men's Christian Associations." Indeed, 
 Mr. Brooke said that the Toronto society had ratified 
 
 viii 
 
Supplement 
 
 the Buffalo scheme only by a small majority, and ' ' in the 
 hope that when the Central Committee adopts a constitution, 
 some such principle will be proposed to the associations as a 
 test of their connection with one another." 
 
 At this day it would be very difficult for any one whose 
 memory does not antedate the war of 1861-65 to enter under- 
 standing^ into the views and feelings inevitably involved on 
 either side in such an issue. I instinctively felt that this was, 
 perhaps, the true crisis of the Confederation. The causes which 
 had obstructed the calling of a convention even to consider the 
 mutual relations of the associations, and which made so many 
 of them averse to recognize any formal relations at all, now 
 presented themselves from different directions and divested of 
 all side issues. I have already stated those causes. The Cana- 
 dian and probably some of the northern associations were now 
 unwilling that the Confederation should place them in what 
 they regarded as a false position in respect to the religious con- 
 sequences of slavery — for instance, Toronto and Providence. 
 The southern associations, on the other hand, were equally 
 sensitive about anything which would reflect on the Christian 
 principle with which they conformed to the social and political 
 conditions under which they were constituted and under which 
 alone, of course, they could do their work. Some of these, 
 therefore, were unwilling to expose themselves to having those 
 principles called in question, as for instance, Baltimore and 
 Charleston, and indeed, the association in New Orleans also, 
 whose ratification was based on their confidence in those who 
 had selected Mr. Helme to preside at the Buffalo convention and 
 who had suppressed the Holland resolution, an anti-slavery 
 declaration proposed at Buffalo. Still again, the New York 
 and very possibly other associations, shrunk from the Con- 
 federation as from an arena in which it would be impossible 
 to escape from harm and controversy from this cause. 
 
 To decide either way, therefore, on the issue involved in the 
 Toronto ratification would be in all probability to shutout some 
 important associations on the one side or on the other. To de- 
 cide at all would, irrespective of the character of that decision, 
 
Supplement 
 
 be an act equally unacceptable to those societies which were 
 jealous of any authority which should trespass upon their au- 
 tonomy. And yet it was necessary to dispose of this issue in 
 some way which would be effectual and final. 
 
 In the Washington society I had successfully resisted the 
 attempts of some of our southern members to involve that 
 body in this question and to commit it on one side. I felt little 
 doubt that the same thing could be done again for the Con- 
 federation, now that the danger came from the opposite direc- 
 tion. But the first suggestions of a way out of the dilemma 
 were made by Messrs. Brooke and McCartee. The former had 
 proposed that we should publish ' « a circular denning our posi- 
 tion," of course, on the relation of our associations to slaves. 
 The other, writing to me with reference simply to the local 
 jealousy of outside interference, expressed the belief that "a 
 judicious friendly course on the part of the Committee second- 
 ing the efforts of those in New York who favor the Confedera- 
 tion, might disarm those who seem over-prudent in the 
 matter." 
 
 I wrote, therefore, to Mr. McCartee, asking for his sugges- 
 tions. He promptly responded in a letter which is not now 
 before me, but to which I replied at once that his suggestions 
 were good. A meeting of the local members of the Central 
 Committee was held on November 9, when I laid before them 
 a draft of a circular drawn up in accordance, doubtless, with 
 Mr. McCartee's suggestions and, at the same time, with direct 
 reference to the issue brought before us by the Toronto society 
 and by Mr. Brooke's letter which Mr. McCartee did not have 
 in mind. I met the issue simply by showing that the Buffalo 
 resolutions did not provide for any other constitution than the 
 general principles which they themselves set forth ; and that 
 the Central Committee was not a governing function author- 
 ized to assume any control, but rather a creature of the con- 
 federated associations for certain definite and limited pur- 
 poses. 
 
 The draft being unanimously approved at this meeting, 
 was printed, and, proof copies were forwarded to Messrs. 
 
Supplement 
 
 McCartee, Helme and Neff, and by them instantly and equally 
 approved. Mr. Neff wrote : " Your inferences and deductions 
 are admirable and exactly express the ideas expressed and the 
 general feeling manifested at Buffalo, so far as I am able to 
 form an opinion." 
 
 This circular was issued November 18, 1854. At a meeting, 
 held on November 20, the New York association ratified the 
 proceedings of the Buffalo convention and identified itself, 
 thenceforth, with the Confederation. The Concord associa- 
 tion did the same, the same evening. This Circular No. 2 and 
 the consequent action of the New York association had a far- 
 spread influence ; and by the close of the year, twenty of the 
 necessary twenty-two ratifications had been received. Still 
 others followed in January; the associations in Charleston, 
 S. C, and San Francisco, both acting on the fifteenth of that 
 month, more than completing the required number, and from 
 that date bringing the Confederation into full operation. On 
 the twenty-seventh the important society in Montreal, the first 
 American scion of the London association, united with the 
 rest. On February 20, 1855, Circular No. 3 was issued, an- 
 nouncing the complete organization of the Confederation by 
 the action of twenty-five societies, which did not include San 
 Francisco, from which we had not then had time to hear. . . 
 
 That it had been my privilege to take a leading part in 
 bringing this about is, no doubt, true. Mr. Lowry of Cincin- 
 nati, was so good as to say, in 1877, that "without (my) per- 
 sistent efforts, the first convention would not have been 
 called;" but it is certainly as true, but that for Mr. Neff and 
 his colleagues of the Cincinnati delegation, my scheme of a 
 Confederation would not have survived that convention. As 
 Mr. McBurney says : ' ' To overcome such prejudices and ob- 
 jections (as yet remained) was no easy task;" and I did in- 
 deed "conduct the negotiations;" yet the ultimate success of 
 those negotiations and the first triumph of the plan matured 
 at Buffalo were largely due to the hearty cooperation of 
 Messrs. Neff and Helme, and, so far as New York was con- 
 cerned, of Mr. McCartee. 
 
Supplement 
 
 But as our several associations were, in my own concep- 
 tions from the first, but the local expressions of an inchoate 
 national institution — so even this was to me but a part of a 
 still larger scheme of international proportions. 
 
 The first suggestion of anything of the kind, of which I find 
 any private record, was in connection with the proposal made 
 in February, 1853, that the Rev. Dr. Butler should be re- 
 quested to represent the Washington association at the annual 
 breakfast of the London society — a suggestion which grew in 
 definiteness on the reception of Mr. Shipton's first letter in 
 May and the circulars from Geneva in August of the same 
 year. 
 
 To this thought 1 gave the first public expression in my first 
 annual report to the Washington association, or rather in the 
 brief summary of that report actually read at the meeting of 
 January 23, 1854. I there sketched in slight outline a scheme 
 of international correspondence, in which there should be a 
 center of information for every national group of associations, 
 each center being in direct correspondence with all others, 
 furnishing them on the one hand, with the digested and com- 
 pacted information from its own field; and distributing, in 
 turn, to the associations of its own national group the in- 
 formation it received. I have a clear impression that I had 
 already suggested something of this kind — and, I think, a 
 general conference as well — in my correspondence with Lon- 
 don, Geneva and Germany ; indeed, the language of this re- 
 port, and subsequent reference in my letters from abroad, 
 distinctly imply as much ; but of this I cannot now be positive. 
 So long, however, as it was quite uncertain whether the 
 American associations would be disposed to adopt any such 
 system of inter-relations among themselves, so long it would 
 certainly be premature to propose to them anything like inter- 
 national relations. 
 
 Among those members of the New York association who 
 more nearly shared my views on this subject, was Mr. Richard 
 C. McCormick, Jr., one of the vice presidents of that body. 
 In April, 1854, a few days after the issue of the call for the 
 
 xii 
 
Supplement 
 
 Buffalo convention, being about to visit Europe, this gentle- 
 man called on me in Washington, as well for information 
 about the foreign associations as also for letters of introduc- 
 tion, both of which I was glad to give him, and I took advan- 
 tage of the opportunity to talk with him very fully of my ideas 
 concerning the relations which might exist between them and 
 us. Mr. McCormick made an extensive tour, visiting the 
 associations in all parts of Great Britain, and in France, Ger- 
 many and Switzerland. He was, in fact, the first representa- 
 tive of our associations among those of the European 
 continent. During this tour he was so good as to charge him- 
 self for me with packages of reports and documents to a num- 
 ber of these associations. He was everywhere called to give 
 information, both privately and publicly, regarding the 
 American societies ; he wrote to me frequently and at length 
 of his own observations, at the same time collecting for me 
 documents of every kind, and prompting the foreign brethren 
 to write to me. 
 
 In October I had the pleasure of meeting a member of the 
 London association, with whom I find it noted in my diary 
 that " I had a long, long talk about international intercourse." 
 
 During this winter I received three long letters from M. 
 Henri Dunant, secretary of the Geneva association, welcoming 
 my suggestions most cordially. "We think," wrote he, "that 
 your idea of establishing a regular correspondence between 
 certain points, as centers for our associations, is excellent," and 
 he suggested what were the appropriate centers for such a cor- 
 respondence in the European organizations. 
 
 In January, 1855,1 wrote to Mr. Neff, ' ' Our system of foreign 
 correspondence is completed, so far as the European continent 
 goes. I have heard from Amsterdam, Ronsdorf , Paris, Geneva, 
 and Lausanne directly; and indirectly from Sweden, Italy and 
 Algiers." 
 
 My Paris letter, received in November, was from M. le Pas- 
 teur Cook, the president of the association in that city, and it 
 was principally in reference to a general or ecumenical con- 
 ference of all Young Men's Christian Associations, which the 
 
Supplement 
 
 London Committee had proposed, to be held in Paris, in the 
 summer following. For this conference our Central Committee 
 was asked to prepare a report on the American associations ; 
 in fact, the whole plan, so far as these were concerned, was put 
 into our hands. 
 
 The Washington members urged on Mr. Neff the preparation 
 of this report. He, in response, insisted that I should write 
 it ; and this matter rested undetermined, up to the time of our 
 Circular No. 3 — Feb. 20, 1855 — announcing the complete organi- 
 zation of the Confederation. 
 
 From this date, however, I resolved to withdraw from further 
 official work. My motives in all that I had so far done and 
 tried to do, had been severely characterized in certain societies 
 — especially in those of New York and New Orleans. How- 
 ever decided in his dissent from my policy, Prof. Crosby had, 
 of course, ever given expression to that dissent with entire 
 Christian courtesy. But, by others, it had been publicly 
 charged, at the very meeting at which the New York society 
 had ratified the Buffalo resolutions and since, that there was 
 little real object in my scheme but my own personal aim to 
 open an arena for my own ambition ; and this judgment, 
 accepted by some southerners then present, was afterwards 
 brought up against the plan and against me in New Orleans. 
 To Mr. Helme, in the same envelope with the above Circular 
 No. 3, I therefore wrote: " I have thought my continuance in 
 my position as general secretary was, perhaps, positively detri- 
 mental to our dear cause ; and that the removal of the Central 
 Committee from Washington, and that the appointment of 
 some one else as general secretary would free the Confedera- 
 tion from many most disagreeable and serious drawbacks upon 
 its unanimity and strength. Indeed, I desire to serve the cause 
 I have taken in hand; indeed, my dear brother, this is my 
 only wish. If it is well, I will labor while I can stand the 
 weight ; if it is best, let me withdraw from the active labor ; 
 still praying for it; most deeply regretting I have done so 
 little; but with all the heart to have done much more." 
 
 At the distance of thirty-three years, this seems a very trifling 
 
Supplement 
 
 incident. But it may help some one who has not yet learned, as 
 I had not then, that such harsh misjudgments and personal at- 
 tacks are the almost inevitable cost of a sincerely earnest attempt 
 to accomplish any public result, however good it may be in it- 
 self, if it be at the time unpopular or unappreciated by those 
 who oppose it. 
 
 My wish and purpose to retire from the Central Committee 
 were indeed earnestly resisted. The Cincinnati association 
 elected me an honorary member, as a mark of confidence. I 
 have now before me the affectionate letters of Messrs. Neff, 
 Helme and Lowry combating my intention. "I could not but 
 consider it," wrote the latter "fatal to the union of our asso- 
 ciations. No one has so clear an idea of the object to be gained 
 by such a union, and no one connected with it is so well quali- 
 fied to bring it into effective operation as yourself." 
 
 Almost concurrently with this, had also come a second letter 
 from Pastor Cook, of Paris, in reference to the proposed gen- 
 eral conference, in preparation for which, so far as the Ameri- 
 can associations were concerned, the dependence had been 
 placed on me. At the same time Mr. Neff visited me; and 
 while I was still convinced that the best interests of the asso- 
 ciations could now be more effectually promoted by other hands, 
 yet I consented to write the report for the Paris conference and 
 to retain the general secretaryship until the next convention, 
 on the understanding that the Central Committee should then 
 be removed from Washington, and I be permitted to retire from 
 official position and duty. 
 
 Indeed, in deference to the New York association, it was 
 proposed among ourselves that our next convention should be 
 held and the Central Committee be located in that city. I, 
 therefore, in March, wrote informally to Prof. Crosby, to learn 
 if this would be acceptable to them. My letter was, it seems, 
 laid before the society itself, and Prof. Crosby replied officially 
 that the New York association had "unanimously decided, in 
 full meeting, that we deem any convention inexpedient and de- 
 cline any connection with such. " Prof. Crosby added: "We 
 gave in our adhesion to the Central Committee, merely as to a 
 
Supplement 
 
 committee of correspondence, to cement the associations by 
 that proper means." 
 
 The reasons for their position, in which there were unques- 
 tionably much truth and force, were thus stated in this con- 
 nection : 
 
 "i. We believe conventions draw off attention from local 
 work, and our institution is emphatically local. 
 
 " 2. We believe they foster a centralizing spirit at war with 
 independent action. 
 
 "3. We believe they will tend to produce unpleasant scenes 
 and ruptures on such subjects as slavery. 
 
 1 ' 4. We believe the expense unauthorized by our main object. 
 
 "5. We believe fraternal feelings between the associations 
 may be better cultivated by correspondence and chance 
 visits." . . . 
 
 The following language was used in Circular No. 5, of July 
 10, 1855, by which the next convention was announced. 
 
 " It appears scarcely possible to make it 'plainer than it is, 
 that the confederated existence is intended, in no way, at no 
 time, under no circumstances, and in no relation, whether as a 
 convention or as a Central Committee, to advance upon the 
 local character of any association." .... "Upon this 
 limitation of their functions [the Central Committee has] had 
 occasion more than once to insist. [Its members,] as a Com- 
 mittee, have no authority to issue decrees, to assume positions, 
 or to express opinions on any abstract questions." 
 
 As the day of the convention drew near it was well under- 
 stood that the Washington association would insist on the re- 
 moval of the Central Committee to some other city, and that I 
 would wholly withdraw from the active charge of any work 
 for the Confederation. Not my immediate coworkers alone, 
 but others prominent in the associations, still deprecated in the 
 warmest language this decision. Mr. McCormick of New York, 
 for instance, was so kind as to write in such terms as these : 
 "Your great intimacy with the associations of this country, 
 your wide correspondence with those of other lands, and your 
 industrious and warm Christian spirit, combine to make you 
 
Supplement 
 
 eminently fit for the important position which you have held in 
 connection with the Confederation from the day of its organi- 
 zation, and which, I sincerely trust, that you will by no means 
 abandon." 
 
 There are, however, some instances in which he who lays 
 foundations cannot continue to build ; in which the personal an- 
 tagonism — whether deserved or undeserved — which is aroused 
 in the earlier work cannot but render it unwise for him to go 
 on. This was precisely such an instance ; and however grati- 
 fying to me such kind words as those I have just quoted, they 
 did not alter my own judgment that I had now done all that, 
 in the providence of God, had been given me to do in this 
 matter. 
 
 The convention met in Cincinnati on Wednesday, September 
 19, 1855. It was not much larger than the Buffalo convention, 
 little over fifty members being in attendance. There were, by 
 this time, in all, sixty associations in the United States and 
 Canada, of which thirty-six had united in the Confederation. 
 Seventeen associations had taken as yet no action on the sub- 
 ject, while seven had formally declined to do this, of which how- 
 ever, one at least — that of Brooklyn — afterwards united. Of 
 the thirty-six confederated associations, but twenty-two were 
 represented ; the convention being, indeed, very largely a west- 
 ern gathering. There was no one present from New England ; 
 no one from either New York or Philadelphia. Capt. Noble 
 of Kingston alone represented the Canadian brethren. The 
 fact was clearly illustrated that the opposition to the Confede- 
 ration was almost wholly eastern; in fact, the Washington, 
 Buffalo and Cincinnati associations alone were represented at 
 every convention from the first. 
 
 The Central Committee submitted to this body a formal re- 
 port of their official course, accompanied and illustrated both 
 by the report made to the Paris conference and by the five of- 
 ficial circulars which had been issued by them, and in which 
 the principles of the Confederation, as understood by the Com- 
 mittee, had been wrought into precise statements and formally 
 set forth as a polity. These documents, therefore, taken to- 
 
Supplement 
 
 gether, constituted an official exposition of the principles of the 
 Confederation ; and in their acceptance by the Cincinnati con- 
 vention that work was done, and those principles recognized 
 as constitutional. 
 
 Nor was even this all. Mr. Shipton, of London, wrote me, 
 under date of September 7: "I hope you are at Cincinnati, and 
 that you have there learned that your long unanswered (but 
 not neglected) letter to me had produced its result in the Paris 
 conference, and that your plan of correspondence was likely 
 to be carried out." During the convention there arrived, also, 
 an official letter from Pastor Cook, of Paris, giving an account 
 of the ecumenical conference held in that city, August 19-24 ; 
 of the reception of our report, and of the system of interna- 
 tional correspondence brought before that body, as mine, by 
 Pastor Cuenod, of Lausanne, then and there adopted, and pro- 
 posed to the different national groups of associations. 
 
 It was, undoubtedly, as a kind and brotherly acceptance of 
 this work and of these results, but it was due also to the per- 
 sonal strictures to which I had been subjected, that I was 
 chosen to preside over this convention. It was the warm and 
 even the indignant ratification of my official course and an ex- 
 pression of personal regard and confidence. As such I deeply 
 appreciated it then. As such, I gratefully recall now the cir- 
 cumstances under which I retired from the labor of over three 
 years, whose earlier results I was, even then, permitted to see 
 and of whose general acceptance by the whole body of the Amer- 
 ican associations I was afterwards permitted to know. . . . 
 
 The Cincinnati convention adopted, together with action on 
 other important matters, the system of international correspon- 
 dence originally suggested by me and set forth by the Paris 
 conference, and Mr. Rhees, as foreign secretary, furnished the 
 Quarterly Reporter with information from abroad, as far as 
 in his power. But it was soon found that the details of the plans 
 had not been sufficiently matured, so far, at least, as we were 
 concerned, and they remained to be afterwards perfected. . . 
 
 I went to Europe in January, 1857, and returned in the June 
 
Supplement 
 
 following. There is the less occasion for dwelling now on the 
 opportunities which I enjoyed of visiting the foreign associa- 
 tions — of conferring with the leaders of the movement in Great 
 Britain and on the continent, or of profiting by the lessons 
 taught us by this study — since all this was done pretty fully at 
 the time and left on record. 
 
 The range of the institution itself, at this epoch, may be 
 gathered from a very complete list published in the Quarterly 
 Reporter, for July, 1856, p. 22. In this same journal for April, 
 1857, p. 44, will be found a letter of mine from Paris; and in 
 that for July of the same year, p. 52, a fairly complete report of 
 my whole foreign experience, with a summary of the more im- 
 portant considerations suggested to me thereby. Moreover, in 
 the Reporter, for October, 1857, p. 60, I dwelt upon the greater 
 spirituality of the foreign associations as compared with our 
 own; in that for January, 1858, p. 8, on what was, at the time, 
 the very serious topic of " the uncertain and short tenure of 
 office" with us ; and in that for April, 1858, p. 47, on the greater 
 organic simplicity and homogeneity of the foreign societies. 
 In few respects have the associations of later days so greatly 
 improved upon their earlier traditions as in rejecting the false 
 principle of " rotation in office" on which many of us, at first, 
 laid much stress. 
 
 Referring to these pages it will suffice to say, here, that in 
 London, I attended a meeting of the association committee, the 
 Sunday afternoon Bible class and a devotional meeting; and I 
 also represented our associations at the annual breakfast of 
 that society in May. In France, I attended a meeting of the 
 "Conseil" of the National "Union," and saw much of the local 
 members in Paris, as well as in Nismes ; and I attended a meet- 
 ing of the Marseilles Union. In Prussia and Germany, I was 
 present at a large meeting in Berlin ; spent an evening with 
 the president, Pastor Hofmeyer ; obtained a glimpse of the so- 
 cieties of Leipzig and Frankfort ; learned something of that in 
 Heidelberg from the Chevelier Bunsen, and passed an evening 
 and night with Pastor Durselen, the president of the Rhenish 
 Union at Ronsdorf, in company with several others who came 
 
Supplement 
 
 to meet me. In Amsterdam, I attended meetings both of the 
 main society and of a branch among working men, in company 
 with Messrs. Bniyn and Heyblom. In Geneva, I was most 
 warmly received ; an excursion was made for me to the Mt. 
 Saleve, where I addressed a meeting of some forty members, 
 going on from thence to Lausanne, to do the same, with Messrs. 
 Dunant, Cuenod and Renevier. With all of these I arranged, 
 on behalf of our Central Committee, the details of a working 
 system of international correspondence. 
 
 Returning from the continent, I accepted a programme which 
 had been kindly prepared for me by Mr. Shipton, the London 
 secretary, and by which I was enabled to see, in a fortnight, 
 much more of the associations of Great Britain than would 
 have otherwise been possible. Beginning with Oxford, I vis- 
 ited Warwick and Leamington on my way north ; I addressed 
 a meeting of the association and attended a breakfast with 
 which I was honored in Edinburgh ; whence I went to Glasgow 
 and Belfast. From this point I attended and addressed a 
 meeting of a society, called to welcome me, on every evening 
 until I sailed, in Belfast, in Dublin, in Chester, in Manchester 
 and in Liverpool. At every one of these — but perhaps, es- 
 pecially, in Edinburgh, in Chester and in Liverpool — was the 
 greatest interest shown in the story and in the details of the 
 working of our general organization, and the purpose expressed 
 to aim at some similar plan for their own associations. 
 
 But, possibly, the most resultful incident of this whole tour 
 was one on which I laid, at the time, no special stress. 
 
 When in Berlin, in April, the American Minister, Governor 
 Vroom of New Jersey, invited a few gentlemen to meet me at 
 dinner. Among these was Mr. Peter Bayne of Edinburgh, 
 the successor of Hugh Miller in the editorship of the Edin- 
 burgh Witness, and since that time the eminent essayist. I 
 sat near him at table, and both then and afterwards had, to 
 quote my diary, "some talk on Christian Association affairs," 
 and afterwards, at his request, I accompanied him to his rooms, 
 and ' * continued the conversation till twelve. " He was specially 
 desirous of informing himself concerning the characteristics and 
 
Supplement 
 
 working of the American associations, and ' ' questioned me 
 closely about our plan of Confederation." Not long after this 
 there appeared in the Witness an admirable editorial from the 
 pen of Mr. Bayne on the subject of these associations, speak- 
 ing of them as aiming to ' « establish a Christian freemasonry 
 over Great Britain, America and the Continent," and frankly 
 giving the preference to the American polity, which he 
 thought, "might, with necessary modifications, be extended 
 to Europe." This article attracted much notice and was 
 widely copied. (It can be found in the Quarterly Reporter 
 for July, 1858, p. 77, and in large part, also in the Y. M. C. A. 
 Reporter for May, 1880.) It was largely in consequence of 
 this article, though in part, doubtless, of my own visits just 
 referred to, that steps were taken looking to some general or- 
 ganization of the associations of Great Britain, of which Mr. 
 Leyland thus wrote me : ' ' Ever since you were here, Brother 
 Shrubsole [of Chester], Giles [of Edinburgh], and I, have been 
 determined, with the Lord's help, to agitate, agitate, agitate 
 the conference question. When Giles was here, I took him 
 up to Chester, and we had a meeting of the three of us, and 
 prepared the outline of a circular to send to the branches. 
 . . . While these preliminaries were being gone through 
 I received a circular on the same subject, from the Leeds 
 branch, inviting a conference there this autumn. . . The 
 sequel is that the conference is to be held towards the end of 
 September." 
 
 The first conference of the British Young Men's Christian 
 Associations was held accordingly at Leeds, September 26-28, 
 1858. To this, at the request of the promoters, I sent, on be- 
 half of our own Central Committee, general information of 
 the value of the Confederation to us and suggestions, which, 
 together with the reply of the Leeds committee, was pub- 
 lished with the journal of the Troy convention, pp. 145-148. 
 The character, the proceedings, and the results of this Leeds 
 conference were reported and discussed by me in the Young 
 Men's Christian Jour 7ial for May and June, 1859, pp. 107 and 
 134. Without going further into detail, suffice it here to add 
 
Supplement 
 
 that the ultimate result was a general union of the British 
 associations about those of London, Edinburgh and Dublin 
 upon principles analogous to those of the American Confedera- 
 tion. This union was definitely perfected at a conference held 
 in London July 10-13, l8 59> at which Mr. Neff of Cincinnati 
 was the American representative. 
 
 It was, says Mr. Lowry, during " a season of comparative 
 inaction that the Richmond convention [of 1857] was held." 
 The machinery of the Confederation had reached its "dead 
 center." Those who had been drawn into the associations by 
 the interest of novelty were now cooling off, and some associa- 
 tions whose life was unreal ceased to exist. The work of this 
 convention — which scarcely represented more societies than 
 that of Buffalo and was numerically the weakest since that 
 time — was therefore one of moral recovery and restoration. 
 It was characterized by steady purpose ; it revised and greatly 
 improved the methods of the convention itself; it rearoused 
 flagging interest and brought the institution down to calm and 
 sober work ; so that by the time of the Charleston convention 
 (1858), the organization of the Confederation, in all its parts 
 and functions, had been about perfected. The only serious 
 question which then remained undetermined was that of the 
 exact sphere and purpose of those associations. 
 
 "The association men themselves," says Mr. McBurney, 
 "with few exceptions, did not (during this period) have a clear 
 understanding of the work of the Young Men's Christian As- 
 sociations." 
 
 The Cincinnati convention had provisionally accepted the 
 Paris Basis, which declared that these associations sought to 
 unite those young men, who desire to be the disciples of Christ, 
 "in their doctrine and in their life, and to associate their efforts 
 for the extension of His kingdom among young men." The 
 Montreal convention had formally declared this declaration 
 " engrafted upon our basis of Confederation." But the asso- 
 ciations had not, as yet, any settled American traditions, and 
 it is difficult now to realize how little effective meaning this 
 
Supplement 
 
 language had to most of us, or how thoroughly at sea were the 
 large proportion of our more active young men. Not only 
 were the very conventions inconsistent with themselves in this 
 matter, but this was quite as true of many of those who pressed 
 the adoption of the most restrictive resolutions — no less true 
 of me than of others. 
 
 [These closing sentences well describe the limitations of 
 association work in that early period — limitations which dis- 
 appeared with the steady growth of qualification among the 
 various classes of employed officers and with a corresponding 
 growth of adequate equipment in the form of buildings and 
 other appliances. R. C. M.] 
 
 xxin 
 
INDEX 
 
 American correspondence with Europe, ii, xii, xiii, xv, xviii- 
 
 xxii. 
 American promotion of first British conference, xxi. 
 American visitation in Europe, 32-35, 63, ii, xii, xix. 
 Army and navy work, 35-39, 68. 
 
 Bible study promoted by international conventions, 90. 
 
 Bowne, J. T., 31, 62. 
 
 Brainerd, Cephas, 30, 43, 84. 
 
 Branches, relation to international convention, 73. 
 
 Buildings, 48, 49, 62, 85. 
 
 Centralization, 99-102. 
 Confederation of associations : 
 
 Associations constituting it, 15. 
 
 Ended with Chicago convention, 1863, 39. 
 
 Formed by Buffalo convention, 1854, 10-15, vii-xi. 
 
 Langdon's story of, 31, i-xxiii. 
 Conferences multiplied, 105. 
 County work, 72, 73. 
 
 Day of prayer for young men, 42. 
 Dodge, William E., 47. 
 
 Evangelical test, 46. 
 
 Expenditure and finances: international and state, 88-90, 
 94-96, 104; local, 66, 70, 97, 101. 
 
 Federation agencies: advisory relation, 99-102; relationships, 
 
 53. 75-79; objective, 96-98; value, 103-108. 
 Federation, Christian, meaning and mission, 5. 
 Federation of associations, 6, i-xi; periods: first, 22, 23-39; 
 
 second, 22, 40-64; third, 22, 65-81. 
 Fermaud, Charles, 63. 
 Foreign work, 64, 80, 95. 
 
Index 
 
 General secretary: 
 Early leaders, 48. 
 Title first used, 15, adopted, 16. 
 Training and securing, 55, 59-62, 66, 67, 83. 
 Transiency, 104. 
 Secretaries' conferences, 54. 
 
 Hall, George A., 37, 48, 53. 
 Hicks, Clarence J., 67, 92. 
 
 International committee and its work : 
 Advisory relation, 99-102. 
 Agent, first, Robert Weidensall, 44, 73. 
 Agent, second, R. C. Morse ; later general secretary, 46. 
 Appointed at Buffalo convention, 1854, under title of central 
 
 committee, 13, 15. 
 Associate general secretaries, 92. 
 Chairman Cephas Brain erd, 43. 
 Continued in New York, 46. 
 Endowment fund, 95. 
 Expenditure, growth of, 88-90, 94-96, 104. 
 Incorporation and trustees, 65. 
 
 Located in New York by Albany convention, 1866, 42. 
 Location changed seven times, 1854-1865, 32. 
 Membership, 42, 56, 65, 66. 
 Objective, 96-98. 
 Organization, diagram of, 93. 
 Relation to state and provincial work, 75-79; to associations, 
 
 96-102. 
 Secretaries, 44, 46, 55-57, 62, 66, 67, 69, 91. 
 Southern visitation, 54. 
 Subcommittees, 92, 93. 
 Value, 103-105. 
 Various classes, work among, 56, 57, 67, 87. 
 
 International conventions : 
 1854, Buffalo, 7-16. 
 
 Associations represented, 9. 
 
Index 
 
 Central committee appointed, 13, 15. 
 Confederation formed, 10-15. 
 Delegates surviving in 1904, 9. 
 Langdon's promotion of, 7, i-vi. 
 Objections to, 8, v, vi. 
 Value and spirit, 12, 13. 
 
 1855, Cincinnati, 24, 25, xvii, xxii. 
 
 1856, Montreal, 25, 26. 
 
 1857, Richmond, 26, xxii. 
 
 1858, Charleston, 27, xxii. 
 
 1859, Troy, 27-30, 83, 
 
 True object of association discussed, 28-30. 
 
 1863, Chicago, 38. 
 
 1864, Boston, 39, 83. 
 1866, Albany, 40-42. 
 
 Concentration on work for young men, 41. 
 
 Convention committee localized in New York for three 
 years, 41. 
 
 Day of prayer for young men recommended, 42. 
 
 Quarterly magazine established, 42. 
 
 State and provincial conventions recommended, 41. 
 1869, Portland, 46, 47. 
 
 Evangelical test adopted, 46. 
 
 President, William E. Dodge, 47. 
 1873, Poughkeepsie, 50-52. 
 
 Two phases of state work discussed, 50-52. 
 1877, Louisville, 56, 57. 
 
 Conventions made biennial, 56. 
 
 Student work international secretary authorized, 57. 
 1879, Baltimore, 56, 59, 60. 
 
 "International committee" formally adopted as title, 
 56. 
 
 President, D. L. Moody ; his final views about associa- 
 tion work, 59, 60. 
 1883, Milwaukee, 65. 
 
 Incorporation of international committee approved, 
 65. 
 
Index 
 
 1885, Atlanta, and 1889, Philadelphia, 73. 
 
 Branches granted representation, 73. 
 1 891, Kansas City, 74. 
 
 Resolution passed on local association unity, 74. 
 1899, Grand Rapids, 75, 76. 
 
 Resolutions passed on relationships, 75, 76. 
 
 Committee of seven on relationships appointed, 76. 
 1901, Boston, 76, 107. 
 
 Committee on relationships enlarged to twenty-one, 76. 
 
 Men's evangelistic meeting, 107. 
 1904, Buffalo, 76-79. 
 
 Report of committee of twenty-one adopted, 76-79. 
 Bible study promoted, 90. 
 Influence and benefits, 32, 105-10S. 
 State work promoted, 41, 91. 
 
 Langdon, W. C, 7-17, 24, 28-31, 33, 34, i-xxii. 
 
 McBurney, Robert R., 43, 44, 48, 52, 73, 84. 
 
 McCormick, R. C, 33, xii, xvi. 
 
 Metropolitan organizations, 72, 73, 104. 
 
 Miller, H. Thane, 24, 45. 
 
 Moody, D. L., 37, 59-61. 
 
 Morse, R. C, 46. 
 
 Mott, John R., 67, 80, 92. 
 
 Neff, William H., 11, 12, 24-26, 34, vii-ix, xiv, xv, xxii. 
 
 Paris basis, 33, xxii. 
 
 Periodicals and publications, 42, 71, iii. 
 
 Secretarialism, 84, 85. 
 
 Secretarial training, 55, 59-62, 66, 67, 83. 
 
 Smyth, D. D., Thomas, book on associations, 1858, 19, 20. 
 
 State and provincial work : 
 
 Advisory relation, 99-102. 
 
 Conventions originally called by international committee, 45. 
 
 Discussed at international conventions, 41, 49-53, 75-79, 91. 
 
 Established by Albany international convention, 1866, 41. 
 
Index 
 
 Expenditure, growth of, 88-90, 94, 96, 104. 
 
 General evangelistic effort contrasted with exclusive work 
 
 for young men, 49-53. 
 Growth, 45, 53, 58, 66, 68, 69, 87-90, 94-96, 105. 
 Objective, 96-98. 
 Relation to international work, 53, 75-79; to associations, 
 
 96-102. 
 Value, 103-106. 
 Stokes, James, 63, 80. 
 Stuart, George H., 25, 36, 38. 
 Student volunteer movement, 80. 
 
 Student work: Wishard, L. D., first secretary, 57; later secre- 
 taries, 67; volunteer movement, 80; world's federation, 80. 
 Summary, 109-111. 
 
 Taggart, S. A., 51. 
 
 Training schools, 66. 
 
 Transient elements in local work, 103. 
 
 U. S. Christian commission, 36-38. 
 
 Weidensall, Robert, 44, 91. 
 
 Williams, George, 35, 107. 
 
 World's conference: American participation in, 7, 33, 63, 79; 
 
 world's committee appointed, 63. 
 World federation fostered, 32-35, 63, 79-81. 
 World's student Christian federation, 80. 
 
 Young Men's Christian association: 
 Associations constituting confederation, 15. 
 Branches, 73, 74, 78. 
 Buildings, 48, 49, 62, 85. 
 
 Concentration on work for young men, 41, 53, 82. 
 Evangelical test, 46. 
 Expenditure, growth of, 66, 70, 97, 101. 
 Independent, new associations, recognition of, 74, 78. 
 Internal development, 66, 67, 69, 86. 
 Lay control, 84, 85. 
 
 xxix 
 
Index 
 
 Metropolitan organization, 72, 73, 104. 
 
 Number organized in early years, 23, i, ii, iv, xvii. 
 
 Object of, 27-30, 41, 50-53, 82. 
 
 Relation to international and state committees, 75-79, 98. 
 
 Religious work dominant, 19, 107, 108. 
 
 Representation at Buffalo convention, 1854, 9. 
 
 Training and securing secretaries, 55, 59-62, 66, 67, 83. 
 
 Transient elements in, 103. 
 
 Various classes, work among, 56, 57, 67, 87. 
 
 Work in Boston, 17; Chicago, 49; Cincinnati, 11, 17; Mon- 
 treal, 18, xi; New Orleans, 17; New York, 18, 35, 36,48, 
 72, 97, i, iii-viii, x-xvii; Richmond, 19, 38; Toronto, 17, 
 viii-x; Washington, i-xiv. 
 
1 1012 01234 5783 
 
 
 Date Due 
 
 
 N 28'^ 
 
 
 
 
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