Y.M.C.A. MOVEMENT.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 143, 2 June 1911, Page 11

Y.M.C.A. MOVEMENT.

It has tome to pass that expansion in Association activities to the utmost bounds of a young man s ■existence has not meant "spreading thin." The first business of every yar. and this is increasingly true, is to recommend the life of the clean soul. In the military ramps of four great nations, in the camps of those industrial armies where mines and timber and quarries are the magnets that draw the wage-earner, in mills and factories and foundries, quietly but with unfailing perseverance, this organisation maintains its position. There must be a shielding and buibkog of character. There must >e an uplift of ideals. The advancement of these objects upon a plane of everyday living is the contribution of the Young Men’s Christian Association to the citizenship of the world. The Association is training the world in athletics. Out of crudity and incredulity its physical department has become a great organised system, expertly administered and based upon scientific physiologic principles. Its membership is leaping ahead at the rate of twenty thousand per annum, and one hundred additional trained volunteers are turned out ea h year into the communities to conduct physical work among t'io<e

outside the membership. Evolving as it is from the more limit** 1 programme of engaging men m physical exercise to the broader propoganda of physical welfare work, it is becoming increasingly a factor in sociologie science, preventive medicine, ami social ethics. Here is the life of the strong body made an open door to the life of the dean soul.

Often a young man's needs lie it the direction of brain anti hand training. He feels that his effici ency is tiecreasing, or is not in creasing to keep pace with his op portunities for advancement. It is the work of the Young Men’s Chris tian Association which is going tr give him an opportunity in his adult life which he may have lost or neglected in boyhood. Even in coun- ! tries where there is a rich equip . ment in free schools and colleges, the practical. position-winning methods of the Young Men’s Chris tian Association have justified themselves by their success. These are constantly under the directum and inspiration of men who believe in the twinship of mental and spiritua I growth. The idle get work : the employed win promotion and more pay : and the Dominion gains incalculably by the einploy- : ment, improvement, and cheerful spirit of its citizens. | Such are the facts. Not facts for England, or America, or Germany,

or Japan, or India alone ; but facts for our own Dominion—for Hastings. The past five years have been years of intense industry, years of extension and progress wherever the Young Men’s Christian Association is a factor in the life of the community. The question arises: Are the ambitions of our voung men to be encouraged ? Are their morals to be guarded ? Are they to find their places on gymnasium floors ’ The support of this great work means a radiation of influences not to be limited by the terms town” and country."