NORTH AMERICA INTRODUCTORY In 1894 at the Jubilee Convention in London the story of the North American associations and of their development during the first forty-three years of their history was carefully narrated in the American contribution to the Jubilee book and in the American paper read upon the floor of the Jubilee conference and fully given in the report of that conference. This story of the American associations will not be repeated in this volume concerning the North American Jubilee and its convention. An attempt will be made, however, to treat of the development of these associations from the standpoint of the American international convention and its work of supervision, the administration of which has from the beginning been committed by that convention to its international executive committee. The fundamental idea of this work has been well defined as "the fostering and forming of association organizations and of their work by and for young men." With this end in view, the various departments of the international work have been briefly treated by the secretaries in charge of those departments. In all this supervision special attention has been given to the internal development of the individual associations by the careful study and nurture of the social, educational, physical and religious features of the work, placing first emphasis on the religious spirit pervading and energizing all departments. In the beginning the city association as a unit occupied almost the entire attention of the agency of supervision. Then as student, railroad, colored, Indian, army and navy organizations were formed, composed of young men of these different classes, specialist secretaries were employed by the International Committee to give attention to the development of these organizations, many of which have become integral parts and branches or departments of the larger city organizations. Each one of these departments will be treated carefully in the following pages. As early as the fifteenth year of the American association movement it was discovered that the single agency of supervision then existing in the International Committee was insufficient adequately to supervise the widely scattered associations. State and provincial organizations began to be formed through the agency of the International Committee, and to become an object of vigilant care by this committee and its secretaries. Gradually such state and provincial organizations have been formed, with conventions and committees and supervising secretaries of their own. Within the states need had also been felt of the smaller county organization, for the close supervision of the work in small towns and country neighborhoods. Within the bounds of the greater cities branches of the associations have multiplied so as to call for a supervisory agency of still smaller area, and metropolitan organizations have been formed in these greater cities, exercising not only supervision but administrative authority and control over all branches within the city limits. These younger agencies of supervision, state, provincial, county, and metropolitan, are not as directly related to the international convention and its committee as are the individual associations. They have been, however, part of the field which it has cared for, and for their development it has to an extent been responsible. For timely counsel and cooperation these agencies have always had a legitimate claim upon the attention of the international organization—a claim which has been consistently recognized. THE FIELD DEPARTMENT What is now called the Field Department was in the beginning the entire work of the International Committee. The first two employed officers, Robert Weidensall in 1868 and Richard C. Morse in 1869, were at the outset wholly occupied with it and, during their long terms of service have witnessed the organization, and helped to pioneer the development of the various departments of the international work, as well as the state, provincial and county organizations. The Field Department has as its permanent objective and responsibility, the city and state work, or defining its field more exactly, the city and town, the state, provincial, and county organizations. This department, therefore, like the Publication, the Office and the Secretarial, is a central, and by a relation to the state, provincial and county organizations, a unifying department of the work of the International Committee. The thirty-three years of the Field Department's history may properly be distributed into three periods, namely, the pioneer, the emergency, and the constructive periods. I. The pioneer period, of twenty-two years, from 1868 to 1890, during which associations were firmly planted in the cities, the state and provincial organizations established, and the departments for work among special classes of young men inaugurated. In this work there were associated with Mr. Weidensall, in his efficient leadership and organization of the work at the West and South, Messrs. Thomas K. Cree, E. W. Watkins, Henry E. Brown, and John R. Hague. Strong, deep, and permanent foundations were laid, promising fields were explored, and permanent and effective association agencies were organized. Special mention should be made of the work of Mr. Cree, particularly in the raising of money for the employing of local secretaries, the securing of men for these positions, and in effecting the reorganization of associations in cities where they had become financially or otherwise involved. As a monument to his efficiency stand to-day the associations in Nashville, San Francisco, Philadelphia, and in many other important cities throughout the continent. 2. The emergency period of about eight years, from 1887 to 1895, and overlapping the first and third periods. The phenomenal increase in the number of city and town associations and association buildings, and the premature undertaking of the state and provincial work with employed secretaries, particularly in the West and South, during a period of great business prosperity, resulted in a reaction, intensified by the subsequent business depression of 1892 to 1895. During this period the field secretaries were occupied chiefly in relief expeditions to city associations and state organizations in distress, and while many associations in the towns and smaller cities disbanded, these in the main were such as neither employed secretaries nor held property. The associations and association property in the larger cities were saved, with very few exceptions, and most of the state and provincial organizations were strengthened and conserved, some of them on the basis of a more restricted and economical plan of work. In some instances, field secretaries were compelled to act practically as receivers of state work, working with and through state committees, securing at the earliest possible date the means and the men for the reestablishment of the state work on a more secure basis. 3. The constructive period, from 1890 to the present time. Up to 1890 the field secretaries sustained each a direct relation to the International Committee through its chairman and general secretary, but had no recognized relation to each other, and no clearly defined work or policy, except by general understanding. Since 1890, under the able leadership of Charles K. Ober as chief field secretary, the Field Department has taken a more definitely organized form, and by the assignment of each field secretary to the service of a division of the territory, with his residence in the portion of the field served, has gradually extended its work towards the ultimate covering of the entire continent with effective, adequate, and continuous field supervision. The present force of the Field Department consists of five |