of ten millions of dollars to defray the cost of establishing a sewerage system for the city, contains a provision that in the event of said Commision doing any part of its work by day labor, "it shall be authorized to devise, promulgate and act on such rules and regulations as will make merit and personal fitness, ascertained by some system of open competition or registration, or both, the sole test of eligibility for all positions or employments under its control, which it may see fit to embrace within the scope of said rules and regulations.”

The presentation to this Sewerage Commission, when appointed, of a full statement of the many advantages and benefits to the public which may reasonably be anticipated to arise from the prompt and efficient exercise by the commission of the powers thus conferred upon it by the act, and the furnishing it with definite and reliable information as to the successful working of such rules and regulations in other cities in which they have been adopted in the construction of public works, will be a fair field for the exercise of fruitful work by the new Executive Committee to be elected at this meeting.

From Miss Anna E. H. Meyer, for the Women's Auxiliary to the Civil Service Reform Association of New York:

During the past year the New York Auxiliary has sustained a heavy blow through the death of its VicePresident and Chairman of the Executive Committee. To quote directly from a recently adopted minute:

"In the death of Mrs. Lowell the Women's Auxiliary to the Civil Service Reform Association has lost its most loyal and distinguished member.

"In 1894 Mr. Schurz requested Mrs. Lowell to organize the Auxiliary. This she undertook but declined to be the president, modestly protesting that people were tired of seeing her name. She promised, however, to do the work, and this promise she bravely kept, coming with faithful regularity to all the meetings, disregarding the weather or her own fatigue, until last winter, when finally her health gave way.

"To these meetings Mrs. Lowell brought ideas and suggestions which she presented with ever fresh enthusiasm, impressing upon her listeners the belief that to

give much of one's time to the extension of the merit system was one of the chief duties in life.

"In studying the story of Mrs. Lowell's life from the time when her young husband and brother were killed in the Civil War-when she consecrated her life to the cause of humanity-we are thrilled at the revelation of the purity and nobility of her character. Mrs. Lowell's absolute abnegation of self, her unique unworldliness, her tender sympathy for the neglected and suffering, her passionate desire to help those longing and struggling for liberty and independence, her burning indignation against all that was unworthy and untrue, her patriotism and civic pride, her cheerfulness, helpfulness, and especially her humility, show a nature of surpassing purity and strength, a pattern not to women alone, but to all Americans. We who have been associated with Mrs. Lowell know that her place cannot be filled, for we have lost the inspiration of our leader and our dear friend.

"We sorrow for her, but we can also pray that our Father who has called her may awaken in our hearts the high desire to be more like her, and to follow her beautiful example."

We also feel that we can establish no better memorial to Mrs. Lowell than to develop and carry out along the lines and in the manner that she wished the work of the New York Auxiliary.

The routine work of the Auxiliary has been principally of an educational character. Last January postals offering pamphlets and suggestions for work helpful to civil service reform were sent to almost one thousand women's clubs in the United States. In accordance with the requests received in answer to these postals, we have distributed about one thousand four hundred pamphlets. to clubs in twenty-eight different States. Forty-five per cent. of the clubs asked for suggestions for work, and in thirteen States club women have, by personal influence with school principals, secured the introduction of about 2,011 pamphlets for use in schools.

On the first of March we issued the "Primer of the Civil Service and the Merit System," which had been written by Miss Cary. As its name implies, this pamphlet

deals with the subject in a very simple and elementary way, having been carefully adapted to the intellect of a child of about twelve years of age.

The New York Auxiliary has long felt that the school work should be extended from the high to the elementary schools, and that the latter was really the better field for our educational work. Statistics show that among high school graduates in the United States there is only one boy to every five girls. It is evident, therefore, that a very large proportion of the future voters attend only the grammar schools, and whatever ideas they should have on the subject of good government ought to be taught them there.

In its efforts to distribute the primer to elementary schools the Auxiliary met with more success than it had anticipated. The work was begun in the New York City schools. Before May 1st there were sent to forty-one schools in the five boroughs of Greater New York 4,394 primers. One principal asked for five hundred copies in order that he might be supplied "for three years.'

To Vermont and New Jersey schools there were sent respectively 687 and 473 primers, and through the co-operation of club women there were distributed to schools in California, Delaware, Kentucky, Nebraska, New York State, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Wisconsin and Wyoming 855 copies of the primer. This makes a total of 6,409 primers that were sent to elementary schools in the eight weeks ending May 1, 1905.

This fall the school work has been continued in a wider field. In view of the fact that the annual meeting of the Association of Collegiate Alumnæ was to be held this year toward the end of November in Atlanta, that its sessions were to be attended by members of the Southern School Teachers' Association, and that one of the topics for discussion was to be the co-operation of the Collegiate Alumnæ in the work of the General Federation of Women's Clubs, of which civil service reform forms so important a part, our offer of primers was sent extensively to Southern schools. Here too we have met with prompt and enthusiastic response. In two months we have distributed to eighty-three schools in Alabama,

Georgia, Florida and North Carolina 14,329 primers. The largest number of pamphlets asked for in one day's mail was 9,050. One county superintendent in Georgia asked for 6,000 copies in order that he could distribute one to each child in the schools under his supervision. Several School Commissioners in various Southern States have sent us exhaustive lists of teachers and school officers who will be glad to co-operate with us.

In addition to the Southern schools we have sent 1,156 primers to schools in Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Wisconsin, where the use of the pamphlet has been recommended by club women. The New York Auxiliary has also been asked to co-operate in supplying teachers in the Fhilippines with civil service reform literature.

In all a grand total of 21,894 primers have been distributed directly for schoolroom use in fourteen States. Counting the pamphlets that have gone as samples with letters to schools and to club women, it is estimated that about 26,000 primers have been sent broadcast through the country during the last nine months.

Steps are now being taken to extend the elementary school work to institutions in Ohio, Missouri and other States in the Middle West, where there are indications of willingness to co-operate, and we hope by another year to be able to report to the League a still larger increase in this important work.

On March 10th a large civil service reform meeting was held by the Auxiliary in conjunction with the People's Institute. About 1700 people assembled in Cooper Union to hear Messrs. Bonaparte, Dana and H. A. Garfield talk on the merit system. Mr. McAneny acted as chairman. The whole meeting was entirely satisfactory in that we seemed to reach the right kind of an audience in just the right way.

The meeting furnished indirectly a suggestion for a new line of work for the Auxiliary. In the early fall letters were accordingly sent to the head workers in about forty social settlements in New York and Brooklyn offering to send speakers to any boys' or mothers' club that would be willing to devote one meeting during the

coming winter to a consideration of the merit system. Twenty-three settlements have responded. In some we have been asked to hold two or more meetings with various clubs. Girls', boys', women's and men's clubs are all apparently interested not only in the theoretical but also in the practical side of the question. Some meetings have been held and have been very successful, from the point of view both of the size of the audience and the interest shown through the discussion that followed the talk. It is hoped that the meetings still to come will be as satisfactory to all concerned and that some real good will be accomplished in this way. The Auxiliary has to thank Messrs. Burlingham, Chapman, McAneny, McCook and Schieffelin, all of New York City, for their co-operation and services as speakers.

These have been the main lines along which the Auxiliary has worked during the past year. Very often opportunities have come for co-operation with our sister auxiliaries or other reform associations. All these opportunities we have tried to make the most of. But on the whole, in our particular line of work, the question now is not "what to do," but "what not to do," in order that we shall not waste our means and energy. This is in itself a true step forward, and points to the fact that we need in New York and other States more sister auxiliaries who will co-operate with us along certain lines of work. The civil service reform committees of the Federated Clubs are all doing excellent work, and, through existing organizations, are accomplishing what auxiliaries could not do in years of work. Still, so far as we know, the committees in the various State Federations have not appropriations. large enough to defray the expenses of very extensive or intensive work. Auxiliaries could do much in becoming publishers and agents for the distribution of pamphlets and in working up fields for the distribution of literature in their localities. This would extend the work considerably, for it is impossible for us in the East to know when and where it is best to send pamphlets in so distant a State as California, for instance. It would also help in effecting a general division and systematizing of the work for which there will eventually be a need. In Pennsylvania, for