answer the question "What Does Psychology Teach the Social Case Worker"? The psychological trend of many of the discussions lately in social work is illustrated further in the program scheduled by the committee on correction, of which Thomas Mott Osborne is chairman. One meeting will be devoted to the subject of diagnosis of crime. Avocational guidance is featured in the program of the Pittsburgh meetings. It will be discussed by Karl de Schweinitz of New York, as a new principle in respect to volunteer social service. The division of the conference on mental hygiene this year is under the chairmanship of Dr. Owen Copp of Philadelphia. The opportunities which the public service offers for professional employment of social workers has been made the basis for a special survey. A development of no little interest to teachers is the continuance of a separate organization meeting at the time of the conference devoted to the subject of social service organization at industrial plants. Rural social problems have been dignified in the eyes of this national conference of social workers by giving the subject a separate committee under the chairmanship of Professor John M. Gillette of the University of North Dakota. The series of discussions he has arranged hinge upon the idea of communitizing the rural mind. A special meeting of teachers of practical sociology is scheduled to occur under the leadership of Professor Arthur J. Todd of the University of Minnesota. The conference at Pittsburgh will continue for one week. Thirty-five hundred delegates are expected to attend. The president is Frederic Almy, secretary of the Charity Organization Society of Buffalo. The prevention of human distress through the operation of all sorts of agencies has been adopted as the main topic of the meeting. VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE The Journal expects to print from time to time reports from the various branches engaged in vocational guidance work. Reports of methods used in launching the work and of work accomplished are especially desired. In California.--The Vocational Committee of the California Branch of the A. C. A. was formed in December, 1916, for the defin ite purpose of undertaking a survey of the vocational opportunities open to college women in California. Although information of this sort had been collected elsewhere, it was felt that results of other surveys were not strictly applicable to our situation and that there was a real need for the local information. The Education Department of the University of California had offered its cooperation and a very satisfactory arrangement was entered into by which University credit was given for the work done on the basis of a final report submitted to the department. Such workers as did not care for the credit or were not eligible to post-graduate work at the University became associate members. of our "self-conducted seminar" and entered into discussions and gave reports with the others. Meetings were held every week on the campus at which the work was planned, problems discussed and results reported. During the two semesters of the year 1916, we had twentysix investigators at work in the bay region and cooperated with fifty-nine college women and organizations elsewhere. Twenty-four written reports were handed in, covering the following subjects: Agriculture, Applied Arts, Advertising, Interior Decorating, Photography, Department Stores, Real Estate, Insurance and Banking, Municipal and County Civil Service, State Civil Service, Domestic Science, Library Work, Literary Pursuits, Rural Pursuits, Scientific Pursuits, Secretarial Work, Social Service Work under Private Societies, Social Service Work on Public Commissions, Recreation Work, Social Service work under Religious Organizations, Settlement work, and a State report. There were several oral reports and compilations of material not summarized in writing. The first task, of course, was the subdivision of the field into workable units. This was done after the fashion indicated by the titles of the reports. Questionnaires and other necessary preliminaries were planned, material collected elsewhere was looked into and lists of University women graduates now at work where made from the available sources. The procedure in the individual case has been as a rule, to interview the University Departments most concerned to learn what lines of employment were open to students taking their work and what firms and individuals might be counted upon to give further information. Then so far as possible, employers who might have positions of the type in question were applied to and record was made of the position open, salary, desirable training, etc. Women now actually employed in the various lines of work, whether college graduates or not were interviewed and record was made of their training and opinions. The collection of material in regard to the state elsewhere than in the vicinity of San Francisco was put into the hands of one member who wrote to some college woman or group of women in practically every town and city in California, asking for their cooperation in the survey. Some sixty-nine responded and furnished reports on opportunities in their district. Among the several very suggestive reports thus submitted must be mentioned gratefully that of the College Women's Club of Los Angeles, covering their city. In all, 1,448 working women were reported upon by the investigators in the local survey, 227 of them being college graduates. Six hundred and twelve employers were interviewed, of whom 224 employed women and 110 had positions which were open to them. Professors from practically all the University Departments were reached in one way or another and their opinions and suggestions recorded. Although the investigation was intended to be purely local in its scope, the results obtained are in many cases of very general interest. The employees' and employers' cards made out by the investigators are now on file in the office of the Alumni Secretary of the University of California for the use of any one interested in employment matters; the reports have been collected and summarized and we hope for their early publication. The work is being carried on at present along the same general lines. Nine investigators are covering the fields of Bacteriology, Medicine, Law, Moving Pictures, Special Secretarial fields, Summer Work, Independent Ventures and Employment Problems. In Ohio.-A meeting of representatives from five sections of the state of Ohio was called recently to discuss the formation of the projected State Bureau of Occupations for Women at Columbus. It was decided that pending the ability of those interested to put a worker in the field for the whole state, the sections be urged to secure local secretaries as directors of sectional bureaus. Cleveland already has such a worker and Cincinnati has plans to secure one. The Bureau in Cincinnati is to be associated with the Women's and Girls' Department of the State-City Free Employment Bureau in the City Hall. Local organizations, of which the Cincinnati Branch of the Association is one, are to raise funds for the salary of the worker who is to have charge of the placement of trained women. The State-City Bureau is to bear all overhead expenses. The cooperation of this bureau, with its experienced and capable director, will be of great assistance in the new undertaking. It is believed that at first not more than two-thirds of the new worker's time will be needed and that the remaining third can be devoted to the placement and supervision of volunteers. MABEL PARKER HUDDLESTON When I do speak of April, thou dost praise And through the forest, bare and brown and still, Joyful their lot who sat, new-garlanded The Journal of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae PUBLISHED MONTHLY EXCEPT JULY AND AUGUST Subscription price $1.00 per year. To members of the Association this Includes the annual dues. Single copies 15 cents. Postage prepaid on all orders from the United States, Mexico, Cuba, Porto_Rico, Panama Canal Zone, Republic of Panama, Hawaiian Islands, Philippine Islands, Guam, Samoan Islands and Shanghai. For Canada 20 cents on annual subscriptions; single copies 2 cents. All other countries in the Postal Union 40 cents on annual subscriptions; 4 cents on single copies. MRS. GERTRUDE S. MARTIN, Ph. D. Executive Secretary of the Association Communications concerning all publication matters, editorial or business, subscriptions, and changes of address should be sent to Mrs. Martin at the offices of the Association, 934 Stewart Avenue, Ithaca, N. Y. Remittances should be made payable to the Association of Collegiate Alumnae. The May number of the Journal will be devoted almost if not quite exclusively to the reports of the convention just held in Washington. The college and branch news will of necessity therefore be omitted. These departments will however be resumed in the June issue which will be the concluding number of Volume X and the last number that will appear until the beginning of the next academic year. A title page and index will accompany this issue. The May Journal a Biennial Number Hundreds of members of the Association have written to the editor to express appreciation of the Journal in its new form and this commendation has, we. must admit, been extremely gratifying and encouraging. Very few of these letters, however, have suggested changes or additions or further improvements. We should be grateful for any such suggestions. What new departments would our readers like to see established? What subjects would they like to have discussed in the contributed articles? How can the magazine be made to meet the needs of the Association more effectively? Will the Association not discuss these questions in the branches and let the editor have the benefit of the conclusions reached? It is your Journal; it is your "good money" that pays for it. We stand ready to execute your wishes as intelligently |