*Insufficient girls in one or more wards for a Bee-Hive class.

No meeting held.

This report is for November.

THE GENERAL BOARD

MRS. MARTHA HORNE TINGEY President 1884 So. Main St., Salt Lake City MRS. RUTH MAY Fox First Counselor MRS. MAE T. NYSTROM Second Counselor

MISS CLARISSA A. BEESLEY

Miss Margaret A. Newman

Vol. XXXIII

What a wonderful life both in length of days and in fulness of service has been that of President Charles W. Penrose who on February fourth will celebrate his ninetieth birthday. His last days are crowning with fruition his well spent life. Because of the integrity and faithfulness of his early life he has met the work of his later days with assurance, trust, and confidence.

Deep thinking and noble living have characterized his entire life. From his youth to his ripened age he has always been alive, alert, keen, quick-interested not only in the affairs of his family and friends, but in the burning questions of his locality, his nation, and of the world. Blest with intelligence of an unusually high order he has continually developed his mentality with the passing years and has so fed his naturally strong spiritual nature that time has polished not dimmed his lustre.

He has always been dependable and firm, a true friend, an honest advisor, a fearless advocate of right.

He has ever hungered after right

Music Director

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eousness. The Word of God has been a light unto his path and a lamp unto his feet. Because of his wonderful memory and his constant reading of the Scriptures there is probably no ore better versed in sacred writ than is he. Countless thousands have heard his ringing testimony and have been illumined by his exposition of the Bible.

President Penrose has kept his heart young. He does not live in the past, but is deeply interested in thẻ questions and changes of the day and he looks forward to the future unafraid.

May our Father give unto him as many more days and years as he can enjoy and may the clearness of his intellect remain ur dimmed and his power for useful service be with him to the last.

Dependability

"Give us a man, young or old, high or low, on whom we can thoroughly depend, who will stand firm when others fail-the friend faithful and true, the adviser honest and fearless, the adversary just and

chivalrous; in such an one there is a fragment of the Rock of Ages."-Dean Stanley.

Some people can always be relied upon. They say little and do much. Any obligation they accept they carry out to the letter. Not only will their work be done but it will be done on time and in the best way they can do it. In this day of high tension, of constant endeavor, they who would keep abreast of the times. must be constantly alert, vigilant, and active; those who cannot be depended upon must of necessity be left behind.

Often those of mediocre talents attain far higher positions than do those of greater ability simply because they are more dependable. Many men and women of unusual native endowments fail to make any mark in life simply because they are so easy going and can not be relied upon. They let trifles change their plans and interfere with the performance of their duties.

In the army when a general gives directions he expects them to be carried out to the letter. His subordinates should not come back telling him of difficulties and failures, but of accomplishment. Lord Kitchener once sent a subordinate to execute a piece of work. The man returned without the thing being accomplished and told why he had not carried out the order. Lord Kitchener said, "You have given the best possible excuse for not doing it, now go and do it." So it is in the business world, in the religious world-everywhere the call is for those who will do what is expected of them. The expert excuse maker will find himself outdistanced. In the vanguard will

be those who hear and do, who see and accomplish, who make difficulties give way before them, who krow that if a thing ought to be done there is a way to do it. Causes must not be kept back by being led by the undependable. Leaders must be absolutely reliable.

Sister Carter Released From Board

Circumstances have made it necessary for Sister Lucy Smith Carter to ask for her release from the General Board. Sister Carter is devoting herself to the loving care of her family of little children and also to her mother, Sister Alice K. Smith, whose health has been precarious for a long time, and she is therefore unable to give the necessary time and attention to the duties of General Board work.

The members of the Board have appreciated her sweet, gentle spirit, her earnest desires, and her integrity and faith in the Gospel. Had conditions not prevented, she would have been glad to continue to render service in the M. I. A.

We extend to her our love and prayers that the Lord may compen sate her with his choicest blessings.

Answers to Queries

Although the Query Department in the Journal will be discontinued, as previously announced, Mrs. Hurst will personally answer questions submitted to her that are accompanied by stamped, addressed envelopes. Address queries to Mrs. Catherine Hurst, Room 33 Bishop's Building, Salt Lake City, Utah.

Preliminary Statement. Next thing to existence is increase on this earth. All nature proclaims this fact, and God gave the first commandment in keeping with the laws of nature. Science and religion started out hand in hand. The story of the one and the commands of the other make parallel columns of the history of the world; each is the other in a different language; there is no difference except in interpreta tion.

Next to increase is improvement, and improvement means advancement in the direction of life, in the direction of liberty, in the direction of the pursuit of happiness.

If. in our pursuit of happiness, we diverge from either the line of life or of liberty the divergence makes impossible the reaching of the ob ject of our pursuit. Any enjoyment purchased at the price of life's perpetuity, or liberty's gift, which is the privilege of obeying law, is paid for at the price of individual imbecility and race ruin.

The call of science, as a rule, is in the direction of revelation, but there is often a tendency to so overemphasize minor considerations and non-essentials that the chief objects are thrown into obscurity.

Eugenics is feeling its way; it is

*Note: This lesson has been advanced on the schedule on account of the social pressure of the problem of eugenics as affecting birth control.

Eu.

seeking for truth, and its application for the betterment of the race. genics, the science of human hushandry, or the improvement of the human race through breeding, is not calling for smaller families among the inferior in any such high tones as it is calling for larger families among the superior. The Latter-day Saints, socially select as they are, and theologically elect as they are, have no occasion to be concerned with the fashionable hue and cry about birth control; they can well afford in this matter to "stand still and see the salvation of the Lord."

1. The Contribution of Large Families to the Happiness of the Individual.

1. With capacity to carry it, the greater the responsibility the greater the happiness, else why seek leadership? The larger the family the greater the responsibility.

2. Large families develop courage in the parent, and the consciousness of courage is a form of joy.

3. Families inspire hope, in proportion to their size, and hope is happiness. If one child brings more hope than fear, ten children would bring relatively ten times more hope than fear.

4. As a rule, large families make it possible for each child to know what is meant by a brother's love and companionship, and a sister's love and companionship, and this requires a family group containing at least two boys and two girls.

5. Large families furnish greater opportunity for training in the art of "living and let live," tolerating and forgiving. Child tyranny is quite impossible in a large family.

6. The large domestic group requires industry, which is the source of half our

joys. The happiness of idleness is a delusion, too often found in small families. II. The Large Family Contributes to Community Welfare and Happiness.

1. The family is the fundamental social unit. The community is a unity composed of social units. The stronger the units the stronger the community, and strength, as we have said in other lessons, is a source of safety, and safety is a condition of happiness.

2. Large families are centers of kinship and sympathy, which lessens the possibility of individuals becoming public charges. The family group is loath to let one of its number be put in the community charity line.

3. Family pride is apt to increase in proportion to the size of the group. Quality being equal, the larger the family the greater the pride. Family pride operates strongly against tendencies towards criminality. Many a person resists temptation through family loyalty, when his self-respect would not be sufficient to keep him straight. The criminal even changes his name to shield his relatives quite as often as to shield himself.

III. Large Families and Education.

It needs no argument to prove that the production of children capa ble of being educated is of more importance than educating them. Firs! the child and then the education. The emphasis of the paramount importance of the former does not detract from the intrinsic value of the latter.

Education is a process of acquisition, and it should be made a stimulus towards increase. It seems strange indeed that a class of persons who are supposed to be the most highly trained in the selection of values should so invest their time, attention, and energy in making acquisitions for man that they neglect the perpetuity of man. The search now is for the cause of this danger ous discrepancy; is it in the individual or in the system? How far has the current cry of over-population been due to college sophistry?

The college graduate has been weighed in the balance and found wanting. Judged by what they have

done they would wilfully let the race waste away. Statistics show that graduates from women's colleges produce and rear fewer than one child each. For this deficiency the women are not to be held chiefly respor sible.

"Dr. Catell's investigation of one thousand contemporary American men of science, all of which were probably not complete, however, shows that they have on the average less than two surviving children."-Applied Eugenics, Popenoe and Johnson. If the world be safe left to science, it is evidently not safe, left to scientists.

"The spirit of the world is contagious. We cannot live in the midst of such social conditions without suffering from the ef fects of their allurements. Our young people will be tempted to follow the example of the world about them. There is already a strong tendency to make sport of the obligations to marry. Pretexts of ambition are set up as an excuse to postpone marriage till some special object is attained. Some of our leading young men desire to complete first a course of study at home or abroad. Being natural leaders in society, their example is dangerous, and the excuse is one of questionable propriety. It were better far that many such young men never went to college than that the excuse of college life be made the reason for postponing marriage beyond the proper age." Gospel Doctrine, Pres. Joseph F. Smith, page 353.

Social Aspect. The very thought of curtailment of increase from selfish motives is degenerative. We may seek excuses behind the influences of economic factors, such as are set forth by Poponoe and Johnson, in Applied Eugenics, pages 274275: First, it costs more to clothe children than it used to; second, it costs more to feed them than it used to; third, the cost of medical attention has increased; fourth, the cost. of domestic labor is greater; fifth, the standards of education have risen steadily. Nevertheless, our increased facilities of production should more than offset our needs. Consider the