So much has been said and written upon this subject during the last five years that one hesitates to attempt another presentation of it, but its paramount importance, and the fact that we can discuss it within the pages of our family round-table, will, I trust, justify the following.

The mechanical definition of efficiency is, "the ratio of the useful work performed by a prime motor to the energy expended." Now, there are upwards of sixty thousand prime. prime motors in various stages of activity each day upon the lines of the "Greater Milwaukee," and the measure of success achieved by the company through their combined efforts is directly dependent upon the ratio above referred to. Some of these motors are con

tinually giving forth mental and physical energy sufficient in quantity and quality to impart life and action to all they do, and, in varying degrees, to all with whom they come in contact. Some give forth just about enough dynamic force to meet current conditions, with no margin of safety for the unexpected or the overload. Others of the motors move in such a desultory fashion as to clearly indicate the need of rewinding.

The difference in these classes of motors is to but a small degree fundamental. Heredity, birth and surroundings are incidents which must exert more or less influence, but if we carefully consider the career of the successful man whom we know best, regardless of rank, the conclusion is quickly reached that his prominence has been achieved by habits and practice quite otherwise developed.

Opportunities for great or even brilliant acts are few and far between, and life's successes or failures are the result of our treatment of the thousand and one little things which make up the routine of the day's work. Routine work is necessarily the foundation of

any career, and upon the character of the foundation depends entirely the permanency and usefulness of the superstructure.

So efficiency is not the doing of spectacular things, but the faithful, energetic and intelligent doing of the commonplace. No soldier can achieve high rank save by the tiresome routine of drill, implicit obedience to orders, and constant, never-swerving loyalty. These characteristics are quite as essential on the right-of-way as on the battle field, and just in proportion as they are lacking, efficiency decreases and failures multiply.

By way of illustration let me recite a few cases of efficiency which are recalled offhand; probably you can duplicate or parallel most of them from your experience. A warehouseman, singlehanded, unloaded from a box car with comparative ease a safe weighing over two tons, which, later, four men had much difficulty in loading on a dray. This was brains and experience versus main strength and awkwardness.

On an important piece of grade revision, one of the contractors made so little progress at the outset that grave fears were entertained lest he delay the whole program. Despite several admonitions he continued to follow out his own ideas, but after he actually started operations it was discovered that his plans were so well laid and so fully executed that he finished in advance of the actual requirements. It must have been this same comprehension of real efficiency which prompted Admiral Dewey's famous command at Manila Bay, "You may fire, Gridleywhen you're ready."

A section foreman heard a crossing bell ringing in the middle of the night, but no train passed. Regardless of the hour and the weather, he investigated the matter and found a broken rail.

A heavy snow storm destroyed some miles of telegraph line in the mountains. Pending its restoration a wireless station was promptly improvised, and business suffered the minimum of interruption.

On a certain western railroad a test of the engine and train crews on a given passenger run was tabulated by percentages of times late and minutes late for each engineer and conductor. The performance of one engineer was so conspicuously poor that he was called to the office of the superintendent and shown the results of the test. He expressed great surprise, saying, "I thought I was doing as well as the rest of them, and I'll show you that I can." The next month he was at the head of the list, a sadly belated proof of his possible efficiency. Think of the years he was merely trying to do "as well as the rest," instead of trying to render the best service of which he was capable.

The rear brakeman, thrown from the roof of a car in a derailed freight, was found by his brother trainmen suffering intensely from a badly splintered and protruding bone, but his only words were, "Is anybody flagging No. 2?" That was efficiency plus!

Efficiency, then, is not a question of kind of work, or rank, or department, but a simple, constant and intelligent devotion to the present task, coupled with that loyalty to the company which causes us, regardless of rank, to take an active interest in everything known to us which affects the company's welfare, however disconnected it may be from our particular work.

The great army of which you and I are members, and in which we take a pardonable pride, is rich in just such efficiency in all branches-engine men, trainmen, agents, telegraphers, civil engineers, bridge and building men, section men, shop men, office men, all you thousands who have no titles today, but from whose ranks will surely come the men who will have fully earned, and will fittingly wear the titles a few years hence. True it is that every man

may not bear a title, but equally true it is that every man may have a record which, regardless of title, insures to him the lasting respect of his associates, and an enviable reputation for character and efficiency.

If you approve of my analysis of efficiency, you will also agree with me that non-efficiency is the result of one of two conditions: the first, that of ignorance or indifference; the second, that that of intent. The first may in large measure be cured if you and I do our part in the "lend-a-hand" campaign; but for those in the second class, if any such there be among us, we can have nought but contempt, for that man is a coward who does in the absence of his chief what he would not do in his presence, and the man who would waste the company's time is no less a criminal than he who would steal company material.

If anyone harbors the suspicion that too great efficiency all along the line might lead to a decrease in the number of employees, let me say to him that not in the lifetime of any man now in the service will it be possible in this country to obtain all the men, skilled or unskilled, necessary to do the work which ought to be done. There may be times when, from crop failure, financial disturbance, or other widespread disaster, it will be necessary to curtail the force, but reductions will be made in any event under such conditions, and will be the greater in proportion to the lack of efficiency. For efficiency means a lower cost of equipment and track, and the maintenance thereof, and of transportation, of accounting, of solicitation, of everything but the wage scale; and the lower the construction and maintenance cost per unit, the greater the amount of work which will be laid out each season, and the less the program will be curtailed in hard times.

Many of us can recall the widespread fear that the introduction of sewing machines would deprive thousands of women of work, and perhaps of bread, but the great efficiency of

women workers with the machine opened new and broad avenues of trade, and today, when such machines are being turned out by the thousand, a larger percentage of women are well employed than in the days before the sewing machine was invented.

Do you know of any distress resulting to labor of any class because the crude slaughter house of our youth, with its great waste, has been succeeded by the mammoth packing establishments of today, with their efficient management and wonderful development of by-products; because the tallow dip and kerosene lamp have given way to the electric light; because one man with a harvester can do the work

of twenty with cradles; or because high speed tools are found in all wellequipped shops? If our company was obliged to handle its traffic with sixteen-inch, or even eighteen-inch engines, under present conditions, it would be hopelessly bankrupt; and yet with the vastly more efficient power now in service, more engine men are on the pay roll than ever before; and so it is in all branches of the service.

Efficiency in the individual or in the entire force does not diminish the de

mand for those who possess it, but on the contrary creates new and constantly increasing demands in excess of its highest attainments.

No one has so much efficiency that more is not desirable; none has so little that the seed properly cultivated will not yield a bountiful harvest for himself, for his family, and for the company he serves.

It is only the man whose efficiency is above the average of his class who is in line for promotion.

There is no man whose attainments are so meager that he cannot raise himself by determined effort to a position of recognized usefulness, and none so talented that he can afford to rest on his laurels. All life, physical, industrial, commercial, and professional, is a survival of the fittest, and the fittest are those who so supplement physical force with mental alertness, experience, and loyalty, as to obtain the maximum of result with the minimum of effort; never relaxing in effort, but ever increasing in results, thus fulfilling to the highest degree our definition of efficiency.-Milwaukee Railway Employees' Magazine.

The Editor sat in his Sanctum,
(Not Room Nineteen, College Hall,
For the Editor isn't a Yogi,

To live in a hole in the wall!)

And he thought of the really good stories
Locked up in these sons of Penn,

And the verses that don't get written,
And then of the stories again--

Of the tales of true adventures,
The things these men have done;

For some have looked in Death's grim face,
And laughed and called it fun.
On ocean and mountain and prairie,
In the city's homes and its dives,
They've had their varied adventures.
They've lived their various lives.
But the fellow who's shot a musk-ox,
He likes to write "Lines to a Child,"
And the man who knows about women
Would rather "do" something wild
And gory and desperate and thrilling-
"The Murders at Manayunk,"-
Tho' he couldn't shoot a revolver,
He wouldn't have the spunk.

And yet, way down in his heart of hearts,
He has the seeing eye,

And he could describe a woman's love.

He knows what makes them cry.

Of course, that kind of a story

He'd never think to write;

New Haven, Conn.

In the gray dawn of the eastern sky, the first peep of daybreak appears on Christmas morn. With it comes to us the vision of the shepherds of Bethlehem, gathered around that little manger within the rough walls of that stable where the little Christ-child lay. The first Christmas morn has been immortal and on the anniversary of that morn all hearts rejoice for the Saviour who was born. In every land hearts glow with happiness, the humble peasant in his thatched hut to the king in his gilded palace. The real Christmas spirit pervades the air and in homes where there are children it seems as if we can almost feel His presence lingering at the hearthside. The stockings are hung in a row at the chimney, the firelight brightens the glistening decorations of the little tree, that almost seems to chuckle as it awaits the coming of the little ones. Those curly heads and the bright eyes that vainly tried to keep open just for a peep at old Santa Claus. They had dozed off just for a moment, only to be awakened by the echo of the jingling bells as Santa had departed and was off and away.

Dear old Santa Claus, what a wealth of memories you bring to our tired hearts, hearts oft so weary. How we often wish we might "turn backward with time in its flight and make us a child again, just for tonight." The years break that sweet illusion and show us the bitterness of life, where calloused hearts, hardened by the battle of our lives and the world, make us almost forget our sweet days of childhood.

Sweet little children, your innocence often teaches us a lesson soft and sweet. The chimes ring out their glad tones, "Peace on earth, good will to men."

The wreaths of evergreen and holly entwine and the incense rises from altar and shrine.

Voices sing, Christ the Lord is King, it re-echoes from the rude rafters of the little kirk to the dome of the marbled walls of the cathedral. In homes the spirit of love lingers and hearts rejoice, a whispered sigh goes out for those far, far away from the old homestead. A teardrop silently falls for those gone forevermore and who sleep in the silence of God's acre awaiting His call on Resurrection Day.

Christmas brings with it the love and friendship for our fellow men and our

hearts go out to those who are saddened, and rejoice with those who are glad. The evening shadows fall and in the darkness that follows we see, shining radiantly, that bright star, the star of Bethlehem. Beautiful Christmas, happy, joyous Christmastide.

LOUISE B. FLANIGAN.

Boston, Mass.

There are more heroes than those who die on battlefields; more martyrs than those the world's memory enshrines; more saints than those whose names are told on rosaries. What courage does the soldier need who marches to battle with the song of bugles and a nation's cheers to overflow the excited brain with delirious daring, compared to that required by a feeble woman to put to rout the host of cares that daily besiege her way; to control sudden tempers, the outgrowth of shattered nerves, and hold herself calm and sweet through days that are weary and long? There is an exalted enthusiasm that carries the martyr to his doom, but in the terribly prosaic lot of most women what enthusiasm can clothe the barren life with anything worthy of the crown and the palm, that lie beyond the martyr's suffering?

The saintly lives that cast the whiteness of their bloom in secluded cloisters apart from the world's allurements, folded from its temptations, as lambs are folded from the prowling wolf and the bitter storm, leave fair and lovely records, it is true, of tender ministrations and sweet self-abnegation, of prayer as pure as the snow that falls on still mountain tops or the bright stars that wing their way above them; but why should it be otherwise? Should not lilies grow in sheltered gardens and roses clamber over the trellis that loving hands prepare? But when you find the lily blooming in the dusty highway, and the rose nodding above the homely hut of poverty, then take notice of its beauty, for angels might honor it, and God Himself consent to wear it next His heart.

When I see brawny men and strong, healthy women ridiculing and condemning the nervousness of some delicate woman, made querulous by daily battles, hotter than any Gettysburg, I am more than ashamed of them. Care and trouble, that would pass over their heads as the winds pass over the mountain pines, only bending the far tops a little, while the

roots take hold on the eternal hills, would sweep the delicate mechanism of other natures into chaos.

A flesh and blood Hebe knows nothing of nerves. Her blood is elixir, her sinews are like strung cords, and all her goings and comings are timed to the pulses of buoyant life. She is a splendid physical development, a masterpiece of mechanism that works as smoothly as а feather drawn through oil. Of course, she carries electric cheer wherever she goeswhy shouldn't she? She is never out of sorts-why should she be? She is never despondent, never cast down, never

nervous.

Now take a woman who has lots of babies, and a shattered vitality, who was made a frail and delicate creature in the first place, and by chance and circumstance has been so reduced that her body is but the transparent astral vase that holds the flower of life, and let her be sunshiny, and blithe, and sweet, not more than one-third of the time, I tell you that one-third counts more in the sight of heaven than the entire unruffled existence of the woman whose nerves are strong and well. She shall pass through life with no song of deliverance, no need of glory, such as conquerors know. She shall be found fault with and despised by people who can no more understand what she suffers than a thistle can understand why the sensitive plant shrinks at the lightest touch. She shall go down in her last sleep at last as upon a couch of perfect peace, meekly wondering, perhaps, what welcome her spirit and weary soul shall gain from heaven. Her shattered body shall be laid away with pitying tears and soon forgotten; but I love to think of the surprise that surely awaits the dear soul there! She shall find that every prayer for strength, every yearning for patience, every heart throb and tear has been remembered by the heart of infinite love. She shall find the music and the brightness and the peace earth failed to yield her garnered there like golden sheaves in an autumn of plenty. She shall at last be understood, and enter into the sympathy of that great company who, like her, have come up through tribulation to the perfect peace, the unclouded joy of heaven. For, "He knoweth," "He remembereth," "He careth for us."

IRENE QUERIDA PRANCE.

Salt Lake City, Utah.

The year so nearly ended marks another successful milestone in the history of Sego Lily Division 150. All have worked together in peace and harmony, and we have accomplished much; but opportunity is ready and waiting, and there is always work to do.

Our delegate, Sister Moore, brought home a fine report from the grand convention, which was enjoyed by all; she also had much to say of the kindness shown by the sisters and brothers of Detroit.

Our grand president, Sister Moore, held a school of instruction for district deputies here November 3, 4 and 5. The work was demonstrated in a thoroughly practical manner, and with the kindness and patience for which our grand president is noted, and was appreciated by all who had the good fortune to attend. Deputies from Colorado, Montana, Washington, California and Utah were present. Such meetings are an inspiration and encouragement to us all. In addition to furnishing instruction they increase our friendships and strengthen the "tie that binds."

The officers elected for the coming year are capable and ambitious, so we are looking for continued prosperity, and the new year is before us with all its possibilities for good.

We have had many pleasant social times during the year. Our thirteenth anniversary was celebrated in a very happy manner at the home of our president, Sister Bell, who gave a lawn party in honor of the event. Sister Langford gave her home for two delightful evening affairs, and we are all going to Sister Rocheck's the evening of the 25th, where we know a good time is in store for us.

But life is not all pleasure. We have had our share of the shadows that come to all, and to those in sorrow we extend sincere sympathy.

We have a little plan in our Division that may help others. Some of our memIbers have little ones who cannot be left at home alone and who are past the age limit for attending our meetings. We engaged a woman who comes each meeting day and cares for the children, so the mothers can bring their little folks and know they are well cared for.

Sisters, we are all needed to make our work a success, so let us all try to get our names on the register every meeting.

Holiday greetings and best wishes to all sister Divisions, and a cordial welcome to visiting sisters.

MRS. LUCIE R. McCULLOW.

Denver, Colo.

While some states have been suffering from intense cold, Denver and Colorado in general have been enjoying the most beautiful weather that has visited these regions for many years.

We celebrated the twenty-first anniversary of our Division last month. Sisters Conboy and Tyler served refreshments in a delightful manner. We spent a most pleasant time together.