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27^ CHINA MISSION YEAR BOOK.Womens Work in General In the North.While the educational work can be tabulated withsome degree of accuracy, the general work for women isso varied in method and much of trie very best sopersonal and non-consecutive that very few figures canbe given and a general review presents peculiar difficulties.It may, however, be divided into several departments,which, although related to each other and generallycarried on together, have each distinct features. Ofthese the main ones may be called medical, educational, evangelistic, and social. Of the first and secondspecial reports will be made elsewhere. Here they willbe mentioned in their relation to the evangelistic andsocial only.From what has been gathered from replies to questions to various missions itappears that the greatestchange in the three years under review has been in theincreased opportunities in the social department in someof the large centres, while the other three have advancedin the grade of work attempted and accomplished and inthe increasing ability of the Chinese women themselvesto carry them forward. If one looks at the presentconditions in cities like Tsinanfu, Paotingfu, and Peking,the contrast to these of even three years ago is moststriking, but if one observes the larger field, the almostcountless small cities and villages, much the old state ofthings prevails. Yet it is so much that anywhere,especially that in the capitals, from which influencespreads more rapidly than from those cities to whichfewer officials come and go, there is real interest inlarger things than of old that the outlook is one ofIn hope.Peking there is not only widespread demand for theeducation of the young, but eager craving on the part ofmany of mature years for such knowledge as was deniedthem in their youth. The women who appear upon thestreets much more fieely than of old are not merelyfrom the lower classes, but also from those of position