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OTHER MISSIONS AND ASSOCIATIONS 163conducting training institutes;(3) organizing and directingthe summer training school work; (4) receiving and dispensing scholarships for study in China and abroad.The Associations in Tientsin, Shanghai and Cantonhave served as training centres during the year. Thirteensecretaries were in training in Shanghai, ten in Tientsin, andtwo in Canton. Training Institutes were held early in 1916in Canton, Foochow and Shanghai.One of the most important AssociationQmferencegatherings of the year in many respects wasthe Triennial Conference held in llangchowNovember 4 11, 1915, under the auspices of the Associationof Employed Officers of the Yonng Men s Christian Associations of China. This is a voluntary organization composedof Chinese and foreign secretaries. The findings of theConference have no authority other than as recommendationsbased on experience. Ninety-one secretaries were in attendance, including fifty Chinese and forty-one from abroadworking in China. They represented twenty city Associations located in fourteen provinces, besides Hongkong andthe Chinese student work in Tokyo. The Conference wasconducted on the commission plan. The themes discussedwere : the efficient administration of a city Association inChina; our immediate programme in physical work; pressingproblems in Association educational work; a practicalreligious work programme for the Association, including itsresponsibility for the religious needs of its members as areligious force in the community and for voluntary service ;a workable programme for providing an adequate forceof trained secretaries ; problems and policies in the expansionof the movement; the personal life of the secretary.The findings of the commissions placed chief emphasison a more thorough occupation of the cities in which organizations exist, a conservative policy with reference to expansionin the immediate future; increased attention to the religiousneeds of the members; special efforts to bring the men inBible classes to decision for the Christian life and intochurch membership rather than immediate steps to increasethe enrollment in such classes ;a more conservative policywith reference to evangelistic campaigns except where the