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Preface.

Dr. Alexander McKenzie.
This is not a guide book in the ordinary sense of that term. But it does take the reader into the life of Cambridge and makes known to him something of the past and the present of the town. Any one should feel more at home here after reading these pages, and he can readily find where his life might be joined to the common life and be enriched by it while he imparts to it of his own force.

The extension of the town has been steady and rapid. The hamlet which held so large a place in the colonial life has constantly advanced to the city whose influence is felt through the land. To those who have watched this growth, and shared in it, it has been of great interest to mark the appearance of new institutions, of new forms of work, of new endeavors for the general advantage. The city must have been poorer than she knew before the Library and Hospital were built, and the societies formed which are now so prominent and so efficient for good.

It is right that here a prominent place should be given to the organization under whose direction this book has been prepared, and is now given to the world. The Cambridge Young Women's Christian Association deserves the place which it holds in the confidence and esteem of all who know its work, which would be more widely known and admired but for the modesty of those who are doing it. The number of workers is not very large, their rooms are not conspicuous, there is no parade of methods or results, there are few appeals for money, so that the Association is less before the eyes and in the minds of the people than it ought to be. It has all the quietness which marks everything that is done in Cambridge, and this is naturally enhanced by the womanly reserve which is content to abide in stillness and work without observation. This is admirable and no one would change it. But the Association should be better known, which is

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