The Woman’s Institute Among the foremost of Yonkers institutions is the Woman’s Institute, which has just completed twenty years of useful and progressive activity. Its aim may be expressed in two words: “Christian Helpfulness.” First and foremost is its relation to the self–supporting woman. From the basement to the top floor this building stands for these good and high ends. In speaking of the relation of the Institute to the churches of Yonkers, it is hardly necessary to emphasize its unsectarian and undenominational character. It leads in matters of civic progress, and in all those things that tend to the uplifting and improving of social conditions. In the work of the Library, in the development of the Working GirlѺs Club, in the Employment Bureau, with its industrial questions; in the Civic League, and the Philanthropic Department, the Institute has kept informed of methods pursued in similar organizations. In all its endeavors for the welfare of woman the Institute strives to hold up a standard on which is inscribed a belief in religion as a life, on which morality is emphasized as a foundation stone, which sets forth education as a priceless possession, which recognizes work as a blessing, recreation as a necessity, which regards the home as a center of social forces, the church as a divine institution, and the city as an object of common interest and concern. Since the erection of the building, with its well–equipped school kitchen, cooking classes for young girls of the public schools have been maintained by the Board of Education. The Library was the expression of a desire to provide the many working women and girls with wholesome, entertaining, and free literature at a time when there was practically no place of its kind in Yonkers. The Club for Working Women offers the following advantages: classes in millinery, dressmaking, sewing, embroidery, cookery, physical training, dancing, singing, docution, German, English, etc. During the summer of 1894 tea, coffee, and milk were served in the Institute hall during the noon hour, to club members, at a nominal price; other hot dishes were soon asked for by many of the young girls who had found their cold lunches so injurious to their health. Now a hot lunch may be purchased for fifteen cents, consisting of soup, meat, dessert, and coffee. The lunch room has a daily average attendance of eighty. The Penny Provident Stamp Station is a branch of the one in New York city. Upward of one thousand dollars is deposited annually, and paid out to the depositors for payment of rent, coal, sickness, etc. The Civic League was organized March 1, 1895, for the promotion of an interest in, and the study of, civic affairs, by means of classes, lectures, special libraries, etc. The appointment of an agent for the prevention of cruelty to animals was secured; and a School Visiting Committee was appointed, with the approval of the Board of Education, to regularly visit the schools and confer with the teachers on matters where a woman’s cooperation might be serviceable, and to report concerning hygienic and sanitary matters. For nearly four years the work of tenement&150;house inspection and instruction has been efficiently carried on, resulting in the appointment by the Board of Health of a Woman Sanitary Inspector. The Department fot Philanthropic Work was organized March 20, 1899. In April, 1900, this department became the successor to the Yonkers Charity Organization, thus making the Institute a recognized center. The number of women enrolled in the various departments of the Institute is over 1,200; the number of children is 1,000; and the aggregate monthly attendance is nearly 6,000.