NEW YORK.—On Monday evening of this week I spoke before the Dames at Columbia University, and I would rather tell you something about this most interesting group than about my topic of discussion.

The Dames is an organization consisting of the wives of graduate students, and they come from all over the country. In large part they are young women with children who are spending a year, or possibly two years, in New York while their husbands are studying at Columbia. Some of them have taken jobs to help support their families. Others, with time on their hands, have many outside interests, and one of the pertinent questions asked me was where they could work to help bring about peace in the world.

I always feel that young people who are planning to return to their communities all over our country after years of study or travel, or both, and who may be the leaders in their communities because of their interest in teaching or in some other community service are among our most valuable citizens. They give one an idea of what the influence will be as they spread out and continue their life's work in different parts of our nation.

I have just received the second issue of American Heritage, a magazine of history edited by Bruce Catton and sponsored by the American Association for State and Local History and the Society of American Historians.

This is a distinctly interesting magazine and I feel it would be valuable in any family studying history at the present time. It carries features you do not find in the average history book that add interest from the children's viewpoint. For instance, I find a piece called "The Ancient Game of Tongue-Twisters," with a number of the old quotations which people used to challenge us into trying to repeat when we were young, such as:

She sells sea shells on the sea shell shore,

The sea shells she sells are sea shore shells,

Of that I am sure.

What child would not enjoy a series of these brought from the past to entertain them?

Another delightful book that has been sent to me is "A Children's Village of Israel" by Sonia Gidal, with photographs by Tim Gidal. Here is an opportunity to read and see how these children of Israel, many of whom started with such handicaps, have been brought not only to normal development but to happiness and joy in living. Those of us who saw concentration camps in Europe think this achievement is a miracle.