influence is spreading out toward the work-place and the play-centre--truly a retranslation of family service in terms of the public life. =The Children's Bureau.=--Our government at Washington used to be limited in its function to those political services which no state organization could accomplish by itself, but now the Federal departments are busily at work setting standards, if only through authentic information and suggestion, which aim to raise the average life in all directions, economic and social. The Children's Bureau is preeminently a standardizing body, although with no power to issue or enforce decrees. The Bureaus which have to do with foods and animal life and farm management are setting higher and higher levels of attainment for the common people in their home life and in their vocational work. There is a strong movement to enlarge the educational influence at the very heart of our national government with a Cabinet Head to set a high standard of attainment in both the art, the science, and the administration of education as well as to aid in equalizing educational opportunity. Moreover, there is a strong tendency, seen most recently and vividly in the provisions of the Maternity Aid Bill, for all social efforts to ask and to be granted Federal financial aid on the fifty-fifty plan. There is not a consensus of opinion among the thoughtful as to the wisdom of thus placing upon the general government the burden of social schemes upon which a minority of the people, be that minority large or small, are alone agreed. The force of persuasion may secure national legislation in advance of that which many local communities already have or are seeking to secure. The increase of national power through the work of national officials is not deemed politically sound by some persons who favor specific action by the states alone in such matters as maternity aid. The tendency is, however, a proof of two things, one that we are as a people becoming a nation; that is more a centralized and united governmental force--and the other that more and more people are trying in every way to secure a more uniform as well as a higher standard of living for all our citizens. =A Women's Lobby at the National Capitol.=--It is said that the most powerful lobby in Washington is "the Public Welfare Lobby backed by seven million organized American women." This lobby is composed of representatives of the following organizations of women with number of members estimated as indicated: