With a view to popularise the Y.M.I.A. and bring the members into closer bonds of friendship with each other, the Executive Committee have arranged for a series of social gatherings and lectures. The first of these was held yesterday evening [September 17] in the Gokhale Hall [in Madras]. In response to the invitation many guests young and old were present. The guests were treated to light refreshments, after which a variety entertainment of national songs, vocal and instrumental, and comic was provided. Mrs. Besant then addressing the audience spoke on the need of such gatherings. A portrait of Dr. Subramania Iyer was being painted and an ever increasing number would be hung on the walls of the Hall to remind the young men of those who had gone before them. Unveiling the busts of Sir Rabindranath Tagore and Mr. B.G. Tilak which were the gifts of Mr. Wag of Bombay she said that they were great types of national heroes. One of them was the idealist, the prophet, and the great singer. The other was the martyr who suffered for the Motherland. In Mr. Tilak they had a man who put his aspiration into his life and who had worshipped the motherland, not as Sir Rabindranath had done with his exquisite poetry, but with the poetry of great action, which made devotion not only ideal, but a realisation. With such men before them they could not fail to become worthy of their motherland. The function then came to a close.
