HOW TO WRITE SPECIAL FEATURE ARTICLES

A HANDBOOK FOR REPORTERS, CORRESPONDENTS AND FREE-LANCE WRITERS WHO DESIRE TO CONTRIBUTE TO POPULAR MAGAZINES AND MAGAZINE SECTIONS OF NEWSPAPERS

BY

WILLARD GROSVENOR BLEYER, PH.D.

Author of "Newspaper Writing and Editing," and "Types of News Writing"; Director of the Course in Journalism in the University of Wisconsin

BOSTON, NEW YORK, CHICAGO, SAN FRANCISCO

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

The Riverside Press Cambridge

The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

PREFACE

This book is the result of twelve years' experience in teaching university students to write special feature articles for newspapers and popular magazines. By applying the methods outlined in the following pages, young men and women have been able to prepare articles that have been accepted by many newspaper and magazine editors. The success that these students have achieved leads the author to believe that others who desire to write special articles may be aided by the suggestions given in this book.

Although innumerable books on short-story writing have been published, no attempt has hitherto been made to discuss in detail the writing of special feature articles. In the absence of any generally accepted method of approach to the subject, it has been necessary to work out a systematic classification of the various types of articles and of the different kinds of titles, beginnings, and similar details, as well as to supply names by which to identify them.

A careful analysis of current practice in the writing of special feature stories and popular magazine articles is the basis of the methods presented. In this analysis an effort has been made to show the application of the principles of composition to the writing of articles. Examples taken from representative newspapers and magazines are freely used to illustrate the methods discussed. To encourage students to analyze typical articles, the second part of the book is devoted to a collection of newspaper and magazine articles of various types, with an outline for the analysis of them.

Particular emphasis is placed on methods of popularizing such knowledge as is not available to the general reader. This has been done in the belief that it is important for the average person to know of the progress that is being made in every field of human endeavor, in order that he may, if possible, apply the results to his own affairs. The problem, therefore, is to show aspiring writers how to present discoveries, inventions, new methods, and every significant advance in knowledge, in an accurate and attractive form.

To train students to write articles for newspapers and popular magazines may, perhaps, be regarded by some college instructors in composition as an undertaking scarcely worth their while. They would doubtless prefer to encourage their students to write what is commonly called "literature." The fact remains, nevertheless, that the average undergraduate cannot write anything that approximates literature, whereas experience has shown that many students can write acceptable popular articles. Moreover, since the overwhelming majority of Americans read only newspapers and magazines, it is by no means an unimportant task for our universities to train writers to supply the steady demand for well-written articles. The late Walter Hines Page, founder of the World's Work and former editor of the Atlantic Monthly, presented the whole situation effectively in an article on "The Writer and the University," when he wrote:

The journeymen writers write almost all that almost all Americans read. This is a fact that we love to fool ourselves about. We talk about "literature" and we talk about "hack writers," implying that the reading that we do is of literature. The truth all the while is, we read little else than the writing of the hacks—living hacks, that is, men and women who write for pay. We may hug the notion that our life and thought are not really affected by current literature, that we read the living writers only for utilitarian reasons, and that our real intellectual life is fed by the great dead writers. But hugging this delusion does not change the fact that the intellectual life even of most educated persons, and certainly of the mass of the population, is fed chiefly by the writers of our own time....

Every editor of a magazine, every editor of an earnest and worthy newspaper, every publisher of books, has dozens or hundreds of important tasks for which he cannot find capable men; tasks that require scholarship, knowledge of science, or of politics, or of industry, or of literature, along with experience in writing accurately in the language of the people.

Special feature stories and popular magazine articles constitute a type of writing particularly adapted to the ability of the novice, who has developed some facility in writing, but who may not have sufficient maturity or talent to undertake successful short-story writing or other distinctly literary work. Most special articles cannot be regarded as literature. Nevertheless, they afford the young writer an opportunity to develop whatever ability he possesses. Such writing teaches him four things that are invaluable to any one who aspires to do literary work. It trains him to observe what is going on about him, to select what will interest the average reader, to organize material effectively, and to present it attractively. If this book helps the inexperienced writer, whether he is in or out of college, to acquire these four essential qualifications for success, it will have accomplished its purpose.

For permission to reprint complete articles, the author is indebted to the editors of the Boston Herald, the Christian Science Monitor, the Boston Evening Transcript, the New York Evening Post, the Detroit News, the Milwaukee Journal, the Kansas City Star, the New York Sun, the Providence Journal, the Ohio State Journal, the New York World, the Saturday Evening Post, the Independent, the Country Gentleman, the Outlook, McClure's Magazine, Everybody's Magazine, the Delineator, the Pictorial Review, Munsey's Magazine, the American Magazine, System, Farm and Fireside, the Woman's Home Companion, the Designer, and the Newspaper Enterprise Association. The author is also under obligation to the many newspapers and magazines from which excerpts, titles, and other material have been quoted.

At every stage in the preparation of this book the author has had the advantage of the coöperation and assistance of his wife, Alice Haskell Bleyer.

University of Wisconsin
Madison, August, 1919

CONTENTS

HOW TO WRITE SPECIAL FEATURE ARTICLES

PART I

CHAPTER I

THE FIELD FOR SPECIAL ARTICLES

Origin of Special Articles. The rise of popular magazines and of magazine sections of daily newspapers during the last thirty years has resulted in a type of writing known as the "special feature article." Such articles, presenting interesting and timely subjects in popular form, are designed to attract a class of readers that were not reached by the older literary periodicals. Editors of newspapers and magazines a generation ago began to realize that there was no lack of interest on the part of the general public in scientific discoveries and inventions, in significant political and social movements, in important persons and events. Magazine articles on these themes, however, had usually been written by specialists who, as a rule, did not attempt to appeal to the "man in the street," but were satisfied to reach a limited circle of well-educated readers.

To create a larger magazine-reading public, editors undertook to develop a popular form and style that would furnish information as attractively as possible. The perennial appeal of fiction gave them a suggestion for the popularization of facts. The methods of the short story, of the drama, and even of the melodrama, applied to the presentation of general information, provided a means for catching the attention of the casual reader.

Daily newspapers had already discovered the advantage of giving the day's news in a form that could be read rapidly with the maximum degree of interest by the average man and woman. Certain so-called sensational papers had gone a step further in these attempts to give added attractiveness to news and had emphasized its melodramatic aspects. Other papers had seen the value of the "human interest" phases of the day's happenings. It was not surprising, therefore, that Sunday editors of newspapers should undertake to apply to special articles the same methods that had proved successful in the treatment of news.

The product of these efforts at popularization was the special feature article, with its story-like form, its touches of description, its "human interest," its dramatic situations, its character portrayal—all effectively used to furnish information and entertainment for that rapid reader, the "average American."

Definition of a Special Article. A special feature article may be defined as a detailed presentation of facts in an interesting form adapted to rapid reading, for the purpose of entertaining or informing the average person. It usually deals with (1) recent news that is of sufficient importance to warrant elaboration; (2) timely or seasonal topics not directly connected with news; or (3) subjects of general interest that have no immediate connection with current events.

Although frequently concerned with news, the special feature article is more than a mere news story. It aims to supplement the bare facts of the news report by giving more detailed information regarding the persons, places, and circumstances that appear in the news columns. News must be published as fast as it develops, with only enough explanatory material to make it intelligible. The special article, written with the perspective afforded by an interval of a few days or weeks, fills in the bare outlines of the hurried news sketch with the life and color that make the picture complete.

The special feature article must not be confused with the type of news story called the "feature," or "human interest," story. The latter undertakes to present minor incidents of the day's news in an entertaining form. Like the important news story, it is published immediately after the incident occurs. Its purpose is to appeal to newspaper readers by bringing out the humorous and pathetic phases of events that have little real news value. It exemplifies, therefore, merely one distinctive form of news report.

The special feature article differs from the older type of magazine article, not so much in subject as in form and style. The most marked difference lies in the fact that it supplements the recognized methods of literary and scientific exposition with the more striking devices of narrative, descriptive, and dramatic writing.

Scope of Feature Articles. The range of subjects for special articles is as wide as human knowledge and experience. Any theme is suitable that can be made interesting to a considerable number of persons. A given topic may make either a local or a general appeal. If interest in it is likely to be limited to persons in the immediate vicinity of the place with which the subject is connected, the article is best adapted to publication in a local newspaper. If the theme is one that appeals to a larger public, the article is adapted to a periodical of general circulation. Often local material has interest for persons in many other communities, and hence is suitable either for newspapers or for magazines.

Some subjects have a peculiar appeal to persons engaged in a particular occupation or devoted to a particular avocation or amusement. Special articles on these subjects of limited appeal are adapted to agricultural, trade, or other class publications, particularly to such of these periodicals as present their material in a popular rather than a technical manner.

The Newspaper Field. Because of their number and their local character, daily newspapers afford a ready medium for the publication of special articles, or "special feature stories," as they are generally called in newspaper offices. Some newspapers publish these articles from day to day on the editorial page or in other parts of the paper. Many more papers have magazine sections on Saturday or Sunday made up largely of such "stories." Some of these special sections closely resemble regular magazines in form, cover, and general make-up.

The articles published in newspapers come from three sources: (1) syndicates that furnish a number of newspapers in different cities with special articles, illustrations, and other matter, for simultaneous publication; (2) members of the newspaper's staff; that is, reporters, correspondents, editors, or special writers employed for the purpose; (3) so-called "free-lance" writers, professional or amateur, who submit their "stories" to the editor of the magazine section.

Reporters, correspondents, and other regular members of the staff may be assigned to write special feature stories, or may prepare such stories on their own initiative for submission to the editor of the magazine section. In many offices regular members of the staff are paid for special feature stories in addition to their salaries, especially when the subjects are not assigned to them and when the stories are prepared in the writer's own leisure time. Other papers expect their regular staff members to furnish the paper with whatever articles they may write, as a part of the work covered by their salary. If a paper has one or more special feature writers on its staff, it may pay them a fixed salary or may employ them "on space"; that is, pay them at a fixed "space rate" for the number of columns that an article fills when printed.

Newspaper correspondents, who are usually paid at space rates for news stories, may add to their monthly "string," or amount of space, by submitting special feature articles in addition to news. They may also submit articles to other papers that do not compete with their own paper. Ordinarily a newspaper expects a correspondent to give it the opportunity of printing any special feature stories that he may write.

Free-lance writers, who are not regularly employed by newspapers or magazines as staff members, submit articles for the editor's consideration and are paid at space rates. Sometimes a free lance will outline an article in a letter or in personal conference with an editor in order to get his approval before writing it, but, unless the editor knows the writer's work, he is not likely to promise to accept the completed article. To the writer there is an obvious advantage in knowing that the subject as he outlines it is or is not an acceptable one. If an editor likes the work of a free lance, he may suggest subjects for articles, or may even ask him to prepare an article on a given subject. Freelance writers, by selling their work at space rates, can often make more money than they would receive as regular members of a newspaper staff.

For the amateur the newspaper offers an excellent field. First, in every city of any size there is at least one daily newspaper, and almost all these papers publish special feature stories. Second, feature articles on local topics, the material for which is right at the amateur's hand, are sought by most newspapers. Third, newspaper editors are generally less critical of form and style than are magazine editors. With some practice an inexperienced writer may acquire sufficient skill to prepare an acceptable special feature story for publication in a local paper, and even if he is paid little or nothing for it, he will gain experience from seeing his work in print.

The space rate paid for feature articles is usually proportionate to the size of the city in which the newspaper is published. In small cities papers seldom pay more than $1 a column; in larger places the rate is about $3 a column; in still larger ones, $5; and in the largest, from $8 to $10. In general the column rate for special feature stories is the same as that paid for news stories.

What Newspapers Want. Since timeliness is the keynote of the newspaper, current topics, either growing out of the news of the week or anticipating coming events, furnish the subjects for most special feature stories. The news columns from day to day provide room for only concise announcements of such news as a scientific discovery, an invention, the death of an interesting person, a report on social or industrial conditions, proposed legislation, the razing of a landmark, or the dedication of a new building. Such news often arouses the reader's curiosity to know more of the persons, places, and circumstances mentioned. In an effort to satisfy this curiosity, editors of magazine sections print special feature stories based on news.

By anticipating approaching events, an editor is able to supply articles that are timely for a particular issue of his paper. Two classes of subjects that he usually looks forward to in this way are: first, those concerned with local, state, and national anniversaries; and second, those growing out of seasonal occasions, such as holidays, vacations, the opening of schools and colleges, moving days, commencements, the opening of hunting and fishing seasons.

The general policy of a newspaper with regard to special feature stories is the same as its policy concerning news. Both are determined by the character of its circulation. A paper that is read largely by business and professional men provides news and special articles that satisfy such readers. A paper that aims to reach the so-called masses naturally selects news and features that will appeal to them. If a newspaper has a considerable circulation outside the city where it is published, the editors, in framing their policy, cannot afford to overlook their suburban and rural readers. The character of its readers, in a word, determines the character of a paper's special feature stories.

The newspaper is primarily local in character. A city, a state, or at most a comparatively small section of the whole country, is its particular field. Besides the news of its locality, it must, of course, give significant news of the world at large. So, too, in addition to local feature articles, it should furnish special feature stories of a broader scope. This distinctively local character of newspapers differentiates them from magazines of national circulation in the matter of acceptable subjects for special articles.

The frequency of publication of newspapers, as well as their ephemeral character, leads, in many instances, to the choice of comparatively trivial topics for some articles. Merely to give readers entertaining matter with which to occupy their leisure at the end of a day's work or on Sunday, some papers print special feature stories on topics of little or no importance, often written in a light vein. Articles with no more serious purpose than that of helping readers to while away a few spare moments are obviously better adapted to newspapers, which are read rapidly and immediately cast aside, than to periodicals.

The sensationalism that characterizes the policy of some newspapers affects alike their news columns and their magazine sections. Gossip, scandal, and crime lend themselves to melodramatic treatment as readily in special feature articles as in news stories. On the other hand, the relatively few magazines that undertake to attract readers by sensationalism, usually do so by means of short stories and serials rather than by special articles.

All newspapers, in short, use special feature stories on local topics, some papers print trivial ones, and others "play up" sensational material; whereas practically no magazine publishes articles of these types.

Sunday Magazine Sections. The character and scope of special articles for the Sunday magazine section of newspapers have been well summarized by two well-known editors of such sections. Mr. John O'Hara Cosgrove, editor of the New York Sunday World Magazine, and formerly editor of Everybody's Magazine, gives this as his conception of the ideal Sunday magazine section:

The real function of the Sunday Magazine, to my thinking, is to present the color and romance of the news, the most authoritative opinions on the issues and events of the day, and to chronicle promptly the developments of science as applied to daily life. In the grind of human intercourse all manner of curious, heroic, delightful things turn up, and for the most part, are dismissed in a passing note. Behind every such episode are human beings and a story, and these, if fairly and artfully explained, are the very stuff of romance. Into every great city men are drifting daily from the strange and remote places of the world where they have survived perilous hazards and seen rare spectacles. Such adventures are the treasure troves of the skilful reporter. The cross currents and reactions that lead up to any explosion of greed or passion that we call crime are often worth following, not only for their plots, but as proofs of the pain and terror of transgression. Brave deeds or heroic resistances are all too seldom presented in full length in the news, and generously portrayed prove the nobility inherent in every-day life.

The broad domain of the Sunday magazine editor covers all that may be rare and curious or novel in the arts and sciences, in music and verse, in religion and the occult, on the stage and in sport. Achievements and controversies are ever culminating in these diverse fields, and the men and women actors therein make admirable subjects for his pages. Provided the editor has at his disposal skilled writers who have the fine arts of vivid and simple exposition and of the brief personal sketch, there is nothing of human interest that may not be presented.

The ideal Sunday magazine, as Mr. Frederick Boyd Stevenson, Sunday editor of the Brooklyn Eagle, sees it, he describes thus:

The new Sunday magazine of the newspaper bids fair to be a crisp, sensible review and critique of the live world. It has developed a special line of writers who have learned that a character sketch and interview of a man makes you "see" the man face to face and talk with him yourself. If he has done anything that gives him a place in the news of to-day, he is presented to you. You know the man.

It seems to me that the leading feature of the Sunday magazine should be the biggest topic that will be before the public on the Sunday that the newspaper is printed. It should be written by one who thoroughly knows his subject, who is forceful in style and fluent in words, who can make a picture that his readers can see, and seeing, realize. So every other feature of the Sunday magazine should have points of human interest, either by contact with the news of the day or with men and women who are doing something besides getting divorces and creating scandals.

I firmly believe that the coming Sunday magazine will contain articles of information without being dull or encyclopædic, articles of adventure that are real and timely, articles of scientific discoveries that are authentic, interviews with men and women who have messages, and interpretations of news and analyses of every-day themes, together with sketches, poems, and essays that are not tedious, but have a reason for being printed.

The Magazine Field. The great majority of magazines differ from all newspapers in one important respect—extent of circulation. Popular magazines have a nation-wide distribution. It is only among agricultural and trade journals that we find a distinctly sectional circulation. Some of these publications serve subscribers in only one state or section, and others issue separate state or sectional editions. The best basis of differentiation among magazines, then, is not the extent of circulation but the class of readers appealed to, regardless of the part of the country in which the readers live. The popular general magazine, monthly or weekly, aims to attract readers of all classes in all parts of the United States.

How Magazines Get Material. Magazine articles come from (1) regular members of the magazine's staff, (2) professional or amateur free-lance writers, (3) specialists who write as an avocation, and (4) readers of the periodical who send in material based on their own experience.

The so-called "staff system" of magazine editing, in accordance with which practically all the articles are prepared by writers regularly employed by the publication, has been adopted by a few general magazines and by a number of class periodicals. The staff is recruited from writers and editors on newspapers and other magazines. Its members often perform various editorial duties in addition to writing articles. Publications edited in this way buy few if any articles from outsiders.

Magazines that do not follow the staff system depend largely or entirely on contributors. Every editor daily receives many manuscripts submitted by writers on their own initiative. From these he selects the material best adapted to his publication. Experienced writers often submit an outline of an article to a magazine editor for his approval before preparing the material for publication. Free-lance writers of reputation may be asked by magazine editors to prepare articles on given subjects.

In addition to material obtained in these ways, articles may be secured from specialists who write as an avocation. An editor generally decides on the subject that he thinks will interest his readers at a given time and then selects the authority best fitted to treat it in a popular way. To induce well-known men to prepare such articles, an editor generally offers them more than he normally pays.

A periodical may encourage its readers to send in short articles giving their own experiences and explaining how to do something in which they have become skilled. These personal experience articles have a reality and "human interest" that make them eminently readable. To obtain them magazines sometimes offer prizes for the best, reserving the privilege of publishing acceptable articles that do not win an award. Aspiring writers should take advantage of these prize contests as a possible means of getting both publication and money for their work.

Opportunities for Unknown Writers. The belief is common among novices that because they are unknown their work is likely to receive little or no consideration from editors. As a matter of fact, in the majority of newspaper and magazine offices all unsolicited manuscripts are considered strictly on their merits. The unknown writer has as good a chance as anybody of having his manuscript accepted, provided that his work has merit comparable with that of more experienced writers.

With the exception of certain newspapers that depend entirely on syndicates for their special features, and of a few popular magazines that have the staff system or that desire only the work of well-known writers, every publication welcomes special articles and short stories by novices. Moreover, editors take pride in the fact that from time to time they "discover" writers whose work later proves popular. They not infrequently tell how they accepted a short story, an article, or some verse by an author of whom they had never before heard, because they were impressed with the quality of it, and how the verdict of their readers confirmed their own judgment.

The relatively small number of amateurs who undertake special articles, compared with the hundreds of thousands who try their hand at short stories, makes the opportunities for special feature writers all the greater. Then, too, the number of professional writers of special articles is comparatively small. This is particularly true of writers who are able effectively to popularize scientific and technical material, as well as of those who can present in popular form the results of social and economic investigations.

It is not too much to say, therefore, that any writer who is willing (1) to study the interests and the needs of newspaper and magazine readers, (2) to gather carefully the material for his articles, and (3) to present it accurately and attractively, may be sure that his work will receive the fullest consideration in almost every newspaper and magazine office in the country, and will be accepted whenever it is found to merit publication.

Women as Feature Writers. Since the essential qualifications just enumerated are not limited to men, women are quite as well fitted to write special feature and magazine articles as are their brothers in the craft. In fact, woman's quicker sympathies and readier emotional response to many phases of life give her a distinct advantage. Her insight into the lives of others, and her intuitive understanding of them, especially fit her to write good "human interest" articles. Both the delicacy of touch and the chatty, personal tone that characterize the work of many young women, are well suited to numerous topics.

In some fields, such as cooking, sewing, teaching, the care of children, and household management, woman's greater knowledge and understanding of conditions furnish her with topics that are vital to other women and often not uninteresting to men. The entry of women into occupations hitherto open only to men is bringing new experiences to many women, and is furnishing women writers with additional fields from which to draw subjects and material. Ever since the beginning of popular magazines and of special feature writing for newspapers, women writers have proved their ability, but at no time have the opportunities for them been greater than at present.

CHAPTER II

PREPARATION FOR SPECIAL FEATURE WRITING

Qualifications for Feature Writing. To attain success as a writer of special feature articles a person must possess at least four qualifications: (1) ability to find subjects that will interest the average man and woman, and to see the picturesque, romantic, and significant phases of these subjects; (2) a sympathetic understanding of the lives and interests of the persons about whom and for whom he writes; (3) thoroughness and accuracy in gathering material; (4) skill to portray and to explain clearly, accurately, and attractively.

The much vaunted sense of news values commonly called a "nose for news," whether innate or acquired, is a prime requisite. Like the newspaper reporter, the writer of special articles must be able to recognize what at a given moment will interest the average reader. Like the reporter, also, he must know how much it will interest him. An alert, responsive attitude of mind toward everything that is going on in the world, and especially in that part of the world immediately around him, will reveal a host of subjects. By reading newspapers, magazines, and books, as well as by intercourse with persons of various classes, a writer keeps in contact with what people are thinking and talking about, in the world at large and in his own community. In this way he finds subjects and also learns how to connect his subjects with events and movements of interest the country over.

Not only should he be quick to recognize a good subject; he must be able to see the attractive and significant aspects of it. He must understand which of its phases touch most closely the life and the interests of the average person for whom he is writing. He must look at things from "the other fellow's" point of view. A sympathetic insight into the lives of his readers is necessary for every writer who hopes to quicken his subject with vital interest.

The alert mental attitude that constantly focuses the writer's attention on the men and women around him has been called "human curiosity," which Arnold Bennett says "counts among the highest social virtues (as indifference counts among the basest defects), because it leads to the disclosure of the causes of character and temperament and thereby to a better understanding of the springs of human conduct." The importance of curiosity and of a keen sense of wonder has been emphasized as follows by Mr. John M. Siddall, editor of the American Magazine, who directed his advice to college students interested in the opportunities afforded by writing as a profession:

A journalist or writer must have consuming curiosity about other human beings—the most intense interest in their doings and motives and thoughts. It comes pretty near being the truth to say that a great journalist is a super-gossip—not about trivial things but about important things. Unless a man has a ceaseless desire to learn what is going on in the heads of others, he won't be much of a journalist—for how can you write about others unless you know about others?

In journalism men are needed who have a natural sense of wonder.... You must wonder at man's achievements, at man's stupidity, at his honesty, crookedness, courage, cowardice—at everything that is remarkable about him wherever and whenever it appears. If you haven't this sense of wonder, you will never write a novel or become a great reporter, because you simply won't see anything to write about. Men will be doing amazing things under your very eyes—and you won't even know it.

Ability to investigate a subject thoroughly, and to gather material accurately, is absolutely necessary for any writer who aims to do acceptable work. Careless, inaccurate writers are the bane of the magazine editor's life. Whenever mistakes appear in an article, readers are sure to write to the editor calling his attention to them. Moreover, the discovery of incorrect statements impairs the confidence of readers in the magazine. If there is reason to doubt the correctness of any data in an article, the editor takes pains to check over the facts carefully before publication. He is not inclined to accept work a second time from a writer who has once proved unreliable.

To interpret correctly the essential significance of data is as important as to record them accurately. Readers want to know the meaning of facts and figures, and it is the writer's mission to bring out this meaning. A sympathetic understanding of the persons who figure in his article is essential, not only to portray them accurately, but to give his story the necessary "human interest." To observe accurately, to feel keenly, and to interpret sympathetically and correctly whatever he undertakes to write about, should be a writer's constant aim.

Ability to write well enough to make the average person see as clearly, feel as keenly, and understand as well as he does himself the persons and things that he is portraying and explaining, is obviously the sine qua non of success. Ease, fluency, and originality of diction, either natural or acquired, the writer must possess if his work is to have distinction.

Training for Feature Writing. The ideal preparation for a writer of special articles would include a four-year college course, at least a year's work as a newspaper reporter, and practical experience in some other occupation or profession in which the writer intends to specialize in his writing. Although not all persons who desire to do special feature work will be able to prepare themselves in this way, most of them can obtain some part of this preliminary training.

A college course, although not absolutely essential for success, is generally recognized to be of great value as a preparation for writing. College training aims to develop the student's ability to observe accurately, to think logically, and to express his ideas clearly and effectively—all of which is vital to good special feature writing. In addition, such a course gives a student a knowledge of many subjects that he will find useful for his articles. A liberal education furnishes a background that is invaluable for all kinds of literary work. Universities also offer excellent opportunities for specialization. Intensive study in some one field of knowledge, such as agriculture, banking and finance, home economics, public health, social service, government and politics, or one of the physical sciences, makes it possible for a writer to specialize in his articles. In choosing a department in which to do special work in college, a student may be guided by his own tastes and interests, or he may select some field in which there is considerable demand for well trained writers. The man or woman with a specialty has a superior equipment for writing.

With the development of courses in journalism in many colleges and universities has come the opportunity to obtain instruction and practice, not only in the writing of special feature and magazine articles, but also in newspaper reporting, editing, and short story writing. To write constantly under guidance and criticism, such as it is impossible to secure in newspaper and magazine offices, will develop whatever ability a student possesses.

Experience as a newspaper reporter supplements college training in journalism and is the best substitute for college work generally available to persons who cannot go to college. For any one who aspires to write, reporting has several distinct advantages and some dangers.

The requirement that news be printed at the earliest possible moment teaches newspaper workers to collect facts and opinions quickly and to write them up rapidly under pressure. Newspaper work also develops a writer's appreciation of what constitutes news and what determines news values; that is, it helps him to recognize at once, not only what interests the average reader, but how much it interests him. Then, too, in the course of his round of news gathering a reporter sees more of human life under a variety of circumstances than do workers in any other occupation. Such experience not only supplies him with an abundance of material, but gives him a better understanding and a more sympathetic appreciation of the life of all classes.

To get the most out of his reporting, a writer must guard against two dangers. One is the temptation to be satisfied with superficial work hastily done. The necessity of writing rapidly under pressure and of constantly handling similar material, encourages neglect of the niceties of structure and of style. In the rush of rapid writing, the importance of care in the choice of words and in the arrangement of phrases and clauses is easily forgotten. Even though well-edited newspapers insist on the highest possible degree of accuracy in presenting news, the exigencies of newspaper publishing often make it impossible to verify facts or to attain absolute accuracy. Consequently a reporter may drop into the habit of being satisfied with less thorough methods of collecting and presenting his material than are demanded by the higher standards of magazine writing.

The second danger is that he may unconsciously permit a more or less cynical attitude to replace the healthy, optimistic outlook with which he began his work. With the seamy side of life constantly before him, he may find that his faith in human nature is being undermined. If, however, he loses his idealism, he cannot hope to give his articles that sincerity, hopefulness, and constructive spirit demanded by the average reader, who, on the whole, retains his belief that truth and righteousness prevail.

Of the relation of newspaper reporting to the writing of magazine articles and to magazine editing, Mr. Howard Wheeler, editor of Everybody's Magazine, has said:

It is the trained newspaper men that the big periodical publishers are reaching out for. The man who has been through the newspaper mill seems to have a distinct edge on the man who enters the field without any newspaper training.

The nose for news, the ability to select and play up leads, the feel of what is of immediate public interest is just as important in magazine work as in newspaper work.

Fundamentally the purpose of a magazine article is the same as the purpose of a newspaper story—to tell a tale, to tell it directly, convincingly, and interestingly.

Practical experience in the field of his specialty is of advantage in familiarizing a writer with the actual conditions about which he is preparing himself to write. To engage for some time in farming, railroading, household management, or any other occupation, equips a person to write more intelligently about it. Such practical experience either supplements college training in a special field, or serves as the best substitute for such specialized education.

What Editors Want. All the requirements for success in special feature writing may be reduced to the trite dictum that editors want what they believe their readers want. Although a commonplace, it expresses a point of view that aspiring writers are apt to forget. From a purely commercial standpoint, editors are middlemen who buy from producers what they believe they can sell to their customers. Unless an editor satisfies his readers with his articles, they will cease to buy his publication. If his literary wares are not what his readers want, he finds on the newsstands unsold piles of his publication, just as a grocer finds on his shelves faded packages of an unpopular breakfast food. Both editor and grocer undertake to buy from the producers what will have a ready sale and will satisfy their customers.

The writer, then, as the producer, must furnish wares that will attract and satisfy the readers of the periodical to which he desires to sell his product. It is the ultimate consumer, not merely the editor, that he must keep in mind in selecting his material and in writing his article. "Will the reader like this?" is the question that he must ask himself at every stage of his work. Unless he can convince himself that the average person who reads the periodical to which he proposes to submit his article will like what he is writing, he cannot hope to sell it to the editor.

Understanding the Reader. Instead of thinking of readers as a more or less indefinite mass, the writer will find it advantageous to picture to himself real persons who may be taken as typical readers. It is very easy for an author to think that what interests him and his immediate circle will appeal equally to people in general. To write successfully, however, for the Sunday magazine of a newspaper, it is necessary to keep in mind the butcher, the baker, and—if not the candlestick-maker, at least the stenographer and the department store clerk—as well as the doctor, lawyer, merchant, and chief. What is true of the Sunday newspaper is true of the popular magazine.

The most successful publisher in this country attributes the success of his periodical to the fact that he kept before his mind's eye, as a type, a family of his acquaintance in a Middle-Western town of fifteen hundred inhabitants, and shaped the policy of his publication to meet the needs and interests of all its members. An editor who desired to reach such a family would be immeasurably helped in selecting his material by trying constantly to judge from their point of view whatever passed through his hands. It is equally true that a writer desiring to gain admittance to that magazine, or to others making the same appeal, would greatly profit by visualizing as vividly as possible a similar family. Every successful writer, consciously or unconsciously, thus pictures his readers to himself.

If, for example, an author is preparing an article for an agricultural journal, he must have in his mind's eye an average farmer and this farmer's family. Not only must he see them in their surroundings; he must try to see life from their point of view. The attitude of the typical city man toward the farm and country life is very different from that of the countryman. Lack of sympathy and insight is a fatal defect in many an article intended by the writer for farm readers.

Whatever the publication to which an author desires to contribute, he should consider first, last, and all the time, its readers—their surroundings, their education, their income, their ambitions, their amusements, their prejudices—in short, he must see them as they really are.

The necessity of understanding the reader and his point of view has been well brought out by Mr. John M. Siddall, editor of the American Magazine, in the following excerpt from an editorial in that periodical:

The man who refuses to use his imagination to enable him to look at things from the other fellow's point of view simply cannot exercise wide influence. He cannot reach people.

Underneath it, somehow, lies a great law, the law of service. You can't expect to attract people unless you do something for them. The business man who has something to sell must have something useful to sell, and he must talk about it from the point of view of the people to whom he wants to sell his goods. In the same way, the journalist, the preacher, and the politician must look at things from the point of view of those they would reach. They must feel the needs of others and then reach out and meet those needs. They can never have a large following unless they give something. The same law runs into the human relation. How we abhor the man who talks only about himself—the man who never inquires about our troubles, our problems; the man who never puts himself in our place, but unimaginatively and unsympathetically goes on and on, egotistically hammering away on the only subject that interests him—namely himself.

Studying Newspapers and Magazines. Since every successful publication may be assumed to be satisfying its readers to a considerable degree, the best way to determine what kind of readers it has, and what they are interested in, is to study the contents carefully. No writer should send an article to a publication before he has examined critically several of its latest issues. In fact, no writer should prepare an article before deciding to just what periodical he wishes to submit it. The more familiar he is with the periodical the better are his chances of having his contribution accepted.

In analyzing a newspaper or magazine in order to determine the type of reader to which it appeals, the writer should consider the character of the subjects in its recent issues, and the point of view from which these subjects are presented. Every successful periodical has a distinct individuality, which may be regarded as an expression of the editor's idea of what his readers expect of his publication. To become a successful contributor to a periodical, a writer must catch the spirit that pervades its fiction and its editorials, as well as its special articles.

In his effort to determine the kind of topics preferred by a given publication, a writer may at first glance decide that timeliness is the one element that dominates their choice, but a closer examination of the articles in one or more issues will reveal a more specific basis of selection. Thus, one Sunday paper will be found to contain articles on the latest political, sociological, and literary topics, while another deals almost exclusively with society leaders, actors and actresses, and other men and women whose recent experiences or adventures have brought them into prominence.

It is of even greater value to find out by careful reading of the entire contents of several numbers of a periodical, the exact point of view from which the material is treated. Every editor aims to present the contents of his publication in the way that will make the strongest appeal to his readers. This point of view it is the writer's business to discover and adopt.

Analysis of Special Articles. An inexperienced writer who desires to submit special feature stories to newspapers should begin by analyzing thoroughly the stories of this type in the daily papers published in his own section of the country. Usually in the Saturday or Sunday issues he will find typical articles on topics connected with the city and with the state or states in which the paper circulates. The advantage of beginning his study of newspaper stories with those published in papers near his home lies in the fact that he is familiar with the interests of the readers of these papers and can readily understand their point of view. By noting the subjects, the point of view, the form, the style, the length, and the illustrations, he will soon discover what these papers want, or rather, what the readers of these papers want. The "Outline for the Analysis of Special Articles" in Part II will indicate the points to keep in mind in studying these articles.

In order to get a broader knowledge of the scope and character of special feature stories, a writer may well extend his studies to the magazine sections of the leading papers of the country. From the work of the most experienced and original of the feature writers, which is generally to be found in these metropolitan papers, the novice will derive no little inspiration as well as a valuable knowledge of technique.

The methods suggested for analyzing special feature stories in newspapers are applicable also to the study of magazine articles. Magazines afford a better opportunity than do newspapers for an analysis of the different types of articles discussed in Chapter V. Since magazine articles are usually signed, it is possible to seek out and study the work of various successful authors in order to determine wherein lies the effectiveness of their writing. Beginning with the popular weekly and monthly magazines, a writer may well extend his study to those periodicals that appeal to particular classes, such as women's magazines, agricultural journals, and trade publications.

Ideals in Feature Writing. After thoughtful analysis of special articles in all kinds of newspapers and magazines, the young writer with a critical sense developed by reading English literature may come to feel that much of the writing in periodicals falls far short of the standards of excellence established by the best authors. Because he finds that the average uncritical reader not only accepts commonplace work but is apparently attracted by meretricious devices in writing, he may conclude that high literary standards are not essential to popular success. The temptation undoubtedly is great both for editors and writers to supply articles that are no better than the average reader demands, especially in such ephemeral publications as newspapers and popular magazines. Nevertheless, the writer who yields to this temptation is sure to produce only mediocre work. If he is satisfied to write articles that will be characterized merely as "acceptable," he will never attain distinction.

The special feature writer owes it both to himself and to his readers to do the best work of which he is capable. It is his privilege not only to inform and to entertain the public, but to create better taste and a keener appreciation of good writing. That readers do not demand better writing in their newspapers and magazines does not mean that they are unappreciative of good work. Nor do originality and precision in style necessarily "go over the heads" of the average person. Whenever writers and editors give the public something no better than it is willing to accept, they neglect a great opportunity to aid in the development of better literary taste, particularly on the part of the public whose reading is largely confined to newspapers and periodicals.

Because of the commericial value of satisfying his readers, an editor occasionally assumes that he must give all of them whatever some of them crave. "We are only giving the public what it wants," is his excuse for printing fiction and articles that are obviously demoralizing in their effect. A heterogeneous public inevitably includes a considerable number of individuals who are attracted by a suggestive treatment of morbid phases of life. To cater to the low desires of some readers, on the ground of "giving the public what it wants," will always be regarded by self-respecting editors and authors as indefensible.

The writer's opportunity to influence the mental, moral, and æsthetic ideals of hundreds of thousands of readers is much greater than he often realizes. When he considers the extent to which most men and women are unconsciously guided in their ideas and aspirations by what they read in newspapers and magazines, he cannot fail to appreciate his responsibility. Grasping the full significance of his special feature writing, he will no longer be content to write just well enough to sell his product, but will determine to devote his effort to producing articles that are the best of which he is capable.

CHAPTER III

FINDING SUBJECTS AND MATERIAL

Sources of Subjects. "What shall I write about?" is the first question that inexperienced writers ask their literary advisers. "If you haven't anything to write about, why write at all?" might be an easy answer. Most persons, as a matter of fact, have plenty to write about but do not realize it. Not lack of subjects, but inability to recognize the possibilities of what lies at hand, is their real difficulty.

The best method of finding subjects is to look at every person, every event, every experience—in short, at everything—with a view to seeing whether or not it has possibilities for a special feature article. Even in the apparently prosaic round of everyday life will be found a variety of themes. A circular letter from a business firm announcing a new policy, a classified advertisement in a newspaper, the complaint of a scrub-woman, a new variety of fruit in the grocer's window, an increase in the price of laundry work, a hurried luncheon at a cafeteria—any of the hundred and one daily experiences may suggest a "live" topic for an article.

"Every foot of ground is five feet deep with subjects; all you have to do is to scratch the surface for one," declared the editor of a popular magazine who is also a successful writer of special articles. This statement may be taken as literally true. Within the narrow confines of one's house and yard, for instance, are many topics. A year's experience with the family budget, a home-made device, an attempt to solve the servant problem, a method of making pin-money, a practical means of economizing in household management, are forms of personal experience that may be made interesting to newspaper and magazine readers. A garden on a city lot, a poultry house in a back yard, a novel form of garage, a new use for a gasoline engine, a labor-saving device on the farm, may afford equally good topics. One's own experience, always a rich field, may be supplemented by experiences of neighbors and friends.

A second source of subjects is the daily newspaper. Local news will give the writer clues that he can follow up by visiting the places mentioned, interviewing the persons concerned, and gathering other relevant material. When news comes from a distance, he can write to the persons most likely to have the desired information. In neither case can he be sure, until he has investigated, that an item of news will prove to contain sufficient available material for an article. Many pieces of news, however, are worth running down carefully, for the day's events are rich in possibilities.

Pieces of news as diverse as the following may suggest excellent subjects for special articles: the death of an interesting person, the sale of a building that has historic associations, the meeting of an uncommon group or organization, the approach of the anniversary of an event, the election or appointment of a person to a position, an unusual occupation, an odd accident, an auction, a proposed municipal improvement, the arrival of a well-known person, an official report, a legal decision, an epidemic, the arrest of a noted criminal, the passing of an old custom, the publication of the city directory, a railroad accident, a marked change in fashion in dress.

A third source of both subjects and material is the report of special studies in some field, the form of the report ranging from a paper read at a meeting to a treatise in several volumes. These reports of experiments, surveys, investigations, and other forms of research, are to be found in printed bulletins, monographs, proceedings of organizations, scientific periodicals, and new books. Government publications—federal, state, and local—giving results of investigative work done by bureaus, commissions, and committees, are public documents that may usually be had free of charge. Technical and scientific periodicals and printed proceedings of important organizations are generally available at public libraries.

As Mr. Waldemar Kaempffert, editor of Popular Science Monthly, has said:

There is hardly a paper read before the Royal Institution or the French Academy or our American engineering and chemical societies that cannot be made dramatically interesting from a human standpoint and that does not chronicle real news.

"If you want to publish something where it will never be read," a wit has observed, "print it in an official document." Government reports are filled with valuable information that remains quite unknown to the average reader unless newspapers and magazines unearth it and present it in popular form. The popularization of the contents of all kinds of scientific and technical publications affords great opportunities for the writer who can present such subjects effectively.

In addressing students of journalism on "Science and Journalism," Dr. Edwin E. Slosson, literary editor of the Independent, who was formerly a professor of chemistry, has said:

The most radical ideas of our day are not apt to be found in the popular newspaper or in queer little insurrectionary, heretical and propaganda sheets that we occasionally see, but in the technical journals and proceedings of learned societies. The real revolutions are hatched in the laboratory and study. The papers read before the annual meetings of the scientific societies, and for the most part unnoticed by the press, contain more dynamite than was ever discovered in any anarchist's shop. Political revolutions merely change the form of government or the name of the party in power. Scientific revolutions really turn the world over, and it never settles back into its former position.

The beauty and meaning of scientific discoveries can be revealed to the general reader if there is an intermediary who can understand equally the language of the laboratory and of the street. The modern journalist knows that anything can be made interesting to anybody, if he takes pains enough with the writing of it. It is not necessary, either, to pervert scientific truths in the process of translation into the vernacular. The facts are sensational enough without any picturesque exaggeration.

The field is not an unprofitable one even in the mercenary sense. To higher motives the task of popularizing science makes a still stronger appeal. Ignorance is the source of most of our ills. Ignorant we must always be of much that we need to know, but there is no excuse for remaining ignorant of what somebody on earth knows or has known. Rich treasure lies hidden in what President Gilman called "the bibliothecal cairn" of scientific monographs which piles up about a university. The journalist might well exchange the muckrake for the pick and dig it out.

Nothing could accelerate human progress more than to reduce the time between the discovery of a new truth and its application to the needs of mankind.... It is regarded as a great journalistic achievement when the time of transmission of a cablegram is shortened. But how much more important it is to gain a few years in learning what the men who are in advance of their age are doing than to gain a few seconds in learning what the people of Europe are doing? This lag in intellectual progress ... is something which it is the especial duty of the journalist to remove. He likes to score a beat of a few hours. Very well, if he will turn his attention to science, he can often score a beat of ten years.

The three main sources, therefore, of subjects and material for special feature and magazine articles are (1) personal observation and experience, (2) newspapers, (3) scientific and technical publications and official reports.

Personal Observation. How a writer may discover subjects for newspaper feature articles in the course of his daily routine by being alive to the possibilities around him can best be shown by concrete examples.

A "community sing" in a public park gave a woman writer a good subject for a special article published in the Philadelphia North American.

In the publication of a city directory was found a timely subject for an article on the task of getting out the annual directory in a large city; the story was printed in a Sunday issue of the Boston Herald.

A glimpse of some children dressed like Arctic explorers in an outdoor school in Kansas City was evidently the origin of a special feature story on that institution, which was published in the Kansas City Star.

A woman standing guard one evening over a partially completed school building in Seattle suggested a special feature in the Seattle Post Intelligencer on the unusual occupation of night "watchman" for a woman.

While making a purchase in a drug store, a writer overheard a clerk make a request for a deposit from a woman who desired to have a prescription filled, an incident which led him to write a special feature for the New York Times on this method of discouraging persons from adding to the drug store's "morgue" of unclaimed prescriptions.

From a visit to the Children's Museum in Brooklyn was developed a feature article for the New York Herald, and from a story-telling hour at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts was evolved a feature story for the Boston Herald on the telling of stories as a means of interesting children in pictures.

Magazine articles also may originate in the writer's observation of what is going on about him. The specific instances given below, like those already mentioned, will indicate to the inexperienced writer where to look for inspiration.

A newspaper reporter who covered the criminal courts compiled the various methods of burglars and sneak thieves in gaining entrance to houses and apartments, as he heard them related in trials, and wrote a helpful article for Good Housekeeping on how to protect one's house against robbery.

The exhibition of a novel type of rack for curing seed corn gave a writer a subject for an article on this "corn tree," which was published in the Illustrated World.

During a short stop at a farm while on an automobile trip, a woman writer noticed a concrete storage cellar for vegetables, and from an interview with the farmer obtained enough material for an article, which she sold to a farm journal.

While a woman writer was making a purchase in a plumber's shop, the plumber was called to the telephone. On returning to his customer, he remarked that the call was from a woman on a farm five miles from town, who could easily have made the slight repairs herself if she had known a little about the water-supply system on her farm. From the material which the writer obtained from the plumber, she wrote an article for an agricultural paper on how plumber's bills can be avoided.

A display of canned goods in a grocer's window, with special prices for dozen and case lots, suggested an article, afterwards published in the Merchants Trade Journal, on this grocer's method of fighting mail-order competition.

Personal Experience. What we actually do ourselves, as well as what we see others do, may be turned to good use in writing articles. Personal experiences not only afford good subjects and plenty of material but are more easily handled than most other subjects, because, being very real and vital to the writer, they can the more readily be made real and vital to the reader. Many inexperienced writers overlook the possibilities of what they themselves have done and are doing.

To gain experience and impressions for their articles, special writers on newspapers even assume temporarily the roles of persons whose lives and experiences they desire to portray. One Chicago paper featured every Sunday for many weeks articles by a reporter who, in order to get material, did a variety of things just for one day, from playing in a strolling street band to impersonating a convict in the state penitentiary. Thirty years ago, when women first entered the newspaper field as special feature writers, they were sometimes sent out on "freak" assignments for special features, such as feigning injury or insanity in order to gain entrance to hospitals in the guise of patients. Recently one woman writer posed as an applicant for a position as moving-picture actress; another applied for a place as housemaid; a third donned overalls and sorted scrap-iron all day in the yard of a factory; and still another accompanied a store detective on his rounds in order to discover the methods of shop-lifting with which department stores have to contend.

It is not necessary, however, to go so far afield to obtain personal experiences, as is shown by the following newspaper and magazine articles based on what the writers found in the course of their everyday pursuits.

The results obtained from cultivating a quarter-acre lot in the residence district of a city of 100,000 population were told by a writer in the Country Gentleman.

A woman's experience with bees was related in Good Housekeeping under the title, "What I Did with Bees."

Experience in screening a large porch on his house furnished a writer with the necessary information for a practical story in Popular Mechanics.

Some tests that he made on the power of automobiles gave a young engineer the suggestion for an article on the term "horse power" as applied to motor-cars; the article was published in the Illustrated World.

"Building a Business on Confidence" was the title of a personal experience article published in System.

The evils of tenant farming, as illustrated by the experiences of a farmer's wife in moving during the very early spring, were vividly depicted in an article in Farm and Fireside.

The diary of an automobile trip from Chicago to Buffalo was embodied in an article by a woman writer, which she sold to the Woman's Home Companion.

Both usual and unusual means employed to earn their college expenses have served as subjects for many special articles written by undergraduates and graduates.

Innumerable articles of the "how-to-do-something" type are accepted every year from inexperienced writers by publications that print such useful information. Results of experiments in solving various problems of household management are so constantly in demand by women's magazines and women's departments in newspapers, that housewives who like to write find a ready market for articles based on their own experience.

Confession Articles. One particular type of personal experience article that enjoys great popularity is the so-called "confession story." Told in the first person, often anonymously, a well-written confession article is one of the most effective forms in which to present facts and experiences.

Personal experiences of others, as well as the writer's own, may be given in confession form if the writer is able to secure sufficiently detailed information from some one else to make the story probable.

A few examples will illustrate the kind of subjects that have been presented successfully in the confession form.

Some criticisms of a typical college and of college life were given anonymously in the Outlook under the title, "The Confessions of an Undergraduate."

"The Story of a Summer Hotel Waitress," published in the Independent, and characterized by the editor as "a frank exposure of real life below stairs in the average summer hotel," told how a student in a normal school tried to earn her school expenses by serving as a waitress during the summer vacation.

In Farm and Fireside was published "The Confession of a Timber Buyer," an article exposing the methods employed by some unscrupulous lumber companies in buying timber from farmers.

"How I Cured Myself of Being Too Sensitive," with the sub-title, "The Autobiography of a Young Business Man Who Nearly Went to Smash through Jealousy," was the subject of a confession article in the American Magazine.

An exposure of the impositions practiced by an itinerant quack was made in a series of three confession articles, in Sunday issues of the Kansas City Star, written by a young man whom the doctor had employed to drive him through the country districts.

To secure confession features from readers, magazines have offered prizes for the best short articles on such topics as, "The Best Thing Experience has Taught Me," "How I Overcame My Greatest Fault," "The Day of My Great Temptation," "What Will Power Did for Me."

Subjects from the Day's News. In his search for subjects a writer will find numberless clues in newspapers. Since the first information concerning all new things is usually given to the world through the columns of the daily press, these columns are scanned carefully by writers in search of suggestions. Any part of the paper, from the "want ads" to the death notices or the real estate transfers, may be the starting point of a special article. The diversity of topics suggested by newspapers is shown by the following examples.

The death of a well-known clown in New York was followed by a special feature story about him in the Sunday magazine section of a Chicago paper.

A newspaper report of the discovery in Wisconsin of a method of eliminating printing ink from pulp made from old newspapers, so that white print paper might be produced from it, led a young writer to send for information to the discoverer of the process, and with these additional details he wrote an article that was published in the Boston Transcript.

A news story about a clever swindler in Boston, who obtained possession of negotiable securities by means of a forged certified check, was made the basis of a special feature story in the Providence Journal on the precautions to be taken against losses from forged checks.

News of the energetic manner in which a New Jersey sheriff handled a strike suggested a personality sketch of him that appeared in the American Magazine.

The publication, in a newspaper, of some results of a survey of rural school conditions in a Middle Western state, led to two articles on why the little red schoolhouse fails, one of which was published in the Country Gentleman, and the other in the Independent.

From a brief news item about the success of a farmer's widow and her daughter, in taking summer boarders in their old farmhouse, was developed a practical article telling how to secure and provide for these boarders on the ordinary farm. The article appeared in Farm and Fireside.

Official Documents. Bulletins and reports of government officials are a mine for both subjects and material. For new developments in agriculture one may consult the bulletins of the United States Department of Agriculture and those of state agricultural experiment stations. Reports on new and better methods of preparing food, and other phases of home economics, are also printed in these bulletins. State industrial commissions publish reports that furnish valuable material on industrial accidents, working-men's insurance, sanitary conditions in factories, and the health of workers. Child welfare is treated in reports of federal, state, and city child-welfare boards. The reports of the Interstate Commerce Commission, like those of state railroad commissions, contain interesting material on various phases of transportation. State and federal census reports often furnish good subjects and material. In short, nearly every official report of any kind may be a fruitful source of ideas for special articles.

The few examples given below suggest various possibilities for the use of these sources.

Investigations made by a commission of American medical experts constituting the Committee on Resuscitation from Mine Gases, under the direction of the U.S. Bureau of Mines, supplied a writer in the Boston Transcript with material for a special feature story on the dangers involved in the use of the pulmotor.

A practical bulletin, prepared by the home economics department of a state university, on the best arrangement of a kitchen to save needless steps, was used for articles in a number of farm journals.

From a bulletin of the U.S. Department of Agriculture a writer prepared an article on "the most successful farmer in the United States" and what he did with twenty acres, for the department of "Interesting People" in the American Magazine.

The results of a municipal survey of Springfield, Illinois, as set forth in official reports, were the basis of an article in the Outlook on "What is a Survey?" Reports of a similar survey at Lawrence, Kansas, were used for a special feature story in the Kansas City Star.

"Are You a Good or a Poor Penman?" was the title of an article in Popular Science Monthly based on a chart prepared by the Russell Sage Foundation in connection with some of its educational investigations.

The New York Evening Post published an interesting special article on the "life tables" that had been prepared by the division of vital statistics of the Bureau of the Census, to show the expectation of life at all ages in the six states from which vital statistics were obtained.

A special feature story on how Panama hats are woven, as printed in the Ohio State Journal, was based entirely on a report of the United States consul general at Guayaquil, Ecuador.

Scientific and Technical Publications. Almost every science and every art has its own special periodicals, from which can be gleaned a large number of subjects and much valuable material that needs only to be popularized to be made attractive to the average reader. The printed proceedings of scientific and technical societies, including the papers read at their meetings, as well as monographs and books, are also valuable. How such publications may be utilized is illustrated by the articles given below.

The report of a special committee of an association of electrical engineers, given at its convention in Philadelphia, furnished a writer with material for an article on "Farming by Electricity," that was published in the Sunday edition of the Springfield Republican.

Studies of the cause of hunger, made by Prof. A.J. Carlson of the University of Chicago and published in a volume entitled "The Control of Hunger in Health and Disease," furnished the subject for an article in the Illustrated World. Earlier results of the same investigation were given in the Sunday magazine of one of the Chicago papers.

From the Journal of Heredity was gleaned material for an article entitled "What Chance Has the Poor Child?" It was printed in Every Week.

"Golfer's Foot, One of Our Newest Diseases," was the subject of a special feature in the New York Times, that was based on an article in the Medical Record.

That the canals on Mars may be only an optical illusion was demonstrated in an article in the Sunday magazine of the New York Times, by means of material obtained from a report of the section for the Observation of Mars, a division of the British Astronomical Association.

Anticipating Timely Subjects. By looking forward for weeks or even months, as editors of Sunday newspapers and of magazines are constantly doing, a writer can select subjects and gather material for articles that will be particularly appropriate at a given time. Holidays, seasonal events, and anniversaries may thus be anticipated, and special articles may be sent to editors some time in advance of the occasion that makes them timely. Not infrequently it is desirable to begin collecting material a year before the intended time of publication.

An article on fire prevention, for instance, is appropriate for the month of October just before the day set aside for calling attention to fires caused by carelessness. Months in advance, a writer might begin collecting news stories of dangerous fires resulting from carelessness; and from the annual report of the state fire marshal issued in July, he could secure statistics on the causes of fires and the extent of the losses.

To secure material for an article on the Christmas presents that children might make at a cost of twenty-five cents or less, a woman writer jotted down after one Christmas all the information that she could get from her friends; and from these notes she wrote the article early in the following summer. It was published in the November number of a magazine, at a time when children were beginning to think about making Christmas presents.

Articles on ways and means of earning college expenses are particularly appropriate for publication in the summer or early fall, when young men and women are preparing to go to college, but if in such an article a student writer intends to describe experiences other than his own, he may well begin gathering material from his fellow students some months before.

Anniversaries of various events, such as important discoveries and inventions, the death or birth of a personage, and significant historical occasions, may also be anticipated. The fiftieth anniversary of the arrival of the first railroad train in Kansas City was commemorated in a special feature story in the Kansas City Star, published the day before the anniversary. The day following the fifty-sixth anniversary of the discovery of petroleum in Pennsylvania, the New York Times printed in its Sunday magazine section a special article on the man who first found oil there. The centenary of the launching of the first steam-propelled ship to cross the Atlantic, was commemorated by an article in the Sunday edition of the Providence Journal. Munsey's Magazine printed an article on the semi-centennial of the discovery of the process of making paper from wood pulp.

By looking over tables giving dates of significant events, writers will find what anniversaries are approaching; or they may glean such information from news stories describing preparations made for celebrating these anniversaries.

Keeping Lists of Subjects. Every writer who is on the lookout for subjects and sources of material should keep a notebook constantly at hand. Subjects suggested by everyday experiences, by newspaper and magazine reading, and by a careful study of special articles in all kinds of publications, are likely to be forgotten unless they are recorded at once. A small notebook that can be carried in the pocket or in a woman's hand-bag is most convenient. Besides topics for articles, the titles of books, reports, bulletins, and other publications mentioned in conversation or in newspapers, should be jotted down as possible sources of material. Facts and figures from publications may be copied for future use. Good titles and interesting methods of treatment that a writer observes in the work of others may prove helpful in suggesting titles and methods for his own articles. Separate sections of even a small notebook may conveniently be set aside for all of these various points.

Filing Material. The writer who makes methodical preparation for his work generally has some system of filing good material so that it will be at hand when he wants it. One excellent filing device that is both inexpensive and capable of indefinite expansion consists of a number of stout manilla envelopes, large enough to hold newspaper clippings, printed reports, magazine articles, and photographs. In each envelope is kept the material pertaining to one subject in which the writer is interested, the character of the subject-matter being indicated on one side of the envelope, so that, as the envelopes stand on end, their contents can readily be determined. If a writer has many of these envelopes, a one-drawer filing case will serve to keep them in good order. By constantly gathering material from newspapers, magazines, and printed reports, he will soon find that he has collected a considerable amount of information on which to base his articles.

CHAPTER IV

APPEAL AND PURPOSE

Analyzing the Subject. When from many available subjects a writer is about to choose one, he should pause to consider its possibilities before beginning to write. It is not enough to say, "This is a good subject; I believe that I can write an article on it." He needs to look at the topic from every angle. He ought to ask himself, "How widespread is the interest in my subject? How much will it appeal to the average individual? What phases of it are likely to have the greatest interest for the greatest number of persons?" To answer these questions he must review the basic sources of pleasure and satisfaction.

What Interests Readers. To interest readers is obviously the prime object in all popular writing. The basis of interest in the news story, the special feature article, and the short story is essentially the same. Whatever the average person likes to hear and see, whatever gives him pleasure and satisfaction, is what he wants to read about. In order to test all phases of a given subject from this point of view, a writer needs to keep in mind the fundamental sources of satisfaction.

Subjects and phases of subjects that attract readers may, for convenience, be divided into the following classes, which, however, are not mutually exclusive: (1) timely topics, (2) unique, novel, and extraordinary persons, things, and events, (3) mysteries, (4) romance, (5) adventure, (6) contests for supremacy, (7) children, (8) animals, (9) hobbies and amusements, (10) familiar persons, places, and objects, (11) prominent persons, places, and objects, (12) matters involving the life, property, and welfare of others, (13) matters that affect the reader's own success and well-being.

Timeliness. Though not absolutely essential, timeliness is a valuable attribute of any subject. Readers like to feel that they are getting the latest facts and the newest ideas, in special feature articles as well as in the news. A subject need not be discarded, however, because it does not make a timely appeal. It may have interest in other respects sufficiently great to compensate for its lack of timeliness.

Many topics that at first glance seem quite unrelated to current activities are found on closer examination to have some aspects that may be brought into connection with timely interests. To a writer keenly alive to everything that is going on in the world, most subjects will be found to have some bearing on what is uppermost in men's minds. Emphasis on that point of contact with current ideas will give to the article the desired timeliness.

Novelty. When a person, object, or circumstance is unique, it arouses an unusual degree of interest. The first person to accomplish something out of the ordinary, the first event of its kind, the first of anything, arrests attention.

Closely associated with the unique is the extraordinary, the curious. If not absolutely the only one of its kind, a thing may still be sufficiently unusual to excite an uncommon degree of interest. Novelty has a perennial charm. Careful study of a subject is often necessary to reveal the novel and extraordinary phase of it that can best be emphasized.

Mysteries. The fascination for the human mind of whatever baffles it is so well known that it scarcely needs elaboration. Mysteries, whether real or fictitious, pique curiosity. Even the scholar and the practical man of affairs find relaxation in the mystery of the detective story. Real life often furnishes events sufficiently mysterious to make a special feature story that rivals fiction. Unexplained crimes and accidents; strange psychical phenomena, such as ghosts, presentiments, spiritism, and telepathy; baffling problems of the scientist and the inventor—all have elements of mystery that fascinate the average reader.

Romance. The romance of real life is quite as interesting as that of fiction. As all the world loves a lover, almost all the world loves a love story. The course of true love may run smooth or it may not; in either case there is the romantic appeal. To find the romantic element in a topic is to discover a perennial source of attraction for all classes of readers.

Adventure. Few in number are the persons who will not gladly escape from humdrum routine by losing themselves in an exciting tale of adventure. The thrilling exploits in real life of the engineer, the explorer, the soldier of fortune, the pioneer in any field, hold us spellbound. Even more commonplace experiences are not without an element of the adventurous, for life itself is a great adventure. Many special feature stories in narrative form have much the same interest that is created by the fictitious tale of adventure.

Contests for Supremacy. Man has never lost his primitive love of a good fight. Civilization may change the form of the contest, but fighting to win, whether in love or politics, business or sport, still has a strong hold on all of us. Strikes, attempted monopolies, political revolutions, elections, championship games, diplomacy, poverty, are but a few of the struggles that give zest to life. To portray dramatically in a special article the clash and conflict in everyday affairs is to make a well-nigh universal appeal.

Children. Because we live in and for our children, everything that concerns them comes close to our hearts. A child in a photo-drama or in a news story is sure to win sympathy and admiration. The special feature writer cannot afford to neglect so vital a source of interest. Practical articles on the care and the education of children also have especial value for women readers.

Animals. Wild or tame, at large or in captivity, animals attract us either for their almost human intelligence or for their distinctively animal traits. There are few persons who do not like horses, dogs, cats, and other pets, and fewer still who can pass by the animal cages at the circus or the "zoo." Hunting, trapping, and fishing are vocations for some men, and sport for many more. The business of breeding horses and cattle, and the care of live stock and poultry on the farm, must not be overlooked in the search for subjects. The technical aspects of these topics will interest readers of farm journals; the more popular phases of them make a wide general appeal.

Hobbies and Amusements. Pastimes and avocations may be counted good subjects. Moving pictures, theaters, music, baseball, golf, automobiles, amateur photography, and a host of hobbies and recreations have enough enthusiastic devotees to insure wide reading for special feature stories about them.

The Familiar. Persons whom we know, places that we constantly see, experiences that we have had again and again, often seem commonplace enough, even when familiarity has not bred contempt; but when they appear unexpectedly on the stage or in print, we greet them with the cordiality bestowed on the proverbial long-lost friend. Local news interests readers because it concerns people and places immediately around them. Every newspaper man understands the desirability of increasing the attractiveness of a news event that happens elsewhere by rinding "local ends," or by giving it "a local turn." For special feature stories in newspapers, local phases are no less important. But whether the article is to be published in a newspaper or a magazine, familiar persons and things should be "played up" prominently.

The Prominent. Many persons, places, and objects that we have never seen are frequently as real to us as are those that we see daily. This is because their names and their pictures have greeted us again and again in print. It is thus that prominent men and women become familiar to us. Because of their importance we like to read about them. If a special feature article in any of its phases concerns what is prominent, greater attractiveness can be given to it by "playing up" this point, be it the President of the United States or a well-known circus clown, Fifth Avenue or the Bowery, the Capitol at Washington or Coney Island, the Twentieth Century Limited or a Ford.

Life and Welfare of Others. Sympathy with our fellow beings and an instinctive recognition of our common humanity are inherent in most men and women. Nowhere is this more strikingly shown than in the quick and generous response that comes in answer to every call for aid for those in distress. So, too, we like to know how others feel and think. We like to get behind the veil with which every one attempts to conceal his innermost thoughts and feelings. Our interest in the lives and the welfare of others finds expression in various ways, ranging from social service and self-sacrificing devotion to gossip and secret confidences. These extremes and all that lies between them abound in that "human interest" upon which all editors insist.

This widespread interest in others affords to the writer of special articles one of his greatest opportunities, not only for preparing interesting stories, but for arousing readers to support many a good cause. To create sympathy for the unfortunate, to encourage active social service, to point the way to political reform, to show the advantages of better industrial conditions, to explain better business methods—all these are but a few of the helpful, constructive appeals that he may make effectively.

He may create this interest and stir his readers to action by either one of two methods: by exposing existing evils, or by showing what has been done to improve bad conditions. The exposure of evils in politics, business, and society constituted the "muck-raking" to which several of the popular monthly magazines owe their rise. This crusading, "searchlight" type of journalism has been largely superseded by the constructive, "sunlight" type. To explain how reforms have been accomplished, or are being brought about, is construed by the best of the present-day journals to be their special mission.

Personal Success and Happiness. Every one is vitally concerned about his own prosperity and happiness. To make a success of life, no matter by what criterion we may measure that success, is our one all-powerful motive. Happiness, as the goal that we hope to reach by our success, and health, as a prime requisite for its attainment, are also of great importance to every one of us. How to make or save more money, how to do our work more easily, how to maintain our physical well-being, how to improve ourselves mentally and morally, how to enjoy life more fully—that is what we all want to know. To the writer who will show us how to be "healthy, wealthy, and wise," we will give our undivided attention.

Business and professional interests naturally occupy the larger part of men's thoughts, while home-making is the chief work of most women. Although women are entering many fields hitherto monopolized by men, the home remains woman's peculiar sphere. The purchase and preparation of food, the buying and making of clothing, the management of servants, the care of children—these are the vital concerns of most women. They realize, however, that conditions outside the home have a direct bearing on home-making; and each year they are taking a more active part in civic affairs. Matters of public health, pure food legislation, the milk and the water supply, the garbage collection, the character of places of amusement, the public schools, determine, in no small degree, the success and happiness of the home-maker.

Since the dominant interests of men and women alike are their business and their home, the special writer should undertake to connect his subject as closely as possible with these interests. To show, for example, how the tariff, taxes, public utility rates, price-fixing, legislation, and similar matters affect the business and home affairs of the average reader, is to give to these political and economic problems an interest for both men and women far in excess of that resulting from a more general treatment of them. The surest way to get the reader's attention is to bring the subject home to him personally.

Of the importance of presenting a subject in such a manner that the reader is led to see its application to himself and his own affairs, Mr. John M. Siddall, editor of the American Magazine, has said:

Every human being likes to see himself in reading matter—just as he likes to see himself in a mirror.

The reason so much reading matter is unpopular and never attracts a wide reading public lies in the fact that the reader sees nothing in it for himself. Take an article, we'll say, entitled "The Financial System of Canada." It looks dull, doesn't it? It looks dull because you can't quite see where it affects you. Now take an article entitled "Why it is easier to get rich in Canada than in the United States." That's different! Your interest is aroused. You wonder wherein the Canadian has an advantage over you. You look into the article to find out whether you can't get an idea from it. Yet the two articles may be basically alike, differing only in treatment. One bores you and the other interests you. One bores you because it seems remote. The other interests you because the writer has had the skill to translate his facts and ideas into terms that are personal to you. The minute you become personal in this world you become interesting.

Combining Appeals. When the analysis of a topic shows that it possesses more than one of these appeals, the writer may heighten the attractiveness of his story by developing several of the possibilities, simultaneously or successively. The chance discovery by a prominent physician of a simple preventive of infantile paralysis, for instance, would combine at least four of the elements of interest enumerated above. If such a combination of appeals can be made at the very beginning of the article, it is sure to command attention.

Definiteness of Purpose. In view of the multiplicity of possible appeals, a writer may be misled into undertaking to do too many diverse things in a single article. A subject often has so many different aspects of great interest that it is difficult to resist the temptation to use all of them. If a writer yields to this temptation, the result may be a diffuse, aimless article that, however interesting in many details, fails to make a definite impression.

To avoid this danger, the writer must decide just what his purpose is to be. He must ask himself, "What is my aim in writing this article?" and, "What do I expect to accomplish?" Only in this way will he clarify in his mind his reason for writing on the proposed topic and the object to be attained.

With a definitely formulated aim before him, he can decide just what material he needs. An objective point to be reached will give his article direction and will help him to stick to his subject. Furthermore, by getting his aim clearly in mind, he will have the means of determining, when the story is completed, whether or not he has accomplished what he set out to do.

In selecting material, in developing the article, and in testing the completed product, therefore, it is important to have a definitely formulated purpose.

Three General Aims. Every special article should accomplish one of three general aims: it should (1) entertain, or (2) inform, or (3) give practical guidance.

The same subject and the same material may sometimes be so treated as to accomplish any one of these three purposes. If the writer's aim is merely to help readers pass a leisure hour pleasantly, he will "play up" those aspects of a topic that will afford entertainment and little or nothing else. If he desires to supply information that will add to the reader's stock of knowledge, he will present his facts in a manner calculated to make his readers remember what he has told them. If he proposes to give information that can be applied by readers to their own activities, he must include those details that are necessary to any one who desires to make practical use of the information.

When, for example, a writer is about to prepare an article, based on experience, about keeping bees on a small suburban place, he will find that he may write his story in any one of three ways. The difficulties experienced by the amateur bee-keeper in trying to handle bees in a small garden could be treated humorously with no other purpose ihan to amuse. Or the keeping of bees under such circumstances might be described as an interesting example of enterprise on the part of a city man living in the suburbs. Or, in order to show other men and women similarly situated just how to keep bees, the writer might explain exactly what any person would need to know to attain success in such a venture. Just as the purpose of these articles would vary, so the material and the point of view would differ.

Entertaining Articles. To furnish wholesome entertainment is a perfectly legitimate end in special feature writing. There is no reason why the humor, the pathos, the romance, the adventure, and mystery in life should not be presented in special feature stories for our entertainment and amusement, just as they are presented for the same purpose in the short story, the drama, and the photo-play. Many readers find special feature stories with real persons, real places, and real circumstances, more entertaining than fiction. A writer with the ability to see the comedies and the tragedies in the events constantly happening about him, or frequently reported in the press, will never lack for subjects and material.

Wholesome Entertainment. The effect of entertaining stories on the ideas and ideals of readers ought not to be overlooked. According to the best journalistic standards, nothing should be printed that will exert a demoralizing or unwholesome influence. Constructive journalism goes a step further when it insists that everything shall tend to be helpful and constructive. This practice applies alike to news stories and to special articles.

These standards do not necessarily exclude news and special feature stories that deal with crime, scandal, and similar topics; but they do demand that the treatment of such subjects shall not be suggestive or offensive. To portray violators of the criminal or moral codes as heroes worthy of emulation; to gratify some readers' taste for the morbid; to satisfy other readers by exploiting sex—all are alike foreign to the purpose of respectable journalism. No self-respecting writer will lend the aid of his pen to such work, and no self-respecting editor will publish it.

To deter persons from committing similar crimes and follies should be the only purpose in writing on such topics. The thoughtful writer, therefore, must guard against the temptation to surround wrong-doers with the glamour of heroic or romantic adventure, and, by sentimental treatment, to create sympathy for the undeserving culprit. Violations of law and of the conventions of society ought to be shown to be wrong, even when the wrong-doer is deserving of some sympathy. This need not be done by moralizing and editorializing. A much better way is to emphasize, as the results of wrong-doing, not only legal punishment and social ostracism, but the pangs of a guilty conscience, and the disgrace to the culprit and his family.

A cynical or flippant treatment of serious subjects gives many readers a false and distorted view of life. Humor does not depend on ridicule or satire. The fads and foibles of humanity can be good-naturedly exposed in humorous articles that have no sting. Although many topics may very properly be treated lightly, others demand a serious, dignified style.

The men and women whom a writer puts into his articles are not puppets, but real persons, with feelings not unlike his own. To drag them and their personal affairs from the privacy to which they are entitled, and to give them undesired and needless publicity, for the sake of affording entertainment to others, often subjects them to great humiliation and suffering. The fact that a man, woman, or child has figured in the day's news does not necessarily mean that a writer is entitled to exploit such a person's private affairs. He must discriminate between what the public is entitled to know and what an individual has a right to keep private. Innocent wives, sweethearts, or children are not necessarily legitimate material for his article because their husband, lover, or father has appeared in the news. The golden rule is the best guide for a writer in such cases. Lack of consideration for the rights of others is the mark neither of a good writer nor of a true gentleman. Clean, wholesome special feature stories that present interesting phases of life accurately, and that show due consideration for the rights of the persons portrayed, are quite as entertaining as are any others.

Informative Articles. Since many persons confine their reading largely to newspapers and magazines, they derive most of their information and ideas from these sources. Even persons who read new books rely to some extent on special articles for the latest information about current topics. Although most readers look to periodicals primarily for new, timely facts, they are also interested to find there biographical and historical material that is not directly connected with current events. Every special feature writer has a great opportunity to furnish a large circle of readers with interesting and significant information.

In analyzing subjects it is necessary to discriminate between significant and trivial facts. Some topics when studied will be found to contain little of real consequence, even though a readable article might be developed from the material. Other themes will reveal aspects that are both trivial and significant. When a writer undertakes to choose between the two, he should ask himself, "Are the facts worth remembering?" and, "Will they furnish food for thought?" In clarifying his purpose by such tests, he will decide not only what kind of information he desires to impart, but what material he must select, and from what point of view he should present it.

Articles of Practical Guidance. The third general purpose that a writer may have is to give his readers sufficiently explicit information to enable them to do for themselves what has been done by others. Because all persons want to know how to be more successful, they read these "how-to-do-something" articles with avidity. All of us welcome practical suggestions, tactfully given, that can be applied to our own activities. Whatever any one has done successfully may be so presented that others can learn how to do it with equal success. Special feature articles furnish the best means of giving this practical guidance.

In preparing a "how-to-do-something" article, a writer needs to consider the class of readers for which it is intended. A special feature story, for example, on how to reduce the cost of milk might be presented from any one of three points of view: that of the producer, that of the distributor, or that of the consumer. To be practical for dairy farmers, as producers of milk, the article would have to point out possible economies in keeping cows and handling milk on the farm. To be helpful to milk-dealers, as distributors, it would concern itself with methods of lowering the cost of selling and delivering milk in the city. To assist housewives, as consumers, the article would have to show how to economize in using milk in the home. An informative article for the general reader might take up all these phases of the subject, but an article intended to give practical guidance should consider the needs of only one of these three classes of persons.

In many constructive articles of practical guidance, the writer's purpose is so successfully concealed that it may at first escape the notice of the average reader. By relating in detail, for example, how an actual enterprise was carried out, a writer may be able to give his readers, without their realizing it, all the information they need to accomplish a similar undertaking. When he analyzes such articles, the student should not be misled into thinking that the writer did not have the definite purpose of imparting practical information. If the same material can be developed into an article of interesting information or into one of practical guidance, it is desirable to do the latter and, if necessary, to disguise the purpose.

Statement of Purpose. In order to define his purpose clearly and to keep it constantly before him, a writer will do well to put down on paper his exact aim in a single sentence. If, for example, he desired to write a constructive article about an Americanization pageant held in his home city on the Fourth of July, he might write out the statement of his aim thus: "I desire to show how the Americanization of aliens may be encouraged in small industrial centers of from 3000 to 20,000 inhabitants, by describing how the last Fourth of July Americanization pageant was organized and carried out in a typical Pennsylvania industrial town of 5000."

Such a statement will assist a writer in selecting his material, in sticking to his subject, and in keeping to one point of view. Without this clearly formulated aim before him, it is easy for him to dwell too long on some phase of the subject in which he is particularly interested or on which he has the most material, to the neglect of other phases that are essential to the accomplishment of his purpose. Or, failing to get his aim clearly in mind, he may jump from one aspect of the subject to another, without accomplishing anything in particular. Many a newspaper and magazine article leaves a confused, hazy impression on the minds of readers because the writer failed to have a definite objective.

CHAPTER V

TYPES OF ARTICLES

Methods of Treatment. After choosing a subject and formulating his purpose, a writer is ready to consider methods of treatment. Again it is desirable to survey all the possibilities in order to choose the one method best adapted to his subject and his purpose. His chief consideration should be the class of readers that he desires to reach. Some topics, he will find, may be treated with about equal success in any one of several ways, while others lend themselves to only one or two forms of presentation. By thinking through the various possible ways of working out his subject, he will be able to decide which meets his needs most satisfactorily.

Exposition by Narration and Description. The commonest method of developing a special feature article is that which combines narration and description with exposition. The reason for this combination is not far to seek. The average person is not attracted by pure exposition. He is attracted by fiction. Hence the narrative and descriptive devices of fiction are employed advantageously to supplement expository methods. Narratives and descriptions also have the advantage of being concrete and vivid. The rapid reader can grasp a concrete story or a word picture. He cannot so readily comprehend a more general explanation unaccompanied by specific examples and graphic pictures of persons, places, and objects.

Narration and description are used effectively for the concrete examples and the specific instances by which we illustrate general ideas. The best way, for example, to make clear the operation of a state system of health insurance is to relate how it has operated in the case of one or more persons affected. In explaining a new piece of machinery the writer may well describe it in operation, to enable readers to visualize it and follow its motions. Since the reader's interest will be roused the more quickly if he is given tangible, concrete details that he can grasp, the examples are usually put first, to be followed by the more general explanation. Sometimes several examples are given before the explanatory matter is offered. Whole articles are often made up of specific examples and generalizations presented alternately.

To explain the effects of a new anæsthetic, for example, Mr. Burton J. Hendrick in an article in McClure's Magazine, pictured the scene in the operating-room of a hospital where it was being given to a patient, showed just how it was administered, and presented the results as a spectator saw them. The beginning of the article on stovaine, the new anæsthetic, illustrating this method of exposition, follows:

A few months ago, a small six-year-old boy was wheeled into the operating theater at the Hospital for Ruptured and Crippled Children, in New York City. He was one of the several thousand children of the tenements who annually find their way into this great philanthropic institution, suffering from what, to the lay mind, seems a hopelessly incurable injury or malformation. This particular patient had a crippled and paralyzed leg, and to restore its usefulness, it was necessary to cut deeply into the heel, stretch the "Achilles tendon," and make other changes which, without the usual anesthetic, would involve excruciating suffering. According to the attendant nurses, the child belonged to the "noisy" class; that is, he was extremely sensitive to pain, screamed at the approach of the surgeon, and could be examined only when forcibly held down.

As the child came into the operating-room he presented an extremely pathetic figure—small, naked, thin, with a closely cropped head of black hair, and a face pinched and blanched with fear. Surrounded by a fair-sized army of big, muscular surgeons and white-clothed nurses, and a gallery filled with a hundred or more of the leading medical men of the metropolis, he certainly seemed a helpless speck of humanity with all the unknown forces of science and modern life arrayed against him. Under ordinary conditions he would have been etherized in an adjoining chamber and brought into the operating-room entirely unconscious. This cripple, however, had been selected as a favorable subject for an interesting experiment in modern surgery, for he was to undergo an extremely torturous operation in a state of full consciousness.

Among the assembled surgeons was a large-framed, black moustached and black-haired, quick-moving, gypsy-like Rumanian—Professor Thomas Jonnesco, dean of the Medical Department of the University of Bucharest, and one of the leading men of his profession in Europe. Dr. Jonnesco, who had landed in New York only two days before, had come to the United States with a definite scientific purpose. This was to show American surgeons that the most difficult operations could be performed without pain, without loss of consciousness, and without the use of the familiar anesthetics, ether or chloroform. Dr. Jonnesco's reputation in itself assured him the fullest opportunity of demonstrating his method in New York, and this six-year-old boy had been selected as an excellent test subject.

Under the gentle assurances of the nurses that "no one was going to hurt" him, the boy assumed a sitting posture on the operating-table, with his feet dangling over the edge. Then, at the request of Dr. Jonnesco, he bent his head forward until it almost touched his breast. This threw the child's back into the desired position—that of the typical bicycle "scorcher,"—making each particular vertebra stand out sharply under the tight drawn skin. Dr. Jonnesco quickly ran his finger along the protuberances, and finally selected the space between the twelfth dorsal and the first lumbar vertebræ—in other words, the space just above the small of the back. He then took an ordinary hypodermic needle, and slowly pushed it through the skin and tissues until it entered the small opening between the lower and upper vertebræ, not stopping until it reached the open space just this side of the spinal cord.

As the needle pierced the flesh, the little patient gave a sharp cry—the only sign of discomfiture displayed during the entire operation. When the hollow needle reached its destination, a few drops of a colorless liquid spurted out—the famous cerebro-spinal fluid, the substance which, like a water-jacket, envelops the brain and the spinal cord. Into this same place Dr. Jonnesco now introduced an ordinary surgical syringe, which he had previously filled with a pale yellowish liquid—the much-famed stovaine,—and slowly emptied its contents into the region that immediately surrounds the spinal cord.

For a few minutes the child retained his sitting posture as if nothing extraordinary had happened. Dr. Jonnesco patted him on the back and said a few pleasant words in French, while the nurses and assistants chatted amiably in English.

"How do you feel now?" the attending surgeon asked, after the lapse of three or four minutes.

"All right," replied the boy animatedly, "'cept that my legs feel like they was going to sleep."

The nurses now laid the patient down upon his back, throwing a handkerchief over his eyes, so that he could not himself witness the subsequent proceedings. There was, naturally, much holding of breath as Dr. Virgil P. Gibney, the operating surgeon, raised his knife and quickly made a deep incision in the heel of this perfectly conscious patient. From the child, however, there was not the slightest evidence of sensation.

"Didn't you feel anything, my boy?" asked Dr. Gibney, pausing.

"No, I don't feel nothin'," came the response from under the handkerchief.

An operation lasting nearly half an hour ensued. The deepest tissues were cut, the tendons were stretched, the incision was sewed up, all apparently without the patient's knowledge.

Some types of articles, although expository in purpose, are entirely narrative and descriptive in form. By relating his own experiences in a confession story, for example, a writer may be able to show very clearly and interestingly the dangers of speculations in stocks with but small capital. Personality sketches are almost always narrative and descriptive.

Many of the devices of the short story will be found useful in articles. Not only is truth stranger than fiction, but facts may be so presented as to be even more interesting than fiction. Conversation, character-drawing, suspense, and other methods familiar to the writer of short stories may be used effectively in special articles. Their application to particular types of articles is shown in the following pages.

Special Types of Articles. Although there is no generally recognized classification of special feature articles, several distinct types may be noted, such as (1) the interview, (2) the personal experience story, (3) the confession article, (4) the "how-to-do-something" article, (5) the personality sketch, (6) the narrative in the third person. These classes, it is evident, are not mutually exclusive, but may for convenience be treated separately.

The Interview. Since the material for many articles is obtained by means of an interview, it is often convenient to put the major part, if not the whole, of the story in interview form. Such an article may consist entirely of direct quotation with a limited amount of explanatory material concerning the person interviewed; or it may be made up partly of direct quotation and partly of indirect quotation, combined with the necessary explanation. For greater variety it is advisable to alternate direct and indirect quotations. A description of the person interviewed and of his surroundings, by way of introduction, gives the reader a distinct impression of the individual under characteristic conditions. Or some striking utterance of his may be "played up" at the beginning, to be followed by a picture of him and his surroundings. Interviews on the same topic with two or more persons may be combined in a single article.

The interview has several obvious advantages. First, the spoken word, quoted verbatim, gives life to the story. The person interviewed seems to be talking to each reader individually. The description of him in his surroundings helps the reader to see him as he talks. Second, events, explanations, and opinions given in the words of one who speaks with authority, have greater weight than do the assertions of an unknown writer. Third, the interview is equally effective whether the writer's purpose is to inform, to entertain, or to furnish practical guidance. Romance and adventure, humor and pathos, may well be handled in interview form. Discoveries, inventions, new processes, unusual methods, new projects, and marked success of any kind may be explained to advantage in the words of those responsible for these undertakings.

In obtaining material for an interview story, a writer should bear in mind a number of points regarding interviewing in general. First, in advance of meeting the person to be interviewed, he should plan the series of questions by which he hopes to elicit the desired information. "What would my readers ask this person if they had a chance to talk to him about this subject?" he must ask himself. That is, his questions should be those that readers would like to have answered. Since it is the answers, however, and not the questions, that will interest readers, the questions in the completed article should be subordinated as much as possible. Sometimes they may be skillfully embodied in the replies; again they may be implied merely, or entirely omitted. In studying an interview article, one can generally infer what questions the interviewer used. Second, he must cultivate his memory so that he can recall a person's exact words without taking notes. Most men talk more freely and easily when they are not reminded of the fact that what they are saying is to be printed. In interviewing, therefore, it is desirable to keep pencil and paper out of sight. Third, immediately after leaving the person whom he has interviewed, the writer should jot down facts, figures, striking statements, and anything else that he might forget.

Examples of the Interview Article. As a timely special feature story for Arbor Day, a Washington correspondent used the following interview with an expert as a means of giving readers practical advice on tree-planting:

ARBOR DAY ADVICE

WASHINGTON, April 1.—Three spadefuls of rich, pulverized earth will do more to make a young tree grow than a 30-minute Arbor day address by the president of the school board and a patriotic anthem by the senior class, according to Dr. Furman L. Mulford, tree expert for the department of agriculture.

Not that Dr. Mulford would abbreviate the ceremonies attendant upon Arbor day planting, but he thinks that they do not mean much unless the roots planted receive proper and constant care. For what the Fourth of July is to the war and navy departments, and what Labor day is to the department of labor, Arbor day is to the department of agriculture.

While the forestry bureau has concerned itself primarily with trees from the standpoint of the timber supply, Dr. Mulford has been making a study of trees best adapted for streets and cities generally. And nobody is more interested than he in what Arbor day signifies or how trees should be chosen and reared.

"We need trees most where our population is the thickest, and some trees, like some people, are not adapted to such a life," said Dr. Mulford. "For street or school yard planting one of the first considerations is a hardy tree, that can find nourishment under brick pavements or granite sidewalks. It must be one that branches high from the ground and ought to be native to the country and climate. America has the prettiest native trees and shrubs in the world and it is true patriotism to recognize them.

"For Southern states one of the prettiest and best of shade trees is the laurel oak, and there will be thousands of them planted this spring. It is almost an evergreen and is a quick growing tree. The willow oak is another.

"A little farther north the red oak is one of the most desirable, and in many places the swamp maple grows well, though this latter tree does not thrive well in crowded cities.

"Nothing, however, is prettier than the American elm when it reaches the majesty of its maturity and I do not believe it will ever cease to be a favorite. One thing against it, though, is the 'elm beetle,' a pest which is spreading and which will kill some of our most beautiful trees unless spraying is consistently practised. China berry trees, abundant in the South, and box elders, native to a score of states, are quick growing, but they reach maturity too soon and begin to go to pieces."

"What is the reason that so many Arbor day trees die?" Dr. Mulford was asked.

"Usually lack of protection, and often lack of care in planting," was the answer. "When the new tree begins to put out tender rootlets a child brushing against it or 'inspecting' it too closely will break them off and it dies. Or stock will nip off the new leaves and shoots and the result is the same. A frame around the tree would prevent this.

"Then, often wild trees are too big when transplanted. Such trees have usually only a few long roots and so much of these are lost in transplanting that the large trunk cannot be nourished by the remainder. With nursery trees the larger they are the better it is, for they have a lot of small roots that do not have to be cut off.

"Fruit trees are seldom so successful as shade trees, either along a street or road or in a yard. In the first place their branches are too low and unless carefully pruned their shape is irregular. Then they are subject to so many pests that unless constant care is given them they will not bear a hatful of fruit a season.

"On the other hand, nut trees are usually hardy and add much to the landscape. Pecan, chestnut, walnut and shaggy bark hickory are some of the more popular varieties."

The first Arbor day was observed in Nebraska, which has fewer natural trees than any other state. This was in 1872, and Kansas was the second to observe the day, falling into line in 1875. Incidentally Kansas ranks next to Nebraska in dearth of trees.

The Arbor day idea originated with J. Sterling Morton, a Nebraskan who was appointed secretary of agriculture by Cleveland. Now every state in the Union recognizes the day and New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin and others have gotten out extensive Arbor day booklets giving information concerning trees and birds; most of them even contain appropriate songs and poems for Arbor day programs.

How an interview combined with a description of a person may serve to create sympathy for her and for the cause that she represents is shown in the following article, which was published anonymously in the Sunday magazine section of the Ohio State Journal. It was illustrated with two half-tone portraits, one of the young woman in Indian costume, the other showing her in street dress.

Just Like Pocahontas of 300 Years Ago

"Oh, East is East and West is West, And never the two shall meet."

BUT they may send messengers. Hark to the words of "One-who-does-things-well."

"I carry a message from my people to the Government at Washington," says Princess Galilolie, youngest daughter of John Ross, hereditary King of the "Forest Indians," the Cherokees of Oklahoma. "We have been a nation without hope. The land that was promised us by solemn treaty, 'so long as the grass should grow and the waters run,' has been taken from us. It was barren and wild when we received it seventy years ago. Now it is rich with oil and cultivation, and the whites coveted our possessions. Since it was thrown open to settlers no Cherokee holds sovereign rights as before, when it was his nation. We are outnumbered. I have come as a voice from my people to speak to the people of the Eastern States and to those at Washington—most of all, if I am permitted to do so, to lay our wrongs before the President's wife, in whose veins glows the blood of the Indian."

Only nineteen is this Indian princess—this twentieth century Pocahontas—who travels far to the seats of the mighty for her race.

She is a tall, slim, stately girl from the foothills of the Ozarks, from Tahlequah, former capital of the Cherokee Nation. She says she is proud of every drop of Indian blood that flows in her veins. But her skin is fair as old ivory and she is a college girl—a girl of the times to her finger-tips.

"When an Indian goes through college and returns to his or her people," she says with a smile, "they say, 'Back to the blanket!' We have few blankets among the Cherokees in Tahlequah. I am the youngest of nine children, and we are all of us college graduates, as my father was before us."

He is John Ross 3d, Chief of the Cherokee Nation, of mingled Scotch and Indian blood, in descent from "Cooweeskowee," John Ross I., the rugged old Indian King who held out against Andrew Jackson back in 1838 for the ancient rights of the Five Nations to their lands along the Southern Atlantic States.

She sat back on the broad window seat in the sunlight. Beyond the window lay a bird's-eye view of New York housetops, the white man's permanent tepee. Some spring birds alighted on a nearby telephone wire, sending out twittering mating cries to each other.

"They make me want to go home," she said with a swift, expressive gesture. "But I will stay until the answer comes to us. Do you know what they have called me, the old men and women who are wise—the full-bloods? Galilolie—'One-who-does-things-well.' With us, when a name is given it is one with a meaning, something the child must grow to in fulfillment. So I feel I must not fail them now."

"You see," she went on, lifting her chin, "it is we young half-bloods who must carry the strength and honor of our people to the world so it may understand us. All our lives we have been told tales by the old men—how our people were driven from their homes by the Government, how Gen. Winfield Scott's soldiers came down into our quiet villages and ordered the Indians to go forth leaving everything behind them. My great-grandfather, the old King Cooweeskowee, with his wife and children, paused at the first hilltop to look back at his home, and already the whites were moving into it. The house is still standing at Rossville, Ga. Do you know what the old people tell us children when we wish we could go back there?" Her eyes are half closed, her lips compressed as she says slowly, thrillingly: "They tell us it is easy to find the way over that 'Trail of Tears,' that through the wilderness it is blazed with the gravestones of those who were too weak to march.

"That was seventy years ago, in 1838. The Government promised to pay amply for all it took from us, our homes and lands, cattle—even furniture. A treaty was made solemnly between the Indians and the United States that Oklahoma should be theirs 'as long as the grass should grow and the waters run.'

"That meant perpetuity to us, don't you see?" She makes her points with a directness and simplicity that should disarm even the diplomatic suavity of Uncle Sam when he meets her in Washington. "Year after year the Cherokees waited for the Government to pay. And at last, three years ago, it came to us—$133.19 to each Indian, seventy-eight years after the removal from Georgia had taken place.

"Oil was discovered after the Indians had taken the wilderness lands in Oklahoma and reclaimed them. It was as if God, in reparation for the wrongs inflicted by whites, had given us the riches of the earth. My people grew rich from their wells, but a way was found to bind their wealth so they could not use it. It was said the Indians were not fit to handle their own money."

She lifts eyebrows and shoulders, her hands clasped before her tightly, as if in silent resentment of their impotence to help.

"These are the things I want to tell; first our wrongs and then our colonization plan, for which we hope so much if the Government will grant it. We are outnumbered since the land was opened up and a mass of 'sooners,' as we call them—squatters, claimers, settlers—swarmed in over our borders. The Government again offered to pay us for the land they took back—the land that was to be ours in perpetuity 'while the grass grew and the waters ran.' We were told to file our claims with the whites. Some of us did, but eight hundred of the full-bloods went back forty miles into the foothills under the leadership of Red Bird Smith. They refuse to sell or to accept the Government money for their valuable oil lands. To appease justice, the Government allotted them lands anyway, in their absence, and paid the money for their old property into the banks, where it lies untouched. Red Bird and his 'Night Hawks' refuse to barter over a broken treaty.

"Ah, but I have gone up alone to the old men there." Her voice softens. "They will talk to me because I am my father's daughter. My Indian name means 'One-who-does-things-well.' So if I go to them they tell me their heart longings, what they ask for the Cherokee.

"And I shall put the message, if I can, before our President's wife. Perhaps she will help."

The Personal Experience Article. A writer's own experiences, given under his name, under a pseudonym, or in anonymous form, can easily be made interesting to others. Told in the first person, such stories are realistic and convincing. The pronoun "I" liberally sprinkled through the story, as it must be, gives to it a personal, intimate character that most readers like. Conversation and description of persons, places, and objects may be included to advantage in these personal narratives.

The possibilities of the personal experience story are as great as are those of the interview. Besides serving as a vehicle for the writer's own experiences, it may be employed to give experiences of others. If, for example, a person interviewed objects to having his name used, it is possible to present the material obtained by the interview in the form of a personal experience story. In that case the article would have to be published without the writer's name, since the personal experiences that it records are not his own. Permission to present material in a personal experience story should always be obtained from the individual whose experiences the writer intends to use.

Articles designed to give practical guidance, to show readers how to do something, are particularly effective when written in the first person. If these "how-to-do-something" articles are to be most useful to readers, the conditions under which the personal experience was obtained must be fairly typical. Personal experience articles of this type are very popular in women's magazines, agricultural journals, and publications that appeal to business men.

Examples of the Personal Experience Story. The opportunities for service offered to women by small daily newspapers are set forth in the story below, by means of the personal experiences of one woman. The article was published in the Woman's Home Companion, and was illustrated by a half-tone reproduction of a wash drawing of a young woman seated at her desk in a newspaper office.

"They Call Me the 'Hen Editor'"

The Story of a Small-Town Newspaper Woman

By SADIE L. MOSSLER

"What do you stay buried in this burg for? Why, look how you drudge! and what do you get out of it? New York or some other big city is the place for you. There's where you can become famous instead of being a newspaper woman in a one-horse town."

A big city newspaper man was talking. He was in our town on an assignment, and he was idling away spare time in our office. Before I could answer, the door opened and a small girl came to my desk.

"Say," she said, "Mama told me to come in here and thank you for that piece you put in the paper about us. You ought to see the eatin's folks has brought us! Heaps an' heaps! And Ma's got a job scrubbin' three stores."

The story to which she referred was one that I had written about a family left fatherless, a mother and three small children in real poverty. I had written a plain appeal to the home people, with the usual results.

"That," I said, "is one reason that I am staying here. Maybe it isn't fame in big letters signed to an article, but it's another kind."

His face wore a queer expression; but before he could retort another caller appeared, a well-dressed woman.

"What do you mean," she declared, "by putting it in the paper that I served light refreshments at my party?"

"Wasn't it so?" I meekly inquired.

"No!" she thundered. "I served ice cream, cake and coffee, and that makes two courses. See that it is right next time, or we'll stop the paper."

Here my visitor laughed. "I suppose that's another reason for your staying here. When we write anything about a person we don't have to see them again and hear about it."

"But," I replied, "that's the very reason I cling to the small town. I want to see the people about whom I am writing, and live with them. That's what brings the rewards in our business. It's the personal side that makes it worth while, the real living of a newspaper instead of merely writing to fill its columns."

In many small towns women have not heretofore been overly welcome on the staff of the local paper, for the small town is essentially conservative and suspicious of change. This war, however, is changing all that, and many a woman with newspaper ambitions will now have her chance at home.

For ten years I have been what may be classified as a small town newspaper woman, serving in every capacity from society reporter to city and managing editor. During this time I have been tempted many times to go to fields where national fame and a larger salary awaited those who won. But it was that latter part that held me back, that and one other factor: "Those who won," and "What do they get out of it more than I?"

It is generally conceded that for one woman who succeeds in the metropolitan newspaper field about ten fail before the vicissitudes of city life, the orders of managing editors, and the merciless grind of the big city's working world. And with those who succeed, what have they more than I? They sign their names to articles; they receive big salaries; they are famous—as such fame goes. Why is a signed name to an article necessary, when everyone knows when the paper comes out that I wrote the article? What does national fame mean compared with the fact that the local laws of the "Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals" were not being enforced and that I wrote stories that remedied this condition?

I began newspaper life as society reporter of a daily paper in a Middle-Western town of ten thousand inhabitants. That is, I supposed I was going to be society reporter, but before very long I found myself doing police assignments, sport, editing telegraph, and whatever the occasion demanded.

I suppose that the beginnings of everyone's business life always remain vivid memories. The first morning I reported for work at seven o'clock. Naturally, no one was in the front office, as the news department of a small-town newspaper office is sometimes called. I was embarrassed and nervous, and sat anxiously awaiting the arrival of the city editor. In five minutes he gave me sufficient instructions to last a year, but the only one I remember was, "Ask all the questions you can think of, and don't let anyone bluff you out of a story."

My first duty, and one that I performed every morning for several years, was to "make" an early morning train connecting with a large city, forty miles away. It was no easy task to approach strangers and ask their names and destination; but it was all good experience, and it taught me how to approach people and to ask personal questions without being rude.

During my service as society reporter I learned much, so much that I am convinced there is no work in the smaller towns better suited to women. Any girl who is bright and quick, who knows the ethics of being a lady, can hold this position and make better money at it than by teaching or clerking.

Each trade, they say, has its tricks, and being a society reporter is no exception. In towns of from one thousand to two thousand inhabitants, the news that Mrs. X. is going to give a party spreads rapidly by that system of wireless telegraphy that excels the Marconi—neighborhood gossip. But in the larger towns it is not so easy. In "our town," whenever there is a party the ice cream is ordered from a certain confectioner. Daily he permitted us to see his order book. If Mrs. Jones ordered a quart of ice cream we knew that she was only having a treat for the family. If it were two quarts or more, it was a party, and if it was ice cream in molds, we knew a big formal function was on foot.

Society reporting is a fertile field, and for a long time I had been thinking that society columns were too dull. My ideal of a newspaper is that every department should be edited so that everyone would read all the paper. I knew that men rarely read the social column. One day a man said to me that he always called his wife his better judgment instead of his better half. That appealed to me as printable, but where to put it in the paper? Why not in my own department? I did so. That night when the paper came out everyone clamored to know who the man was, for I had merely written, "A man in town calls his wife his better judgment instead of his better half."

Then I decided to make the society department a reflection of our daily life and sayings. In order to get these in I used the initials of my title, "S.R." I never used names, but I always managed to identify my persons.

As one might expect, I brought down a storm about my head. Many persons took the hints for themselves when they were not so intended, and there were some amusing results. For instance, when I said in the paper that "a certain man in a down-town store has perfect manners," the next day twelve men thanked me, and I received four boxes of candy as expressions of gratitude.

There were no complaints about the society column being dull after this; everyone read it and laughed at it, and it was quoted in many exchanges. Of course, I was careful to hurt no one's feelings, but I did occasionally have a little good-natured fun at the expense of people who wouldn't mind it. Little personal paragraphs of this sort must never be malicious or mean—if the paper is to keep its friends.

Of all my newspaper experience I like best to dwell on the society reporting; but if I were to advance I knew that I must take on more responsibility, so I became city editor of another paper. I was virtually managing editor, for the editor and owner was a politician and was away much of the time. It was then that I began to realize the responsibility of my position, to grapple with the problem of dealing fairly both with my employer and the public. The daily life with its varying incidents, the big civic issues, the stories to be handled, the rights of the advertisers to be considered, the adjusting of the news to the business department—all these were brought before me with a powerful clarity.

When a woman starts on a city paper she knows that there are linotypes, presses and other machinery. Often she has seen them work; but her knowledge of "how" they work is generally vague. It was on my third day as city editor that I realized my woeful ignorance of the newspaper business from the mechanical viewpoint. I had just arrived at the office when the foreman came to my desk.

"Say," he said, "we didn't get any stuff set last night. Power was off. Better come out and pick out the plate you want to fill with."

What he meant by the power being off I could understand, and perforce I went out to select the plate. He handed me long slabs of plate matter to read. Later I learned that printed copies of the plate are sent for selection, but in my ignorance I took up the slabs and tried to read the type. To my astonishment it was all backward, and I found myself wondering if it were a Chinese feature story. Finally I threw myself on his mercy and told him to select what he chose. As I left the composing-room I heard him say to one of the printers: "That's what comes of the boss hiring a hen editor."

Shortly after noon a linotype operator came to me with his hands full of copy.

"If you want any of this dope in the paper," he said, "you'll have to grab off a paragraph here and there. My machine's got a bad squirt, and it'll take an hour or more to fix it."

Greek, all Greek! A squirt! I was too busy "grabbing off" paragraphs to investigate; but then and there I resolved to penetrate all these mysteries. I found the linotype operator eager to show me how his machine works, and the foreman was glad to take me around and instruct me in his department and also in the pressroom. I have had trouble with printers since; but in the end they had to admit that the "hen editor" knew what she was talking about.

There is a great cry now for woman's advancement. If the women are hunting equality as their goal let them not seek out the crowded, hostile cities, but remain in the smaller places where their work can stand out distinctly. A trite phrase expresses it that a newspaper is the "voice of the people." What better than that a woman should set the tune for that voice?

Equality with men! I sit at my desk looking out over the familiar home scene. A smell of fresh ink comes to me, and a paper just off the press is slapped down on my desk.

"Look!" says the foreman. "We got out some paper today, didn't we?"

"We!" How's that for equality? He has been twenty years at his trade and I only ten, yet he includes me.

When I am tempted to feel that my field is limited, my tools crude, and my work unhonored and unsung, I recall a quotation I read many years ago, and I will place it here at the end of the "hen editor's" uneventful story.

Back before my mind floats that phrase, "Buried in this burg." If a person has ability, will not the world learn it?

"If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or sing a more glorious song than his neighbor, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door."

That a personal experience story may be utilized to show readers how to do something is demonstrated in the following article taken from The Designer. It was illustrated by a half-tone made from a wash drawing of one corner of the burlap room.

A Bedroom in Burlap

The Most Satisfactory Room in Our Bungalow

BY KATHERINE VAN DORN

Our burlap room is the show room of our bungalow. Visitors are guided through the living-room, the bedroom, the sleeping-porch and kitchen, and allowed to express their delight and satisfaction while we wait with bated breath for the grand surprise to be given them. Then, when they have concluded, we say:

"But you should see our burlap room!" Then we lead the way up the stairs to the attic and again stand and wait. We know what is coming, and, as we revel in the expressions of admiration evoked, we again declaim with enormous pride: "We made it all ourselves!"

When we came to the bungalow last spring the family numbered three instead of the two of the year before. Now number three, a healthy and bouncing young woman, necessitated a "sleeping-in" maid if her parents were ever to be able to detach themselves from her person. We had never had a sleeping-in maid at the bungalow before and the problem of where to put her was a serious one. We well knew that no self-respecting servant would condescend to sleep in an attic, although the attic was cool, airy and comfortable. We rather thought, too, that the maid might despise us if we gave her the bedroom and took up our quarters under the rafters. It would be an easy enough matter for carpenters and plasterers to put a room in the attic, but we lacked the money necessary for such a venture. And so we puzzled. At first we thought of curtains, but the high winds which visit us made curtains impracticable. Then we thought of tacking the curtains top and bottom, and from this the idea evolved. The carpenter whom we consulted proved to be amenable to suggestion and agreed to put us up a framework in a day. We helped. We outlined the room on the floor. This took two strips of wood about one and a half by two inches. The other two sides of the room were formed by the wall of the attic and by the meeting place of the roof and floor—that is, there was in reality no fourth wall; the room simply ended where floor and roof met. Two strips were nailed to the rafters in positions similar to those on the floor, and then an upright strip was inserted and nailed fast at intervals of every three feet. This distance was decided by the fact that curtain materials usually come a yard wide. For a door we used a discarded screen-door, which, having been denuded of the bits of wire clinging to it, answered the purpose very well. The door completed the skeleton.

We used a beautiful soft blue burlap. Tacking on proved a more difficult matter than we had anticipated, owing to the fact that our carpenter had used cypress for the framework. We stretched the material taut and then tacked it fast with sharp-pointed, large-headed brass tacks, and while inserting these we measured carefully the distances between the tacks in order to keep this trimming uniform. The two walls supplied by the framework were quickly covered, but the rough wall of the attic necessitated some cutting, as we had to tack the burlap to the uprights and these had not been placed with yard-wide material in view. Above the screen-door frame was a hiatus of space running up into the peak. The carpenter had thoughtfully run two strips up to the roof and this enabled us to fill in by cutting and turning in the cloth. A corresponding space above the window received similar treatment. Then we covered the inner surface of the screen door and we had a room.

But we were far from satisfied. The room looked bare and crude. We bought a can of dark-oak stain and gave the floor a coat and this improved matters so much that we stained the wood visible on the door frame and about the window. Having finished this, we saw the need of doing something for the ceiling. The ceiling was merely the inner surface of the roof. The builders had made it of boards of varying sizes, the rafters were rough and splintery and there were myriads of nails sticking through everywhere. It looked a hopeless task. But we bought more stain and went to work. Before beginning we covered our precious blue walls with newspapers, donned our oldest clothes and spread papers well over the floor. It was well that we did. The staining was not difficult work but the nails made it splashy and we were pretty well spotted when we finished.

But when we did finish we felt compensated. The nails had become invisible. The dull blue walls with their bright brass trimming, the soft brown floor and the stained, raftered roof made the room the most attractive in the house. We could not rest, although the hour was late and we were both tired, until we had furnished it. We put in a couple of small rugs, a brass bed, and a white bureau. We hung two pictures securely upon the uprights of the skeleton. We added a couple of chairs and a rack for clothing, put up a white madras curtain at the window, and regarded the effect with the utmost satisfaction. The room answered the purpose exactly. The burlap was thick enough to act as a screen. It was possible to see movement through it, but not form. It insured privacy and still permitted the air to pass through for ventilation. As a finishing touch we screwed a knob on the outside of the door, put a brass hook on the inside and went downstairs to count the cost.

As a quick and inexpensive method of adding to the number of rooms in one's house, the making of a burlap room is without an equal. The idea is not patented, and we who deem ourselves its creators, are only too happy to send it on, in the hope that it may be of service to some other puzzled householder who is wondering where to put an added family member.

The Confession Story. Closely akin to the personal experience article is the so-called "confession story." Usually published anonymously, confession stories may reveal more personal and intimate experiences than a writer would ordinarily care to give in a signed article. Needless to say, most readers are keenly interested in such revelations, even though they are made anonymously. Like personal experience stories, they are told in the first person with a liberal use of the pronoun "I."

A writer need not confine himself to his own experiences for confession stories; he may obtain valuable material for them from others. Not infrequently his name is attached to these articles accompanied by the statement that the confession was "transcribed," "taken down," or "recorded" by the writer.

Conditions of life in classes of society with which the reader is not familiar may be brought home to him through the medium of the confession story. It may be made the means of arousing interest in questions about which the average reader cares little. The average man or woman, for example, is probably little concerned with the problem of the poorly paid college professor, but hundreds of thousands doubtless read with interest the leading article in an issue of the Saturday Evening Post entitled, "The Pressure on the Professor." This was a confession story, which did not give the author's own experiences but appeared as "Transcribed by Walter E. Weyl." This article was obviously written with the purpose, skillfully concealed, of calling attention to the hard lot of the underpaid professor.

Constructive criticism of existing conditions may be successfully embodied in the form of a confession article that describes the evils as they have been experienced by one individual. If the article is to be entirely effective and just, the experience of the one person described must be fairly typical of that of others in the same situation. In order to show that these experiences are characteristic, the writer may find it advantageous to introduce facts and figures tending to prove that his own case is not an isolated example. In the confession article mentioned above, "The Pressure on the Professor," the assistant professor who makes the confession, in order to demonstrate that his own case is typical, cites statistics collected by a colleague at Stanford University giving the financial status of 112 assistant professors in various American universities.

Confessions that show how faults and personal difficulties have been overcome prove helpful to readers laboring under similar troubles. Here again, what is related should be typical rather than exceptional.

Examples of the Confession Story. That an intimate account of the financial difficulties of a young couple as told by the wife, may not only make an interesting story but may serve as a warning to others, is shown in the confession story below. Signed "F.B.," and illustrated with a pen and ink sketch of the couple at work over their accounts, it was printed in Every Week, a popular illustrated periodical formerly published by the Crowell Publishing Company, New York.

The Things We Learned to Do Without

We were married within a month of our commencement, after three years of courtship at a big Middle West university. Looking back, it seems to me that rich, tumultuous college life of ours was wholly pagan. All about us was the free-handed atmosphere of "easy money," and in our "crowd" a tacit implication that a good time was one of the primary necessities of life. Such were our ideas when we married on a salary of one hundred dollars a month. We took letters of introduction to some of the "smart" people in a suburb near Chicago, and they proved so delightfully cordial that we settled down among them without stopping to consider the discrepancies between their ways and our income. We were put up at a small country club—a simple affair enough, comparatively speaking—that demanded six weeks' salary in initial dues and much more in actual subsequent expense. "Everybody" went out for Saturday golf and stayed for dinner and dancing.

By fall there was in working operation a dinner club of the "younger married set," as our local column in the city papers called us; an afternoon bridge club; and a small theater club that went into town every fortnight for dinner and a show. Costly little amusements, but hardly more than were due charming young people of our opportunities and tastes. I think that was our attitude, although we did not admit it. In September we rented a "smart" little apartment. We had planned to furnish it by means of several generous checks which were family contributions to our array of wedding gifts. What we did was to buy the furniture on the instalment plan, agreeing to pay twenty dollars a month till the bill was settled, and we put the furniture money into running expenses.

It was the beginning of a custom. They gave most generously, that older generation. Visiting us, Max's mother would slip a bill into my always empty purse when we went shopping; or mine would drop a gold piece into my top bureau drawer for me to find after she had gone. And there were always checks for birthdays.

Everything went into running expenses; yet, in spite of it, our expenses ran quite away. Max said I was "too valuable a woman to put into the kitchen," so we hired a maid, good-humoredly giving her carte blanche on the grocery and meat market. Our bills, for all our dining out, were enormous. There were clothes, too. Max delighted in silk socks and tailored shirts, and he ordered his monogramed cigarettes by the thousand. My own taste ran to expensive little hats.

It is hardly necessary to recount the details. We had our first tremendous quarrel at the end of six months, when, in spite of our furniture money and our birthday checks, we found ourselves two hundred and fifty dollars in debt. But as we cooled we decided that there was nothing we could do without; we could only be "more careful."

Every month we reached that same conclusion. There was nothing we could do without. At the end of the year on a $1200 salary we were $700 behind; eight months later, after our first baby came, we were over a thousand—and by that time, it seemed, permanently estranged. I actually was carrying out a threat of separation and stripping the apartment, one morning, when Max came back from town and sat down to discuss matters with me.

A curious labyrinthine discussion it was, winding from recriminations and flat admissions that our marriage was a failure and our love was dead, to the most poignant memories of our engagement days. But its central point was Max's detached insistence that we make marriage over into a purely utilitarian affair.

"Man needs the decencies of a home," he said over and over. "It doesn't do a fellow any good with a firm like mine to have them know he can't manage his affairs. And my firm is the kind of firm I want to work for. This next year is important; and if I spend it dragging through a nasty divorce business, knowing that everybody knows, I'll be about thirty per cent efficient. I'm willing to admit that marriage—even a frost like ours—is useful. Will you?"

I had to. My choice rested between going home, where there were two younger sisters, or leaving the baby somewhere and striking out for myself.

"It seems to me," said Max, taking out his pencil, "that if two reasonably clever people can put their best brain power and eight hours a day into a home, it might amount to something sometime. The thing resolves itself into a choice between the things we can do without and the things we can't. We'll list them. We can't do without three meals and a roof; but there must be something."

"You can certainly give up silk socks and cigarettes," I said; and, surprisingly, on this old sore point between us Max agreed.

"You can give up silk stockings, then," he said, and put them down. Silk socks and silk stockings! Out of all possible economies, they were the only things that we could think of. Finally—

"We could make baby an excuse," I said, "and never get out to the club till very late—after dinner—and stay just for the dancing. And we could get out of the dinner club and the theater bunch. Only, we ought to have some fun."

"You can go to matinées, and tell me about them, so we can talk intelligently. We'll say we can't leave the kid nights—"

"We can buy magazines and read up on plays. We'll talk well enough if we do that, and people won't know we haven't been. Put down: 'Magazines for plays.'"

He did it quite seriously. Do we seem very amusing to you? So anxious lest we should betray our economies—so impressed with our social "position" and what people might think! It is funny enough to me, looking back; but it was bitter business then.

I set myself to playing the devoted and absorbed young mother. But it was a long, long time before it became the sweetest of realities. I cried the first time I refused a bridge game to "stay with baby"; and I carried a sore heart those long spring afternoons when I pushed his carriage conspicuously up and down the avenue while the other women motored past me out for tea at the club. Yet those long walks were the best thing that ever happened to me. I had time to think, for one thing; and I gained splendid health, losing the superfluous flesh I was beginning to carry, and the headaches that usually came after days of lunching and bridge and dining.

I fell into the habit, too, of going around by the market, merely to have an objective, and buying the day's supplies. The first month of that habit my bills showed a decrease of $16.47. I shall always remember that sum, because it is certainly the biggest I have ever seen. I began to ask the prices of things; and I made my first faint effort at applying our game of substitution to the food problem, a thing which to me is still one of the most fascinating factors in housekeeping.

One afternoon in late summer, I found a delightful little bungalow in process of building, on a side street not so very far from the proper avenue. I investigated idly, and found that the rent was thirty dollars less than we were paying. Yet even then I hesitated.

It was Max who had the courage to decide.

"The only thing we are doing without is the address," he said, "And that isn't a loss that looks like $360 to me."

All that fall and winter we kept doggedly at our game of substitution. Max bought a ready-made Tuxedo, and I ripped out the label and sewed in one from a good tailor. I carried half a dozen dresses from the dyer's to a woman who evolved three very decent gowns; and then I toted them home in a box with a marking calculated to impress any chance acquaintance. We were so ashamed of our attempts at thrift that they came hard.

Often enough we quarreled after we had been caught in some sudden temptation that set us back a pretty penny, and we were inevitably bored and cross when we refused some gayety for economy's sake. We resolutely decided to read aloud the evenings the others went to the theater club; and as resolutely we substituted a stiff game of chess for the bridge that we could not afford. But we had to learn to like them both.

Occasionally we entertained at very small, very informal dinners, "on account of the baby"; and definitely discarded the wines that added the "smartness" demanded at formal affairs. People came to those dinners in their second or third best: but they stayed late, and laughed hilariously to the last second of their stay.

In the spring we celebrated Max's second respectable rise in salary by dropping out of the country club. We could do without it by that time. At first we thought it necessary to substitute a determined tramp for the Sunday morning golf game; but we presently gave that up. We were becoming garden enthusiasts. And as a substitution for most of the pleasure cravings of life, gardening is to be highly recommended. Discontent has a curious little trick of flowing out of the earthy end of a hoe.

Later that summer I found that a maid was one of the things I could do without, making the discovery in an interregnum not of my original choosing. A charwoman came in for the heavier work, and I took over the cooking. Almost immediately, in spite of my inexperience, the bills dropped. I could not cook rich pastries and fancy desserts, and fell back on simple salads and fruit instead. I dipped into the household magazines, followed on into technical articles on efficiency, substituted labor-savers wherever I could, and started my first muddled set of accounts.

At the beginning of the new year I tried my prentice hand on a budget; and that was the year that we emerged from debt and began to save.

That was six very short years ago. When, with three babies, the bungalow became a trifle small, we built a little country house and moved farther out. Several people whom we liked best among that first "exclusive younger set" have moved out too, and formed the nucleus of a neighborhood group that has wonderful times on incomes no one of which touches $4000 a year.

Ours is not as much as that yet; but it is enough to leave a wide and comfortable margin all around our wants. Max has given up his pipe for cigarettes (unmonogramed), and patronizes a good tailor for business reasons. But in everything else our substitutions stand: gardening for golf; picnics for roadhouse dinners; simple food, simple clothing, simple hospitality, books, a fire, and a game of chess on winter nights.

We don't even talk about economies any more. We like them. But—every Christmas there comes to me via the Christmas tree a box of stockings, and for Max a box of socks—heavy silk. There never is any card in either box; but I think we'll probably get them till we die.

The following short confession, signed "Mrs. M.F.E.," was awarded the first prize by the American Magazine in a contest for articles on "The Best Thing Experience Has Taught Me":

Forty Years Bartered for What?

A tiny bit of wisdom, but as vital as protoplasm. I know, for I bartered forty precious years of wifehood and motherhood to learn it.

During the years of my childhood and girlhood, our family passed from wealth to poverty. My father and only brother were killed in battle during the Civil War; our slaves were freed; our plantations melted from my mother's white hands during the Reconstruction days; our big town house was sold for taxes.

When I married, my only dowry was a fierce pride and an overwhelming ambition to get back our material prosperity. My husband was making a "good living." He was kind, easy-going, with a rare capacity for enjoying life and he loved his wife with that chivalrous, unquestioning, "the queen-can-do-no-wrong" type of love.

But even in our days of courting I answered his ardent love-making with, "And we will work and save and buy back the big house; then we will—" etc., etc.

And he? Ah, alone at sixty, I can still hear echoing down the years his big tender laugh, as he'd say, "Oh, what a de-ah, ambitious little sweetheart I have!"

He owned a home, a little cottage with a rose garden at one side of it—surely, with love, enough for any bride. But I—I saw only the ancestral mansion up the street, the big old house that had passed out of the hands of our family.

I would have no honeymoon trip; I wanted the money instead. John kissed each of my palms before he put the money into them. My fingers closed greedily over the bills; it was the nest egg, the beginning.

Next I had him dismiss his bookkeeper and give me the place. I didn't go to his store—Southern ladies didn't do that in those days—but I kept the books at home, and I wrote all the business letters. So it happened when John came home at night, tired from his day's work at the store, I had no time for diversions, for love-making, no hours to walk in the rose garden by his side—no, we must talk business.

I can see John now on many a hot night—and summer is hot in the Gulf States—dripping with perspiration as he dictated his letters to me, while I, my aching head near the big hot lamp, wrote on and on with hurried, nervous fingers. Outside there would be the evening breeze from the Gulf, the moonlight, the breath of the roses, all the romance of the southern night—but not for us!

The children came—four, in quick succession. But so fixed were my eyes on the goal of Success, I scarcely realized the mystery of motherhood. Oh, I loved them! I loved John, too. I would willingly have laid down my life for him or for any one of the children. And I intended sometime to stop and enjoy John and the children. Oh, yes, I was going really to live after we had bought back the big house, and had done so and so! In the meanwhile, I held my breath and worked.

"I'll be so glad," I remember saying one day to a friend, "when all my children are old enough to be off at school all day!" Think of that! Glad when the best years of our lives together were passed! The day came when the last little fellow trudged off to school and I no longer had a baby to hamper me. We were living now in the big old home. We had bought it back and paid for it. I no longer did John's bookkeeping for him—he paid a man a hundred dollars a month to do that—but I still kept my hand on the business.

Then suddenly one day—John died. Died in what should have been the prime and vigor of his life.

I worked harder than ever then, not from necessity, but because in the first few years after John left I was afraid to stop and think. So the years hurried by! One by one the children grew up and entered more or less successful careers of their own.... I don't feel that I know them so very well.

And now that the time of life has come when I must stop and think, I ask myself: "What did you do with the wonderful gifts Life laid in your lap—the love of a good man, domestic happiness, the chance to know intimately four little souls?"

And being honest I have to answer: "I bartered Life's great gifts for Life's pitiful extras—for pride, for show!"

If my experience were unique it would not be worth publishing, but it is only too common. Think of the wives who exchange the best years of their lives, their husband's comfort, his peace of mind, if not to buy back the family mansion, then for a higher social position; sometimes it is merely for—clothes!

It is to you women who still have the opportunity to "walk with John in the garden" that I give my dearly bought bit of experience. Stop holding your breath until you get this or that; stop reaching out blindly for to-morrow's prize; live to-day!

The "How-to-do-Something" Article. Articles the primary purpose of which is to give directions for doing something in a particular way, are always in demand. The simplest type is the recipe or formula containing a few directions for combining ingredients. More elaborate processes naturally demand more complex directions and require longer articles. In the simpler types the directions are given in the imperative form; that is, the reader is told to "take" this thing and that, and to "mix" it with something else. Although such recipe directions are clear, they are not particularly interesting. Many readers, especially those of agricultural journals, are tired of being told to do this and that in order to get better results. They are inclined to suspect the writer of giving directions on the basis of untried theory rather than on that of successful practice. There is an advantage, therefore, in getting away from formal advice and directions and in describing actual processes as they have been carried on successfully.

Articles intended to give practical guidance are most interesting when cast in the form of an interview, a personal experience, or a narrative. In an interview article, a person may indirectly give directions to others by describing in his own words the methods that he has used to accomplish the desired results. Or the writer, by telling his own experiences in doing something, may give readers directions in an interesting form.

Whatever method he adopts, the writer must keep in mind the questions that his readers would be likely to ask if he were explaining the method or process to them in person. To one who is thoroughly familiar with a method the whole process is so clear that he forgets how necessary it is to describe every step to readers unfamiliar with it. The omission of a single point may make it impossible for the reader to understand or to follow the directions. Although a writer need not insult the intelligence of his readers by telling them what they already know, he may well assume that they need to be reminded tactfully of many things that they may have known but have possibly forgotten.

Two Practical Guidance Articles. A method of filing office records, as explained apparently by the man who devised it, is well set forth in the following combination of the personal experience and the "how-to-do-something" types of articles. It appeared in System with a half-tone reproduction of a photograph showing a man looking over records in a drawer of the desk at which he is seated.

Who'll Do John's Work?

BY M. C. HOBART

"It's a quarter after 8 and Schuyler hasn't showed up," telephoned Beggs, one of our foremen, last Tuesday morning. "I've put Fanning on his machine, but that won't help much unless I can get somebody to work at Fanning's bench. Got anybody you can let me have for to-day?"

I didn't know offhand. But I told Beggs I'd call him back.

Ten minutes later a young lathe operator reported to Beggs. He was able to run Fanning's machine while the latter temporarily filled the shoes of the absent Schuyler.

Scarcely a week passes that does not bring a similar call to our employment office. While our plant, as plants go, is not large, we always have a number of men working with us who are fitted by experience and adaptability to do other work than that which they are hired to do. Such men are invaluable to know about, especially when an operator stays away for a day or perhaps a week and the shop is full of orders. Once it was a problem to find the right man immediately. A few additions to our employment records made it possible to keep track of each man's complete qualifications.

The employment records I keep in my desk in the deep drawer. They are filed alphabetically by name. When we hire a man we write his name and the job he is to fill on the outside of a 9 by 12 manila envelope. Into this envelope we put his application, his references, and other papers. His application tells us what kinds of work he can do and has done in other shops.

There are 29 different kinds of work to be done in our shops, from gear cutting to running errands. I have listed these operations, alphabetically, on a cardboard the exact length of the employment record envelope, 12 inches. When a man tells me in his application that he not only can operate a drill press, for which he is hired, but has also worked at grinding, I fit my cardboard list to the top of the employment record envelope and punch two notches along the top directly opposite the words "drill press" and "grinding" on my list. Then I file away the envelope.

I rest secure now in my knowledge that I have not buried a potential grinder in a drill press operator, or that I do not have to carry his double qualifications in my mind. I know that if Beggs should suddenly telephone me some morning that his grinder is absent—sick, or fishing, perhaps—I need only take my cardboard list and, starting at A, run it down my file until I come to the envelope of the drill press operator. I am stopped there automatically by the second notch on the envelope which corresponds in position to the word "grinder" on my list.

And there is every likelihood that, with the necessary explanation to the man's own foreman, Beggs will get his grinder for the day.

From the following article, printed in Farm and Fireside city and country readers alike may glean much practical information concerning ways and means of making a comfortable living from a small farm. It was illustrated by four half-tone reproductions of photographs showing (1) the house, (2) the woman at her desk with a typewriter before her, (3) the woman in her dining-room about to serve a meal from a labor-saving service wagon, and (4) the woman in the poultry yard with a basket of eggs.

Ten Acres and a Living

She was young, popular, and had been reared in the city. Everybody laughed when she decided to farm—but that was four years ago

BY ALICE MARY KIMBALL

When she decided to be a farmer everybody laughed. She was young, popular, unusually fond of frocks and fun. She had been reared in the city. She didn't know a Jersey from a Hereford, or a Wyandotte from a Plymouth Rock.

"You'll be back in six months," her friends said.

Four years have passed. Mrs. Charles S. Tupper still is "buried" in the country. Moreover, she is supplying eggs, chickens, honey, and home-canned goods to those of her former associates who are willing to pay for quality.

"Farming," said Mrs. Tupper, "is the ideal vocation for the woman who feels the modern desire for a job and the need of marriage and a home.

"I never wanted a job so keenly as when I found myself in a small city apartment without enough to do to keep me busy. After I'd swept and dusted and prepared meals for two, I had hours of time on my hands. The corner bakeshop, the laundry, and modern conveniences had thrust upon me more leisure than I could use. Mr. Tupper is a young engineer whose work takes him to various parts of the Southwest. In his absence I felt strongly the need of filling up my idle hours in some interesting, useful way.

"I didn't quite like the idea of spending all my spare time on cards, calling, women's clubs, and social pleasures. I longed to be a real partner to my husband and to share in making the family income as well as spending it.

"We had a few thousand saved for a home, and were trying to decide where to build. One day it flashed upon me: 'Why invest in city property? Why not a little farm? Then we'll have a home; I'll have a job, and can make our living.'"

The idea materialized into a modern bungalow on a 10-acre farm in Westdale, Missouri, an hour's drive from Kansas City. Mr. Tupper's salary furnished working capital for the enterprise and Mrs. Tupper has found congenial work as farmer-in-chief.

Poultry, bees, and a vegetable garden are Mrs. Tupper's specialities. Her side lines are a pig and a registered Jersey cow. She looks after the poultry, works in garden and apiary, and milks the cow herself. She employs very little help.

"It wasn't difficult to get a start in learning to farm," Mrs. Tupper explained. "I visited farms and studied the methods of farmers and their wives. I asked lots of questions.

"I didn't have any old fogyisms to unlearn, and I didn't acquire any. I went straight to the agricultural college and the state poultry experiment station for instructions. While I was living in the country supervising the building of the bungalow, I read and digested every bulletin I could get. I'm still studying bulletins. I subscribe for several farm papers and a bee journal.

"Of course, I learned a great deal from the practical experience of the people about me, but I checked up everything to the rules and directions of government and state agricultural experts, which may be had for the price of a postage stamp. I tried to take orders intelligently. I ignored old rules for poultry and bee-keeping."

Mrs. Tupper's chickens are hatched in incubators, hovered in a coal-heated brooder house, fed according to experiment-station directions, and reared in poultry houses built from experiment-station designs. From the first they have been practically free from lice and disease. She gets winter eggs. Even in zero weather and at times when feed is most costly, her spring pullets more than pay their way.

"Bees responded as readily to proper treatment," she said. "My second season I harvested $265 worth of comb honey from twenty working swarms. And I was stung not a half-dozen times at that."

Some of Mrs. Tupper's neighbors were inclined to joke at first at her appetite for bulletins, her belief in experts, and her rigid insistence on pure-bred stock and poultry. They admit now that her faith has been justified.

If Mrs. Tupper had trod in the well-worn neighborhood ruts, she would have marketed her produce by the country-store-commission-man-retailer-consumer route; but again she did not. From the first she planned to plug the leakage of farm profits in middlemen's commissions. When she had anything to sell, she put on a good-looking tailored suit, a becoming hat, smart shoes and gloves, and went to the city to talk to ultimate consumers.

The consciousness of being dressed appropriately—not expensively or ornately—is a valuable aid to the farm saleswoman, Mrs. Tupper thinks.

"If a salesman comes to me shabbily dressed or flashily dressed, I can't give him a fair hearing," she said. "I may let him talk on, but I decide against him the instant I look at him. So I reasoned that a trim, pleasing appearance would be as valuable an asset to me as to the men who sell pickles, insurance, or gilt-edged bonds. It would mean a favorable first impression and open the way to show samples and make a sales talk.

"If I tried to interview a prospective customer handicapped by the consciousness that my skirt hung badly or that my shoes were shabby, not only would I be timid and ill at ease, but my appearance would suggest to the city buyer the very slipshodness and lack of reliability he fears in buying direct from the farm.

"I go strong on attractive samples. It would be useless to try for fancy prices if I brought honey to town in mean-looking cases or rusty cans. A slight drip down the side of a package might not be proof positive of poor quality, but it would frighten away a careful buyer. Likewise, I do not illustrate my egg sales talks with a sample dozen of odd sizes and shapes. It is needless to add that goods delivered to customers must be of the same quality and appearance as the samples, and that one must keep one's promises to the dot. A little well-directed enterprise will land a customer, but only good service can hold him."

When the current wholesale price of honey was $3 a case, Mrs. Tupper's comb honey has been in demand at from 20 to 30 cents a pound. She disposes of every pound to private customers and to one grocery store which caters to "fancy" trade. She sells eggs from her 400 Anconas at from 4 to 6 cents more a dozen than the country store is paying its patrons who bring in eggs and "take them out in trade."

Mrs. Tupper figured that if a trademark has advertising pull for a manufacturing concern, it would help the farm business. She christened her 10 acres "Graceland Farm," and this name is stamped on everything that leaves her place. She had cards printed bearing the name of the farm, its telephone number, and its products. Graceland Farm is also emphasized on letter heads.

"Prompt attention to correspondence is an easy method of advertising a farm business," she suggested. "A typewritten letter on letterhead stationery, mailed promptly, creates a pleasant impression on the man who has written to inquire the price of a setting of eggs or a trio of chickens.

"Suppose I delayed a week and wrote the reply with pen and ink, or, worse, with a pencil on ruled tablet paper. I'd stand a good chance of losing a customer, wouldn't I? If I didn't miss an order outright, I should certainly leave a suggestion of inefficiency and carelessness which could only be charged to the debit side of the business."

She has found that a $50 typewriter and a letter file have helped greatly to create the good-will which is as essential to the farmer business woman as to the woman who runs a millinery shop or an insurance office.

Mrs. Tupper has encouraged automobile trade. Her apiary is within sight of the road, and a "Honey for Sale" sign brings many a customer. Many of her city patrons have the habit of driving to the farm and returning with a hamper laden with eggs, honey, butter, or canned stuff from the vegetable garden. The garden last summer supplied material for more than 900 cans of vegetables.

The neighbors smile at her zeal for fairs and poultry shows.

"It isn't fun altogether; it's business," she tells them.

It was cold, disagreeable work, for instance, to prepare an exhibit for the Heart of America Poultry Show at Kansas City last fall; but Mrs. Tupper felt repaid. She won first prize on hen, first and second on pullet, and fourth on cockerel. Then she exhibited at the St. Joseph, Missouri, Poultry Show with even better success.

"These prizes will add to the value of every chicken I have, and to all my poultry products. They give me another advertising point," she said.

"The shows gave me a fine opportunity to meet possible customers and to make friends for my business. I was on the job for days. I met scores of people and distributed hundreds of cards. I learned a lot, too, in talks with judges and experienced breeders."

The Tupper bungalow is neat and attractive. In spite of her duties in the poultry house and apiary, Mrs. Tupper serves appetizing meals. She finds time for church work and neighborhood calls, and gives every Thursday to the Red Cross.

The housework is speeded up with such conveniences as hot and cold water in kitchen and bathroom, and steam heat. The kitchen is an efficient little workshop lined by cupboards and shelves. Mrs. Tupper can sit before her kitchen cabinet and prepare a meal without moving about for ingredients and utensils. A service wagon saves steps between kitchen and dining-room.

The floors of the bungalow are of hard wood. They are waxed a few times each year, and a little work each morning with dust mop and carpet sweeper keeps them in good order. The washing is sent out.

"I couldn't earn an income from the farm if I had a farmhouse without modern improvements," Mrs. Tupper declared. "Reducing drudgery to a minimum is only plain business sense. Laundry work, scrubbing, and dishwashing have a low economic value. Such unskilled labor eats up the time and strength one needs for the more profitable and interesting tasks of farm management, accounting and correspondence, advertising and marketing."

The Personality Sketch. We all like to read about prominent and successful people. We want to know more about the men and women who figure in the day's news, and even about interesting persons whose success has not been great enough to be heralded in the press. What appeals to us most about these individuals is, not mere biographical facts such as appear in Who's Who, but the more intimate details of character and personality that give us the key to their success. We want to see them as living men and women. It is the writer's problem to present them so vividly that we shall feel as if we had actually met them face to face.

The purpose of the personality sketch may be (1) to give interesting information concerning either prominent or little known persons, (2) to furnish readers inspiration that may bear fruit in their own lives, (3) to give practical guidance by showing how one individual has accomplished a certain thing. Whether the aim is to afford food for thought, inspiration to action, or guidance in practical matters, the treatment is essentially the same.

The recognized methods of describing characters in fiction may be used to advantage in portraying real persons. These are (1) using general descriptive terms, (2) describing personal appearance, (3) telling of characteristic actions, (4) quoting their words, (5) giving biographical facts, (6) citing opinions of others about them, (7) showing how others react to them. By a judicious combination of several of these methods, a writer can make his readers visualize the person, hear him speak, watch him in characteristic actions, and understand his past life, as well as realize what others think of him and how they act toward him.

Material for a personality sketch may be obtained in one of three ways: (1) from a more or less intimate acquaintance with the person to be described; (2) from an interview with the person, supplemented by conversation with others about him; (3) from printed sketches of him combined with information secured from others. It is easier to write personality sketches about men and women whom we know well than it is about those whom we have never met, or with whom we have had only a short interview. Inexperienced writers should not attempt to prepare sketches of persons whom they know but slightly. In a single interview a writer who is observant, and who is a keen judge of human nature, may be able to get an impression sufficiently strong to serve as the basis of a satisfactory article, especially if the material obtained in the interview is supplemented by printed sketches and by conversations with others. Personality sketches sometimes include long interviews giving the person's opinions on the subject on which he is an authority. In such articles the sketch usually precedes the interview.

Examples of the Personality Sketch. The first of the following sketches appeared, with a half-tone portrait, in the department of "Interesting People" in the American Magazine; the second was sent out by the Newspaper Enterprise Association, Cleveland, Ohio, which supplies several hundred daily newspapers with special features.

(1)

"Tommy"—Who Enjoys Straightening Out Things

BY SAMPSON RAPHAELSON

Six years ago a young Bulgarian immigrant, dreamy-eyed and shabby, came to the University of Illinois seeking an education. He inquired his way of a group of underclassmen and they pointed out to him a large red building on the campus.

"Go there," they said gayly, "and ask for Tommy."

He did, and when he was admitted to the presence of Thomas Arkle Clark, Dean of Men, and addressed him in his broken English as "Mis-terr Tommy," the dean did not smile. Although Mr. Clark had just finished persuading an irascible father to allow his reprobate sophomore son to stay at college, and although he was facing the problem of advising an impetuous senior how to break an engagement with a girl he no longer loved, he adapted himself to the needs and the temperament of the foreigner instantly, sympathetically, and efficiently.

In five minutes the Bulgarian had a job, knew what courses in English he ought to take, and was filled with a glow of hope, inspiration, and security which only a genius in the art of graciousness and understanding like "Tommy Arkle," as he is amiably called by every student and alumnus of Illinois, can bestow.

This is a typical incident in the extremely busy, richly human daily routine of the man who created the office of Dean of Men in American universities. Slender, short, well-dressed, his gray hair smartly parted, with kindly, clever, humorous blue eyes and a smile that is an ecstasy of friendliness, "Tommy" sits behind his big desk in the Administration Building from eight to five every day and handles all of the very real troubles and problems of the four thousand-odd men students at the University of Illinois.

He averages one hundred callers a day, in addition to answering a heavy mail and attendance upon various committee, board, and council meetings. He is known all over the country as an authority on fraternities and their influence, and a power for making that influence constantly better and finer. In business, farmer, and school circles in the Middle West Mr. Clark is famous for his whimsical, inspiring speeches. His quick, shaft-like humor, his keen, devastating sarcasm, and his rare, resilient sympathy have made him a personality beloved particularly by young persons.

They still tell the story on the campus of an ingenuous youngster who walked into the dean's office one fall, set his suitcase on the floor, and drawing two one-dollar bills and a fifty-cent piece from his pocket, laid the money on the big desk, saying:

"That's all the money I have. I've come to work my way through. Will you help me to get a job?"

In a flash "Tommy" noted the boy's eager, imaginative brown eyes, his wide, compact lips and strong jaw. Reaching over, he took the two bills and pocketed them, leaving the half-dollar.

"The traditional great men," said the dean, "started their university careers with only fifty cents. I don't want you to be handicapped, so I'll keep this two dollars. You can get work at —— Green Street waiting on table for your meals, and the landlady at —— Chalmers Street wants a student to fire her furnace in exchange for room rent."

The boy earned his way successfully for several months. Then suddenly he was taken sick. An operation was necessary. Mr. Clark wired for a Chicago specialist and paid all expenses out of his own pocket. The student recovered, and two years after he was graduated sent "Tommy" a letter enclosing a check for five hundred dollars. "To redeem my two dollars which you have in trust," the letter said, "and please use the money as a medical fund for sick students who need, but cannot afford, Chicago specialists."

The dean has an abnormal memory for names and faces. Every year he makes a "rogues' gallery"—the photographs of all incoming freshmen are taken and filed away. And many an humble, unknown freshman has been exalted by the "Hello, Darby," or "Good morning, Boschenstein"—or whatever his name happened to be—with which the dean greeted him.

Mr. Clark once revealed to me the secret of his life. Fifteen years ago he was professor of English and had strong literary ambitions, with no little promise. There came the offer of the office of Dean of Men. He had to choose between writing about peoples lives or living those lives with people. And he chose, with the result that at all times of the day and night it's "Tommy this, and Tommy that"; an accident case may need him at two A.M. in the hospital, or a crowd of roystering students may necessitate his missing a night's sleep in order to argue an irate sheriff into the conviction that they are not robbers and murderers. He has been known to spend many evenings in the rooms of lonesome students who "need a friend."

"Tommy Arkle" is one of the Middle West's finest contributions to the modern ideal of human service.

(2)

Two New Machine Guns are Invented for the U.S. Army by the "Edison of Firearms"

BY HARRY B. HUNT

HARTFORD, CONN., NOV. 12.—"Well, Old J.M. has done it again."

That is the chief topic of conversation these days in the big shops of Hartford, New Haven and Bridgeport, where the bulk of the rifles, pistols and machine guns for Uncle Sam's army is being turned out.

For in these towns to say that "Old J.M. has done it again" is the simplest and most direct way of stating that John M. Browning has invented a new kind of firearm.

This time, however, "Old J.M." has done it twice. He has invented not one, but two new guns. Both have been accepted by the United States government, contracts for immense numbers of each have been signed, and work of production is being pushed night and day. The new weapons will be put into the field against Germany at the earliest possible day.

Who is John Browning? You never heard of him?

Well, Browning is the father of rapid-fire and automatic firearms. His is the brain behind practically every basic small firearm invention in the past 40 years. He has been to the development of firearms what Edison has been to electricity.

"Unquestionably the greatest inventor of firearms in the world," is the unanimous verdict of the gun experts of the Colt, Remington and Winchester plants, whose business it is to study and criticise every development in firearms.

But if Browning is our greatest gun inventor, he is the most "gun-shy" genius in the country when it comes to publicity. He would rather face a machine gun than a reporter.

A few years ago a paper in his home state—Utah—published a little story about his success as an inventor, and the story was copied by the Hartford Courant.

"I'd rather have paid $1,000 cash than have had that stuff printed," Browning says.

Friends, however, who believe that the world should know something about this firearms wizard, furnish the following sidelights on his career:

Browning comes from an old-stock Mormon family of Ogden, Utah. As a young man he was a great hunter, going off into the woods for a month or six weeks at a time, with only his gun for company. He was only 24 when he worked out his ideas for a gun carrying a magazine full of cartridges, which could be fired rapidly in succession. He pounded out the parts for his first rapid-fire gun with hammer and cold chisel.

Since that time, pump and "trombone" shotguns, automatic pistols, rapid-fire rifles produced by the biggest firearms manufacturers in the country have been Browning's products.

The United States army pistol is a Browning invention.

A Browning pistol manufactured by the Fabrique Nationale of Belgium was made the standard equipment for the armies of Belgium, Russia, Spain, Italy and Serbia.

On completion of the one-millionth pistol by the Fabrique Nationale, King Albert of Belgium knighted the modest inventor, so he is now, officially, "Sir" John Browning.

Browning is tall, slender, slightly stooped, 62, bald except for a rim of gray hair, and wears a closely clipped gray moustache. His face is marked by a network of fine lines.

Although Browning will not talk of himself or of his career as an inventor, he can't help talking when the conversation is turned on guns.

"I always think of a gun as something that is made primarily to shoot," he says. "The best gun is the simplest gun. When you begin loading a gun up with a lot of fancy contraptions and 'safety devices,' you are only inviting trouble. You complicate the mechanism and make that many more places for dirt and grit to clog the action.

"You can make a gun so 'safe' that it won't shoot."

Of Browning's new guns it is not, of course, permissible to give any details. One, however, is a light rapid-fire gun, weighing only 15 pounds, which can be fired from the shoulder like the ordinary rifle. Each magazine carries 20 rounds and the empty magazine can be detached and another substituted by pressing a button.

The heavier gun is a belt-fed machine, capable of firing 600 shots a minute. Although it is water-cooled, it weighs, water jacket and all, only 28 pounds. For airplane work, where the firing is in bursts and the speed of the machine helps cool the gun, the jacket is discarded and the gun weighs only 20 pounds.

Both guns are counted upon as valuable additions to the equipment of our overseas forces.

The Narrative in the Third Person. Although the interview, the personal experience article, and the confession story are largely narrative, they are always told in the first person, whereas the term "narrative article" as used in this classification is applied only to a narrative in the third person. In this respect it is more like the short story. As in the short story so in the narrative article, description of persons, places, and objects involved serves to heighten the effect.

Narrative methods may be employed to present any group of facts that can be arranged in chronological order. A process, for example, may be explained by showing a man or a number of men engaged in the work involved, and by giving each step in the process as though it were an incident in a story. The story of an invention or a discovery may be told from the inception of the idea to its realization. A political situation may be explained by relating the events that led up to it. The workings of some institution, such as an employment office or a juvenile court, may be made clear by telling just what takes place in it on a typical occasion. Historical and biographical material can best be presented in narrative form.

Suspense, rapid action, exciting adventure, vivid description, conversation, and all the other devices of the short story may be introduced into narrative articles to increase the interest and strengthen the impression. Whenever, therefore, material can be given a narrative form it is very desirable to do so. A writer, however, must guard against exaggeration and the use of fictitious details.

Examples of the Narrative Article. How narration with descriptive touches and conversation may be effectively used to explain a new institution like the community kitchen, or the methods of recruiting employed in the army, is shown in the two articles below. The first was taken from the New York World, and the second from the Outlook.

(1)

NOW THE PUBLIC KITCHEN

BY MARIE COOLIDGE RASK

The Community Kitchen Menu

"My mother wants three cents' worth of vegetable soup."

"And mine wants enough beef stew for three of us."

Two battered tin pails were handed up by small, grimy fingers. Two eager little faces were upturned toward the top of the bright green counter which loomed before them. Two pairs of roguish eyes smiled back at the woman who reached over the counter and took the pails.

"The beef stew will be twelve cents," she said. "It is four cents for each half pint, you know."

"I know," answered the youth. "My mother says when she has to buy the meat and all and cook it and put a quarter in the gas meter, it's cheaper to get it here. My father got his breakfast here, too, and it only cost him five cents."

"And was he pleased?" asked the woman, carefully lowering the filled pail to the outstretched little hand.

"You bet," chuckled the lad, as he turned and followed the little procession down the length of the room and out through the door on the opposite side.

The woman was Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt, jr.

The boy was the son of a 'longshoreman living on "Death Avenue," in close proximity to the newly established People's Kitchen, situated on the southeast corner of Tenth Avenue and West Twenty-seventh Street, New York.

So it is here at last—the much talked of, long hoped for, community kitchen.

Within three days after its doors had been opened to the public more than 1,100 persons had availed themselves of its benefits. Within three years, it is promised, the community kitchen will have become national in character. Its possibilities for development are limitless.

Way was blazed for the pioneer kitchen by Edward F. Brown, executive secretary of the New York school lunch committee.

The active power behind the cauldrons of soup, cabbage and frankfurters, beans and rice pudding is vested in Mrs. James A. Burden, jr., and Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt, jr.

The evolution of the community kitchen is going to be of interest to every housewife and to every wage earner in all classes of society.

First of all, let it be distinctly understood that the kitchen as inaugurated is not a charity. It is social and philanthropic in character, and it will ultimately reduce the cost of living by almost 50 per cent. This much has been demonstrated already to the extent that the Tenth Avenue kitchen has not only paid expenses, but has so overrun its confines that plans are in preparation for the establishment of other and larger kitchens in rapid succession.

The object is to give to the purchaser the maximum quantity of highest grade food, properly cooked, at minimum cost. This cost includes rent, light, heat, power, interest on investment, depreciation, cost of food materials, labor and supervision. The principle is that of barter and sale on an equitable business basis.

The project as now formulated is to establish for immediate use a small group of public kitchens having one central depot. This depot will be in constant operation throughout the twenty-four hours. Here the food will be prepared and distributed to the smaller kitchens where, by means of steam tables, it can be kept hot and dispensed. The character of the food to be supplied each district will be chosen with regard to what the population is accustomed to, that which is simple and wholesome, which contains bulk, can be prepared at minimum cost, can be conveniently dispensed and easily carried away.

Opposite a large school building, in a small room that had been at one time a saloon, the kitchen of the century was fitted up and formally opened to the public.

Three long green tables with green painted benches beside them encircle the room on two sides. Their use was manifest the second day after the kitchen was opened.

At 4 o'clock in the morning, from various tenement homes near by, sturdy 'longshoremen and laborers might have been seen plodding silently from their respective homes, careful not to disturb their wives and families, and heading straight for the new kitchen on the corner. From trains running along "Death Avenue" came blackened trainmen after their night's work. They, too, stopped at the corner kitchen. By the time the attendant arrived to unlock the doors forty men were in line waiting for breakfast.

Ten minutes later the three tables were fully occupied.

"Bread, cereal and coffee for five cents!" exclaimed one of the men, pushing the empty tray from him, after draining the last drop of coffee in his mug. "This kitchen's all right."

Noon came. The children from the school building trooped in.

"My mamma works in a factory," said one. "I used to get some cakes at a bakery at noontime. Gee! There's raisins in this rice puddin', ain't there?" He carried the saucerful of pudding over to the table. "Only three cents," he whispered to the little girl beside him. "You better get some, too. That'll leave you two cents for a cup of cocoa."

"Ain't it a cinch!" exclaimed the little girl.

Behind the counter the women who had made these things possible smiled happily and dished out pudding, beans and soup with generous impartiality. The daughter of Mrs. Vanderbilt appeared.

"I'm hungry, mother," she cried. "I'll pay for my lunch."

"You'll have to serve yourself," was the rejoinder of the busy woman with the tin pail in her hand. "There's a tray at the end of the counter—but don't get in the way."

So rich and poor lunched together.

"Oh, but I'm tired!" exclaimed a woman, who, satchel in hand, entered, late in the afternoon, "It's hard to go home and cook after canvassing all day. Will you mind if I eat supper here?"

Then the women and children poured in with pails and dishes and pans.

"We're getting used to it now," said one. "It's just like a store, you know, and it saves us a lot of work—"

"And expense! My land!" cried another. "Why, my man has only been working half time, and the pennies count when you've got children to feed and clothe. When I go to work by the day it's little that's cooked at home. Now—" She presented a dish as the line moved along. "Beef stew for four," she ordered, "and coffee in this pitcher, here."

(2)

GATHERING IN THE RAW RECRUIT

BY KINGSLEY MOSES

Men Wanted for the United States Army

A tall, gaunt farmer boy with a very dirty face and huge gnarled hands stood open-mouthed before the brilliant poster displayed before the small-town recruiting office. In his rather dull mind he pictured himself as he would look, straight and dignified, in the khaki uniform, perhaps even with the three stripes of the sergeant on his arm.

"Fifteen dollars a month," he thought to himself, "and board and clothes and lodgings and doctor's bills. Why, that's more than I'm gettin' now on the farm! I'd see the world; I might even get to learn a regular trade." He scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Well, I ain't gettin' nowhere now, that's sure," he concluded, and slowly climbed the stairs.

This boy had not come to his decision in a moment. His untrained but thoroughly honest mind worked slowly. He had been pondering the opportunities of army life for many weeks. The idea had come to him by chance, he thought.

Over a month ago he had been plowing the lower forty of Old Man Huggins's farm. The road to the mountains lay along one side of the field, and as the boy turned and started to plow his furrow toward the road he noticed that a motor cycle had stopped just beyond the fence. "Broke down," the boy commented to himself, as he saw the tan-clad rider dismounting. Over the mule's huge back he watched as he drew nearer. "Why, the rider was in uniform; he must be a soldier!"

Sure enough, when the fence was reached the boy saw that the stranger was dressed in the regulation khaki of Uncle Sam, with the U.S. in block letters at the vent of the collar and two stripes on the left sleeve.

"Broke down?" the boy queried, dropping his plow-handles.

The corporal grunted and continued to potter with the machine.

"You in the army?" the boy continued, leaning on the fence.

"You bet!" assented the soldier. Then, looking up and taking in the big, raw-boned physique of the youngster, "Ever think of joinin'?"

"Can't say's I did."

"Got any friends in the army?"

"Nope."

"Fine life." The motor cycle was attracting little of the recruiting officer's attention now, for he was a recruiting officer, and engaged in one of the most practical phases of his work.

"Them soldiers have a pretty easy life, don't they?" Evidently the boy was becoming interested.

The recruiting officer laid down his tools, pulled out a pipe, and sat down comfortably under a small sycamore tree at the roadside.

"Not so very easy," he replied, "but interesting and exciting." He paused for a minute to scrutinize the prospective recruit more closely. To his experienced eye the boy appeared desirable. Slouchy, dirty, and lazy-looking, perhaps; but there were nevertheless good muscles and a strong body under those ragged overalls. The corporal launched into his story.

For twenty minutes the boy listened open-mouthed to the stories of post life, where baseball, football, and boxing divided the time with drilling; of mess-halls where a fellow could eat all he wanted to, free; of good-fellowship and fraternal pride in the organization; of the pleasant evenings in the amusement rooms in quarters. And then of the life of the big world, of which the boy had only dreamed; of the Western plains, of Texas, the snowy ridges of the great Rockies, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, the Philippines, Hawaii, the strange glamour of the tropics, the great wildernesses of the frozen North.

"It seems 'most like as I'd like to join," was the timid venture.

"What's your name?"

"Steve Bishop."

"All right, Steve, come in and see me the next time you're in town," said the corporal, rising. "We'll talk it over."

And, mounting his motor cycle, he was gone down the road in a whirl of red dust. Nor did the farmer boy think to wonder at the sudden recovery of the apparently stalled machine.

"Missionary work," explains the corporal. "We never beg 'em to join; but we do sort of give 'em the idea. Like joinin' the Masons, you know," he winked, giving me the grip.

So it happened that Steve Bishop mounted the stairs that day, resolved to join the army if they would take him.

In the small, bare, but immaculately clean room at the head of the stairs he found his friend the corporal banging away at a typewriter. "How are you, Steve? Glad to see you," was the welcome. "Sit down a minute, and we'll talk."

The soldier finished his page, lit his pipe again, and leisurely swung round in his chair.

"Think you'll like to soldier with us?" he said.

Unconsciously the boy appreciated the compliment; it was flattering to be considered on a basis of equality with this clean-cut, rugged man of the wide world.

"I reckon so," he replied, almost timidly.

"Well, how old are you, Steve?"

"Twenty-one." The corporal nodded approval. That was all right, then; no tedious formality of securing signed permission from parent or guardian was necessary.

Then began a string of personal questions as to previous employment, education, details of physical condition, moral record (for the army will have no ex-jailbirds), etc., and finally the question, "Why do you want to join?"

"They don't know why I ask that," says the corporal, "but I have a mighty good reason. From the way a boy answers I can decide which branch of the service he ought to be connected with. If he wants to be a soldier just for travel and adventure, I advise the infantry or the cavalry; but if he seriously wants to learn and study, I recommend him to the coast artillery or the engineers."

Then comes the physical examination, a vigorous but not exacting course of sprouts designed to find out if the applicant is capable of violent exertion and to discover any minor weaknesses; an examination of eyes, ears, teeth, and nose; and, finally, a cursory scrutiny for functional disorders.

"I'll take you, Steve," the corporal finally says. "In about a week we'll send you to the barracks."

"But what am I goin' to do till then? I ain't got a cent."

"Don't worry about that. You'll eat and sleep at Mrs. Barrows's,"—naming a good, clean boarding-house in the town, the owner of which has a yearly contract with the Government to take care of just such embryo recruits; "in the daytime you can hang around town, and the police won't bother you if you behave yourself. If they call you for loafin' tell them you're waitin' to get into the army."

In a week the district recruiting officer, a young lieutenant, drops in on his regular circuit. The men who have been accepted by the non-commissioned officer are put through their paces again, and so expert is the corporal in judging good material that none of Steve's group of eight are rejected.

"All right," says the corporal when the lieutenant has gone; "here's your tickets to the training station at Columbus, Ohio, and twenty-eight cents apiece for coffee on the way. In these boxes you'll find four big, healthy lunches for each one of you. That'll keep you until you get to Columbus."

One of the new recruits is given charge of the form ticket issued by the railway expressly for the Government; is told that when meal-time comes he can get off the train with the others and for fifty cents buy a big pail of hot coffee for the bunch at the station lunch-room. Then the corporal takes them all down to the train, tells them briefly but plainly what is expected in the way of conduct from a soldier, and winds up with the admonition: "And, boys, remember this first of all; the first duty of a soldier is this: do what you're told to do, do it without question, and do it quick. Good-bye."

In twenty-four hours Steve and his companions are at the training station, have taken the oath of allegiance, and are safely and well on their way to full membership in the family of Uncle Sam.

CHAPTER VI

WRITING THE ARTICLE

Value of a Plan. Just as a builder would hesitate to erect a house without a carefully worked-out plan, so a writer should be loath to begin an article before he has outlined it fully. In planning a building, an architect considers how large a house his client desires, how many rooms he must provide, how the space available may best be apportioned among the rooms, and what relation the rooms are to bear to one another. In outlining an article, likewise, a writer needs to determine how long it must be, what material it should include, how much space should be devoted to each part, and how the parts should be arranged. Time spent in thus planning an article is time well spent.

Outlining the subject fully involves thinking out the article from beginning to end. The value of each item of the material gathered must be carefully weighed; its relation to the whole subject and to every part must be considered. The arrangement of the parts is of even greater importance, because much of the effectiveness of the presentation will depend upon a logical development of the thought. In the last analysis, good writing means clear thinking, and at no stage in the preparation of an article is clear thinking more necessary than in the planning of it.

Amateurs sometimes insist that it is easier to write without an outline than with one. It undoubtedly does take less time to dash off a special feature story than it does to think out all of the details and then write it. In nine cases out of ten, however, when a writer attempts to work out an article as he goes along, trusting that his ideas will arrange themselves, the result is far from a clear, logical, well-organized presentation of his subject. The common disinclination to make an outline is usually based on the difficulty that most persons experience in deliberately thinking about a subject in all its various aspects, and in getting down in logical order the results of such thought. Unwillingness to outline a subject generally means unwillingness to think.

The Length of an Article. The length of an article is determined by two considerations: the scope of the subject, and the policy of the publication for which it is intended. A large subject cannot be adequately treated in a brief space, nor can an important theme be disposed of satisfactorily in a few hundred words. The length of an article, in general, should be proportionate to the size and the importance of the subject.

The deciding factor, however, in fixing the length of an article is the policy of the periodical for which it is designed. One popular publication may print articles from 4000 to 6000 words, while another fixes the limit at 1000 words. It would be quite as bad judgment to prepare a 1000-word article for the former, as it would be to send one of 5000 words to the latter. Periodicals also fix certain limits for articles to be printed in particular departments. One monthly magazine, for instance, has a department of personality sketches which range from 800 to 1200 words in length, while the other articles in this periodical contain from 2000 to 4000 words.

The practice of printing a column or two of reading matter on most of the advertising pages influences the length of articles in many magazines. To obtain an attractive make-up, the editors allow only a page or two of each special article, short story, or serial to appear in the first part of the magazine, relegating the remainder to the advertising pages. Articles must, therefore, be long enough to fill a page or two in the first part of the periodical and several columns on the pages of advertising. Some magazines use short articles, or "fillers," to furnish the necessary reading matter on these advertising pages.

Newspapers of the usual size, with from 1000 to 1200 words in a column, have greater flexibility than magazines in the matter of make-up, and can, therefore, use special feature stories of various lengths. The arrangement of advertisements, even in the magazine sections, does not affect the length of articles. The only way to determine exactly the requirements of different newspapers and magazines is to count the words in typical articles in various departments.

Selection and Proportion. After deciding on the length of his article, the writer should consider what main points he will be able to develop in the allotted space. His choice will be guided by his purpose in writing the article. "Is this point essential to the accomplishment of my aim?" is the test he should apply. Whatever is non-essential must be abandoned, no matter how attractive it may be. Having determined upon the essential topics, he next proceeds to estimate their relative value for the development of his theme, so that he may give to each one the space and the prominence that are proportionate to its importance.

Arrangement of Material. The order in which to present the main topics requires thoughtful study. A logical development of a subject by which the reader is led, step by step, from the first sentence to the last in the easiest and most natural way, is the ideal arrangement. An article should march right along from beginning to end, without digressing or marking time. The straight line, in writing as in drawing, is the shortest distance between two points.

In narration the natural order is chronological. To arouse immediate interest, however, a writer may at times deviate from this order by beginning with a striking incident and then going back to relate the events that led up to it. This method of beginning in medias res is a device well recognized in fiction. In exposition the normal order is to proceed from the known to the unknown, to dovetail the new facts into those already familiar to the reader.

When a writer desires by his article to create certain convictions in the minds of his readers, he should consider the arrangement best calculated to lead them to form such conclusions. The most telling effects are produced, not by stating his own conclusions as strongly as possible, but rather by skillfully inducing his readers to reach those conclusions by what they regard as their own mental processes. That is, if readers think that the convictions which they have reached are their own, and were not forced upon them, their interest in these ideas is likely to be much deeper and more lasting. It is best, therefore, to understate conclusions or to omit them entirely. In all such cases the writer's aim in arranging his material should be to direct his readers' train of thought so that, after they have finished the last sentence, they will inevitably form the desired conclusion.

With the main topics arranged in the best possible order, the writer selects from his available material such details as he needs to amplify each point. Examples, incidents, statistics, and other particulars he jots down under each of the chief heads. The arrangement of these details, in relation both to the central purpose and to each other, requires some consideration, for each detail must have its logical place in the series. Having thus ordered his material according to a systematic plan, he has before him a good working outline to guide him in writing.

Planning a Typical Article. The process of gathering, evaluating, and organizing material may best be shown by a concrete example. The publication in a New York paper of a news story to the effect that the first commencement exercises were about to be held in the only factory school ever conducted in the city, suggested to a special feature writer the possibility of preparing an article on the work of the school. To obtain the necessary material, he decided to attend the exercises and to interview both the principal of the school and the head of the factory. In thinking over the subject beforehand, he jotted down these points upon which to secure data: (1) the origin and the purpose of the school; (2) its relation to the work of the factory; (3) the methods of instruction; (4) the kind of pupils and the results accomplished for them; (5) the cost of the school; (6) its relation to the public school system. At the close of the graduation exercises, he secured the desired interviews with the teacher in charge and with the head of the firm, copied typical examples from the exhibition of the pupils' written work, and jotted down notes on the decoration and furnishing of the schoolroom. Since the commencement exercises had been reported in the newspapers, he decided to refer to them only incidentally in his story.

After considering the significance of the work of the school and what there was about it that would appeal to different classes of readers, he decided to write his story for the magazine section of the New York newspaper that he believed was most generally read by business men who operated factories similar to the one described. His purpose he formulated thus: "I intend to show how illiterate immigrant girls can be transformed quickly into intelligent, efficient American citizens by means of instruction in a factory school; this I wish to do by explaining what has been accomplished in this direction by one New York factory." He hoped that his article would lead readers to encourage the establishment of similar schools as a means of Americanizing alien girls. The expository type of article containing concrete examples, description, and interviews he concluded to adopt as the form best suited to his subject.

The average length of the special feature stories, in the magazine section of the paper to which he intended to submit the article, proved to be about 2000 words. In order to accomplish his purpose in an article of this length, he selected five main topics to develop: (1) the reasons that led the firm to establish the school; (2) the results obtained; (3) the methods of instruction; (4) the cost of the school; (5) the schoolroom and its equipment.

"What part of my material will make the strongest appeal to the readers of this newspaper?" was the question he asked himself, in order to select the best point with which to begin his article. The feature that would attract the most attention, he believed, was the striking results obtained by the school in a comparatively short time.

In reviewing the several types of beginnings to determine which would best suit the presentation of these remarkable results, he found two possibilities: first, the summary lead with a striking statement for the first sentence; and second, a concrete example of the results as shown by one of the pupils. He found, however, that he did not have sufficient data concerning any one girl to enable him to tell the story of her transformation as an effective concrete case. He determined, therefore, to use a striking statement as the feature of a summary lead.

From his interview with the head of the firm, and from a formal statement of the purpose of the school printed on the commencement program, he obtained the reasons why the school had been established. These he decided to give verbatim in direct quotation form.

To show most interestingly the results of the teaching, he picked out four of the six written exercises that he had copied from those exhibited on the walls of the schoolroom. The first of these dealt with American history, the second with thrift and business methods, and the third with personal hygiene. For the fourth he selected the work of a woman of forty whose struggles to get into the school and to learn to write the teacher had described to him.

Figures on the cost of the school he had secured from the head of the firm according to his preliminary plan. These covered the expense both to the employers and to the city.

His description of the schoolroom he could base on his own observation, supplemented by the teacher's explanations.

For his conclusion he determined to summarize the results of this experiment in education as the firm stated them on the commencement program, and to give his own impression of the success of the school. Thus he sought to give final reinforcement to the favorable impression of the school that he wished his article to create, with the aim of leading readers to reach the conclusion that such schools should be encouraged as invaluable aids to the Americanization of alien girls.

Outlining the Article. Having selected the main topics and having decided in a general way how he intended to develop each one, he then fixed upon the best order in which to present them.

After his introduction giving the striking results of the school in a summary lead, it seemed logical to explain the firm's purpose in undertaking this unusual enterprise. He accordingly jotted down for his second topic, "Purpose in establishing the school," with the two sub-topics, "Firm's statement on program" and "Head of firm's statement in interview."

The methods of-instruction by which the remarkable success was attained, impressed him as the next important point. His readers, having learned the results and the purpose of the school, would naturally want to know by what methods these girls had been transformed in so short a time. As his third topic, therefore, he put down, "Methods of instruction."

For his fourth division he had to choose between (1) the results as shown by the pupils' written work, (2) the cost of the school, and (3) the schoolroom and its equipment. From the point of view of logical order either the results or the schoolroom might have been taken up next, but, as all the explanations of the methods of instruction were quoted directly in the words of the teacher, and as the pupils' exercises were to be given verbatim, he thought it best to place his own description of the schoolroom between these two quoted parts. Greater variety, he foresaw, would result from such an arrangement. "The schoolroom," then, became the fourth topic.

Since the pupils' work which he planned to reproduce had been exhibited on the walls of the schoolroom, the transition from the description of the room to the exhibits on the walls was an easy and logical one.

By this process of elimination, the cost of the school became the sixth division, to be followed by the summary conclusion.

He then proceeded to fill in the details needed to develop each of these main topics, always keeping his general purpose in mind. The result of this organization of material was the following outline:

I. Summary lead
1. Striking results—time required
2. Commencement—when and where held
3. Graduates—number, nationality, certificates
4. School—when and where established
5. Example to other firms
II. Purpose of school
1. Firm's statement on commencement program
2. Head of firm's statement in interview
III. Methods of instruction
1. Practical education
2. Letter writing—geography, postal regulations, correspondence
3. Arithmetic—money, expense accounts, reports of work
4. Civics—history, biography, holidays, citizenship, patriotism
5. Personal hygiene—cleanliness, physical culture, first aid, food
6. Cotton goods—growing cotton, spinning, shipping
7. Means of communication—telephone, directory, map of city, routes of travel, telephone book
8. Study outside of classroom
IV. The schoolroom
1. Location—floor space, windows
2. Decorations—flowers, motto, photograph of Miss Jessie Wilson
3. Furnishings—piano, phonograph
4. Library—reading to the girls, The Promised Land, Mary Antin, library cards
V. Results shown by pupils' work
1. Italian's theme and her remarkable progress
2. Russian's essay on saving
3. Polish girl's exercise about picture
4. Woman of forty and her work
VI. Cost of school
1. Expense to firm
2. Cost to Board of Education—salaries and supplies
3. Entire cost per pupil
4. Returns to firm outweigh cost, says employer
VII. Summary conclusion
1. Results quoted from program
2. Impression made by girls receiving diplomas

The Completed Article. Since the establishment of a school in a factory was the novel feature of the enterprise, he worked out a title based on this idea, with a sub-title presenting the striking results accomplished by the school. The completed article follows, with a brief analysis of the methods used in developing the outline.

TAKING THE SCHOOL TO THE FACTORY

Another Article on the Same Subject. This commencement at the factory school furnished another writer, Nixola Greeley Smith, with material for a special feature story which was sent out by a syndicate, the Newspaper Enterprise Association, for publication in several hundred newspapers. Her story contains only 375 words and is thus less than one fifth the length of the other article. The author centers the interest in one of the pupils, and shows the value of the school in terms of this girl's experience. The girl's own account of what the school has meant to her makes a strong "human interest" appeal. By thus developing one concrete example effectively, the author is able to arouse more interest in the results of the school than she would have done if in the same space she had attempted to give a greater number of facts about it. Unlike the longer article, her story probably would not suggest to the reader the possibility of undertaking a similar enterprise, because it does not give enough details about the organization and methods of the school to show how the idea could be applied elsewhere.

The beginning of the shorter story was doubtless suggested by the presence at the exercises of Mary Antin, the author of "The Promised Land," who addressed the girls. The first sentence of it piques our curiosity to know how "the promised land" has kept its promise, and the story proceeds to tell us. The article, with an analysis of its main points, follows:

WONDERFUL AMERICA!
THINKS LITTLE AUSTRIAN WHO GRADUATES FROM FACTORY SCHOOL

Articles Composed of Units. The study of the two special feature stories on the factory school shows how articles of this type are built up out of a number of units, such as examples, incidents, and statistics. A similar study of the other types of articles exemplified in Chapter V will show that they also are made up of various kinds of units. Again, if we turn to the types of beginnings illustrated in Chapter VII, we shall find that they, too, are units, which in some cases might have been used in the body of the article instead of as an introduction. Since, then, every division of a subject may be regarded as a unit that is complete in itself whatever its position in the article, each of the several kinds of units may be studied separately. For this purpose we may discuss five common types of units: (1) examples, (2) incidents, (3) statistics, (4) scientific and technical processes, and (5) recipes and directions.

Methods of Developing Units. In order to present these units most effectively, and to vary the form of presentation when occasion demands, a writer needs to be familiar with the different methods of developing each one of these types. Four common methods of handling material within these units are: (1) exposition, narration, or description in the writer's own words; (2) dialogue; (3) the interview; (4) direct or indirect quotation. Statistics and recipes may also be given in tabular form.

When a unit may be developed with equal effectiveness by any one of several methods, a writer should choose the one that gives variety to his article. If, for example, the units just before and after the one under consideration are to be in direct quotation, he should avoid any form that involves quoted matter.

Examples. In all types of articles the concrete example is the commonest and most natural means of explaining a general idea. To most readers, for instance, the legal provisions of an old age pension law would be neither comprehensible nor interesting, but a story showing how a particular old man had been benefited by the law would appeal to practically every one. That is, to explain the operation and advantages of such a law, we give, as one unit, the concrete example of this old man. Actual examples are preferable to hypothetical ones, but the latter may occasionally be used when real cases are not available. Imaginary instances may be introduced by such phrases as, "If, for example," or "Suppose, for instance, that."

To explain why companies that insure persons against loss of their jewelry are compelled to investigate carefully every claim filed with them, a writer in the Buffalo News gave several cases in which individuals supposed that they were entitled to payment for losses although subsequent investigation showed that they had not actually sustained any loss. One of these cases, that given below, he decided to relate in his own words, without conversation or quotation, although he might have quoted part of the affidavit, or might have given the dialogue between the detective and the woman who had lost the pin. No doubt he regarded the facts themselves, together with the suspense as to the outcome of the search, as sufficiently interesting to render unnecessary any other device for creating interest.

Another woman of equal wealth and equally undoubted honesty lost a horseshoe diamond pin. She and her maid looked everywhere, as they thought, but failed to find it. So she made her "proof of loss" in affidavit form and asked the surety company with which she carried the policy on all her jewelry to replace the article.

She said in her affidavit that she had worn the pin in a restaurant a few nights before and had lost it that night, either in the restaurant or on her way there or back. The restaurant management had searched for it, the restaurant help had been questioned closely, the automobile used that night had been gone over carefully, and the woman's home had been ransacked. Particular attention had been given to the gown worn by the woman on that occasion; every inch of it had been examined with the idea that the pin, falling from its proper place, had caught in the folds.

The surety company assigned one of its detectives to look for the pin. From surface indications the loss had the appearance of a theft—an "inside job." The company, however, asked that its detective be allowed to search the woman's house itself. The request was granted readily. The detective then inquired for the various gowns which the woman had worn for dress occasions within the preceding several weeks.

This line of investigation the owner of the pin considered a waste of time, since she remembered distinctly wearing the pin to the restaurant on that particular night, and her husband also remembered seeing it that night and put his memory in affidavit form. But the detective persisted and with the help of a maid examined carefully those other gowns.

In the ruffle at the bottom of one of them, worn for the last time at least a week before the visit to the restaurant, she found the pin. The woman and her husband simply had been mistaken—honestly mistaken. She hadn't worn the pin to the restaurant, and her husband hadn't seen it that night. The error was unintentional, but it came very near costing the surety company a large sum of money.

The benefits of a newly established clinic for animals were demonstrated in a special feature article in the New York Times by the selection of several animal patients as typical cases. Probably the one given below did not seem to the writer to be sufficiently striking if only the bare facts were given, and so he undertook to create sympathy by describing the poor, whimpering little dog and the distress of the two young women. By arousing the sympathies of the readers, he was better able to impress them with the benefits of the clinic.

The other day Daisy, a little fox terrier, was one of the patients. She was a pretty little thing, three months old, with a silky coat and big, pathetic eyes. She was escorted to the clinic by two hatless young women, in shawls, and three children. The children waited outside in the reception room, standing in a line, grinning self-consciously, while the women followed Daisy into the examination room. There she was gently muzzled with a piece of bandage, and the doctor examined her. There was something the matter with one hind leg, and the poor little animal whimpered pitifully, as dogs do, while the doctor searched for a broken bone. It was too much for one of the women. She left the room, and, standing outside the door, put her fingers in her ears, while the tears rolled down her cheeks.

"Well, I wouldn't cry for a dog," said a workman, putting in some S.P.C.A. receiving boxes, with a grin, while the three children—and children are always more or less little savages—grinned sympathetically. But it was a very real sorrow for Daisy's mistress.

There was no reason for alarm; it was only a sprain, caused by her mistress' catching the animal by the leg when she was giving her a bath. Her friends were told to take her home, bathe the leg with warm water, and keep her as quiet as possible. Her mistress, still with a troubled face, wrapped her carefully in the black shawl she was wearing, so that only the puppy's little white head and big, soft eyes peeped out, and the small procession moved away.

In a special feature story designed to show how much more intelligently the first woman judge in this country could deal with cases of delinquent girls in the juvenile court than could the ordinary police court judge, a writer selected several cases that she had disposed of in her characteristic way. The first case, which follows, he decided could best be reported verbatim, as by that method he could show most clearly the kindly attitude of the judge in dealing with even the least appreciative of girls.

The first case brought in the other day was that of a girl of 16, who hated her home and persisted in running away, sometimes to a married sister, and sometimes to a friend. She was accompanied by her mother and older sister, both with determined lower jaws and faces as hard as flint. She swaggered into the room in an impudent way to conceal the fact that her bravado was leaving her.

"Ella," said Miss Bartelme, looking up from her desk, "why didn't you tell me the truth when you came in here the other day? You did not tell me where you had been. Don't you understand that it is much easier for me to help you if you speak the truth right away?"

Ella hung her head and said nothing. The older sister scowled at the girl and muttered something to the mother.

"No," refused the mother, on being questioned. "We don't want nothing more to do with her."

"Humph," snorted Ella, "you needn't think I want to come back. I don't want nothing more to do with you, either."

Miss Bartelme often lets the family fight things out among themselves; for in this way, far more than by definite questioning, she learns the attitude of the girl and the family toward each other, and indirectly arrives at most of the actual facts of the case.

"How would you like to go into a good home where some one would love you and care for you?" asked the judge.

"I don't want nobody to love me."

"Why, Ella, wouldn't you like to have a kind friend, somebody you could confide in and go walking with and who would be interested in you?"

"I don't want no friends. I just want to be left alone."

"Well, Ella," said the judge, patiently, ignoring her sullenness, "I think we shall send you back to Park Ridge for a while. But if you ever change your mind about wanting friends let us know, because we'll be here and shall feel the same way as we do now about it."

To explain to readers of the Kansas City Star how a bloodhound runs down a criminal, a special feature writer asked them to imagine that a crime had been committed at a particular corner in that city and that a bloodhound had been brought to track the criminal; then he told them what would happen if the crime were committed, first, when the streets were deserted, or second, when they were crowded. In other words, he gave two imaginary instances to illustrate the manner in which bloodhounds are able to follow a trail. Obviously these two hypothetical cases are sufficiently plausible and typical to explain the idea.

If a bloodhound is brought to the scene of the crime within a reasonable length of time after it has been committed, and the dog has been properly trained, he will unfailingly run down the criminal, provided, of course, that thousands of feet have not tramped over the ground.

If, for instance, a crime were committed at Twelfth and Walnut streets at 3 o'clock in the morning, when few persons are on the street, a well-trained bloodhound would take the trail of the criminal at daybreak and stick to it with a grim determination that appears to be uncanny, and he would follow the trail as swiftly as if the hunted man had left his shadow all along the route.

But let the crime be committed at noon when the section is alive with humanity and remain undiscovered until after dark, then the bloodhound is put at a disadvantage and his wonderful powers would fail him, no doubt.

Incidents. Narrative articles, such as personal experience stories, confessions, and narratives in the third person, consist almost entirely of incidents. Dialogue and description are very frequently employed in relating incidents, even when the greater part of the incident is told in the writer's own words. The incidents given as examples of narrative beginnings on pages 135-37 are sufficient to illustrate the various methods of developing incidents as units.

Statistics. To make statistical facts comprehensible and interesting is usually a difficult problem for the inexperienced writer. Masses of figures generally mean very little to the average reader. Unless the significance of statistics can be quickly grasped, they are almost valueless as a means of explanation. One method of simplifying them is to translate them into terms with which the average reader is familiar. This may often be done by reducing large figures to smaller ones. Instead of saying, for example, that a press prints 36,000 newspapers an hour, we may say that it prints 10 papers a second, or 600 a minute. To most persons 36,000 papers an hour means little more than a large number, but 10 papers and one second are figures sufficiently small to be understood at a glance. Statistics sometimes appear less formidable if they are incorporated in an interview or in a conversation.

In undertaking to explain the advantages of a coöperative community store, a writer was confronted with the problem of handling a considerable number of figures. The first excerpt below shows how he managed to distribute them through several paragraphs, thus avoiding any awkward massing of figures. In order to present a number of comparative prices, he used the concrete case, given below, of an investigator making a series of purchases at the store.

(1)

Here's the way the manager of the community store started. He demonstrated to his neighbors by actual figures that they were paying anywhere from $2 to $8 a week more for their groceries and supplies than they needed to. This represented the middlemen's profits.

He then proposed that if a hundred families would pay him regularly 50 cents a week, he would undertake to supply them with garden truck, provisions and meats at wholesale prices. To clinch the demonstration he showed that an average family would save this 50-cent weekly fee in a few days' purchases.

There is no difference in appearance between the community store and any other provision store. There is no difference in the way you buy your food. The only difference is that you pay 50 cents a week on a certain day each week and buy food anywhere from 15 to 40 per cent less than at the commercial, non-coöperative retail stores.

(2)

The other day an investigator from the department of agriculture went to the Washington community store to make an experiment. He paid his 50-cent weekly membership fee and made some purchases. He bought a 10-cent carton of oatmeal for 8 cents; a 10-cent loaf of bread for 8 cents; one-half peck of string beans for 20 cents, instead of for 30 cents, the price in the non-coöperative stores; three pounds of veal for 58 cents instead of 80 cents; a half dozen oranges for 13 cents instead of the usual price of from 20 to 25 cents. His total purchases amounted to $1.32, and the estimated saving was 49 cents—within 1 cent of the entire weekly fee.

Since to the average newspaper reader it would not mean much to say that the cost of the public schools amounted to several hundred thousand dollars a year, a special feature writer calculated the relation of the school appropriation to the total municipal expenditure and then presented the results as fractions of a dollar, thus:

Of every dollar that each taxpayer in this city paid to the city treasurer last year, 45 cents was spent on the public schools. This means that nearly one-half of all the taxes were expended on giving boys and girls an education.

Of that same dollar only 8 cents went to maintain the police department, 12 cents to keep up the fire department, and 13 cents for general expenses of the city offices.

Out of the 45 cents used for school purposes, over one-half, or 24 cents, was paid as salaries to teachers and principals. Only 8 cents went for operation, maintenance, and similar expenses.

How statistics may be effectively embodied in an interview is demonstrated by the following excerpt from a special feature story on a workmen's compensation law administered by a state industrial board:

Judge J.B. Vaughn, who is at the head of the board, estimates that the system of settling compensation by means of a commission instead of by the regular courts has saved the state $1,000,000 a year since its inception in 1913. "Under the usual court proceedings," he says, "each case of an injured workman versus his employer costs from $250 to $300. Under the workings of the industrial board the average cost is no more than $20.

"In three and one-half years 8,000 cases have come before us. Nine out of every ten have been adjusted by our eight picked arbitrators, who tour the state, visiting promptly each scene of an accident and adjusting the compensation as quickly as possible. The tenth case, which requires a lengthier or more painstaking hearing, is brought to the board.

"Seven million dollars has been in this time ordered to be paid to injured men and their families. Of this no charge of any sort has been entered against the workers or their beneficiaries. The costs are taken care of by the state. Fully 90 per cent of all the cases are settled within the board, which means that only 10 per cent are carried further into the higher courts for settlement."

Processes. To make scientific and technical processes sufficiently simple to appeal to the layman, is another problem for the writer of popular articles. A narrative-descriptive presentation that enables the reader to visualize and follow the process, step by step, as though it were taking place before his eyes, is usually the best means of making it both understandable and interesting.

In a special feature story on methods of exterminating mosquitoes, a writer in the Detroit News undertook to trace the life history of a mosquito. In order to popularize these scientific details, he describes a "baby mosquito" in a concrete, informal manner, and, as he tells the story of its life, suggests or points out specifically its likeness to a human being.

The baby mosquito is a regular little water bug. You call him a "wiggler" when you see him swimming about in a puddle. His head is wide and flat and his eyes are set well out at the sides, while in front of them he has a pair of cute little horns or feelers. While the baby mosquito is brought up in the water, he is an air-breather and comes to the top to breathe as do frogs and musk-rats and many other water creatures of a higher order.

Like most babies the mosquito larva believes that his mission is to eat as much as he can and grow up very fast. This he does, and if the weather is warm and the food abundant, he soon outgrows his skin. He proceeds to grow a new skin underneath the old one, and when he finds himself protected, he bursts out of his old clothes and comes out in a spring suit. This molting process occurs several times within a week or two, but the last time he takes on another form. He is then called a pupa, and is in a strange transition period during which he does not eat. He now slowly takes on the form of a true mosquito within his pupal skin or shell.

After two or three days, or perhaps five or six, if conditions are not altogether favorable, he feels a great longing within him to rise to something higher. His tiny shell is floating upon the water with his now winged body closely packed within. The skin begins to split along the back and the true baby mosquito starts to work himself out. It is a strenuous task for him and consumes many minutes.

At last he appears and sits dazed and exhausted, floating on his old skin as on a little boat, and slowly working his new wings in the sunlight, as if to try them out before essaying flight. It is a moment of great peril. A passing ripple may swamp his tiny craft and shipwreck him to become the prey of any passing fish or vagrant frog. A swallow sweeping close to the water's surface may gobble him down. Some ruthless city employe may have flooded the surface of the pond with kerosene, the merest touch of which means death to a mosquito. Escaping all of the thousand and one accidents that may befall, he soon rises and hums away seeking whom he may devour.

A mechanical process, that of handling milk at a model dairy farm, was effectively presented by Constance D. Leupp in an article entitled, "The Fight for Clean Milk," printed in the Outlook. By leading "you," the reader, to the spot, as it were, by picturing in detail what "you" would see there, and then by following in story form the course of the milk from one place to another, she succeeded in making the process clear and interesting.

Here at five in the afternoon you may see long lines of sleek, well-groomed cows standing in their cement-floored, perfectly drained sheds. The walls and ceilings are spotless from constant applications of whitewash, ventilation is scientifically arranged, doors and windows are screened against the flies. Here the white-clad, smooth-shaven milkers do their work with scrubbed and manicured hands. You will note that all these men are studiously low-voiced and gentle in movement; for a cow, notwithstanding her outward placidity, is the most sensitive creature on earth, and there is an old superstition that if you speak roughly to your cow she will earn no money for you that day.

As each pail is filled it is carried directly into the milk-house; not into the bottling-room, for in that sterilized sanctum nobody except the bottler is admitted, but into the room above, where the pails are emptied into the strainer of a huge receptacle. From the base of this receptacle it flows over the radiator in the bottling-room, which reduces it at once to the required temperature, thence into the mechanical bottler. The white-clad attendant places a tray containing several dozen empty bottles underneath, presses a lever, and, presto! they are full and not a drop spilled. He caps the bottles with another twist of the lever, sprays the whole with a hose, picks up the load and pushes it through the horizontal dumb-waiter, where another attendant receives it in the packing-room. The second man clamps a metal cover over the pasteboard caps and packs the bottles in ice. Less than half an hour is consumed in the milking of each cow, the straining, chilling, bottling, and storing of her product.

Practical Guidance Units. To give in an attractive form complete and accurate directions for doing something in a certain way, is another difficult problem for the inexperienced writer. For interest and variety, conversation, interviews and other forms of direct quotation, as well as informal narrative, may be employed.

Various practical methods of saving fuel in cooking were given by a writer in Successful Farming, in what purported to be an account of a meeting of a farm woman's club at which the problem was discussed. By the device of allowing the members of the club to relate their experiences, she was able to offer a large number of suggestions. Two units selected from different portions of the article illustrate this method:

"I save dollars by cooking in my furnace," added a practical worker. "Potatoes bake nicely when laid on the ledge, and beans, stews, roasts, bread—in fact the whole food list—may be cooked there. But one must be careful not to have too hot a fire. I burned several things before I learned that even a few red coals in the fire-pot will be sufficient for practically everything. And then it does blacken the pans! But I've solved that difficulty by bending a piece of tin and setting it between the fire and the cooking vessel. This prevents burning, too, if the fire should be hot. Another plan is to set the vessel in an old preserving kettle. If this outer kettle does not leak, it may be filled with water, which not only aids in the cooking process but also prevents burning. For broiling or toasting, a large corn popper is just the thing."

"My chief saving," confided the member who believes in preparedness, "consists in cooking things in quantities, especially the things that require long cooking, like baked beans or soup. I never think of cooking less than two days' supply of beans, and as for soup, that is made up in quantity sufficient to last a week. If I have no ice, reheating it each day during warm weather prevents spoiling. Most vegetables are not harmed by a second cooking, and, besides the saving in fuel it entails, it's mighty comforting to know that you have your dinner already prepared for the next day, or several days before for that matter. In cold weather, or if you have ice, it will not be necessary to introduce monotony into your meals in order to save fuel, for one can wait a day or two before serving the extra quantity. Sauces, either for vegetables, meats or puddings, may just as well be made for more than one occasion, altho if milk is used in their preparation, care must be taken that they are kept perfectly cold, as ptomaines develop rapidly in such foods. Other things that it pays to cook in large portions are chocolate syrup for making cocoa, caramel for flavoring, and apple sauce."

By using a conversation between a hostess and her guest, another writer in the same farm journal succeeded in giving in a novel way some directions for preparing celery.

"Your escalloped corn is delicious. Where did you get your recipe?"

Mrs. Field smiled across the dining table at her guest. "Out of my head, I suppose, for I never saw it in print. I just followed the regulation method of a layer of corn, then seasoning, and repeat, only I cut into small pieces a stalk or two of celery with each layer of corn."

"Celery and corn—a new combination, but it's a good one. I'm so glad to learn of it; but isn't it tedious to cut the celery into such small bits?"

"Not at all, with my kitchen scissors. I just slash the stalk into several lengthwise strips, then cut them crosswise all at once into very small pieces."

"You always have such helpful ideas about new and easy ways to do your work. And economical, too. Why, celery for a dish like this could be the outer stalks or pieces too small to be used fresh on the table."

"That's the idea, exactly. I use such celery in soups and stews of all kinds; it adds such a delicious flavor. It is especially good in poultry stuffings and meat loaf. Then there is creamed celery, of course, to which I sometimes add a half cup of almonds for variety. And I use it in salads, too. Not a bit of celery is wasted around here. Even the leaves may be dried out in the oven, and crumbled up to flavor soups or other dishes."

"That's fine! Celery is so high this season, and much of it is not quite nice enough for the table, unless cooked."

A number of new uses for adhesive plaster were suggested by a writer in the New York Tribune, who, in the excerpt below, employs effectively the device of the direct appeal to the reader.

Aside from surgical "First Aid" and the countless uses to which this useful material may be put, there are a great number of household uses for adhesive plaster.

If your pumps are too large and slip at the heel, just put a strip across the back and they will stay in place nicely. When your rubbers begin to break repair them on the inside with plaster cut to fit. If the children lose their rubbers at school, write their names with black ink on strips of the clinging material and put these strips inside the top of the rubber at the back.

In the same way labels can be made for bottles and cans. They are easy to put on and to take off. If the garden hose, the rubber tube of your bath spray, or your hot water bag shows a crack or a small break, mend it with adhesive.

A cracked handle of a broom, carpet sweeper, or umbrella can be repaired with this first aid to the injured. In the same way the handles of golf sticks, baseball bats, flagstaffs and whips may be given a new lease on life.

If your sheet music is torn or the window shade needs repairing, or there is a cracked pane of glass in the barn or in a rear window, apply a strip or patch of suitable size.

In an article in the Philadelphia Ledger on "What Can I Do to Earn Money?" Mary Hamilton Talbot gave several examples of methods of earning money, in one of which she incorporated practical directions, thus:

A resourceful girl who loved to be out-of-doors found her opportunity in a bed of mint and aromatic herbs. She sends bunches of the mint neatly prepared to various hotels and cafés several times a week by parcel post, but it is in the over-supply that she works out best her original ideas. Among the novelties she makes is a candied mint that sells quickly. Here is her formula: Cut bits of mint, leaving three or four small leaves on the branch; wash well; dry and lay in rows on a broad, level surface. Thoroughly dissolve one pound of loaf sugar, boil until it threads and set from the fire. While it is still at the boiling point plunge in the bits of mint singly with great care. Remove them from the fondant with a fork and straighten the leaves neatly with a hatpin or like instrument. If a second plunging is necessary, allow the first coating to become thoroughly crystalized before dipping them again. Lay the sweets on oiled paper until thoroughly dry. With careful handling these mints will preserve their natural aroma, taste, and shape, and will keep for any length of time if sealed from the air. They show to best advantage in glass. The sweet-smelling herbs of this girl's garden she dries and sells to the fancy goods trade, and they are used for filling cushions, pillows, and perfume bags. The seasoning herbs she dries, pulverizes, and puts in small glasses, nicely labeled, which sell for 10 cents each, and reliable grocers are glad to have them for their fastidious customers.

CHAPTER VII

HOW TO BEGIN

Importance of the Beginning. The value of a good beginning for a news story, a special feature article, or a short story results from the way in which most persons read newspapers and magazines. In glancing through current publications, the average reader is attracted chiefly by headlines or titles, illustrations, and authors' names. If any one of these interests him, he pauses a moment or two over the beginning "to see what it is all about." The first paragraphs usually determine whether or not he goes any further. A single copy of a newspaper or magazine offers so much reading matter that the casual reader, if disappointed in the introduction to one article or short story, has plenty of others to choose from. But if the opening sentences hold his attention, he reads on. "Well begun is half done" is a saying that applies with peculiar fitness to special feature articles.

Structure of the Beginning. To accomplish its purpose an introduction must be both a unit in itself and an integral part of the article. The beginning, whether a single paragraph in form, or a single paragraph in essence, although actually broken up into two or more short paragraphs, should produce on the mind of the reader a unified impression. The conversation, the incident, the example, or the summary of which it consists, should be complete in itself. Unless, on the other hand, the introduction is an organic part of the article, it fails of its purpose. The beginning must present some vital phase of the subject; it should not be merely something attractive attached to the article to catch the reader's notice. In his effort to make the beginning attractive, an inexperienced writer is inclined to linger over it until it becomes disproportionately long. Its length, however, should be proportionate to the importance of that phase of the subject which it presents. As a vital part of the article, the introduction must be so skillfully connected with what follows that a reader is not conscious of the transition. Close coherence between the beginning and the body of the article is essential.

The four faults, therefore, to be guarded against in writing the beginning are: (1) the inclusion of diverse details not carefully coordinated to produce a single unified impression; (2) the development of the introduction to a disproportionate length; (3) failure to make the beginning a vital part of the article itself; (4) lack of close connection or of skillful transition between the introduction and the body of the article.

Types of Beginnings. Because of the importance of the introduction, the writer should familiarize himself with the different kinds of beginnings, and should study them from the point of view of their suitability for various types of articles. The seven distinct types of beginnings are: (1) summary; (2) narrative; (3) description; (4) striking statement; (5) quotation; (6) question; (7) direct address. Combinations of two or more of these methods are not infrequent.

Summary Beginnings. The general adoption by newspapers of the summary beginning, or "lead," for news stories has accustomed the average reader to finding most of the essential facts of a piece of news grouped together in the first paragraph. The lead, by telling the reader the nature of the event, the persons and things concerned, the time, the place, the cause, and the result, answers his questions, What? Who? When? Where? Why? How? Not only are the important facts summarized in such a beginning, but the most striking detail is usually "played up" in the first group of words of the initial sentence where it catches the eye at once. Thus the reader is given both the main facts and the most significant feature of the subject. Unquestionably this news story lead, when skillfully worked out, has distinct advantages alike for the news report and for the special article.

Summary Beginnings

(1)

(Kansas City Star)

A FRESH AIR PALACE READY

A palace of sunshine, a glass house of fresh air, will be the Christmas offering of Kansas City to the fight against tuberculosis, the "Great White Plague." Ten miles from the business district of the city, overlooking a horizon miles away over valley and hill, stands the finest tuberculosis hospital in the United States. The newly completed institution, although not the largest hospital of the kind, is the best equipped and finest appointed. It is symbolic of sunshine and pure air, the cure for the disease.

(2)

(New York World)

STOPPING THE COST OF LIVING LEAKS

BY MARIE COOLIDGE RASK

After ten weeks' instruction in domestic economy at a New York high school, a girl of thirteen has been the means of reducing the expenditure in a family of seven to the extent of five dollars a week.

The girl is Anna Scheiring, American born, of Austrian ancestry, living with her parents and brothers and sisters in a five-room apartment at No. 769 East One Hundred and Fifty-eighth Street, where her father, Joseph Scheiring is superintendent of the building.

The same economic practices applied by little Anna Scheiring are at the present time being worked out in two thousand other New York homes whose daughters are pupils in the Washington Irving High School.

(3)

(The Outlook)

THE FIGHT FOR CLEAN MILK

BY CONSTANCE D. LEUPP

Two million quarts of milk are shipped into New York every day. One hundred thousand of those who drink it are babies. The milk comes from forty-four thousand dairy farms scattered through New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and even Ohio.

A large proportion of the two million quarts travels thirty-six hours before it lands on the front doorstep of the consumer. The situation in New York is duplicated in a less acute degree in every city in the United States.

Narrative Beginnings. To begin a special feature article in the narrative form is to give it a story-like character that at once arouses interest. It is impossible in many instances to know from the introduction whether what follows is to be a short story or a special article. An element of suspense may even be injected into the narrative introduction to stimulate the reader's curiosity, and descriptive touches may be added to heighten the vividness.

If the whole article is in narrative form, as is the case in a personal experience or confession story, the introduction is only the first part of a continuous story, and as such gives the necessary information about the person involved.

Narrative beginnings that consist of concrete examples and specific instances are popular for expository articles. Sometimes several instances are related in the introduction before the writer proceeds to generalize from them. The advantage of this inductive method of explanation grows out of the fact that, after a general idea has been illustrated by an example or two, most persons can grasp it with much less effort and with much greater interest than when such exemplification follows the generalization.

Other narrative introductions consist of an anecdote, an incident, or an important event connected with the subject of the article.

Since conversation is an excellent means of enlivening a narrative, dialogue is often used in the introduction to special articles, whether for relating an incident, giving a specific instance, or beginning a personal experience story.

Narrative Beginnings

(1)

(The Outlook)

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

BY EMMETT J. SCOTT AND LYMAN BEECHER STOWE

It came about that in the year 1880, in Macon County, Alabama, a certain ex-Confederate colonel conceived the idea that if he could secure the Negro vote he could beat his rival and win the seat he coveted in the State Legislature. Accordingly the colonel went to the leading Negro in the town of Tuskegee and asked him what he could do to secure the Negro vote, for Negroes then voted in Alabama without restriction. This man, Lewis Adams by name, himself an ex-slave, promptly replied that what his race most wanted was education, and what they most needed was industrial education, and that if he (the colonel) would agree to work for the passage of a bill appropriating money for the maintenance of an industrial school for Negroes, he, Adams, would help to get for him the Negro vote and the election. This bargain between an ex-slaveholder and an ex-slave was made and faithfully observed on both sides, with the result that the following year the Legislature of Alabama appropriated $2,000 a year for the establishment of a normal and industrial school for Negroes in the town of Tuskegee. On the recommendation of General Armstrong, of Hampton Institute, a young colored man, Booker T. Washington, a recent graduate of and teacher at the Institute, was called from there to take charge of this landless, buildingless, teacherless, and studentless institution of learning.

(2)

(Leslie's Weekly)

MILLIONAIRES MADE BY WAR

BY HOMER CROY

A tall, gaunt, barefooted Missouri hill-billy stood beside his rattly, dish-wheeled wagon waiting to see the mighty proprietor of the saw mill who guessed only too well that the hill-billy had something he wanted to swap for lumber.

"What can I do for you?"

The hillman shifted his weight uneasily. "I 'low I got somethun of powerful lot of interest to yuh." Reaching over the side of the wagon he placed his rough hand tenderly on a black lump. "I guess yuh know what it is."

The saw mill proprietor glanced at it depreciatingly and turned toward the mill.

"It's lead, pardner, pure lead, and I know where it come from. I could take you right to the spot—ef I wanted to."

The mill proprietor hooked a row of fingers under the rough stone and tried to lift it. But he could not budge it. "It does seem to have lead in it. What was you calc'lating askin' for showin' me where you found it?"

The farmer from the foothills cut his eyes down to crafty slits. "I was 'lowing just tother day as how a house pattern would come in handy. Ef you'll saw me out one I'll take you to the spot." And so the deal was consummated, the hill-billy gleefully driving away, joyous over having got a fine house pattern worth $40 for merely showing a fellow where you could pick up a few hunks of lead.

That was forty-five years ago and it was thus that the great Joplin lead and zinc district was made known to the world.

(3)

(Munsey's Magazine)

FRANK A. SCOTT, CHAIRMAN OF THE WAR INDUSTRIES BOARD

BY THEODORE TILLER

One day in the year 1885 a twelve-year-old boy, who had to leave school and make his own way in the world on account of his father's death, applied for a job in a railroad freight-office in Cleveland, Ohio.

"I'm afraid you won't do," said the chief. "We need a boy, but you're not tall enough to reach the letter-press."

"Well, couldn't I stand on a box?" suggested the young seeker of employment.

That day a box was added to the equipment of the freight-office and the name of Frank A. Scott to the payroll.

(4)

(New York Times)

NEW YORKER INVENTS NEW EXPLOSIVE AND GIVES IT TO THE UNITED STATES

Nine young men recently rowed to the middle of the Hudson River with a wooden box to which wires were attached, lying in the bottom of the boat. They sank the box in deep water very cautiously, and then rowed slowly back to land, holding one end of the wire. Presently a column of water 40 feet through and 300 feet high shot into the air, followed by a deafening detonation, which tore dead branches from trees.

The nine young men were congratulating one man of the group on the explosion when an irate farmer ran up, yelling that every window in his farmhouse, nearly a mile away, had been shattered. The party of young men didn't apologize then; they gathered about the one who was being congratulated and recongratulated him.

The farmer did not know until later that the force which broke his windows and sent the huge column of water into the air was the War Department's newest, safest, and most powerful explosive; that the young men composed the dynamite squad of the Engineer Corps of the New York National Guard; and that the man they were congratulating was Lieut. Harold Chase Woodward, the inventor of the explosive.

(5)

(System)

WHY THE EMPLOYEES RUN OUR BUSINESS

A business of the workers, by the workers, and for the workers—how it succeeds.

BY EDWARD A. FILENE

"I know I am right. Leave it to any fair-minded person to decide."

"Good enough," I replied; "you name one, I will name another, and let them select a third."

She agreed; we selected the umpires and they decided against the store!

It had come about in this way. The store rule had been that cashiers paid for shortages in their accounts as—in our view—a penalty for carelessness; we did not care about the money. This girl had been short in an account; the amount had been deducted from her pay, and, not being afraid to speak out, she complained:

"If I am over in my accounts, it is a mistake; but if I am short, am I a thief? Why should I pay back the money? Why can't a mistake be made in either direction?"

This arbitration—although it had caused a decision against us—seemed such a satisfactory way of ending disputes that we continued the practice in an informal way. Out of it grew the present arbitration board, which is the corner-stone of the relation between our store and the employees, because it affords the machinery for getting what employees are above all else interested in—a square deal.

Descriptive Beginnings. Just as description of characters or of scene and setting is one method of beginning short stories and novels, so also it constitutes a form of introduction for an article. In both cases the aim is to create immediate interest by vivid portrayal of definite persons and places. The concrete word picture, like the concrete instance in a narrative beginning, makes a quick and strong appeal. An element of suspense or mystery may be introduced into the description, if a person, a place, or an object is described without being identified by name until the end of the portrayal.

The possibilities of description are not limited to sights alone; sounds, odors and other sense impressions, as well as emotions, may be described. Frequently several different impressions are combined. To stir the reader's feelings by a strong emotional description is obviously a good method of beginning.

A descriptive beginning, to be clear to the rapid reader, should be suggestive rather than detailed. The average person can easily visualize a picture that is sketched in a few suggestive words, whereas he is likely to be confused by a mass of details. Picture-making words and those imitative of sounds, as well as figures of speech, may be used to advantage in descriptive beginnings. For the description of feelings, words with a rich emotional connotation are important.

Descriptive Beginnings

(1)

(Munsey's Magazine)

OUR HIGHEST COURT

BY HORACE TOWNER

"The Honorable the Supreme Court of the United States!"

Nearly every week-day during the winter months, exactly at noon, these warning words, intoned in a resonant and solemn voice, may be heard by the visitor who chances to pass the doors of the Supreme Court Chamber in the Capitol of the United States. The visitor sees that others are entering those august portals, and so he, too, makes bold to step softly inside.

If he has not waited too long, he finds himself within the chamber in time to see nine justices of our highest court, clad in long, black robes, file slowly into the room from an antechamber at the left.

Every one within the room has arisen, and all stand respectfully at attention while the justices take their places. Then the voice of the court crier is heard again:

"Oyez, oyez, oyez! All persons having business with the Supreme Court of the United States are admonished to draw near and give their attention, for the court is now sitting."

Then, after a slight pause:

"God save the United States and this honorable court!"

The justices seat themselves; the attorneys at the bar and visitors do likewise. The Supreme Court of the United States, generally held to be the most powerful tribunal on earth, is in session.

(2)

(Collier's Weekly)

JAMES WHITCOMB BROUGHER, A PREACHER TO THE PROCESSION

BY PETER CLARK MACFARLANE

Imagine the Hippodrome—the largest playhouse of New York and of the New World! Imagine it filled with people from foot-lights to the last row in the topmost gallery—orchestra, dress circle, and balconies—a huge uprising, semicircular bowl, lined with human beings. Imagine it thus, and then strip the stage; take away the Indians and the soldiers, the elephants and the camels; take away the careening stage coaches and the thundering hoofs of horses, and all the strange conglomeration of dramatic activities with which these inventive stage managers are accustomed to panoply their productions. Instead of all this, people the stage with a chorus choir in white smocks, and in front of the choir put a lean, upstanding, shock-headed preacher; but leave the audience—a regular Hippodrome audience on the biggest Saturday night. Imagine all of this, I say, and what you have is not the Hippodrome, not the greatest play in the New World, nor any playhouse at all, but the Temple Baptist Church of Los Angeles, California, with James Whitcomb Brougher, D.D., in the pulpit.

(3)

(The Independent)

THE LITTLE RED SCHOOLHOUSE A "FAKE"

What the Country Schoolhouse Really Is, and Why

BY EDNA M. HILL

The schoolhouse squats dour and silent in its acre of weeds. A little to the rear stand two wretched outbuildings. Upon its gray clapboarded sides, window blinds hang loose and window sashes sag away from their frames. Groaning upon one hinge the vestibule door turns away from lopsided steps, while a broken drain pipe sways perilously from the east corner of the roof.

Within and beyond the vestibule is the schoolroom, a monotony of grimy walls and smoky ceiling. Cross lights from the six windows shine upon rows of desks of varying sizes and in varying stages of destruction. A kitchen table faces the door. Squarely in the middle of the rough pine floor stands a jacketed stove. A much torn dictionary and a dented water pail stand side by side on the shelf below the one blackboard.

And this is the "little red schoolhouse" to which I looked forward so eagerly during the summer—nothing but a tumbledown shack set in the heart of a prosperous farming district.

(4)

(New York Tribune)

THE ONE WOMAN OFFICIAL AT PLATTSBURG

BY ELENE FOSTER

The tramp, tramp of feet on a hard road; long lines of khaki figures moving over the browning grass of the parade ground; rows of faces, keen and alert, with that look in the eyes that one sees in LePage's Jeanne d'Arc; the click, click of bullets from the distant rifle range blended with a chorus of deep voices near at hand singing "Over There"; a clear, blue sky, crisp autumn air and the sparkling waters of Lake Champlain—that's Plattsburg.

(5)

(Good Housekeeping)

NEW ENGLAND MILL SLAVES

BY MARY ALDEN HOPKINS

In the pale light of an early winter morning, while a flat, white moon awaited the dawn and wind-driven clouds flung faint scudding shadows across the snow, two little girls, cloaked, shawled, hooded out of all recognition, plodded heavily along a Vermont mountain road. Each carried a dangling dinner pail.

The road was lonely. Once they passed a farmhouse, asleep save for a yellow light in a chamber. Somewhere a cock crowed. A dog barked in the faint distance.

Where the road ascended the mountain—a narrow cut between dark, pointed firs and swaying white-limbed birches—the way was slushy with melting snow. The littler girl, half dozing along the accustomed way, slipped and slid into puddles.

At the top of the mountain the two children shrank back into their mufflers, before the sweep of the wet, chill wind; but the mill was in sight—beyond the slope of bleak pastures outlined with stone walls—sunk deep in the valley beside a rapid mountain stream, a dim bulk already glimmering with points of light. Toward this the two little workwomen slopped along on squashy feet.

They were spinners. One was fifteen. She had worked three years. The other was fourteen. She had worked two years. The terse record of the National Child Labor Committee lies before me, unsentimental, bare of comment:

"They both get up at four fifteen A.M. and after breakfast start for the mill, arriving there in time not to be late, at six. Their home is two and one-half miles from the mill. Each earns three dollars a week—So they cannot afford to ride. The road is rough, and it is over the mountains."

(6)

(Providence Journal)

HOW TO SING THE NATIONAL SONGS

To Interpret the Text Successfully the Singer Must Memorize, Visualize, Rhythmize, and Emphasize

BY JOHN G. ARCHER

The weary eye of the toastmaster looks apologetically down long rows of tables as he says with a sorry-but-it-must-be-done air, "We will now sing 'The Star Spangled Banner'"; the orchestra starts, the diners reach frantically for their menus and each, according to his musical inheritance and patriotic fervor, plunges into the unknown with a resolute determination to be in on the death of the sad rite.

Some are wrecked among the dizzy altitudes, others persevere through uncharted shoals, all make some kind of a noisy noise, and lo, it is accomplished; and intense relief sits enthroned on every dewy brow.

In the crowded church, the minister announces the "Battle Hymn of the Republic," and the organist, armed with plenary powers, crashes into the giddy old tune, dragging the congregation resistingly along at a hurdy gurdy pace till all semblance of text or meaning is irretrievably lost.

Happy are they when the refrain, "Glory, Glory, Hallelujah," provides a temporary respite from the shredded syllables and scrambled periods, and one may light, as it were, and catch up with himself and the organist.

At the close of an outdoor public meeting the chairman, with fatuous ineptitude, shouts that everybody will sing three verses of "America." Granting that the tune is pitched comfortably, the first verse marches with vigor and certitude, but not for long; dismay soon smites the crowd in sections as the individual consciousness backs and fills amid half learned lines.

The trick of catching hopefully at a neighbor's phrase usually serves to defeat itself, as it unmasks the ignorance of said neighbor, and the tune ends in a sort of polyglot mouthing which is not at all flattering to the denizens of an enlightened community.

These glimpses are not a whit over-drawn, and it is safe to say that they mirror practically every corner of our land to-day. Why is it, then, that the people make such a sorry exhibition of themselves when they attempt to sing the patriotic songs of our country? Is it the tunes or the words or we ourselves?

Beginning with a Striking Statement. When the thought expressed in the first sentence of an article is sufficiently unusual, or is presented in a sufficiently striking form, it at once commands attention. By stimulating interest and curiosity, it leads the average person to read on until he is satisfied.

A striking statement of this sort may serve as the first sentence of one of the other types of beginning, such as the narrative or the descriptive introduction, the quotation, the question, or the direct address. But it may also be used entirely alone.

Since great size is impressive, a statement of the magnitude of something is usually striking. Numerical figures are often used in the opening sentences to produce the impression of enormous size. If these figures are so large that the mind cannot grasp them, it is well, by means of comparisons, to translate them into terms of the reader's own experience. There is always danger of overwhelming and confusing a person with statistics that in the mass mean little or nothing to him.

To declare in the first sentence that something is the first or the only one of its kind immediately arrests attention, because of the universal interest in the unique.

An unusual prediction is another form of striking statement. To be told at the beginning of an article of some remarkable thing that the future holds in store for him or for his descendants, fascinates the average person as much as does the fortune-teller's prophecy. There is danger of exaggeration, however, in making predictions. When writers magnify the importance of their subject by assuring us that what they are explaining will "revolutionize" our ideas and practices, we are inclined to discount these exaggerated and trite forms of prophecy.

A striking figure of speech—an unusual metaphor, for example—may often be used in the beginning of an article to arouse curiosity. As the comparison in a metaphor is implied rather than expressed, the points of likeness may not immediately be evident to the reader and thus the figurative statement piques his curiosity. A comparison in the form of a simile, or in that of a parable or allegory, may serve as a striking introduction.

A paradox, as a self-contradictory statement, arrests the attention in the initial sentence of an article. Although not always easy to frame, and hence not so often employed as it might be, a paradoxical expression is an excellent device for a writer to keep in mind when some phase of his theme lends itself to such a striking beginning.

Besides these readily classified forms of unusual statements, any novel, extraordinary expression that is not too bizarre may be employed. The chief danger to guard against is that of making sensational, exaggerated, or false statements, merely to catch the reader's notice.

Striking Statement Beginnings

(1)

(Illustrated World)

FIRE WRITES A HEART'S RECORD

BY H.G. HUNTING

A human heart, writing its own record with an actual finger of flame, is the startling spectacle that has recently been witnessed by scientists. It sounds fanciful, doesn't it? But it is literally a fact that the automatic recording of the heart's action by means of tracings from the point of a tiny blaze appears to have been made a practicable method of determining the condition of the heart, more reliable than any other test that can be applied.

(2)

(Boston Transcript)

TAKING HOSPITALS TO THE EMERGENCY By F.W. COBURN

Taking the hospital to the emergency instead of the emergency to the hospital is the underlying idea of the Bay State's newest medical unit—one which was installed in three hours on the top of Corey Hill, and which in much less than half that time may tomorrow or the next day be en route post haste for Peru, Plymouth, or Pawtucketville.

(3)

(Kansas City Star)

MUST YOUR HOME BURN?

Autumn is the season of burning homes.

Furnaces and stoves will soon be lighted. They have been unused all summer and rubbish may have been piled near them or the flues may have rusted and slipped out of place unobserved in the long period of disuse. Persons start their fires in a sudden cold snap. They don't take time to investigate. Then the fire department has work to do.

(4)

(New York Times)

ONLY PUBLIC SCHOOL FOR CHILDREN WITH POOR EYES

There was opened down Hester Street way last week the only public school in the world for children with defective eyes. Bad eyesight has been urged for years as a cause of backwardness and incorrigibility in school children. Now the public school authorities plan, for the first time, not only to teach children whose eyes are defective, but to cure them as well.

(5)

(The Outlook)

DISEASED TEETH AND BAD HEALTH BY MATTHIAS NICOLL, JR.

The complete disappearance of teeth from the human mouth is the condition towards which the most highly cultivated classes of humanity are drifting. We have already gone far on a course that leads to the coming of a toothless age in future generations. Only by immediate adoption of the most active and widespread measures of prevention can the human tooth be saved from the fate that has befallen the leg of the whale.

(6)

(Harper's Weekly)

THE SPAN OF LIFE

BY WALTER E. WEYL

You who begin this sentence may not live to read its close. There is a chance, one in three or four billions, that you will die in a second, by the tick of the watch. The chair upon which you sit may collapse, the car in which you ride may collide, your heart may suddenly cease. Or you may survive the sentence and the article, and live twenty, fifty, eighty years longer.

No one knows the span of your life, and yet the insurance man is willing to bet upon it. What is life insurance but the bet of an unknown number of yearly premiums against the payment of the policy? * * * * The length of your individual life is a guess, but the insurance company bets on a sure thing, on the average death rate.

(7)

(The Outlook)

"AMERICANS FIRST"

BY GREGORY MASON

Every third man you meet in Detroit was born in a foreign country. And three out of every four persons there were either born abroad or born here of foreign-born parents. In short, in Detroit, only every fourth person you meet was born in this country of American parents. Such is the make-up of the town which has been called "the most American city in the United States."

(8)

(Kansas City Star)

A KANSAS TOWN FEELS ITS OWN PULSE

Lawrence, Kas., was not ill. Most of its citizens did not even think it was ailing, but there were some anxious souls who wondered if the rosy exterior were not the mockery of an internal fever. They called in physicians, and after seven months spent in making their diagnosis, they have prescribed for Lawrence, and the town is alarmed to the point of taking their medicine.

That is the medical way of saying that Lawrence has just completed the most thorough municipal survey ever undertaken by a town of its size, and in so doing has found out that it is afflicted with a lot of ills that all cities are heir to. Lawrence, however, with Kansas progressiveness, proposes to cure these ills.

Prof. F.W. Blackmar, head of the department of sociology at the University of Kansas, and incidentally a sort of city doctor, was the first "physician" consulted. He called his assistant, Prof. B.W. Burgess, and Rev. William A. Powell in consultation, and about one hundred and fifty club women were taken into the case. Then they got busy. That was April 1. This month they completed the examination, set up an exhibit to illustrate what they had to report, and read the prescription.

(9)

(Popular Science Monthly)

BREAKING THE CHAIN THAT BINDS US TO EARTH

BY CHARLES NEVERS HOLMES

Man is chained to this Earth, his planet home. His chain is invisible, but the ball is always to be seen—the Earth itself. The chain itself is apparently without weight, while the chain's ball weighs about 7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons!

(10)

(Associated Sunday Magazine)

IN TUNE WHEN OUT OF TUNE

BY JOHN WARREN

How many persons who own pianos and play them can explain why a piano cannot be said to be in tune unless it is actually out of tune?

(11)

(Railroad Man's Magazine)

MAKING STEEL RAILS

BY CHARLES FREDERICK CARTER

To make steel rails, take 2 pounds of iron ore, 1 pound of coke, ½ pound of limestone, and 4½ pounds of air for each pound of iron to be produced. Mix and melt, cast in molds, and roll to shape while hot. Serve cold.

Rail-making certainly does seem to be easy when stated in its simplest terms; it also seems attractive from a business standpoint.

(12)

(Leslie's Weekly)

WHAT ELECTRICITY MEANS TO YOU

ONE CENT'S WORTH OF ELECTRICITY AT TEN CENTS PER KILOWATT-HOUR WILL OPERATE:

• Sixteen candle-power Mazda lamp for five hours
• Six pound flatiron 15 minutes
• Radiant toaster long enough to produce ten slices of toast
• Sewing machine for two hours
• Fan 12 inches in diameter for two hours
• Percolator long enough to make five cups of coffee
• Heating pad from two to four hours
• Domestic buffer for 1¼ hours
• Chafing dish 12 minutes
• Radiant grill for 10 minutes
• Curling iron once a day for two weeks
• Luminous 500 watt radiator for 12 minutes

Hardly as old as a grown man, the electrical industry—including railways, telephones and telegraphs—has already invested $8,125,000,000 in the business of America. Its utility companies alone pay Uncle Sam $200,000,000 every year for taxes—seven out of every ten use it in some form every day. It is unmistakably the most vital factor to-day in America's prosperity. Its resources are boundless. As Secretary of the Interior Lane expresses it, there is enough hydro-electric energy running to waste to equal the daily labor of 1,800,000,000 men or 30 times our adult population.

Beginning with a Quotation. Words enclosed in quotation marks or set off in some distinctive form such as verse, an advertisement, a letter, a menu, or a sign, immediately catch the eye at the beginning of an article. Every conceivable source may be drawn on for quotations, provided, of course, that what is quoted has close connection with the subject. If the quotation expresses an extraordinary idea, it possesses an additional source of interest.

Verse quotations may be taken from a well-known poem, a popular song, a nursery rhyme, or even doggerel verse. Sometimes a whole poem or song prefaces an article. When the verse is printed in smaller type than the article, it need not be enclosed in quotation marks. In his typewritten manuscript a writer may indicate this difference in size of type by single-spacing the lines of the quotation.

Prose quotations may be taken from a speech or an interview, or from printed material such as a book, report, or bulletin. The more significant the quoted statement, the more effective will be the introduction. When the quotation consists of several sentences or of one long sentence, it may comprise the first paragraph, to be followed in the second paragraph by the necessary explanation.

Popular sayings, slogans, or current phrases are not always enclosed in quotation marks, but are often set off in a separate paragraph as a striking form of beginning.

The most conspicuous quotation beginnings are reproductions of newspaper clippings, advertisements, price lists, menus, telegrams, invitations, or parts of legal documents. These are not infrequently reproduced as nearly as possible in the original form and may be enclosed in a frame, or "box."

Quotation Beginnings

(1)

(New York Evening Post)

"DIGNIFIED AND STATELY"

Being an Account of Some High and Low Jinks Practiced About This Time on College Class Days

BY EVA ELISE VOM BAUR

Our sorrows are forgotten,
And our cares are flown away,
While we go marching through Princeton.

Singing these words, 'round and 'round the campus they marched, drums beating time which no one observed, band clashing with band, in tune with nothing but the dominant note—the joy of reunion. A motley lot of men they are—sailors and traction engineers, Pierrots, soldiers, and even vestal virgins—for the June Commencement is college carnival time.

Then hundreds upon thousands of men, East, West, North and South, drop their work and their worries, and leaving families and creditors at home, slip away to their respective alma maters, "just to be boys again" for a day and a night or two.

(2)

(Harper's Monthly)

THE PARTY OF THE THIRD PART

BY WALTER E. WEYL

"The quarrel," opined Sir Lucius O'Trigger, "is a very pretty quarrel as it stands; we should only spoil it by trying to explain it."

Something like this was once the attitude of the swaggering youth of Britain and Ireland, who quarreled "genteelly" and fought out their bloody duels "in peace and quietness." Something like this, also, after the jump of a century, was the attitude of employers and trade-unions all over the world toward industrial disputes. Words were wasted breath; the time to strike or to lock out your employees was when you were ready and your opponent was not. If you won, so much the better; if you lost—at any rate, it was your own business. Outsiders were not presumed to interfere. "Faith!" exclaimed Sir Lucius, "that same interruption in affairs of this nature shows very great ill-breeding."

(3)

(McClure's Magazine)

RIDING ON BUBBLES

BY WALDEMAR KAEMPFFERT

"And the Prince sped away with his princess in a magic chariot, the wheels of which were four bubbles of air."

Suppose you had read that in an Andersen or a Grimm fairy tale in the days when you firmly believed that Cinderella went to a ball in a state coach which had once been a pumpkin; you would have accepted the magic chariot and its four bubbles of air without question.

What a pity it is that we have lost the credulity and the wonder of childhood! We have our automobiles—over two and a half million of them—but they have ceased to be magic chariots to us. And as for their tires, they are mere "shoes" and "tubes"—anything but the bubbles of air that they are.

In the whole mechanism of modern transportation there is nothing so paradoxical, nothing so daring in conception as these same bubbles of air which we call tires.

(4)

(Good Housekeeping)

GERALDINE FARRAR'S ADVICE TO ASPIRING SINGERS

INTERVIEW BY JOHN CORBIN

"When did I first decide to be an opera singer?" Miss Farrar smiled. "Let me see. At least as early as the age of eight. This is how I remember. At school I used to get good marks in most of my studies, but in arithmetic my mark was about sixty. That made me unhappy. But once when I was eight, I distinctly remember, I reflected that it didn't really matter because I was going to be an opera singer. How long before that I had decided on my career I can't say."

(5)

(The Delineator)

HOW TO START A CAFETERIA

BY AGNES ATHOL

"If John could only get a satisfactory lunch for a reasonable amount of money!" sighs the wife of John in every sizable city in the United States, where work and home are far apart.

"He hates sandwiches, anyway, and has no suitable place to eat them; and somehow he doesn't feel that he does good work on a cold box lunch. But those clattery quick-lunch places which are all he has time for, or can afford, don't have appetizing cooking or surroundings, and all my forethought and planning over our good home meals may be counteracted by his miserable lunch. I believe half the explanation of the 'tired business man' lies in the kind of lunches he eats."

Twenty-five cents a day is probably the outside limit of what the great majority of men spend on their luncheons. Some cannot spend over fifteen. What a man needs and so seldom gets for that sum is good, wholesome, appetizing food, quickly served. He wants to eat in a place which is quiet and not too bare and ugly. He wants to buy real food and not table decorations. He is willing to dispense with elaborate service and its accompanying tip, if he can get more food of better quality.

The cafeteria lunch-room provides a solution for the mid-day lunch problem and, when wisely located and well run, the answer to many a competent woman or girl who is asking: "What shall I do to earn a living?"

(6)

(Newspaper Enterprise Association)

AMERICANIZATION OF AMERICA IS PLANNED

BY E.C. RODGERS

Washington, D.C.—America Americanized!

That's the goal of the naturalization bureau of the United States department of labor, as expressed by Raymond P. Crist, deputy commissioner, in charge of the Americanization program.

(7)

(Tractor and Gas Engine Review)

FIRE INSURANCE THAT DOESN'T INSURE

BY A.B. BROWN

"This entire policy, unless otherwise provided by agreement endorsed hereon, or added hereto, shall be void if the interest of the insured be other than unconditional and sole ownership."

If any farmer anywhere in the United States will look up the fire insurance policy on his farm building, and will read it carefully, in nine cases out of ten, he will find tucked away somewhere therein a clause exactly like the one quoted above, or practically in the same words.

Beginning with a Question. Every question is like a riddle; we are never satisfied until we know the answer. So a question put to us at the beginning of an article piques our curiosity, and we are not content until we find out how the writer answers it.

Instead of a single question, several may be asked in succession. These questions may deal with different phases of the subject or may repeat the first question in other words. It is frequently desirable to break up a long question into a number of short ones to enable the rapid reader to grasp the idea more easily. Greater prominence may be gained for each question by giving it a separate paragraph.

Rhetorical questions, although the equivalent of affirmative or negative statements, nevertheless retain enough of their interrogative effect to be used advantageously for the beginning of an article.

That the appeal may be brought home to each reader personally, the pronoun "you," or "yours," is often embodied in the question, and sometimes readers are addressed by some designation such as "Mr. Average Reader," "Mrs. Voter," "you, high school boys and girls."

The indirect question naturally lacks the force of the direct one, but it may be employed when a less striking form of beginning is desired. The direct question, "Do you know why the sky is blue?" loses much of its force when changed into the indirect form, "Few people know why the sky is blue"; still it possesses enough of the riddle element to stimulate thought. Several indirect questions may be included in the initial sentence of an article.

Question Beginnings

(1)

(Kansas City Star)

TRACING THE DROUTH TO ITS LAIR

What becomes of the rainfall in the plains states? This region is the veritable bread basket of our country; but in spite of the fact that we have an average rainfall of about thirty-six inches, lack of moisture, more frequently than any other condition, becomes a limiting factor in crop production. Measured in terms of wheat production, a 36-inch rainfall, if properly distributed through the growing season and utilized only by the crop growing land, is sufficient for the production of ninety bushels of wheat an acre. The question as to what becomes of the rainfall, therefore, is of considerable interest in this great agricultural center of North America, where we do well if we average twenty-five bushels to the acre.

(2)

(New York Evening Sun)

WE WASTE ONE-QUARTER OF OUR FOOD

If a family of five using twenty-five bushels of potatoes a year at $2 a bushel, lose 20 per cent on a bushel by paring, how much has the family thrown into the garbage can during the year? Answer, $10. Applying this conservative estimate of dietitians to other foods, the average family might save at least $100 a year on its table.

(3)

(New York Times)

FARM WIZARD ACHIEVES AGRICULTURAL WONDERS

BY ROBERT G. SKERRETT

Can a farm be operated like a factory? Can fickle nature be offset and crops be brought to maturity upon schedule time?