h had long been taking shape in Page's mind. The
things that he had been doing for the _Forum_ and the _Atlantic_ he
aspired to do for a larger audience than that to which publications of
this character could appeal. Scholar though Page was, and lover of the
finest things in literature that he had always been, yet this sympathy
and interest had always lain with the masses. Perhaps it is impossible
to make literature democratic, but Page believed that he would be
genuinely serving the great cause that was nearest his heart if he could
spread wide the facts of the modern world, especially the facts of
America, and if he could clothe the expression in language which, while
always dignified and even "literary," would still be sufficiently
touched with the vital, the picturesque, and the "human," to make his
new publication appeal to a wide audience of intelligent, everyday
Americans. It was thus part of his general programme of improving the
status of the average man, and it formed a logical part of his
philosophy of human advancement. For the only acceptable measure of any
civilization, Page believed, was the extent to which it improved the
condition of the common citizen. A few cultured and university-trained
men at the top; a few ancient families living in luxury; a few painters
and poets and statesmen and generals; these things, in Page's view, did
not constitute a satisfactory state of society; the real test was the
extent to which the masses participated in education, in the necessities
and comforts of existence, in the right of self-evolution and
self-expression, in that "equality of opportunity," which, Page never
wearied of repeating, "was the basis of social progress." The mere right
to vote and to hold office was not democracy; parliamentary majorities
and political caucuses were not democracy--at the best these things were
only details and not the most important ones; democracy was the right of
every man to enjoy, in accordance with his aptitudes of character and
mentality, the material and spiritual opportunities that nature and
science had placed at the disposition of mankind. This democratic creed
had now become the dominating interest of Page's life. From this time on
it consumed all his activities. His new magazine set itself first of all
to interpret the American panorama from this point of view; to describe
the progress that the several parts of the country were making in the
several manifestations of democ