did not ask it of her: he felt that
she had a right to her opinions--those he was not buying; but he was
eager to buy her direct style in treating subjects he knew no other
woman could so effectively handle.

And with his own limited knowledge of the sex, he needed, and none knew
it better than did he, the ablest women he could obtain to help him
realize his ideals. Their personal opinions of him did not matter so
long as he could command their best work. Sooner or later, when his
purposes were better understood, they might alter those opinions. For
that he could afford to wait. But he could not wait to get their work.

By this time the editor had come to see that the power of a magazine
might lie more securely behind the printed page than in it. He had begun
to accustom his readers to writing to his editors upon all conceivable
problems.

This he decided to encourage. He employed an expert in each line of
feminine endeavor, upon the distinct understanding that the most
scrupulous attention should be given to her correspondence: that every
letter, no matter how inconsequential, should be answered quickly,
fully, and courteously, with the questioner always encouraged to come
again if any problem of whatever nature came to her. He told his editors
that ignorance on any question was a misfortune, not a crime; and he
wished their correspondence treated in the most courteous and helpful
spirit.

Step by step, the editor built up this service behind the magazine until
he had a staff of thirty-five editors on the monthly pay-roll; in each
issue, he proclaimed the willingness of these editors to answer
immediately any questions by mail, he encouraged and cajoled his readers
to form the habit of looking upon his magazine as a great clearing-house
of information. Before long, the letters streamed in by the tens of
thousands during a year. The editor still encouraged, and the total ran
into the hundreds of thousands, until during the last year, before the
service was finally stopped by the Great War of 1917-18, the yearly
correspondence totalled nearly a million letters.

The work of some of these editors never reached the printed page, and
yet was vastly more important than any published matter could possibly
be. Out of the work of Ruth Ashmore, for instance, there grew a class of
cases of the most confidential nature. These cases, distributed all over
the country, called for special investigation and personal contact. Bok