ake-up of
magazines of larger size. At first, Bok's readers objected, but he
explained why he did it; that they were the benefiters by the plan; and,
so far as readers can be satisfied with what is, at best, an awkward
method of presentation, they were content. To-day the practice is
undoubtedly followed to excess, some magazines carrying as much as
eighty and ninety columns over from the front to the back; from such
abuse it will, of course, free itself either by a return to the original
method of make-up or by the adoption of some other less-irritating plan.

In his reading about the America of the past, Bok had been impressed by
the unusual amount of interesting personal material that constituted
what is termed unwritten history--original events of tremendous personal
appeal in which great personalities figured but which had not sufficient
historical importance to have been included in American history. Bok
determined to please his older readers by harking back to the past and
at the same time acquainting the younger generation with the picturesque
events which had preceded their time.

He also believed that if he could "dress up" the past, he could arrest
the attention of a generation which was too likely to boast of its
interest only in the present and the future. He took a course of reading
and consulted with Mr. Charles A. Dana, editor of the New York Sun, who
had become interested in his work and had written him several voluntary
letters of commendation. Mr. Dana gave material help in the selection of
subjects and writers; and was intensely amused and interested by the
manner in which his youthful confrere "dressed up" the titles of what
might otherwise have looked like commonplace articles.

"I know," said Bok to the elder editor, "it smacks a little of the
sensational, Mr. Dana, but the purpose I have in mind of showing the
young people of to-day that some great things happened before they came
on the stage seems to me to make it worth while."

Mr. Dana agreed with this view, supplemented every effort of the
Philadelphia editor in several subsequent talks, and in 1897 The Ladies'
Home Journal began one of the most popular series it ever published. It
was called "Great Personal Events," and the picturesque titles explained
them. He first pictured the enthusiastic evening "When Jenny Lind Sang
in Castle Garden," and, as Bok added to pique curiosity, "when people
paid $20 to sit in rowboats to hear the Swedish