ican architecture, gardening, and interior decoration, with special
application to the small house. The magazine was purchased, and while
Bok was collecting his material for a number of issues ahead, he edited
and issued, for copyright purposes, a four-page magazine.

An opportunity now came to Mr. Curtis to purchase The Saturday Evening
Post, a Philadelphia weekly of honored prestige, founded by Benjamin
Franklin. It was apparent at once that the company could not embark upon
the development of two magazines at the same time, and as a larger field
was seen for The Saturday Evening Post, it was decided to leave Country
Life in abeyance for the present.

Mr. Frank Doubleday, having left the Scribners and started a
publishing-house of his own, asked Bok to transfer to him the copyright
and good will of Country Life--seeing that there was little chance for
The Curtis Publishing Company to undertake its publication. Mr. Curtis
was willing, but he knew that Bok had set his heart on the new magazine
and left it for him to decide. The editor realized, as the Doubleday
Company could take up the magazine at once, the unfairness of holding
indefinitely the field against them by the publication of a mere
copyright periodical. And so, with a feeling as if he were giving up his
child to another father, Bok arranged that The Curtis Publishing Company
should transfer to the Doubleday, Page Company all rights to the title
and periodical of which the present beautiful publication Country Life
is the outgrowth.

Bok now turned to The Ladies' Home Journal as his medium for making the
small-house architecture of America better. He realized the limitation
of space, but decided to do the best he could under the circumstances.
He believed he might serve thousands of his readers if he could make it
possible for them to secure, at moderate cost, plans for well-designed
houses by the leading domestic architects in the country. He consulted a
number of architects, only to find them unalterably opposed to the idea.
They disliked the publicity of magazine presentation; prices differed
too much in various parts of the country; and they did not care to risk
the criticism of their contemporaries. It was "cheapening" their
profession!

Bok saw that he should have to blaze the way and demonstrate the
futility of these arguments. At last he persuaded one architect to
co-operate with him, and in 1895 began the publication of a series of
houses which c