es
either a standard or a policy. In desperation they engaged any person
they could to "get a lot of woman's stuff." It was stuff, and of the
trashiest kind. So that almost coincident with the birth of the idea
began its abuse and disintegration; the result we see in the
meaningless presentations which pass for "woman's pages" in the
newspaper of to-day.

This is true even of the woman's material in the leading newspapers,
and the reason is not difficult to find. The average editor has, as a
rule, no time to study the changing conditions of women's interests;
his time is and must be engrossed by the news and editorial pages. He
usually delegates the Sunday "specials" to some editor who, again, has
little time to study the everchanging women's problems, particularly in
these days, and he relies upon unintelligent advice, or he places his
"woman's page" in the hands of some woman with the comfortable
assurance that, being a woman, she ought to know what interests her sex.

But having given the subject little thought, he attaches minor
importance to the woman's "stuff," regarding it rather in the light of
something that he "must carry to catch the women"; and forthwith he
either forgets it or refuses to give the editor of his woman's page
even a reasonable allowance to spend on her material. The result is,
of course, inevitable: pages of worthless material. There is, in fact,
no part of the Sunday newspaper of to-day upon which so much good and
now expensive white paper is wasted as upon the pages marked for the
home, for women, and for children.

Edward Bok now became convinced, from his book-publishing association,
that if the American women were not reading the newspapers, the
American public, as a whole, was not reading the number of books that
it should, considering the intelligence and wealth of the people, and
the cheap prices at which books were sold. He concluded to see whether
he could not induce the newspapers to give larger and more prominent
space to the news of the book world.

Owing to his constant contact with authors, he was in a peculiarly
fortunate position to know their plans in advance of execution, and he
was beginning to learn the ins and outs of the book-publishing world.
He canvassed the newspapers subscribing to his syndicate features, but
found a disinclination to give space to literary news. To the average
editor, purely literary features held less of an appeal than did the
feature