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
nightingale."

This was followed by an account of the astonishing episode "When Henry
Ward Beecher Sold Slaves in Plymouth Pulpit"; the picturesque journey
"When Louis Kossuth Rode Up Broadway"; the triumphant tour "When
General Grant Went Round the World"; the forgotten story of "When an
Actress Was the Lady of the White House"; the sensational striking of
the rich silver vein "When Mackay Struck the Great Bonanza"; the
hitherto little-known instance "When Louis Philippe Taught School in
Philadelphia"; and even the lesser-known fact of the residence of the
brother of Napoleon Bonaparte in America, "When the King of Spain Lived
on the Banks of the Schuylkill"; while the story of "When John Wesley
Preached in Georgia" surprised nearly every Methodist, as so few had
known that the founder of their church had ever visited America. Each
month picturesque event followed graphic happening, and never was
unwritten history more readily read by the young, or the memories of
the older folk more catered to than in this series which won new
friends for the magazine on every hand.

CHAPTER XV

ADVENTURES IN ART AND IN CIVICS

The influence of his grandfather and the injunction of his grandmother
to her sons that each "should make the world a better or a more
beautiful place to live in" now began to be manifest in the grandson.
Edward Bok was unconscious that it was this influence. What directly
led him to the signal piece of construction in which he engaged was the
wretched architecture of small houses. As he travelled through the
United States he was appalled by it. Where the houses were not
positively ugly, they were