-this time without cost.

Next the editor decided to see what he could do for the better and
simpler furnishing of the small American home. Here was a field almost
limitless in possible improvement, but he wanted to approach it in a
new way. The best method baffled him until one day he met a woman
friend who told him that she was on her way to a funeral at a friend's
home.

"I didn't know you were so well acquainted with Mrs. S----," said Bok.

"I wasn't, as a matter of fact," replied the woman.

"I'll be perfectly frank; I am going to the funeral just to see how
Mrs. S----'s house is furnished. She was always thought to have great
taste, you know, and, whether you know it or not, a woman is always
keen to look into another woman's home."

Bok realized that he had found the method of presentation for his
interior-furnishing plan if he could secure photographs of the most
carefully furnished homes in America. He immediately employed the best
available expert, and within six months there came to him an assorted
collection of over a thousand photographs of well-furnished rooms. The
best were selected, and a series of photographic pages called "Inside
of 100 Homes" was begun. The editor's woman friend had correctly
pointed the way to him, for this series won for his magazine the
enviable distinction of being the first magazine of standing to reach
the then marvellous record of a circulation of one million copies a
month. The editions containing the series were sold out as fast as
they could be printed.

The editor followed this up with another successful series, again
pictorial. He realized that to explain good taste in furnishing by
text was almost impossible. So he started a series of all-picture
pages called "Good Taste and Bad Taste." He presented a chair that was
bad in lines and either useless or uncomfortable to sit in, and
explained where and why it was bad; and then put a good chair next to
it, and explained where and why it was good.

The lesson to the eye was simply and directly effective; the pictures
told their story as no printed word could have done, and furniture
manufacturers and dealers all over the country, feeling the pressure
from their customers, began to put on the market the tables, chairs,
divans, bedsteads, and dressing-tables which the magazine was
portraying as examples of good taste. It was amazing that, within five
years, the physical appearance of domestic furniture in the s