titution of
service to the American woman, and he felt that his part in the work
was done.

He considered carefully where he would leave an institution which the
public had so thoroughly associated with his personality, and he felt
that at no point in its history could he so safely transfer it to other
hands. The position of the magazine in the public estimation was
unquestioned; it had never been so strong. Its circulation not only
had outstripped that of any other monthly periodical, but it was still
growing so rapidly that it was only a question of a few months when it
would reach the almost incredible mark of two million copies per month.
With its advertising patronage exceeding that of any other monthly, the
periodical had become, probably, the most valuable and profitable piece
of magazine property in the world.

The time might never come again when all conditions would be equally
favorable to a change of editorship. The position of the magazine was
so thoroughly assured that its progress could hardly be affected by the
retirement of one editor, and the accession of another. There was a
competent editorial staff, the members of which had been with the
periodical from ten to thirty years each. This staff had been a very
large factor in the success of the magazine. While Bok had furnished
the initiative and supplied the directing power, a large part of the
editorial success of the magazine was due to the staff. It could carry
on the magazine without his guidance.

Moreover, Bok wished to say good-by to his public before it decided,
for some reason or other, to say good-by to him. He had no desire to
outstay his welcome. That public had been wonderfully indulgent toward
his shortcomings, lenient with his errors, and tremendously inspiring
to his best endeavor. He would not ask too much of it. Thirty years
was a long tenure of office, one of the longest, in point of
consecutively active editorship, in the history of American magazines.

He had helped to create and to put into the life of the American home a
magazine of peculiar distinction. From its beginning it had been
unlike any other periodical; it had always retained its individuality
as a magazine apart from the others. It had sought to be something
more than a mere assemblage of stories and articles. It had
consistently stood for ideals; and, save in one or two instances, it
had carried through what it undertook to achieve. It had a record of