worthy accomplishment; a more fruitful record than many imagined. It
had become a national institution such as no other magazine had ever
been. It was indisputably accepted by the public and by business
interests alike as the recognized avenue of approach to the intelligent
homes of America.

Edward Bok was content to leave it at this point.

He explained all this in December, 1918, to the Board of Directors, and
asked that his resignation be considered. It was understood that he
was to serve out his thirty years, thus remaining with the magazine for
the best part of another year.

In the material which _The Journal_ now included in its contents, it
began to point the way to the problems which would face women during
the reconstruction period. Bok scanned the rather crowded field of
thought very carefully, and selected for discussion in the magazine
such questions as seemed to him most important for the public to
understand in order to face and solve its impending problems. The
outstanding question he saw which would immediately face men and women
of the country was the problem of Americanization. The war and its
after-effects had clearly demonstrated this to be the most vital need
in the life of the nation, not only for the foreign-born but for the
American as well.

The more one studied the problem the clearer it became that the vast
majority of American-born needed a refreshing, and, in many cases, a
new conception of American ideals as much as did the foreign-born, and
that the latter could never be taught what America and its institutions
stood for until they were more clearly defined in the mind of the men
and women of American birth.

Bok went to Washington, consulted with Franklin K. Lane, secretary of
the interior, of whose department the Government Bureau of
Americanization was a part. A comprehensive series of articles was
outlined; the most expert writer, Esther Everett Lape, who had several
years of actual experience in Americanization work, was selected;
Secretary Lane agreed personally to read and pass upon the material,
and to assume the responsibility for its publication.

With the full and direct co-operation of the Federal Bureau of
Americanization, the material was assembled and worked up with the
result that, in the opinion of the director of the Federal Bureau, the
series proved to be the most comprehensive exposition of practical
Americanization adapted to city, town, and village,