his shop attractive—a centre from which culture may be radiated. Customers have to be educated. When a new line of goods, of whatever kind, is being introduced, "missionary work," as we manufacturers call it, has to be done.

New York City has several fine bookshops: for example, Brentano's, one of the great bookshops of the world; but Brentano's has its fine-book department, as have Scribner's and Dutton's and Putnam's; and these so-called fine-book departments are doing expensively, as befits New York, what I would have every bookshop do according to its locale, as McClurg is doing in Chicago.

The advantages that would accrue are several. More readers would be made. The book-business of the department stores would not be interfered with in the least they would remain, as now, the best customers for certain classes of publishers, who might expect to have some day, in addition, a more thriving class of booksellers than now. And better books would be published - better, that is, in print, paper, and binding.

In the fine-book department, which I am urging every bookseller to start without delay, I would keep out trash; I would admit only good books— good, I mean, in every sense of the word except moral. The department should be in charge of the most intelligent man in the shop, if there be an intelligent man; and I would get one if I had not one, and in these days of profit-sharing, I would give him an interest in the profit of that department. I would

buy, too, good books from the second-hand English booksellers, who sell very cheaply; and above all things I would not forget the wisdom stored up in the distorted proverb,—

Early to bed and early to rise,

Work like h, and advertise.

V

A SLOGAN FOR BOOKSELLERS

I DON'T think that I was a very bad little boy, as boys go, but the fact is that I ran away from school - a boarding-school- and never went back. I did, however, apply for a job in a bookstore, got the promise of the next vacancy, and sat down and waited. But not for long. Scanning the advertisements in the Philadelphia "Ledger," I discovered that a man was looking for me, and promptly decided that it was my duty to meet him half-way. "A bright, active boy to address envelopes. $3.00. Reference," was the way the advertisement read.

Thus it was that I first met Cyrus H. K. Curtis ; not head on, not at right angles, but obliquely: we were both going in the same direction; he had not yet struck his gait, and for several months he did not appear to be leading me much; but gradually he increased the very considerable distance there was between us, and finally he passed out of sight. I did not see him again until he had become a national figure. He became this by advertising. Many men have made larger fortunes than he; with them advertising has been incidental, like love in a man's life; but with Mr. Curtis it has been his whole existence; and the largest and finest publishing building in the world is a monument to his skill as an advertiser.

There are people who affect to believe that advertising is economic waste; Mr. Curtis is not one of them. He has always taken his own medicine; he may believe in the Trinity; he may, for aught I know, repeat the Athanasian Creed on occasions; but I know, the whole world knows, that he is a believer in advertising; and he should be, for his success is due largely not entirely, but largely to it. The Curtis Publishing Company, then, is admittedly the result of an advertising campaign, begun a long time ago, and carried on consistently day after day, month after month, year after year, with special reference to the product it has to sell, which is advertising. Incidentally it delivers something else,several other things, to be exact,— and it delivers these at a cost to the "consumer" so trifling in proportion to the cost of production, that it almost amounts to a gift. I think I may say without fear of contradiction that the "Saturday Evening Post" is the cheapest piece of merchandise in the world. And if that be the case, what becomes of the theory of the economic waste of advertising?

But it is not the object of this paper to sing a hymn of praise, either to Mr. Curtis, or to his company, or to his product. I am interested chiefly in suggesting, if I may be permitted to do so, a campaign of advertising for publishers of another kind, namely, publishers of books. Books interest me enormously; they always have. They are the best of friends,grave or gay as your humor is,— and you can shut them up when you want to. Most people don't care

for them much; they think they do, but they don't; that is to say, they care for so many other things more that, when it comes to buying them, they have no money left. Now, next to a modicum of food and a patch of clothes, I care more for books than for anything else.

I should like to digress. I have reached the time of life when Christmas means giving much and receiving little. I make no complaint, I only state the fact. The table on which my presents are placed is a very small one. The last present I received was from my wife; it was a watch. I had a watch and did not need another; but my wife thought I ought to have a fine watch and she gave me one; and it was, as I remember, about ten days after Christmas that, in handing me a lot of household bills, she handed me the bill for the watch, with the remark, "And you might as well pay this, too; I thought I could, but it would cramp me and you'll never know the difference." So with a sigh I bent my back to the burden, and it was just as she had said.

A week later, going on a business trip somewhere, I was sitting in a smoking-car, reading, when a man whom I knew slightly asked me if I would not like to sit into a friendly game of poker. I made known to him briefly that I didn't know one card from another. Then, he said, "Let us talk," which meant, let him talk; and talk he did, about everything and nothing, until finally he asked me if I had received any Christmas presents. This gave me a chance to boast of my wife's generosity and to show my new