WHO'LL DO JOHN'S WORK?

BY M. C. HOBART

"It's a quarter after 8 and Schuyler hasn't showed up," telephoned Beggs, one of our foremen, last Tuesday morning. "I've put Fanning on his machine, but that won't help much unless I can get somebody to work at Fanning's bench. Got anybody you can let me have for to-day?"

I didn't know offhand. But I told Beggs I'd call him back.

Ten minutes later a young lathe operator reported to Beggs. He was able to run Fanning's machine while the latter temporarily filled the shoes of the absent Schuyler.

Scarcely a week passes that does not bring a similar call to our employment office. While our plant, as plants go, is not large, we always have a number of men working with us who are fitted by experience and adaptability to do other work than that which they are hired to do. Such men are invaluable to know about, especially when an operator stays away for a day or perhaps a week and the shop is full of orders. Once it was a problem to find the right man immediately. A few additions to our employment records made it possible to keep track of each man's complete qualifications.

The employment records I keep in my desk in the deep drawer. They are filed alphabetically by name. When we hire a man we write his name and the job he is to fill on the outside of a 9 by 12 manila envelope. Into this envelope we put his application, his references, and other papers. His application tells us what kinds of work he can do and has done in other shops.

There are 29 different kinds of work to be done in our shops, from gear cutting to running errands. I have listed these operations, alphabetically, on a cardboard the exact length of the employment record envelope, 12 inches. When a man tells me in his application that he not only can operate a drill press, for which he is hired, but has also worked at grinding, I fit my cardboard list to the top of the employment record envelope and punch two notches along the top directly opposite the words "drill press" and "grinding" on my list. Then I file away the envelope.

I rest secure now in my knowledge that I have not buried a potential grinder in a drill press operator, or that I do not have to carry his double qualifications in my mind. I know that if Beggs should suddenly telephone me some morning that his grinder is absent—sick, or fishing, perhaps—I need only take my cardboard list and, starting at A, run it down my file until I come to the envelope of the drill press operator. I am stopped there automatically by the second notch on the envelope which corresponds in position to the word "grinder" on my list.

And there is every likelihood that, with the necessary explanation to the man's own foreman, Beggs will get his grinder for the day.

From the following article, printed in Farm and Fireside city and country readers alike may glean much practical information concerning ways and means of making a comfortable living from a small farm. It was illustrated by four half-tone reproductions of photographs showing (1) the house, (2) the woman at her desk with a typewriter before her, (3) the woman in her dining-room about to serve a meal from a labor-saving service wagon, and (4) the woman in the poultry yard with a basket of eggs.

TEN ACRES AND A LIVING

SHE WAS YOUNG, POPULAR, AND HAD BEEN REARED IN THE CITY. EVERYBODY LAUGHED WHEN SHE DECIDED TO FARM—BUT THAT WAS FOUR YEARS AGO

BY ALICE MARY KIMBALL

When she decided to be a farmer everybody laughed. She was young, popular, unusually fond of frocks and fun. She had been reared in the city. She didn't know a Jersey from a Hereford, or a Wyandotte from a Plymouth Rock.

"You'll be back in six months," her friends said.

Four years have passed. Mrs. Charles S. Tupper still is "buried" in the country. Moreover, she is supplying eggs, chickens, honey, and home-canned goods to those of her former associates who are willing to pay for quality.

"Farming," said Mrs. Tupper, "is the ideal vocation for the woman who feels the modern desire for a job and the need of marriage and a home.

"I never wanted a job so keenly as when I found myself in a small city apartment without enough to do to keep me busy. After I'd swept and dusted and prepared meals for two, I had hours of time on my hands. The corner bakeshop, the laundry, and modern conveniences had thrust upon me more leisure than I could use. Mr. Tupper is a young engineer whose work takes him to various parts of the Southwest. In his absence I felt strongly the need of filling up my idle hours in some interesting, useful way.

"I didn't quite like the idea of spending all my spare time on cards, calling, women's clubs, and social pleasures. I longed to be a real partner to my husband and to share in making the family income as well as spending it.

"We had a few thousand saved for a home, and were trying to decide where to build. One day it flashed upon me: 'Why invest in city property? Why not a little farm? Then we'll have a home; I'll have a job, and can make our living.'"

The idea materialized into a modern bungalow on a 10-acre farm in Westdale, Missouri, an hour's drive from Kansas City. Mr. Tupper's salary furnished working capital for the enterprise and Mrs. Tupper has found congenial work as farmer-in-chief.

Poultry, bees, and a vegetable garden are Mrs. Tupper's specialities. Her side lines are a pig and a registered Jersey cow. She looks after the poultry, works in garden and apiary, and milks the cow herself. She employs very little help.

"It wasn't difficult to get a start in learning to farm," Mrs. Tupper explained. "I visited farms and studied the methods of farmers and their wives. I asked lots of questions.

"I didn't have any old fogyisms to unlearn, and I didn't acquire any. I went straight to the agricultural college and the state poultry experiment station for instructions. While I was living in the country supervising the building of the bungalow, I read and digested every bulletin I could get. I'm still studying bulletins. I subscribe for several farm papers and a bee journal.

"Of course, I learned a great deal from the practical experience of the people about me, but I checked up everything to the rules and directions of government and state agricultural experts, which may be had for the price of a postage stamp. I tried to take orders intelligently. I ignored old rules for poultry and bee-keeping."

Mrs. Tupper's chickens are hatched in incubators, hovered in a coal-heated brooder house, fed according to experiment-station directions, and reared in poultry houses built from experiment-station designs. From the first they have been practically free from lice and disease. She gets winter eggs. Even in zero weather and at times when feed is most costly, her spring pullets more than pay their way.

"Bees responded as readily to proper treatment," she said. "My second season I harvested $265 worth of comb honey from twenty working swarms. And I was stung not a half-dozen times at that."

Some of Mrs. Tupper's neighbors were inclined to joke at first at her appetite for bulletins, her belief in experts, and her rigid insistence on pure-bred stock and poultry. They admit now that her faith has been justified.

If Mrs. Tupper had trod in the well-worn neighborhood ruts, she would have marketed her produce by the country-store-commission-man-retailer-consumer route; but again she did not. From the first she planned to plug the leakage of farm profits in middlemen's commissions. When she had anything to sell, she put on a good-looking tailored suit, a becoming hat, smart shoes and gloves, and went to the city to talk to ultimate consumers.

The consciousness of being dressed appropriately—not expensively or ornately—is a valuable aid to the farm saleswoman, Mrs. Tupper thinks.

"If a salesman comes to me shabbily dressed or flashily dressed, I can't give him a fair hearing," she said. "I may let him talk on, but I decide against him the instant I look at him. So I reasoned that a trim, pleasing appearance would be as valuable an asset to me as to the men who sell pickles, insurance, or gilt-edged bonds. It would mean a favorable first impression and open the way to show samples and make a sales talk.

"If I tried to interview a prospective customer handicapped by the consciousness that my skirt hung badly or that my shoes were shabby, not only would I be timid and ill at ease, but my appearance would suggest to the city buyer the very slipshodness and lack of reliability he fears in buying direct from the farm.

"I go strong on attractive samples. It would be useless to try for fancy prices if I brought honey to town in mean-looking cases or rusty cans. A slight drip down the side of a package might not be proof positive of poor quality, but it would frighten away a careful buyer. Likewise, I do not illustrate my egg sales talks with a sample dozen of odd sizes and shapes. It is needless to add that goods delivered to customers must be of the same quality and appearance as the samples, and that one must keep one's promises to the dot. A little well-directed enterprise will land a customer, but only good service can hold him."

When the current wholesale price of honey was $3 a case, Mrs. Tupper's comb honey has been in demand at from 20 to 30 cents a pound. She disposes of every pound to private customers and to one grocery store which caters to "fancy" trade. She sells eggs from her 400 Anconas at from 4 to 6 cents more a dozen than the country store is paying its patrons who bring in eggs and "take them out in trade."

Mrs. Tupper figured that if a trademark has advertising pull for a manufacturing concern, it would help the farm business. She christened her 10 acres "Graceland Farm," and this name is stamped on everything that leaves her place. She had cards printed bearing the name of the farm, its telephone number, and its products. Graceland Farm is also emphasized on letter heads.

"Prompt attention to correspondence is an easy method of advertising a farm business," she suggested. "A typewritten letter on letterhead stationery, mailed promptly, creates a pleasant impression on the man who has written to inquire the price of a setting of eggs or a trio of chickens.

"Suppose I delayed a week and wrote the reply with pen and ink, or, worse, with a pencil on ruled tablet paper. I'd stand a good chance of losing a customer, wouldn't I? If I didn't miss an order outright, I should certainly leave a suggestion of inefficiency and carelessness which could only be charged to the debit side of the business."

She has found that a $50 typewriter and a letter file have helped greatly to create the good-will which is as essential to the farmer business woman as to the woman who runs a millinery shop or an insurance office.

Mrs. Tupper has encouraged automobile trade. Her apiary is within sight of the road, and a "Honey for Sale" sign brings many a customer. Many of her city patrons have the habit of driving to the farm and returning with a hamper laden with eggs, honey, butter, or canned stuff from the vegetable garden. The garden last summer supplied material for more than 900 cans of vegetables.

The neighbors smile at her zeal for fairs and poultry shows.

"It isn't fun altogether; it's business," she tells them.

It was cold, disagreeable work, for instance, to prepare an exhibit for the Heart of America Poultry Show at Kansas City last fall; but Mrs. Tupper felt repaid. She won first prize on hen, first and second on pullet, and fourth on cockerel. Then she exhibited at the St. Joseph, Missouri, Poultry Show with even better success.

"These prizes will add to the value of every chicken I have, and to all my poultry products. They give me another advertising point," she said.

"The shows gave me a fine opportunity to meet possible customers and to make friends for my business. I was on the job for days. I met scores of people and distributed hundreds of cards. I learned a lot, too, in talks with judges and experienced breeders."

The Tupper bungalow is neat and attractive. In spite of her duties in the poultry house and apiary, Mrs. Tupper serves appetizing meals. She finds time for church work and neighborhood calls, and gives every Thursday to the Red Cross.

The housework is speeded up with such conveniences as hot and cold water in kitchen and bathroom, and steam heat. The kitchen is an efficient little workshop lined by cupboards and shelves. Mrs. Tupper can sit before her kitchen cabinet and prepare a meal without moving about for ingredients and utensils. A service wagon saves steps between kitchen and dining-room.

The floors of the bungalow are of hard wood. They are waxed a few times each year, and a little work each morning with dust mop and carpet sweeper keeps them in good order. The washing is sent out.

"I couldn't earn an income from the farm if I had a farmhouse without modern improvements," Mrs. Tupper declared. "Reducing drudgery to a minimum is only plain business sense. Laundry work, scrubbing, and dishwashing have a low economic value. Such unskilled labor eats up the time and strength one needs for the more profitable and interesting tasks of farm management, accounting and correspondence, advertising and marketing."

THE PERSONALITY SKETCH. We all like to read about prominent and successful people. We want to know more about the men and women who figure in the day's news, and even about interesting persons whose success has not been great enough to be heralded in the press. What appeals to us most about these individuals is, not mere biographical facts such as appear in Who's Who, but the more intimate details of character and personality that give us the key to their success. We want to see them as living men and women. It is the writer's problem to present them so vividly that we shall feel as if we had actually met them face to face.

The purpose of the personality sketch may be (1) to give interesting information concerning either prominent or little known persons, (2) to furnish readers inspiration that may bear fruit in their own lives, (3) to give practical guidance by showing how one individual has accomplished a certain thing. Whether the aim is to afford food for thought, inspiration to action, or guidance in practical matters, the treatment is essentially the same.

The recognized methods of describing characters in fiction may be used to advantage in portraying real persons. These are (1) using general descriptive terms, (2) describing personal appearance, (3) telling of characteristic actions, (4) quoting their words, (5) giving biographical facts, (6) citing opinions of others about them, (7) showing how others react to them. By a judicious combination of several of these methods, a writer can make his readers visualize the person, hear him speak, watch him in characteristic actions, and understand his past life, as well as realize what others think of him and how they act toward him.

Material for a personality sketch may be obtained in one of three ways: (1) from a more or less intimate acquaintance with the person to be described; (2) from an interview with the person, supplemented by conversation with others about him; (3) from printed sketches of him combined with information secured from others. It is easier to write personality sketches about men and women whom we know well than it is about those whom we have never met, or with whom we have had only a short interview. Inexperienced writers should not attempt to prepare sketches of persons whom they know but slightly. In a single interview a writer who is observant, and who is a keen judge of human nature, may be able to get an impression sufficiently strong to serve as the basis of a satisfactory article, especially if the material obtained in the interview is supplemented by printed sketches and by conversations with others. Personality sketches sometimes include long interviews giving the person's opinions on the subject on which he is an authority. In such articles the sketch usually precedes the interview.

EXAMPLES OF THE PERSONALITY SKETCH. The first of the following sketches appeared, with a half-tone portrait, in the department of "Interesting People" in the American Magazine; the second was sent out by the Newspaper Enterprise Association, Cleveland, Ohio, which supplies several hundred daily newspapers with special features.

(1)

"TOMMY"—WHO ENJOYS STRAIGHTENING OUT THINGS

BY SAMPSON RAPHAELSON

Six years ago a young Bulgarian immigrant, dreamy-eyed and shabby, came to the University of Illinois seeking an education. He inquired his way of a group of underclassmen and they pointed out to him a large red building on the campus.

"Go there," they said gayly, "and ask for Tommy."

He did, and when he was admitted to the presence of Thomas Arkle Clark, Dean of Men, and addressed him in his broken English as "Mis-terr Tommy," the dean did not smile. Although Mr. Clark had just finished persuading an irascible father to allow his reprobate sophomore son to stay at college, and although he was facing the problem of advising an impetuous senior how to break an engagement with a girl he no longer loved, he adapted himself to the needs and the temperament of the foreigner instantly, sympathetically, and efficiently.

In five minutes the Bulgarian had a job, knew what courses in English he ought to take, and was filled with a glow of hope, inspiration, and security which only a genius in the art of graciousness and understanding like "Tommy Arkle," as he is amiably called by every student and alumnus of Illinois, can bestow.

This is a typical incident in the extremely busy, richly human daily routine of the man who created the office of Dean of Men in American universities. Slender, short, well-dressed, his gray hair smartly parted, with kindly, clever, humorous blue eyes and a smile that is an ecstasy of friendliness, "Tommy" sits behind his big desk in the Administration Building from eight to five every day and handles all of the very real troubles and problems of the four thousand-odd men students at the University of Illinois.

He averages one hundred callers a day, in addition to answering a heavy mail and attendance upon various committee, board, and council meetings. He is known all over the country as an authority on fraternities and their influence, and a power for making that influence constantly better and finer. In business, farmer, and school circles in the Middle West Mr. Clark is famous for his whimsical, inspiring speeches. His quick, shaft-like humor, his keen, devastating sarcasm, and his rare, resilient sympathy have made him a personality beloved particularly by young persons.

They still tell the story on the campus of an ingenuous youngster who walked into the dean's office one fall, set his suitcase on the floor, and drawing two one-dollar bills and a fifty-cent piece from his pocket, laid the money on the big desk, saying:

"That's all the money I have. I've come to work my way through. Will you help me to get a job?"

In a flash "Tommy" noted the boy's eager, imaginative brown eyes, his wide, compact lips and strong jaw. Reaching over, he took the two bills and pocketed them, leaving the half-dollar.

"The traditional great men," said the dean, "started their university careers with only fifty cents. I don't want you to be handicapped, so I'll keep this two dollars. You can get work at —— Green Street waiting on table for your meals, and the landlady at —— Chalmers Street wants a student to fire her furnace in exchange for room rent."

The boy earned his way successfully for several months. Then suddenly he was taken sick. An operation was necessary. Mr. Clark wired for a Chicago specialist and paid all expenses out of his own pocket. The student recovered, and two years after he was graduated sent "Tommy" a letter enclosing a check for five hundred dollars. "To redeem my two dollars which you have in trust," the letter said, "and please use the money as a medical fund for sick students who need, but cannot afford, Chicago specialists."

The dean has an abnormal memory for names and faces. Every year he makes a "rogues' gallery"—the photographs of all incoming freshmen are taken and filed away. And many an humble, unknown freshman has been exalted by the "Hello, Darby," or "Good morning, Boschenstein"—or whatever his name happened to be—with which the dean greeted him.

Mr. Clark once revealed to me the secret of his life. Fifteen years ago he was professor of English and had strong literary ambitions, with no little promise. There came the offer of the office of Dean of Men. He had to choose between writing about peoples lives or living those lives with people. And he chose, with the result that at all times of the day and night it's "Tommy this, and Tommy that"; an accident case may need him at two A.M. in the hospital, or a crowd of roystering students may necessitate his missing a night's sleep in order to argue an irate sheriff into the conviction that they are not robbers and murderers. He has been known to spend many evenings in the rooms of lonesome students who "need a friend."

"Tommy Arkle" is one of the Middle West's finest contributions to the modern ideal of human service.

(2)

TWO NEW MACHINE GUNS ARE INVENTED FOR THE U.S. ARMY BY THE "EDISON OF FIREARMS"

BY HARRY B. HUNT

HARTFORD, CONN., NOV. 12.—"Well, Old J.M. has done it again."

That is the chief topic of conversation these days in the big shops of Hartford, New Haven and Bridgeport, where the bulk of the rifles, pistols and machine guns for Uncle Sam's army is being turned out.

For in these towns to say that "Old J.M. has done it again" is the simplest and most direct way of stating that John M. Browning has invented a new kind of firearm.

This time, however, "Old J.M." has done it twice. He has invented not one, but two new guns. Both have been accepted by the United States government, contracts for immense numbers of each have been signed, and work of production is being pushed night and day. The new weapons will be put into the field against Germany at the earliest possible day.

Who is John Browning? You never heard of him?

Well, Browning is the father of rapid-fire and automatic firearms. His is the brain behind practically every basic small firearm invention in the past 40 years. He has been to the development of firearms what Edison has been to electricity.

"Unquestionably the greatest inventor of firearms in the world," is the unanimous verdict of the gun experts of the Colt, Remington and Winchester plants, whose business it is to study and criticise every development in firearms.

But if Browning is our greatest gun inventor, he is the most "gun-shy" genius in the country when it comes to publicity. He would rather face a machine gun than a reporter.

A few years ago a paper in his home state—Utah—published a little story about his success as an inventor, and the story was copied by the Hartford Courant.

"I'd rather have paid $1,000 cash than have had that stuff printed," Browning says.

Friends, however, who believe that the world should know something about this firearms wizard, furnish the following sidelights on his career:

Browning comes from an old-stock Mormon family of Ogden, Utah. As a young man he was a great hunter, going off into the woods for a month or six weeks at a time, with only his gun for company. He was only 24 when he worked out his ideas for a gun carrying a magazine full of cartridges, which could be fired rapidly in succession. He pounded out the parts for his first rapid-fire gun with hammer and cold chisel.

Since that time, pump and "trombone" shotguns, automatic pistols, rapid-fire rifles produced by the biggest firearms manufacturers in the country have been Browning's products.

The United States army pistol is a Browning invention.

A Browning pistol manufactured by the Fabrique Nationale of Belgium was made the standard equipment for the armies of Belgium, Russia, Spain, Italy and Serbia.

On completion of the one-millionth pistol by the Fabrique Nationale, King Albert of Belgium knighted the modest inventor, so he is now, officially, "Sir" John Browning.

Browning is tall, slender, slightly stooped, 62, bald except for a rim of gray hair, and wears a closely clipped gray moustache. His face is marked by a network of fine lines.

Although Browning will not talk of himself or of his career as an inventor, he can't help talking when the conversation is turned on guns.

"I always think of a gun as something that is made primarily to shoot," he says. "The best gun is the simplest gun. When you begin loading a gun up with a lot of fancy contraptions and 'safety devices,' you are only inviting trouble. You complicate the mechanism and make that many more places for dirt and grit to clog the action.

"You can make a gun so 'safe' that it won't shoot."

Of Browning's new guns it is not, of course, permissible to give any details. One, however, is a light rapid-fire gun, weighing only 15 pounds, which can be fired from the shoulder like the ordinary rifle. Each magazine carries 20 rounds and the empty magazine can be detached and another substituted by pressing a button.

The heavier gun is a belt-fed machine, capable of firing 600 shots a minute. Although it is water-cooled, it weighs, water jacket and all, only 28 pounds. For airplane work, where the firing is in bursts and the speed of the machine helps cool the gun, the jacket is discarded and the gun weighs only 20 pounds.

Both guns are counted upon as valuable additions to the equipment of our overseas forces.

THE NARRATIVE IN THE THIRD PERSON. Although the interview, the personal experience article, and the confession story are largely narrative, they are always told in the first person, whereas the term "narrative article" as used in this classification is applied only to a narrative in the third person. In this respect it is more like the short story. As in the short story so in the narrative article, description of persons, places, and objects involved serves to heighten the effect.

Narrative methods may be employed to present any group of facts that can be arranged in chronological order. A process, for example, may be explained by showing a man or a number of men engaged in the work involved, and by giving each step in the process as though it were an incident in a story. The story of an invention or a discovery may be told from the inception of the idea to its realization. A political situation may be explained by relating the events that led up to it. The workings of some institution, such as an employment office or a juvenile court, may be made clear by telling just what takes place in it on a typical occasion. Historical and biographical material can best be presented in narrative form.

Suspense, rapid action, exciting adventure, vivid description, conversation, and all the other devices of the short story may be introduced into narrative articles to increase the interest and strengthen the impression. Whenever, therefore, material can be given a narrative form it is very desirable to do so. A writer, however, must guard against exaggeration and the use of fictitious details.

EXAMPLES OF THE NARRATIVE ARTICLE. How narration with descriptive touches and conversation may be effectively used to explain a new institution like the community kitchen, or the methods of recruiting employed in the army, is shown in the two articles below. The first was taken from the New York World, and the second from the Outlook.

(1)

NOW THE PUBLIC KITCHEN

BY MARIE COOLIDGE RASK

The Community Kitchen Menu

Vegetable soup pint, 3c Beef stew half pint, 4c Baked beans half pint, 3c Two frankfurters, one potato and cup full of boiled cabbage all for 7c Rice pudding, 3c. Stewed peaches 3c Coffee or cocoa with milk half pint,3c

"My mother wants three cents' worth of vegetable soup."

"And mine wants enough beef stew for three of us."

Two battered tin pails were handed up by small, grimy fingers. Two eager little faces were upturned toward the top of the bright green counter which loomed before them. Two pairs of roguish eyes smiled back at the woman who reached over the counter and took the pails.

"The beef stew will be twelve cents," she said. "It is four cents for each half pint, you know."

"I know," answered the youth. "My mother says when she has to buy the meat and all and cook it and put a quarter in the gas meter, it's cheaper to get it here. My father got his breakfast here, too, and it only cost him five cents."

"And was he pleased?" asked the woman, carefully lowering the filled pail to the outstretched little hand.

"You bet," chuckled the lad, as he turned and followed the little procession down the length of the room and out through the door on the opposite side.

The woman was Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt, jr.

The boy was the son of a 'longshoreman living on "Death Avenue," in close proximity to the newly established People's Kitchen, situated on the southeast corner of Tenth Avenue and West Twenty-seventh Street, New York.

So it is here at last—the much talked of, long hoped for, community kitchen.

Within three days after its doors had been opened to the public more than 1,100 persons had availed themselves of its benefits. Within three years, it is promised, the community kitchen will have become national in character. Its possibilities for development are limitless.

Way was blazed for the pioneer kitchen by Edward F. Brown, executive secretary of the New York school lunch committee.

The active power behind the cauldrons of soup, cabbage and frankfurters, beans and rice pudding is vested in Mrs. James A. Burden, jr., and Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt, jr.

The evolution of the community kitchen is going to be of interest to every housewife and to every wage earner in all classes of society.

First of all, let it be distinctly understood that the kitchen as inaugurated is not a charity. It is social and philanthropic in character, and it will ultimately reduce the cost of living by almost 50 per cent. This much has been demonstrated already to the extent that the Tenth Avenue kitchen has not only paid expenses, but has so overrun its confines that plans are in preparation for the establishment of other and larger kitchens in rapid succession.

The object is to give to the purchaser the maximum quantity of highest grade food, properly cooked, at minimum cost. This cost includes rent, light, heat, power, interest on investment, depreciation, cost of food materials, labor and supervision. The principle is that of barter and sale on an equitable business basis.

The project as now formulated is to establish for immediate use a small group of public kitchens having one central depot. This depot will be in constant operation throughout the twenty-four hours. Here the food will be prepared and distributed to the smaller kitchens where, by means of steam tables, it can be kept hot and dispensed. The character of the food to be supplied each district will be chosen with regard to what the population is accustomed to, that which is simple and wholesome, which contains bulk, can be prepared at minimum cost, can be conveniently dispensed and easily carried away.

Opposite a large school building, in a small room that had been at one time a saloon, the kitchen of the century was fitted up and formally opened to the public.

Three long green tables with green painted benches beside them encircle the room on two sides. Their use was manifest the second day after the kitchen was opened.

At 4 o'clock in the morning, from various tenement homes near by, sturdy 'longshoremen and laborers might have been seen plodding silently from their respective homes, careful not to disturb their wives and families, and heading straight for the new kitchen on the corner. From trains running along "Death Avenue" came blackened trainmen after their night's work. They, too, stopped at the corner kitchen. By the time the attendant arrived to unlock the doors forty men were in line waiting for breakfast.

Ten minutes later the three tables were fully occupied.

"Bread, cereal and coffee for five cents!" exclaimed one of the men, pushing the empty tray from him, after draining the last drop of coffee in his mug. "This kitchen's all right."

Noon came. The children from the school building trooped in.

"My mamma works in a factory," said one. "I used to get some cakes at a bakery at noontime. Gee! There's raisins in this rice puddin', ain't there?" He carried the saucerful of pudding over to the table. "Only three cents," he whispered to the little girl beside him. "You better get some, too. That'll leave you two cents for a cup of cocoa."

"Ain't it a cinch!" exclaimed the little girl.

Behind the counter the women who had made these things possible smiled happily and dished out pudding, beans and soup with generous impartiality. The daughter of Mrs. Vanderbilt appeared.

"I'm hungry, mother," she cried. "I'll pay for my lunch."

"You'll have to serve yourself," was the rejoinder of the busy woman with the tin pail in her hand. "There's a tray at the end of the counter—but don't get in the way."

So rich and poor lunched together.

"Oh, but I'm tired!" exclaimed a woman, who, satchel in hand, entered, late in the afternoon, "It's hard to go home and cook after canvassing all day. Will you mind if I eat supper here?"

Then the women and children poured in with pails and dishes and pans.

"We're getting used to it now," said one. "It's just like a store, you know, and it saves us a lot of work—"

"And expense! My land!" cried another. "Why, my man has only been working half time, and the pennies count when you've got children to feed and clothe. When I go to work by the day it's little that's cooked at home. Now—" She presented a dish as the line moved along. "Beef stew for four," she ordered, "and coffee in this pitcher, here."

(2)

GATHERING IN THE RAW RECRUIT

BY KINGSLEY MOSES

MEN WANTED FOR THE UNITED STATES ARMY

A tall, gaunt farmer boy with a very dirty face and huge gnarled hands stood open-mouthed before the brilliant poster displayed before the small-town recruiting office. In his rather dull mind he pictured himself as he would look, straight and dignified, in the khaki uniform, perhaps even with the three stripes of the sergeant on his arm.

"Fifteen dollars a month," he thought to himself, "and board and clothes and lodgings and doctor's bills. Why, that's more than I'm gettin' now on the farm! I'd see the world; I might even get to learn a regular trade." He scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Well, I ain't gettin' nowhere now, that's sure," he concluded, and slowly climbed the stairs.

This boy had not come to his decision in a moment. His untrained but thoroughly honest mind worked slowly. He had been pondering the opportunities of army life for many weeks. The idea had come to him by chance, he thought.

Over a month ago he had been plowing the lower forty of Old Man Huggins's farm. The road to the mountains lay along one side of the field, and as the boy turned and started to plow his furrow toward the road he noticed that a motor cycle had stopped just beyond the fence. "Broke down," the boy commented to himself, as he saw the tan-clad rider dismounting. Over the mule's huge back he watched as he drew nearer. "Why, the rider was in uniform; he must be a soldier!"

Sure enough, when the fence was reached the boy saw that the stranger was dressed in the regulation khaki of Uncle Sam, with the U.S. in block letters at the vent of the collar and two stripes on the left sleeve.

"Broke down?" the boy queried, dropping his plow-handles.

The corporal grunted and continued to potter with the machine.

"You in the army?" the boy continued, leaning on the fence.

"You bet!" assented the soldier. Then, looking up and taking in the big, raw-boned physique of the youngster, "Ever think of joinin'?"

"Can't say's I did."

"Got any friends in the army?"

"Nope."

"Fine life." The motor cycle was attracting little of the recruiting officer's attention now, for he was a recruiting officer, and engaged in one of the most practical phases of his work.

"Them soldiers have a pretty easy life, don't they?" Evidently the boy was becoming interested.

The recruiting officer laid down his tools, pulled out a pipe, and sat down comfortably under a small sycamore tree at the roadside.

"Not so very easy," he replied, "but interesting and exciting." He paused for a minute to scrutinize the prospective recruit more closely. To his experienced eye the boy appeared desirable. Slouchy, dirty, and lazy-looking, perhaps; but there were nevertheless good muscles and a strong body under those ragged overalls. The corporal launched into his story.

For twenty minutes the boy listened open-mouthed to the stories of post life, where baseball, football, and boxing divided the time with drilling; of mess-halls where a fellow could eat all he wanted to, free; of good-fellowship and fraternal pride in the organization; of the pleasant evenings in the amusement rooms in quarters. And then of the life of the big world, of which the boy had only dreamed; of the Western plains, of Texas, the snowy ridges of the great Rockies, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, the Philippines, Hawaii, the strange glamour of the tropics, the great wildernesses of the frozen North.

"It seems 'most like as I'd like to join," was the timid venture.

"What's your name?"

"Steve Bishop."

"All right, Steve, come in and see me the next time you're in town," said the corporal, rising. "We'll talk it over."

And, mounting his motor cycle, he was gone down the road in a whirl of red dust. Nor did the farmer boy think to wonder at the sudden recovery of the apparently stalled machine.

"Missionary work," explains the corporal. "We never beg 'em to join; but we do sort of give 'em the idea. Like joinin' the Masons, you know," he winked, giving me the grip.

So it happened that Steve Bishop mounted the stairs that day, resolved to join the army if they would take him.

In the small, bare, but immaculately clean room at the head of the stairs he found his friend the corporal banging away at a typewriter. "How are you, Steve? Glad to see you," was the welcome. "Sit down a minute, and we'll talk."

The soldier finished his page, lit his pipe again, and leisurely swung round in his chair.

"Think you'll like to soldier with us?" he said.

Unconsciously the boy appreciated the compliment; it was flattering to be considered on a basis of equality with this clean-cut, rugged man of the wide world.

"I reckon so," he replied, almost timidly.

"Well, how old are you, Steve?"

"Twenty-one." The corporal nodded approval. That was all right, then; no tedious formality of securing signed permission from parent or guardian was necessary.

Then began a string of personal questions as to previous employment, education, details of physical condition, moral record (for the army will have no ex-jailbirds), etc., and finally the question, "Why do you want to join?"

"They don't know why I ask that," says the corporal, "but I have a mighty good reason. From the way a boy answers I can decide which branch of the service he ought to be connected with. If he wants to be a soldier just for travel and adventure, I advise the infantry or the cavalry; but if he seriously wants to learn and study, I recommend him to the coast artillery or the engineers."

Then comes the physical examination, a vigorous but not exacting course of sprouts designed to find out if the applicant is capable of violent exertion and to discover any minor weaknesses; an examination of eyes, ears, teeth, and nose; and, finally, a cursory scrutiny for functional disorders.

"I'll take you, Steve," the corporal finally says. "In about a week we'll send you to the barracks."

"But what am I goin' to do till then? I ain't got a cent."

"Don't worry about that. You'll eat and sleep at Mrs. Barrows's,"—naming a good, clean boarding-house in the town, the owner of which has a yearly contract with the Government to take care of just such embryo recruits; "in the daytime you can hang around town, and the police won't bother you if you behave yourself. If they call you for loafin' tell them you're waitin' to get into the army."

In a week the district recruiting officer, a young lieutenant, drops in on his regular circuit. The men who have been accepted by the non-commissioned officer are put through their paces again, and so expert is the corporal in judging good material that none of Steve's group of eight are rejected.

"All right," says the corporal when the lieutenant has gone; "here's your tickets to the training station at Columbus, Ohio, and twenty-eight cents apiece for coffee on the way. In these boxes you'll find four big, healthy lunches for each one of you. That'll keep you until you get to Columbus."

One of the new recruits is given charge of the form ticket issued by the railway expressly for the Government; is told that when meal-time comes he can get off the train with the others and for fifty cents buy a big pail of hot coffee for the bunch at the station lunch-room. Then the corporal takes them all down to the train, tells them briefly but plainly what is expected in the way of conduct from a soldier, and winds up with the admonition: "And, boys, remember this first of all; the first duty of a soldier is this: do what you're told to do, do it without question, and do it quick. Good-bye."

In twenty-four hours Steve and his companions are at the training station, have taken the oath of allegiance, and are safely and well on their way to full membership in the family of Uncle Sam.



CHAPTER VI

WRITING THE ARTICLE

VALUE OF A PLAN. Just as a builder would hesitate to erect a house without a carefully worked-out plan, so a writer should be loath to begin an article before he has outlined it fully. In planning a building, an architect considers how large a house his client desires, how many rooms he must provide, how the space available may best be apportioned among the rooms, and what relation the rooms are to bear to one another. In outlining an article, likewise, a writer needs to determine how long it must be, what material it should include, how much space should be devoted to each part, and how the parts should be arranged. Time spent in thus planning an article is time well spent.

Outlining the subject fully involves thinking out the article from beginning to end. The value of each item of the material gathered must be carefully weighed; its relation to the whole subject and to every part must be considered. The arrangement of the parts is of even greater importance, because much of the effectiveness of the presentation will depend upon a logical development of the thought. In the last analysis, good writing means clear thinking, and at no stage in the preparation of an article is clear thinking more necessary than in the planning of it.

Amateurs sometimes insist that it is easier to write without an outline than with one. It undoubtedly does take less time to dash off a special feature story than it does to think out all of the details and then write it. In nine cases out of ten, however, when a writer attempts to work out an article as he goes along, trusting that his ideas will arrange themselves, the result is far from a clear, logical, well-organized presentation of his subject. The common disinclination to make an outline is usually based on the difficulty that most persons experience in deliberately thinking about a subject in all its various aspects, and in getting down in logical order the results of such thought. Unwillingness to outline a subject generally means unwillingness to think.

THE LENGTH OF AN ARTICLE. The length of an article is determined by two considerations: the scope of the subject, and the policy of the publication for which it is intended. A large subject cannot be adequately treated in a brief space, nor can an important theme be disposed of satisfactorily in a few hundred words. The length of an article, in general, should be proportionate to the size and the importance of the subject.

The deciding factor, however, in fixing the length of an article is the policy of the periodical for which it is designed. One popular publication may print articles from 4000 to 6000 words, while another fixes the limit at 1000 words. It would be quite as bad judgment to prepare a 1000-word article for the former, as it would be to send one of 5000 words to the latter. Periodicals also fix certain limits for articles to be printed in particular departments. One monthly magazine, for instance, has a department of personality sketches which range from 800 to 1200 words in length, while the other articles in this periodical contain from 2000 to 4000 words.

The practice of printing a column or two of reading matter on most of the advertising pages influences the length of articles in many magazines. To obtain an attractive make-up, the editors allow only a page or two of each special article, short story, or serial to appear in the first part of the magazine, relegating the remainder to the advertising pages. Articles must, therefore, be long enough to fill a page or two in the first part of the periodical and several columns on the pages of advertising. Some magazines use short articles, or "fillers," to furnish the necessary reading matter on these advertising pages.

Newspapers of the usual size, with from 1000 to 1200 words in a column, have greater flexibility than magazines in the matter of make-up, and can, therefore, use special feature stories of various lengths. The arrangement of advertisements, even in the magazine sections, does not affect the length of articles. The only way to determine exactly the requirements of different newspapers and magazines is to count the words in typical articles in various departments.

SELECTION AND PROPORTION. After deciding on the length of his article, the writer should consider what main points he will be able to develop in the allotted space. His choice will be guided by his purpose in writing the article. "Is this point essential to the accomplishment of my aim?" is the test he should apply. Whatever is non-essential must be abandoned, no matter how attractive it may be. Having determined upon the essential topics, he next proceeds to estimate their relative value for the development of his theme, so that he may give to each one the space and the prominence that are proportionate to its importance.

ARRANGEMENT OF MATERIAL. The order in which to present the main topics requires thoughtful study. A logical development of a subject by which the reader is led, step by step, from the first sentence to the last in the easiest and most natural way, is the ideal arrangement. An article should march right along from beginning to end, without digressing or marking time. The straight line, in writing as in drawing, is the shortest distance between two points.

In narration the natural order is chronological. To arouse immediate interest, however, a writer may at times deviate from this order by beginning with a striking incident and then going back to relate the events that led up to it. This method of beginning in medias res is a device well recognized in fiction. In exposition the normal order is to proceed from the known to the unknown, to dovetail the new facts into those already familiar to the reader.

When a writer desires by his article to create certain convictions in the minds of his readers, he should consider the arrangement best calculated to lead them to form such conclusions. The most telling effects are produced, not by stating his own conclusions as strongly as possible, but rather by skillfully inducing his readers to reach those conclusions by what they regard as their own mental processes. That is, if readers think that the convictions which they have reached are their own, and were not forced upon them, their interest in these ideas is likely to be much deeper and more lasting. It is best, therefore, to understate conclusions or to omit them entirely. In all such cases the writer's aim in arranging his material should be to direct his readers' train of thought so that, after they have finished the last sentence, they will inevitably form the desired conclusion.

With the main topics arranged in the best possible order, the writer selects from his available material such details as he needs to amplify each point. Examples, incidents, statistics, and other particulars he jots down under each of the chief heads. The arrangement of these details, in relation both to the central purpose and to each other, requires some consideration, for each detail must have its logical place in the series. Having thus ordered his material according to a systematic plan, he has before him a good working outline to guide him in writing.

PLANNING A TYPICAL ARTICLE. The process of gathering, evaluating, and organizing material may best be shown by a concrete example. The publication in a New York paper of a news story to the effect that the first commencement exercises were about to be held in the only factory school ever conducted in the city, suggested to a special feature writer the possibility of preparing an article on the work of the school. To obtain the necessary material, he decided to attend the exercises and to interview both the principal of the school and the head of the factory. In thinking over the subject beforehand, he jotted down these points upon which to secure data: (1) the origin and the purpose of the school; (2) its relation to the work of the factory; (3) the methods of instruction; (4) the kind of pupils and the results accomplished for them; (5) the cost of the school; (6) its relation to the public school system. At the close of the graduation exercises, he secured the desired interviews with the teacher in charge and with the head of the firm, copied typical examples from the exhibition of the pupils' written work, and jotted down notes on the decoration and furnishing of the schoolroom. Since the commencement exercises had been reported in the newspapers, he decided to refer to them only incidentally in his story.

After considering the significance of the work of the school and what there was about it that would appeal to different classes of readers, he decided to write his story for the magazine section of the New York newspaper that he believed was most generally read by business men who operated factories similar to the one described. His purpose he formulated thus: "I intend to show how illiterate immigrant girls can be transformed quickly into intelligent, efficient American citizens by means of instruction in a factory school; this I wish to do by explaining what has been accomplished in this direction by one New York factory." He hoped that his article would lead readers to encourage the establishment of similar schools as a means of Americanizing alien girls. The expository type of article containing concrete examples, description, and interviews he concluded to adopt as the form best suited to his subject.

The average length of the special feature stories, in the magazine section of the paper to which he intended to submit the article, proved to be about 2000 words. In order to accomplish his purpose in an article of this length, he selected five main topics to develop: (1) the reasons that led the firm to establish the school; (2) the results obtained; (3) the methods of instruction; (4) the cost of the school; (5) the schoolroom and its equipment.

"What part of my material will make the strongest appeal to the readers of this newspaper?" was the question he asked himself, in order to select the best point with which to begin his article. The feature that would attract the most attention, he believed, was the striking results obtained by the school in a comparatively short time.

In reviewing the several types of beginnings to determine which would best suit the presentation of these remarkable results, he found two possibilities: first, the summary lead with a striking statement for the first sentence; and second, a concrete example of the results as shown by one of the pupils. He found, however, that he did not have sufficient data concerning any one girl to enable him to tell the story of her transformation as an effective concrete case. He determined, therefore, to use a striking statement as the feature of a summary lead.

From his interview with the head of the firm, and from a formal statement of the purpose of the school printed on the commencement program, he obtained the reasons why the school had been established. These he decided to give verbatim in direct quotation form.

To show most interestingly the results of the teaching, he picked out four of the six written exercises that he had copied from those exhibited on the walls of the schoolroom. The first of these dealt with American history, the second with thrift and business methods, and the third with personal hygiene. For the fourth he selected the work of a woman of forty whose struggles to get into the school and to learn to write the teacher had described to him.

Figures on the cost of the school he had secured from the head of the firm according to his preliminary plan. These covered the expense both to the employers and to the city.

His description of the schoolroom he could base on his own observation, supplemented by the teacher's explanations.

For his conclusion he determined to summarize the results of this experiment in education as the firm stated them on the commencement program, and to give his own impression of the success of the school. Thus he sought to give final reinforcement to the favorable impression of the school that he wished his article to create, with the aim of leading readers to reach the conclusion that such schools should be encouraged as invaluable aids to the Americanization of alien girls.

OUTLINING THE ARTICLE. Having selected the main topics and having decided in a general way how he intended to develop each one, he then fixed upon the best order in which to present them.

After his introduction giving the striking results of the school in a summary lead, it seemed logical to explain the firm's purpose in undertaking this unusual enterprise. He accordingly jotted down for his second topic, "Purpose in establishing the school," with the two sub-topics, "Firm's statement on program" and "Head of firm's statement in interview."

The methods of-instruction by which the remarkable success was attained, impressed him as the next important point. His readers, having learned the results and the purpose of the school, would naturally want to know by what methods these girls had been transformed in so short a time. As his third topic, therefore, he put down, "Methods of instruction."

For his fourth division he had to choose between (1) the results as shown by the pupils' written work, (2) the cost of the school, and (3) the schoolroom and its equipment. From the point of view of logical order either the results or the schoolroom might have been taken up next, but, as all the explanations of the methods of instruction were quoted directly in the words of the teacher, and as the pupils' exercises were to be given verbatim, he thought it best to place his own description of the schoolroom between these two quoted parts. Greater variety, he foresaw, would result from such an arrangement. "The schoolroom," then, became the fourth topic.

Since the pupils' work which he planned to reproduce had been exhibited on the walls of the schoolroom, the transition from the description of the room to the exhibits on the walls was an easy and logical one.

By this process of elimination, the cost of the school became the sixth division, to be followed by the summary conclusion.

He then proceeded to fill in the details needed to develop each of these main topics, always keeping his general purpose in mind. The result of this organization of material was the following outline:

I. Summary lead 1. Striking results—time required 2. Commencement—when and where held 3. Graduates—number, nationality, certificates 4. School—when and where established 5. Example to other firms

II. Purpose of school 1. Firm's statement on commencement program 2. Head of firm's statement in interview

III. Methods of instruction 1. Practical education 2. Letter writing—geography, postal regulations, correspondence 3. Arithmetic—money, expense accounts, reports of work 4. Civics—history, biography, holidays, citizenship, patriotism 5. Personal hygiene—cleanliness, physical culture, first aid, food 6. Cotton goods—growing cotton, spinning, shipping 7. Means of communication—telephone, directory, map of city, routes of travel, telephone book 8. Study outside of classroom

IV. The schoolroom 1. Location—floor space, windows 2. Decorations—flowers, motto, photograph of Miss Jessie Wilson 3. Furnishings—piano, phonograph 4. Library—reading to the girls, The Promised Land, Mary Antin, library cards

V. Results shown by pupils' work 1. Italian's theme and her remarkable progress 2. Russian's essay on saving 3. Polish girl's exercise about picture 4. Woman of forty and her work

VI. Cost of school 1. Expense to firm 2. Cost to Board of Education—salaries and supplies 3. Entire cost per pupil 4. Returns to firm outweigh cost, says employer

VII. Summary conclusion 1. Results quoted from program 2. Impression made by girls receiving diplomas

THE COMPLETED ARTICLE. Since the establishment of a school in a factory was the novel feature of the enterprise, he worked out a title based on this idea, with a sub-title presenting the striking results accomplished by the school. The completed article follows, with a brief analysis of the methods used in developing the outline.

TAKING THE SCHOOL TO THE FACTORY

HOW ALIEN GIRLS ARE BEING CHANGED INTO INTELLIGENT AMERICAN WORKERS BY INSTRUCTION DURING WORKING HOURS

In from twenty to thirty-five weeks I. SUMMARY LEAD an illiterate immigrant girl can be 1. Striking results transformed into an intelligent, efficient Striking statement American citizen, in this city, in two sentence to without interfering with the daily work avoid unwieldy sentence. by which she earns her living. Only forty-five minutes a day in a factory schoolroom is required to accomplish such striking results.

This has just been demonstrated at 2. Commencement the first commencement of the only Timeliness brought school conducted in a New York factory. out immediately after The classes have been held on striking statement one of the upper floors of the white goods factory of D. E. Sicher & Co., 49 West 21st Street, where the graduation Address has local exercises were held last Thursday interest evening.

Forty girls—Italians, Poles, Russians, 3. Graduates Hungarians, Austrians among Note concrete details the number—received the first "certificates of literacy" ever issued by the Board of Education. Twenty weeks Striking results ago many of these young women could emphasized by device not speak English; many of them had of contrast never been to school a day in their lives. Every one present on Thursday Impression on audience night felt that this was indeed a commencement of remarkable for these girls. results

It is due to the instruction of Miss Teacher's name has Florence Meyers, formerly a public local interest school teacher, that the girls can now speak English, write good letters, make out money-orders, cash checks, and send telegrams. They have also been Additional concrete taught the principles of our government, details of striking the importance of personal hygiene, results and the processes by which cotton goods used in their work are manufactured.

The school was organized this year 4. School at the suggestion of Dudley E. Sicher, head of the firm, in cooeperation with the Board of Education, and has been under the supervision of Miss Lizzie E. Principal and school Rector, Public School No. 4, Manhattan. have local interest.

What has been accomplished in this 5. Example to other factory, which is the largest white firms goods muslin underwear plant in the Veiled suggestion to world, will doubtless serve as an example readers to be followed by other firms.

Its purpose the firm expresses in II. PURPOSE OF SCHOOL these words: "To hasten assimilation 1. Firm's statement necessary to national unity, to promote industrial betterment, by reducing Statement in general the friction caused by failure to comprehend terms directions, and to decrease the waste and loss of wage incidental to the illiterate worker."

"When a girl understands English 2. Head of firm's statement and has been taught American business and factory methods," says Mr. Sicher, "she doesn't hesitate and Statement in concrete blunder; she understands what she is terms told and she does it.

"Intelligent employees do much better work than illiterate ones, and since we can afford to pay them better wages, they are much more contented. From a business point of view, the school is a good investment."

The instruction that has accomplished III. METHODS OF INSTRUCTION such remarkable results has been eminently practical. "There 1. Practical education was no time to spend in teaching the girls anything but the most necessary Teacher's statement things," explains Miss Meyers, "for I of her problem could have each one of them for only forty-five minutes a day, and there was much to be done in that time.

"Here was a girl, for example, who Problem concretely could hardly say 'good morning.' shown Here was another who had never written a word in her life, either in English or in any other language. The problem was how to give each of them what she most needed in the short time allotted Statement of general every day. This essentially plan practical training I organized under several subjects, each of which was broadly inclusive.

"When I undertook to teach letter 2. Letter writing writing, it meant teaching the English language, as well as writing and spelling. It meant teaching the geography of the country, the postal regulations, and the forms of business and personal correspondence.

"In teaching arithmetic, I use money 3. Arithmetic and show them how to make change by means of addition, subtraction, and division. I also ask them to keep personal expense accounts and to make out reports of the work that they do.

"Civics included American history, 4. Civics the lives of our statesmen—for these girls are so eager to be true Americans that they want to know about our great men—the origin of legal holidays, the merits of our system of government, the meaning of citizenship, and the essence of patriotism.

"Hygiene is another important 5. Personal hygiene subject. American standards of living, personal cleanliness, and sanitary regulations have to be emphasized. To aid in counteracting the effects of long hours at the sewing machines, we have physical culture exercises. Instruction in first aid measures is also given so that they will know what to do in case of an accident. The nutritive value of different foods in relation to their cost is discussed to enable them to maintain their health by a proper diet.

"As these young women are engaged 6. Cotton goods in making muslin underwear, it seemed desirable for them to know where cotton grows, how it is spun, where the mills are and how it is shipped to New York. After they understand the various processes through which the material goes before it reaches them, they take much more interest in their work, as a part of the manufacture of cotton goods into clothing."

The use of the telephone, the telegraph, 7. Means of communication the subway, surface lines, and railways is another subject of instruction. A dummy 'phone, telegraph Method of presentation blanks, the city directory, maps with in this paragraph routes of rapid transit lines, and the changed for telephone book, are some of the practical variety laboratory apparatus and textbooks that are employed.

"We encourage them to learn for 8. Study outside of themselves outside of school hours classroom many of the necessary things that we have not time for in the classroom," says the teacher.

To reach the schoolroom in which IV. THE SCHOOLROOM this work has been carried on, you take 1. Location the elevator to the last floor but one of Note effect of using the factory building. There you find "you" only a portion of the floor space cleared for tables and chairs. It is a clean, airy room with big windows opening on the street, made gay with boxes of flowers.

Flags of many nations about the 2. Decorations room appropriately represent the many nationalities among the pupils. On Note character of one wall hangs a card with the legend: decorations selected

Four things come not back: The spoken word The sped arrow The past life The neglected opportunity.

A photograph of Miss Jessie Wilson, now Mrs. Francis B. Sayre, occupies the space between the two windows. The picture was presented to the girls by Miss Wilson herself, just before she This shows enterprising was married, when a party of them with spirit on the Miss Meyers went to Washington to part of teacher, girls, give her a white petticoat they had and firm made themselves, as a wedding present. After Miss Wilson had shown them through the White House and they had seen her wedding presents, she gave them this signed photograph.

A piano and a phonograph at one 3. Furnishings end of the room make it possible for the girls to enjoy dancing during the noon hours on three days of the week, and to have musicals on other occasions.

Shelves filled with books line the 4. Library walls of a smaller office room opening off the schoolroom. On two days of the week during the noon hour, the teacher read aloud to the girls until they were able to read for themselves. Then they were permitted to take books home with them. Besides this, they have been encouraged to use the public libraries, after being shown how to make out applications for library cards.

"One girl is reading 'The Promised Concrete example Land,' by Mary Antin," Miss Meyers has "human interest," tells you, "and thinks it is a wonderful as related in book. She was so much interested in the teacher's own it that I asked her to tell the others words about it. Although a little shy at first, she soon forgot herself in her eagerness to relate Miss Antin's experiences. She told the story with such dramatic effect that she quite carried away her classmates. If we had done no more than to teach this girl to read a book that meant so much to her, I believe our school would have justified its existence."

Mary Antin herself accepted the Is this paragraph girls' invitation to attend the graduation out of logical order? exercises, and made a short address.

The pupils' written work was exhibited V. RESULTS SHOWN BY on the walls of the room on the occasion PUPILS' WORK of the exercises, and showed conclusively the proficiency that they have attained.

The greatest progress made by any 1. Italian's theme and of the pupils was probably that of an progress Italian girl. Before coming to this country, she had attended school and Example of greatest besides this she had been teaching her progress is put father at night whatever she had first learned during the day. Her short essay on her adopted country read:

This country is the United States Note use of narrow of America. It is the land of freedom measure without and liberty, because the people quotation marks for govern themselves. All citizens love examples quoted their country, because they know that this freedom was earned by men who gave their lives for it. The United States is in North America. North America is one of the greatest divisions of the earth. North America was discovered on October 12, 1492, by Christopher Columbus.

The fact that Columbus, one of her Is this comment by countrymen, had discovered the country the writer effective? in which she and her father had found a new life, doubtless appealed to her keen imagination.

That a Russian girl appreciated the 2. Russian's essay on lessons she had received in the value of saving opening a dime-savings account, is indicated by this composition:

I must save money out of my earnings to put in the bank. I know that money is safe in the bank.

To deposit means to put money in the bank.

Cashing a cheque means changing a cheque for money.

How practical lessons in personal hygiene 3. Polish girl's essay may be emphasized in connection with the teaching of composition was illustrated in an essay of a Polish girl written under a picture of a woman combing her hair:

She wished to comb her hair. She takes the comb in her hand. She combs her hair. She wishes to brush her hair. She takes the brush in her hand. She brushes her hair. She combs and brushes her hair every morning. She washes her hair often with soap and water.

The pathetic eagerness of one woman 4. Woman of forty of forty to learn to read and write was and her work told by Miss Meyers in connection with one of the pieces of work exhibited.

"She was an old woman; at least she "Human interest" seems to me to be over fifty, although appeal heightened she gave her age as only forty," explained by quoting teacher the teacher. "She couldn't verbatim read or even write her name. Despite her age, she begged for a long time to be permitted to enter the school, but there were so many young girls who desired to learn that they were given the preference. She pleaded so hard that finally I asked to have her admitted on trial."

"It was hard work to teach her," Progress in penmanship continued Miss Meyers as she pointed could not be to some of the woman's writing. The shown by quoting first attempts were large, irregular exercise letters that sprawled over the sheet like the work of a child when it begins to write. After twenty weeks of struggle, her work took on a form that, although still crude, was creditable for one who had never written until she was over forty. "Her joy at her success was great enough to repay me many times over for my efforts to teach her," remarked Miss Meyers.

The exact cost to the firm of conducting VI. COST OF SCHOOL the school, including the wages 1. Expense to firm paid for the time spent by the girls in the classroom, has been itemized by Mr. Sicher for the year just closed, as follows:

Floor space $175.00 Short table of figures Rent, light, and heat 105.00 is comprehensible Janitor 357.00 and not uninteresting Wages at 17c an hr., 40 girls 375.00 ———- Total cost, 40 girls $672.00 Total cost per girl 16.80

The Board of Education, for its part 2. Cost to Board of of the school, paid out $560 for the Education teacher's salary and for supplies. This was an expense of $14.80 for each pupil.

The entire cost for educating each 3. Entire cost per pupil one of the forty girl workers, therefore, was only $31.60.

That this money has been well spent 4. Returns outweigh is the opinion of the employer, for the cost school work increases the efficiency in the factory sufficiently to make up for the time taken out of working hours.

"I would rather have these girls in Head of firm's statement my employ whom I can afford to pay given to convince from ten to twenty dollars a week," readers declares Mr. Sicher, "than many more whom I have to pay low wages simply because they aren't worth higher ones. From a business point of view, it saves space and space is money."

That the result has been what the VII. SUMMARY CONCLUSION firm had anticipated in establishing the school is shown by the following 1. Results quoted from statement which was made on the commencement program program: "It is the present belief of the firm that the workers Note appeal of who have been thus trained have "efficiency" to gained from 20 to 70 per cent in efficiency." practical readers

How much the girls themselves have 2. Impression given gained more vital to them even than by girls efficiency was very evident to everyone Note patriotic appeal who looked into their faces as they received in closing the certificates that recognize phrase, which was them as "Literate American Citizens." a happy choice.

ANOTHER ARTICLE ON THE SAME SUBJECT. This commencement at the factory school furnished another writer, Nixola Greeley Smith, with material for a special feature story which was sent out by a syndicate, the Newspaper Enterprise Association, for publication in several hundred newspapers. Her story contains only 375 words and is thus less than one fifth the length of the other article. The author centers the interest in one of the pupils, and shows the value of the school in terms of this girl's experience. The girl's own account of what the school has meant to her makes a strong "human interest" appeal. By thus developing one concrete example effectively, the author is able to arouse more interest in the results of the school than she would have done if in the same space she had attempted to give a greater number of facts about it. Unlike the longer article, her story probably would not suggest to the reader the possibility of undertaking a similar enterprise, because it does not give enough details about the organization and methods of the school to show how the idea could be applied elsewhere.

The beginning of the shorter story was doubtless suggested by the presence at the exercises of Mary Antin, the author of "The Promised Land," who addressed the girls. The first sentence of it piques our curiosity to know how "the promised land" has kept its promise, and the story proceeds to tell us. The article, with an analysis of its main points, follows:

WONDERFUL AMERICA! THINKS LITTLE AUSTRIAN WHO GRADUATES FROM FACTORY SCHOOL

"The promised land" has kept its I. STORY OF REBECCA promise to Rebecca Meyer! MEYER

Eight months ago an illiterate Austrian 1. Striking statement immigrant girl, unable to speak or beginning write English, went to work in a New Note effective use of York garment factory. device of contrast

To-day, speaking and writing fluently the language of her adopted country, Second and third proficient in other studies, she paragraphs show proudly cherishes the first "certificate striking results in of literacy" issued by a factory—a one concrete case. factory which has paid her for going to school during working hours!

It was Rebecca Meyer who received 2. Commencement this first certificate, at the graduation Note that Rebecca exercises held on the top floor of the is the central figure big women's wear factory of D.E. Sicher & Co. It was Rebecca Meyer who delivered the address of welcome to the members of the board of education, the members of the firm, her fellow employees, and all the others gathered at these exercises—the first of Dash used to set off their kind ever held in any commercial unique element establishment, anywhere!

"Isn't it wonderful!" she said. 3. Rebecca's statement "When I came from Austria, I hoped Slightly unidiomatic to find work. That was all. How I English is suggestive should learn to speak the English language, I did not know. It might take me years, I thought. That I should go to school every day, while I worked—who could dream of such a thing? It could not be in any other country except America."

Dudley E. Sicher, head of the firm, II. STORY OF THE SCHOOL in whose workrooms a regularly organized 1. Origin of school class of the New York public Note method of schools has held its sessions all winter, introducing head of firm stood smiling in the background. Mr. Sicher is president of the Cotton Goods Manufacturers' Association. It was he who conceived the idea, about a year ago, of increasing the efficiency of his women employees by giving them an education free of cost, during working hours.

"One of the first and most noticeable 2. Results of school results of the factory school has Statement of head been a marked decrease in the friction of firm and the waste of time caused by the inability of employees to comprehend directions. A girl who understands English, and has been enabled thereby to school herself in factory methods and conditions, doesn't hesitate and blunder; she understands, and does. And what then? Why, higher pay."

No wonder Rebecca Meyer is grateful III. CONCLUSION for the 45 minutes a day in which Rebecca again made button-sewing has given place to study—no the central figure wonder she thinks America must Appeal to reader's be the wonderland of all the world! pride in his country.

ARTICLES COMPOSED OF UNITS. The study of the two special feature stories on the factory school shows how articles of this type are built up out of a number of units, such as examples, incidents, and statistics. A similar study of the other types of articles exemplified in Chapter V will show that they also are made up of various kinds of units. Again, if we turn to the types of beginnings illustrated in Chapter VII, we shall find that they, too, are units, which in some cases might have been used in the body of the article instead of as an introduction. Since, then, every division of a subject may be regarded as a unit that is complete in itself whatever its position in the article, each of the several kinds of units may be studied separately. For this purpose we may discuss five common types of units: (1) examples, (2) incidents, (3) statistics, (4) scientific and technical processes, and (5) recipes and directions.

METHODS OF DEVELOPING UNITS. In order to present these units most effectively, and to vary the form of presentation when occasion demands, a writer needs to be familiar with the different methods of developing each one of these types. Four common methods of handling material within these units are: (1) exposition, narration, or description in the writer's own words; (2) dialogue; (3) the interview; (4) direct or indirect quotation. Statistics and recipes may also be given in tabular form.

When a unit may be developed with equal effectiveness by any one of several methods, a writer should choose the one that gives variety to his article. If, for example, the units just before and after the one under consideration are to be in direct quotation, he should avoid any form that involves quoted matter.

EXAMPLES. In all types of articles the concrete example is the commonest and most natural means of explaining a general idea. To most readers, for instance, the legal provisions of an old age pension law would be neither comprehensible nor interesting, but a story showing how a particular old man had been benefited by the law would appeal to practically every one. That is, to explain the operation and advantages of such a law, we give, as one unit, the concrete example of this old man. Actual examples are preferable to hypothetical ones, but the latter may occasionally be used when real cases are not available. Imaginary instances may be introduced by such phrases as, "If, for example," or "Suppose, for instance, that."

To explain why companies that insure persons against loss of their jewelry are compelled to investigate carefully every claim filed with them, a writer in the Buffalo News gave several cases in which individuals supposed that they were entitled to payment for losses although subsequent investigation showed that they had not actually sustained any loss. One of these cases, that given below, he decided to relate in his own words, without conversation or quotation, although he might have quoted part of the affidavit, or might have given the dialogue between the detective and the woman who had lost the pin. No doubt he regarded the facts themselves, together with the suspense as to the outcome of the search, as sufficiently interesting to render unnecessary any other device for creating interest.

Another woman of equal wealth and equally undoubted honesty lost a horseshoe diamond pin. She and her maid looked everywhere, as they thought, but failed to find it. So she made her "proof of loss" in affidavit form and asked the surety company with which she carried the policy on all her jewelry to replace the article.

She said in her affidavit that she had worn the pin in a restaurant a few nights before and had lost it that night, either in the restaurant or on her way there or back. The restaurant management had searched for it, the restaurant help had been questioned closely, the automobile used that night had been gone over carefully, and the woman's home had been ransacked. Particular attention had been given to the gown worn by the woman on that occasion; every inch of it had been examined with the idea that the pin, falling from its proper place, had caught in the folds.

The surety company assigned one of its detectives to look for the pin. From surface indications the loss had the appearance of a theft—an "inside job." The company, however, asked that its detective be allowed to search the woman's house itself. The request was granted readily. The detective then inquired for the various gowns which the woman had worn for dress occasions within the preceding several weeks.

This line of investigation the owner of the pin considered a waste of time, since she remembered distinctly wearing the pin to the restaurant on that particular night, and her husband also remembered seeing it that night and put his memory in affidavit form. But the detective persisted and with the help of a maid examined carefully those other gowns.

In the ruffle at the bottom of one of them, worn for the last time at least a week before the visit to the restaurant, she found the pin. The woman and her husband simply had been mistaken—honestly mistaken. She hadn't worn the pin to the restaurant, and her husband hadn't seen it that night. The error was unintentional, but it came very near costing the surety company a large sum of money.

The benefits of a newly established clinic for animals were demonstrated in a special feature article in the New York Times by the selection of several animal patients as typical cases. Probably the one given below did not seem to the writer to be sufficiently striking if only the bare facts were given, and so he undertook to create sympathy by describing the poor, whimpering little dog and the distress of the two young women. By arousing the sympathies of the readers, he was better able to impress them with the benefits of the clinic.

The other day Daisy, a little fox terrier, was one of the patients. She was a pretty little thing, three months old, with a silky coat and big, pathetic eyes. She was escorted to the clinic by two hatless young women, in shawls, and three children. The children waited outside in the reception room, standing in a line, grinning self-consciously, while the women followed Daisy into the examination room. There she was gently muzzled with a piece of bandage, and the doctor examined her. There was something the matter with one hind leg, and the poor little animal whimpered pitifully, as dogs do, while the doctor searched for a broken bone. It was too much for one of the women. She left the room, and, standing outside the door, put her fingers in her ears, while the tears rolled down her cheeks.

"Well, I wouldn't cry for a dog," said a workman, putting in some S.P.C.A. receiving boxes, with a grin, while the three children—and children are always more or less little savages—grinned sympathetically. But it was a very real sorrow for Daisy's mistress.

There was no reason for alarm; it was only a sprain, caused by her mistress' catching the animal by the leg when she was giving her a bath. Her friends were told to take her home, bathe the leg with warm water, and keep her as quiet as possible. Her mistress, still with a troubled face, wrapped her carefully in the black shawl she was wearing, so that only the puppy's little white head and big, soft eyes peeped out, and the small procession moved away.

In a special feature story designed to show how much more intelligently the first woman judge in this country could deal with cases of delinquent girls in the juvenile court than could the ordinary police court judge, a writer selected several cases that she had disposed of in her characteristic way. The first case, which follows, he decided could best be reported verbatim, as by that method he could show most clearly the kindly attitude of the judge in dealing with even the least appreciative of girls.

The first case brought in the other day was that of a girl of 16, who hated her home and persisted in running away, sometimes to a married sister, and sometimes to a friend. She was accompanied by her mother and older sister, both with determined lower jaws and faces as hard as flint. She swaggered into the room in an impudent way to conceal the fact that her bravado was leaving her.

"Ella," said Miss Bartelme, looking up from her desk, "why didn't you tell me the truth when you came in here the other day? You did not tell me where you had been. Don't you understand that it is much easier for me to help you if you speak the truth right away?"

Ella hung her head and said nothing. The older sister scowled at the girl and muttered something to the mother.

"No," refused the mother, on being questioned. "We don't want nothing more to do with her."

"Humph," snorted Ella, "you needn't think I want to come back. I don't want nothing more to do with you, either."

Miss Bartelme often lets the family fight things out among themselves; for in this way, far more than by definite questioning, she learns the attitude of the girl and the family toward each other, and indirectly arrives at most of the actual facts of the case.

"How would you like to go into a good home where some one would love you and care for you?" asked the judge.

"I don't want nobody to love me."

"Why, Ella, wouldn't you like to have a kind friend, somebody you could confide in and go walking with and who would be interested in you?"

"I don't want no friends. I just want to be left alone."

"Well, Ella," said the judge, patiently, ignoring her sullenness, "I think we shall send you back to Park Ridge for a while. But if you ever change your mind about wanting friends let us know, because we'll be here and shall feel the same way as we do now about it."

To explain to readers of the Kansas City Star how a bloodhound runs down a criminal, a special feature writer asked them to imagine that a crime had been committed at a particular corner in that city and that a bloodhound had been brought to track the criminal; then he told them what would happen if the crime were committed, first, when the streets were deserted, or second, when they were crowded. In other words, he gave two imaginary instances to illustrate the manner in which bloodhounds are able to follow a trail. Obviously these two hypothetical cases are sufficiently plausible and typical to explain the idea.

If a bloodhound is brought to the scene of the crime within a reasonable length of time after it has been committed, and the dog has been properly trained, he will unfailingly run down the criminal, provided, of course, that thousands of feet have not tramped over the ground.

If, for instance, a crime were committed at Twelfth and Walnut streets at 3 o'clock in the morning, when few persons are on the street, a well-trained bloodhound would take the trail of the criminal at daybreak and stick to it with a grim determination that appears to be uncanny, and he would follow the trail as swiftly as if the hunted man had left his shadow all along the route.

But let the crime be committed at noon when the section is alive with humanity and remain undiscovered until after dark, then the bloodhound is put at a disadvantage and his wonderful powers would fail him, no doubt.

INCIDENTS. Narrative articles, such as personal experience stories, confessions, and narratives in the third person, consist almost entirely of incidents. Dialogue and description are very frequently employed in relating incidents, even when the greater part of the incident is told in the writer's own words. The incidents given as examples of narrative beginnings on pages 135-37 are sufficient to illustrate the various methods of developing incidents as units.

STATISTICS. To make statistical facts comprehensible and interesting is usually a difficult problem for the inexperienced writer. Masses of figures generally mean very little to the average reader. Unless the significance of statistics can be quickly grasped, they are almost valueless as a means of explanation. One method of simplifying them is to translate them into terms with which the average reader is familiar. This may often be done by reducing large figures to smaller ones. Instead of saying, for example, that a press prints 36,000 newspapers an hour, we may say that it prints 10 papers a second, or 600 a minute. To most persons 36,000 papers an hour means little more than a large number, but 10 papers and one second are figures sufficiently small to be understood at a glance. Statistics sometimes appear less formidable if they are incorporated in an interview or in a conversation.

In undertaking to explain the advantages of a cooeperative community store, a writer was confronted with the problem of handling a considerable number of figures. The first excerpt below shows how he managed to distribute them through several paragraphs, thus avoiding any awkward massing of figures. In order to present a number of comparative prices, he used the concrete case, given below, of an investigator making a series of purchases at the store.

(1)

Here's the way the manager of the community store started. He demonstrated to his neighbors by actual figures that they were paying anywhere from $2 to $8 a week more for their groceries and supplies than they needed to. This represented the middlemen's profits.

He then proposed that if a hundred families would pay him regularly 50 cents a week, he would undertake to supply them with garden truck, provisions and meats at wholesale prices. To clinch the demonstration he showed that an average family would save this 50-cent weekly fee in a few days' purchases.

* * * * *

There is no difference in appearance between the community store and any other provision store. There is no difference in the way you buy your food. The only difference is that you pay 50 cents a week on a certain day each week and buy food anywhere from 15 to 40 per cent less than at the commercial, non-cooeperative retail stores.

(2)

The other day an investigator from the department of agriculture went to the Washington community store to make an experiment. He paid his 50-cent weekly membership fee and made some purchases. He bought a 10-cent carton of oatmeal for 8 cents; a 10-cent loaf of bread for 8 cents; one-half peck of string beans for 20 cents, instead of for 30 cents, the price in the non-cooeperative stores; three pounds of veal for 58 cents instead of 80 cents; a half dozen oranges for 13 cents instead of the usual price of from 20 to 25 cents. His total purchases amounted to $1.32, and the estimated saving was 49 cents—within 1 cent of the entire weekly fee.

Since to the average newspaper reader it would not mean much to say that the cost of the public schools amounted to several hundred thousand dollars a year, a special feature writer calculated the relation of the school appropriation to the total municipal expenditure and then presented the results as fractions of a dollar, thus:

Of every dollar that each taxpayer in this city paid to the city treasurer last year, 45 cents was spent on the public schools. This means that nearly one-half of all the taxes were expended on giving boys and girls an education.

Of that same dollar only 8 cents went to maintain the police department, 12 cents to keep up the fire department, and 13 cents for general expenses of the city offices.

Out of the 45 cents used for school purposes, over one-half, or 24 cents, was paid as salaries to teachers and principals. Only 8 cents went for operation, maintenance, and similar expenses.

How statistics may be effectively embodied in an interview is demonstrated by the following excerpt from a special feature story on a workmen's compensation law administered by a state industrial board:

Judge J.B. Vaughn, who is at the head of the board, estimates that the system of settling compensation by means of a commission instead of by the regular courts has saved the state $1,000,000 a year since its inception in 1913. "Under the usual court proceedings," he says, "each case of an injured workman versus his employer costs from $250 to $300. Under the workings of the industrial board the average cost is no more than $20.

"In three and one-half years 8,000 cases have come before us. Nine out of every ten have been adjusted by our eight picked arbitrators, who tour the state, visiting promptly each scene of an accident and adjusting the compensation as quickly as possible. The tenth case, which requires a lengthier or more painstaking hearing, is brought to the board.

"Seven million dollars has been in this time ordered to be paid to injured men and their families. Of this no charge of any sort has been entered against the workers or their beneficiaries. The costs are taken care of by the state. Fully 90 per cent of all the cases are settled within the board, which means that only 10 per cent are carried further into the higher courts for settlement."

PROCESSES. To make scientific and technical processes sufficiently simple to appeal to the layman, is another problem for the writer of popular articles. A narrative-descriptive presentation that enables the reader to visualize and follow the process, step by step, as though it were taking place before his eyes, is usually the best means of making it both understandable and interesting.

In a special feature story on methods of exterminating mosquitoes, a writer in the Detroit News undertook to trace the life history of a mosquito. In order to popularize these scientific details, he describes a "baby mosquito" in a concrete, informal manner, and, as he tells the story of its life, suggests or points out specifically its likeness to a human being.

The baby mosquito is a regular little water bug. You call him a "wiggler" when you see him swimming about in a puddle. His head is wide and flat and his eyes are set well out at the sides, while in front of them he has a pair of cute little horns or feelers. While the baby mosquito is brought up in the water, he is an air-breather and comes to the top to breathe as do frogs and musk-rats and many other water creatures of a higher order.

Like most babies the mosquito larva believes that his mission is to eat as much as he can and grow up very fast. This he does, and if the weather is warm and the food abundant, he soon outgrows his skin. He proceeds to grow a new skin underneath the old one, and when he finds himself protected, he bursts out of his old clothes and comes out in a spring suit. This molting process occurs several times within a week or two, but the last time he takes on another form. He is then called a pupa, and is in a strange transition period during which he does not eat. He now slowly takes on the form of a true mosquito within his pupal skin or shell.

After two or three days, or perhaps five or six, if conditions are not altogether favorable, he feels a great longing within him to rise to something higher. His tiny shell is floating upon the water with his now winged body closely packed within. The skin begins to split along the back and the true baby mosquito starts to work himself out. It is a strenuous task for him and consumes many minutes.

At last he appears and sits dazed and exhausted, floating on his old skin as on a little boat, and slowly working his new wings in the sunlight, as if to try them out before essaying flight. It is a moment of great peril. A passing ripple may swamp his tiny craft and shipwreck him to become the prey of any passing fish or vagrant frog. A swallow sweeping close to the water's surface may gobble him down. Some ruthless city employe may have flooded the surface of the pond with kerosene, the merest touch of which means death to a mosquito. Escaping all of the thousand and one accidents that may befall, he soon rises and hums away seeking whom he may devour.

A mechanical process, that of handling milk at a model dairy farm, was effectively presented by Constance D. Leupp in an article entitled, "The Fight for Clean Milk," printed in the Outlook. By leading "you," the reader, to the spot, as it were, by picturing in detail what "you" would see there, and then by following in story form the course of the milk from one place to another, she succeeded in making the process clear and interesting.

Here at five in the afternoon you may see long lines of sleek, well-groomed cows standing in their cement-floored, perfectly drained sheds. The walls and ceilings are spotless from constant applications of whitewash, ventilation is scientifically arranged, doors and windows are screened against the flies. Here the white-clad, smooth-shaven milkers do their work with scrubbed and manicured hands. You will note that all these men are studiously low-voiced and gentle in movement; for a cow, notwithstanding her outward placidity, is the most sensitive creature on earth, and there is an old superstition that if you speak roughly to your cow she will earn no money for you that day.