man lecture. Finally his opportunity
came and he was greatly elated, and not a little excited, as he looked
forward to what he believed to be one of the treats of a lifetime. When he
returned from the lecture, as we had feared, instead of being uplifted and
delighted, he was manifestly disappointed.

"Didn't you like the lecture?" we asked.

"I cannot understand," he complained, "why as intelligent a man as Hubbard
should split his infinitives."

Naturally, a man with a mind like this could not construct a plot or
outline an article. His writings, like his conversations, were long drawn
out, meandering and painfully tiresome recitations of trifling and, for
the most part, irrelevant detail.

We counselled him to lay aside his pen and take hold of plow handles
instead. He has since become a successful farmer, perfectly happy, working
out all the infinitude of minutiae in connection with the intensive
cultivation of small fruits.

LACK OF DISCRIMINATION A HANDICAP

Still another phase of this problem is presented by the case of N.J.F.
This man also wanted to be an editor and writer. He was a big,
fine-looking fellow, fairly well educated, had some ability in written
expression, and frequent good ideas. With his aptitudes, training, and
talents, it seemed, at first sight, that he certainly ought to be able to
succeed in an editorial capacity. Further examination showed, however, a
lamentable lack of discrimination, a deficient sense of the fitness of
things, and consequently, unreliable judgment. These deficiencies are
worse than handicaps to an editor. They are absolute disqualifications. An
editor's first duty is to discriminate, to sift, to winnow the few grains
of wheat out of the bushels of chaff that come to his mill. Editors must
have a very keen sense of the fitness of things. It is true that the
discriminating reader of newspapers and magazines may be tempted to feel
at times that this sense of the fitness of things is very rare in editors.
Unquestionably, it could be improved in many cases, and yet, on the whole,
it must be admitted that newspaper and magazine editors perform at least
one important function with a very fair degree of acceptability, namely,
they purvey material which is at least interesting to the particular class
of readers to whom they wish to appeal. If readers could be induced to
wade through for a week the masses of uninteresting material which is
submitted, they would doubtless have