t a
single meeting; Rembrandt and his school were likewise disposed of in
one afternoon, and German literature was "adequately treated" at one
session "in able papers."

Bok gathered a mass of this material, and then paid his respects to it
in the magazine. He recited his evidence and then expressed his opinion
of it. He realized that his arraignment of the clubs would cost the
magazine hundreds of friends; but, convinced of the great power of the
woman's club with its activities rightly directed, he concluded that he
could afford to risk incurring displeasure if he might point the way to
more effective work. The one was worth the other.

The displeasure was not slow in making itself manifest. It came to
maturity overnight, as it were, and expressed itself in no uncertain
terms. Every club flew to arms, and Bok was intensely interested to note
that the clubs whose work he had taken as "horrible examples," although
he had not mentioned their names, were the most strenuous in their
denials of the methods outlined in the magazine, and that the members of
those clubs were particularly heated in their attacks upon him.

He soon found that he had stirred up quite as active a hornet's nest as
he had anticipated. Letters by the hundred poured in attacking and
reviling him. In nearly every case the writers fell back upon personal
abuse, ignoring his arguments altogether. He became the subject of
heated debates at club meetings, at conventions, in the public press;
and soon long petitions demanding his removal as editor began to come to
Mr. Curtis. These petitions were signed by hundreds of names. Bok read
them with absorbed interest, and bided his time for action. Meanwhile he
continued his articles of criticism in the magazine, and these, of
course, added fuel to the conflagration.

Former President Cleveland now came to Bok's side, and in an article in
the magazine went even further than Bok had ever thought of going in his
criticism of women's clubs. This article deflected the criticism from
Bok momentarily, and Mr. Cleveland received a grilling to which his
experiences in the White House were "as child's play," as he expressed
it. The two men, the editor and the former President, were now bracketed
as copartners in crime in the eyes of the club-women, and nothing too
harsh could be found to say or write of either.

Meanwhile Bok had been watching the petitions for his removal which kept
coming in. He was looking for an