ok decided to
stop at Philadelphia, have a talk with Mr. Curtis, and look over his
business plant. He did this, and found Mr. Curtis even more desirous
than before to have him consider the position. Bok's instinct was
strongly in favor of an acceptance. A natural impulse moved him,
without reasoning, to action. Reasoning led only to a cautious mental
state, and caution is a strong factor in the Dutch character. The
longer he pursued a conscious process of reasoning, the farther he got
from the position. But the instinct remained strong.

On his way back from the West, he stopped in Philadelphia again to
consult his friend, George W. Childs; and here he found the only person
who was ready to encourage him to make the change.

Bok now laid the matter before his mother, in whose feminine instinct
he had supreme confidence. With her, he met with instant
discouragement. But in subsequent talks he found that her opposition
was based not upon the possibilities inherent in the position, but on a
mother's natural disinclination to be separated from one of her sons.
In the case of Fanny Davenport's offer the mother's instinct was strong
against the proposition itself. But in the present instance it was the
mother's love that was speaking; not her instinct or judgment.

Bok now consulted his business associates, and, to a man, they
discouraged the step, but almost invariably upon the argument that it
was suicidal to leave New York. He had now a glimpse of the truth that
there is no man so provincially narrow as the untravelled New Yorker
who believes in his heart that the sun rises in the East River and sets
in the North River.

He realized more keenly than ever before that the decision rested with
him alone. On September 1, 1889, Bok wrote to Mr. Curtis, accepting
the position in Philadelphia; and on October 13 following he left the
Scribners, where he had been so fortunate and so happy, and, after a
week's vacation, followed where his instinct so strongly led, but where
his reason wavered.

On October 20, 1889, Edward Bok became the editor of _The Ladies' Home
Journal_.

CHAPTER XII

SUCCESSFUL EDITORSHIP

There is a popular notion that the editor of a woman's magazine should
be a woman. At first thought, perhaps, this sounds logical. But it is
a curious fact that by far the larger number of periodicals for women,
the world over, are edited by men; and where, as in some cases, a woman
is the proclai