tly on the tip of everybody's
tongue, but never before has so much been printed about the more
important phases of it than appears in the popular magazines of to-day.
Knowledge of the common sense rules of diet, exercise, ventilation and
the like are becoming public possession--thanks largely to the magazines
and the newspaper syndicates.

A sixth mainstay of the magazines is in the presentation of articles
dealing with happenings of national interest or personalities prominent
in the day's news. This task grows increasingly difficult as the
newspapers tighten their grip upon the public's attention and as the
news pictorials of the moving picture screen gain in popular esteem by
improved technical skill and more intelligent editing. The magazine of
large circulation must go to press so long before the newspapers and the
films that much perishable news must be thrown out, even though it is of
nation wide appeal. The magazines are coming to find their greatest
usefulness in the news field in gathering up the loose ends of scattered
paragraphs which the daily newspapers have no time to weave together
into a pattern. In the magazine the patchwork of daily journalism is
assembled into more meaningful designs. Local news is sifted of its
provincialism to become matter of national concern. Topics which you
rapidly skimmed in the afternoon newspaper three or four weeks ago are
re-discussed in the weekly or monthly magazines in a way which often
makes you feel that here, for the first time, they become of personal
import.

The purpose of the suggestions sketched above is not to supply canned
topics to ready writers, but to set ambitious scribblers to the task of
doing some thinking for themselves. Instead of shiftlessly tossing the
whole burden of responsibility for choice of topics to a hard driven
editor, and whining, "Please give me an idea!", search around on your
own initiative for a theme worth presenting to the attention of a throng
of widely assorted listeners--for a "story" that ought to appeal to
America's multitudes. If your topic is big enough for a big audience,
your chances are prime to get a hearing for it. Dig up the necessary
facts, the "human interest" and the national significance of the case.
Then, rest assured, that "story" is what the editor wants.

CHAPTER IX

AND IF YOU DO--

Something in the misty sunshine this morning made you restless. Vague
longings, born of springtime mystery, stirred y