So everybody was happy, and Edward Bok, as a full-fledged reporter, had
begun his journalistic career.
It is curious how deeply embedded in his nature, even in his earliest
years, was the inclination toward the publishing business. The word
"curious" is used here because Edward is the first journalist in the Bok
family in all the centuries through which it extends in Dutch history.
On his father's side, there was a succession of jurists. On the mother's
side, not a journalist is visible.
Edward attended the Sunday-school of the Carroll Park Methodist
Episcopal Church, in Brooklyn, of which a Mr. Elkins was superintendent.
One day he learned that Mr. Elkins was associated with the publishing
house of Harper and Brothers. Edward had heard his father speak of
Harper's Weekly and of the great part it had played in the Civil War;
his father also brought home an occasional copy of Harper's Weekly and
of Harper's Magazine. He had seen Harper's Young People; the name of
Harper and Brothers was on some of his school-books; and he pictured in
his mind how wonderful it must be for a man to be associated with
publishers of periodicals that other people read, and books that other
folks studied. The Sunday-school superintendent henceforth became a
figure of importance in Edward's eyes; many a morning the boy hastened
from home long before the hour for school, and seated himself on the
steps of the Elkins house under the pretext of waiting for Mr.
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