What he saw in the position was not the need to know women; he could
employ women for that purpose. He perceived clearly that the editor of a
magazine was largely an executive: his was principally the work of
direction; of studying currents and movements, watching their formation,
their tendency, their efficacy if advocated or translated into
actuality; and then selecting from the horizon those that were for the
best interests of the home. For a home was something Edward Bok did
understand. He had always lived in one; had struggled to keep it
together, and he knew every inch of the hard road that makes for
domestic permanence amid adverse financial conditions. And at the home
he aimed rather than at the woman in it.
It was upon his instinct that he intended to rely rather than upon any
knowledge of woman. His first act in the editorial chair of The Ladies'
Home Journal showed him to be right in this diagnosis of himself, for
the incident proved not only how correct was his instinct, but how
woefully lacking he was in any knowledge of the feminine nature.
He had divined the fact that in thousands of cases the American mother
was not the confidante of her daughter, and reasoned if an inviting
human personality could be created on the printed page that would supply
this lamentable lack of American family life, girls would flock to such
a figure. But all depended on the confidence which the written word
could inspire.
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