Evening star., 1915-03-21
SUNDAY MAGAZINE FOR MARCH Il. 1918
AND THESE TIMES

power that his friends mistakenly insisted
was his-that he fell. And great was his
| fall!
| No. it is not magic that will lay the course
| for the magazines that shall become ac-
knowledged leaders of the next two decades.
Neither is it clever invention Nor even is
it business genius Least of all is it the
editorial self sufficiency that too often has
been mistaken for editorial genius. The day
of the despot has passed.
The successful editor of the future must
differ much from the type that popular con-
ception has hitherto raised upon pedestal.
The hero of literature and affairs who con-
siders it his mission to instruct the people
in taste and morals and polity has gone for
ever. The schoolmaster's grave is deep.
The dictators grave is deeper And close
by the side of these our age is digging the
graves of the enthusiastic theorist and of the
business manager who believes that enter
prise and influence and good methods can
sell any respectable product and that edi
torial distinction is therefore unnecessary.
RUT the mists on the futures horizon are
- too thick to warrant Our trusting to
enthusiasns and theories any more than to
the fixed ideas and dictations of the old
fashioned editorial convention. The future
calls, as it never called before, for the open
mind, the poised judgment, the clear, wary
eye, the thoughtful application OF long and
complex experience of life. lndefatigable
inquiry must be the editors mental habit;
for he cannot deal with life's problems with
out knowing life, and in these days of change
every human conception, from art, liter
ature, and religion to statecratt, business,
and the relations of men and women, is
shifting its point of view. Arbitrary judg-
ment has no place in the sanctum of today
The times call for a seer, and he is no seer
who mistakes prejudices for principles or
whose vision Of the coming day becomes
dimmed by the clouds of night.
But the editor Of the future must be much
more than seer. He must be unswervingly
optimistic about the soundness of humanity
and it's inevitable and constant progress.
He must see his best hopes fail, and still
have faith ignorance triumph, and not be
moved; cherished ideals swept away by
tides from the muddy depths, and await
unshaken the result
Above all things he must be an indefatiga-
BILE student of humanity. With one hand
firmly on the past, one hand searchingly
upon the present, his eyes bent forward
upon the future, eagerly examining, COM
pairing, seeking always the signs, he must
follow the trail of human progress with the
Nothing in life must be too new, too
crude, too lowly too trivial, to escape his
interested observation; for well the years
have taught him how significant of great
futures may be even the absurdities of the
present. 1t is his special and paramount
business, as it is his personal passion, to see,
to know, and, finally and all importantly,
to interpret.
For, after all and summing all, interpreta-
ton of life is the editors prime mental atti-
tude and practical business, and this is true
no matter what his particular audience may
be, or the special nature of the magazine
through which he labors.
Whether he appeals through one of that
little group of magazines of polite distinction
to the lesser public of greater refnements
and higher culture, or whether he appeals
through one of its innumerable organs to
that greatest and enormously increasing
public which constitutes the real thinking
and doing body of America today, that body
of sturdiest workers, of hardest adventurers
in commerce. science, and industry, of most
purposeful self-educators, of most earnest
home -makers,-the soul and body in brief, of
this naton,-or whether he appeals crudcly,
in platitudinous and sensational phrase, to
the great horde of the yet unawakened, the
so-caled "melting pot" the unworked ore
| field of future America, whatever his pub