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 and alone, to carry forward the various exercises of an elaborate education.

At the commencement of this chapter, I referred to the fact, that, while it is the object of moral training to reduce individual peculiarities to a conformity with the one standard of excellence, it is, on the contrary, the intention of intellectual culture to enhance and to cherish any personal and peculiar talents, with a view at once to the advantage of the individual, and the benefit of the community. But now, and in concluding what I have at present to say of the distinction between male and female education, there is room, I think, for the general rule, that although to enhance the special talent of a man be a prudential and proper course, we may, in the culture of the female mind, well aim rather to equalize and soften down the individual intellectual character, than to give prominence to what might distinguish it. The part of woman is not to devote herself to a calling; nor should it be her ambition to shine as a proficient in a single art or branch of science, but to possess a liberal acquaintance with all studies, and a graceful ability in all the elegant arts.


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 letter writing as a business asset, but perhaps only when immediate business is in sight. In a moment of thoughtlessness I confided in a friend not long ago my intention shortly to buy a motor car. He, lacking something to talk about, disclosed the information to a second friend, who had a connection with the automobile business. Then the news spread, and at once my mail became heavy with letters. Most of these were circular letters devised cunningly to imitate typewriting, and so phrased as to seem like a personal appeal to me; but the disguise was thin and most of them went into the wastepaper basket without my even reading them to the end. I hate the multigraphed letter—it never deceives even an infant. I feel about it as I do when an acquaintance says to me, "Drop around and take dinner with us any time." His invitation has nothing personal or definite in it and is not one I should think of accepting. It makes no intimate appeal.

One of the letters, however, did interest me because it was personal, and it came from a man who had previously shown some interest in me. He had written me

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 once when I was ill or had performed some service that had attracted his attention, a letter he was in no way under obligation to write; he had done so purely from courtesy. The letter that he wrote me this time was not a stock letter, but one that recognized me as an individual with some personal idiosyncrasies, with needs and tastes different from those of other individuals. I replied to his letter, and there is every indication that I shall buy his car, and I hold that in writing me the courteous, unsolicited, and unselfish note when he had no business axe to grind he played his business cards with the greatest finesse. He had my ear at once when he wanted to do business with me. He had learned, as many business men have not, I am sorry to say, that there are many letters besides the purely business letter that ultimately get a good deal of business.

As I write this last sentence there comes to my mind a little Italian fruit-vender that drifted across my domestic horizon a few years ago, who had in some subtle way learned the effectiveness of the courteous note in business relationships.

His real name was Sam, but we named


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 him "Cucus" because when he first arrived from his birthplace in southern Italy and began his daily round with his pushcart delivering fruit and vegetables at our back door, he had his own difficulties with our unmusical language and announced the early green cucumbers as "cucus."

His honesty, his soft, pleasant voice, and his ingratiating manners won trade for him, and it was not long until he was driving a wagon of his own with his name painted in gold along the side. He learned gradually to speak a little better, and at night school he learned to write a very round and very readable hand, though his orthography, his diction, and his punctuation retained some original touches, a condition not in any sense unique.

He had his own troubles, too, as other business men have had, and sometimes he told them confidentially to me. His consignments of fruit were not always good, he could not always dispose of his stock before it became stale, and sometimes landladies did not pay him or unregenerate students imposed upon him and gave him bad checks. It was about such a check that he spoke to me. Cucus was out


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 eight dollars which he could ill afford to lose. He had somehow developed a feeling that I need but say the word and any recreant undergraduate would immediately come to time. When he had told me his story, I found that his was not a difficult matter of adjustment. I agreed to manage it for him, received his gracious thanks and a handful of fresh carrots, attended to the little business the next day, and forgot about it.

A few days later I found a note from him in my morning mail. The spelling is his own; the "Urbanana" probably an echo of his favorite morning announcement at our back door.


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 I held the letter in my hand a long time, thinking. I do business mostly with cultivated, educated people; I wish they were all as thoughtful and courteous as this Italian fruit-vender. He had already learned something of the personal touch in business through letter-writing.

It is curious how many letters are never acknowledged or answered in any way, and yet every letter, and especially every letter that has in it anything of the personal element, is entitled to a reply of some sort. Every day as part of the routine of my office I am writing to the fathers of various young men who are registered as undergraduates in college. These letters are personal and direct, and they show a knowledge and an interest in the individual with whom they are concerned. But, strangely enough, very few of them are ever acknowledged, or, if they are acknowledged, it is quite often the mother rather than the father who replies.

"Mr. Jones received your letter," she writes, "and being a very busy man he has asked me to reply"—then follow many pages of explanation and appreciation. It has always been a matter of interest and


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 wonderment to me how these busy men with stenographers at their call, usually, find so little time to give to the affairs of their sons, while their wives apparently have nothing else to do but write. I have just been talking over the long distance telephone with a prominent and successful business man to whom, within the last three months, I have written twice about his son. He answered neither of my letters, he explained to me, because he first wanted to see how the boy would respond to the advice he had written him upon the receipt of my first letter. His method, however, did not encourage me very strongly to continue my efforts.

The general tendency is to reply only to letters that are a matter of self-interest or self-advantage. If a reply brings me no profit or pleasure, why make it? If I owe Jones and, for one reason or another, have delayed in meeting my obligation, I hear from him quickly and often; if he owes me and I write him, the mail service is usually pretty slow if it does not cease entirely. It has been my misfortune for a considerable number of years to be indirectly responsible for the collection of va-


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 rious sums of money—subscriptions to certain funds, fraternity and sorority notes, loans due the University from graduates who were given financial help while they were in college. I have written some of these delinquents twice a year for seventeen years without getting a reply. If I happened to meet one of them and the matter of his obligation came up, I asked:

"Why did you not reply to any of the letters I wrote you?"

"Well," he would say, quite without shame, "I didn't have the money; so what was the use of wasting my time and a postage stamp in saying so?"

He seemed never to realize that an explanation of his delay and his delinquency was due me.

It is always a satisfaction to get a gracious reply to a letter. Even when I am convinced that some of the statements contained are exaggerations, and that the promises may never be fulfilled, I am pleased as was a wealthy friend of mine who confessed to me once that he enjoyed flattery, only "it must not be crudely done."

If I write a letter, as I often must, to


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 the father of a former student asking for the present address of the young man, I may wait for weeks before receiving a reply, and quite as often as not I shall never get one. If, however, in writing, I say that I find that he is entitled to a certain rebate, or that it would be to his scholastic advantage if I can hear from him, the reply is sure to come immediately. Self-interest seems to be the strongest motive to induce people to answer letters.

Why do not people answer letters? Often it is carelessness or laziness. They mean to, or at least they say to themselves that they do, but they delay, as sinners delay joining church. Ultimately the letter is lost and they forget all about it. They inveigle themselves into believing that they haven't the time, as a freshman at seven forty-five in the morning persuades himself that he can still snatch ten minutes of sleep and get to an eight o'clock class. They are indifferent or ignorant.

"I have not had a reply from Mr. Rice whom you gave as reference," I say to a junior who has applied for a loan from one of the college loan funds, "do you have any idea why?"


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 "Well, Mr. Rice is a very busy man," is his explanation, "and I suppose he has Not yet got around to it."

But in reality the fact that he is busy is usually the last reason why a man does not reply to a letter. The really busy man must have system or his work piles up. He clears his desk daily knowing that new duties and obligations will be upon him tomorrow. I write to such a man on Monday and by Wednesday morning I have his reply. He has no time to waste in useless temporizing and delay. The busy man decides things at once and gets them done; it is the lazy man and the loafer and the procrastinator whom one never hears from, and the man who has no regular system of doing things.

Not long ago I published a brief article on the subject of acknowledging letters, especially letters of sympathy and congratulation. Any number of people to whom I had at one time or another written such a letter called me up or spoke to me, or wrote me about the matter, and the tenor of their communications was that it had never occurred to them that such a letter required an acknowledgment. One


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 boy wrote, "I was very much ashamed of myself when I read your little essay in Sunday morning's paper and remembered that when you wrote me last summer I made no acknowledgment of your thoughtfulness. Worse than that, I did not realize that I should have done so. It did not occur to me that a reply to your letter which gave to me and to my parents so much pleasure and satisfaction was required, and that it might possibly have made you feel as happy as your letter made me. I think many people are probably as ignorant of this subject as I was, for no one has ever before called my attention to my duty in such a case. I assure you I shall not offend in the future." Very few letters but are entitled to an acknowledgment of some sort. It leaves a good taste in a body's mouth to receive a reply to a letter he has written, no matter how trifling the business is with which it is concerned.

If letters are to be answered at all, they should be answered promptly, excepting perhaps friendly letters, where there is ordinarily a sort of understanding between friends that a reasonable number of days


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 or weeks or months shall intervene between the exchange of communications. One of the dearest friends I have, from whom I am separated by a thousand miles, writes to me and I to him once a year. Neither expects more than this, and each looks forward to the annual letter with interest and pleasure. Ordinarily, however, a letter should be answered at once.

I heard a man say not long ago, a man, too, whose correspondence is large, that he regularly delayed answering letters because if one delayed he would find that many letters really answered themselves and so did not require a written reply. I was interested to note, however, that the top of his desk was always in a litter, that he could never find anything that he wanted, and that his drawers, when he opened them furtively, were crowded with a jumbled mess of papers. People complained often, also, that their communications to him were ignored, that their requests received no attention, and that his official business was in more or less of a tangle. He paid rather dearly, I am convinced, as every man does for delay and neglect in his correspondence.


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 People sometimes do not reply to letters because they are at a loss to know what to say. This is especially true of letters of congratulation and condolence. Something ought to be said, but what? The situation is similar to speaking to an acquaintance or a friend who has just lost a very near member of his household. We are so afraid of saying the wrong thing that we say nothing. In either case if we would only give expression in as direct and simple a way as possible to what we feel, we should have done a gracious thing and should have brought pleasure or comfort to one of our friends. It does not quite so much matter what we say as that we say something that genuinely expresses our feelings or our obligations.

Most of our reasons for not answering letters are selfish ones. We see no personal profit in it; to do so would take time and thought, and these, we argue, we can not afford, not recognizing the fact that whatever a man really wants to do he will by hook or crook find an opportunity to do.

The writing of letters is very much a matter of temperament. Not every one,


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 because of lack of experience or facility in the use of written language, has learned fully to put his own personality into his letters, but there are very few who do not in some way reveal their personal characteristics through their letters. Men because of their more general training and experience in business are briefer in their letters, more direct, less emotional, more practical. They get to their point more quickly and are often quite barren of details and so lacking in interest. Their communications are like the small boy's diary at sea. "Rained," he says laconically in recounting the events of one day, and the next, "Rained some more," and that for him is the end of the story, being all that happened and all that he has to say.

Women, on the other hand, are not so easily stopped. It is an unusual woman who can get to a simple point in less than four pages; often it requires eight, and then one is sometimes forced to re-read the letter to satisfy one's self as to what the point is. When a father makes inquiry of me as to how his son is getting on in college he usually gets the question out of his system in from four to six lines.


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 When I get such a letter from a mother the communication and the inquiry are generally accompanied with harrowing details of infantile disasters, which had undermined his health and made it difficult or impossible for him to do good work. There are accounts of his difficulties in teething, of the size and influence of his tonsils and adenoids, of the various physical struggles through which he has passed, and which have alf but wrecked him. There is the assurance always that if I could only appreciate his many virtues, how hard he has worked, how much he and all his family have worried about his mental progress, I should be more than ordinarily interested in him. And what she really wants to know is what chance he has of continuing in college, but she does not get at that without many and devious preliminary peregrinations.

I have before me now, from a woman, a letter which runs to two thousand words or more. It discusses in much incoherent detail various difficulties which she has had with her tenants, with her neighbors, and with a woman to whom she thought she had rented her house. I have read it over


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 several times, and I have asked a number of my friends to do so, and together we have concluded that what she really wants is to ask me if I should be willing to speak at a parents' association at some not distant date.

Now these women to whom I refer are not illiterate women. Many of them have been to college. Some of them have been teachers, and the one to whom I have last referred is the wife of an educated man, and was herself for several years a teacher. If there is a reason for this curious prolixity in their written speech, it lies, I suppose, in the fact that most women have had little actual contact with business. They are unfamiliar with business methods; they do not approach a subject directly; they are given to complicated explanations.

It is never wise to use sarcasm or to show anger in a letter. The words that are spoken in a passion become blurred and faded with time; their sharpness is dulled as other events intervene, and ultimately we may forget them altogether, but the written word eats into our memory and galls us more and more as time goes


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 on. If we try to forget it, there is still the written page to turn to, and the wound which is caused at first is reopened. Sarcasm always inflames; it is a cruel weapon against which, with many people, there is little or no defense. It sometimes brings the desired result for the moment, but it is likely to cause a permanent feud between the two people concerned in the correspondence. Men are thicker skinned than women and do not take this sort of attack quite so seriously as women do, but even men seldom quite forget the sarcastic slam in a letter. Women never forget it and never quite forgive it. When you have written a woman a sarcastic letter you might as well bring yourself to the conclusion that in the future all diplomatic relations between the two of you will cease. She will never see you without recalling your words; she will have it in for you as long as you live.

It is generally a weak and cowardly thing to write a sarcastic, angry letter. It is seldom if ever justified excepting to stimulate the stolid. It is cowardly because there is often so little "comeback"; it is not a fair open fight. On the surface


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 sarcasm is harmless, without evil intention or guile, but concealed within it is the deadly poison and the sting. It is really meant to hurt. It is weak to show anger because the angry man has for the moment lost control of himself; he admits that he has not the physical strength of self-mastery and such weakness is ordinarily pitiable. The angry man must ultimately apologize for his weakness or leave himself permanently in a bad light, and he is often too weak to apologize.

Not long ago a young sophomore brought me a letter which he had just received from his father. The boy had failed in a part of his college work, and a notice of the fact had gone to the father, who received it, I presume, in his morning mail. The disappointment and the disgrace of it angered him, for he knew that the boy was quite capable of doing his work well, and he yielded weakly to the impulse of the moment and wrote his son and mailed the letter without reading it, perhaps, and certainly without giving any considerate thought to what he had written. It was a cruel, scathing letter that any father should have been ashamed


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 CHAPTER.

ANALYSIS OF THE INTELLECTUAL FACULTIES, SO FAR AS RELATES TO THE CULTURE OF EACH.

It does not appear that any of our prevalent systems of education is founded upon the principle of bestowing distinct and systematic culture upon the several intellectual faculties: nor, in fact, have I known where to find well-digested or sufficient instructions of this kind, such as I might adopt in conducting the education of my own children. I am therefore labouring to supply what I have personally felt the want of, and I entertain the hope, that, on this ground, I may be able to render some substantial aid to parents and teachers.

It is true that, of late, attention has been given to the very important distinction between a blind endeavour to impart a certain amount of knowledge, on specific subjects, and that more enlightened method which, irrespective of the measure of attainments actually made by the learner, aims to give to each of the powers of the mind a training and a habit, such as shall secure to the individual the highest possible future advantage in the employment of whatever endowments nature may have conferred upon him: and yet, while the general principle has been adverted to, it has been but sparingly applied to the business of education; and scarcely at all followed out in reference to the mental powers, separately considered.


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 to write, and it cut the boy like a knife. The boy will never quite forget it, especially since the father who no doubt regretted his action as soon as he had had a little while to come to himself, never could quite bring himself in so many words to say so. And the gap gradually widened between the two.

Every one has a tendency to write letters when he is angry; in fact, I am sure I do my cleverest work under such circumstances. Feeling stimulates the imagination, and so for the time being adds force and effectiveness to the style. When I write such a letter, I always read it over with an appreciation of its ironical subtleness, of its careful phrasing, of its stinging effects, and I admit generally that it is a corking good piece of work that will bring the recipient to his senses. And then before signing it I lay it away until the next day. Next morning when I come into my office after a good night's rest I read the letter again and laugh, and admit to myself how well done it is, and then I tear it up and drop it carefully into the wastepaper basket and write another—much less clever, no doubt, not so well phrased,


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 perhaps, but quite logical, quite free from malice and anger. It is a plan which has worked well for me and one that I submit for the sympathetic consideration of others. It gives me all the exhilaration and satisfaction of writing a letter that takes the skin off, and I am never humiliated by having to apologize for having done a thoughtless or ungentlemanly thing.

A letter of apology is a very difficult letter to write, and it is seldom done well. The most of such letters as I have seen have been done awkwardly, haltingly, with little genuineness and finesse. I presume the reason is that we write them because we ought to do it and not because we want to do it. Our parents or our wives or the Dean insists that it be done, and we yield with reservations. An acquaintance of mine has been waiting for weeks, I am convinced, in an attempt to get up his courage to write me a letter of apology for an asinine thing he said to me, but he isn't quite up to it. The letter will come in time, but it will be badly done; it will be an attempt to justify himself rather than a real apology; he will


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 try to explain why he was a fool; it would be just as well if he did not write the letter, for a badly made apology is like a left-handed compliment. I recall such a one. A group of young people were "ragging" me when I was a boy on the too generous outlines of my mouth. Since nothing hurts so badly as the truth, their remarks were teasing me not a little. A kind old lady sitting by, hoping to mitigate their insults and to placate my wounded feelings, said, patting me gently on the arm, "Never mind what they are saying, I've seen bigger mouths than yours." It is true that she was a woman who had seen a good deal of the world, but it was always a query in my mind whether or not she had exaggerated to cheer me up.

It takes a generous spirit to make a good apology. There should be no holding back. If you have been wrong, you should admit it without alibi or reservation. To do otherwise is simply to add to the original insult. It is not necessary to say much; one should say nothing unless it be sincere and genuine and comes from the heart.

"I made a fool of myself in your office


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 the other day," a boy wrote me—he really used a qualifying word before "fool" which I omit for the sake of appearances—"and I'm sorry. I hope the memory of the incident has not given you as much pain as it has given me. If you can overlook my discourtesy, I assure you that I shall not be guilty again. The fault was entirely mine." Nothing more needed to be said.

It is seldom safe to joke in a letter excepting with very intimate friends who know one's personal idiosyncrasies and mental habits. A joke is based most frequently upon exaggeration or upon an unexpected turn in the use of words or some deformity of speech, and we are looking for none of these in a letter from a stranger and seldom know what to make of them when we come across them in his letter. The effectiveness of humor depends so much more often than we think upon the unexpected emphasis we place upon words, upon the glance of the eye, the raising of the eyebrows, the intonation of the voice, the momentary hesitation before the last word. One may have all these in mind when he is writing a letter, but they are absent when the letter is read, and


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 there is nothing left usually but the bald, cold statement of facts bared of all its subtleties and suggestiveness. I have so often bee misunderstood when I have tried to be funny or have unconsciously been so in a letter, that I have given it up. I remember writing to a father once and saying to him that he gave his son such a generous monthly allowance that it required all the boy's time to spend it and left him no opportunity to devote any attention to his studies. The father came back at me very seriously by demonstrating conclusively that with the experience his son had previously had he could easily spend all his allowance in half the time at his disposal. I have never been sure which of us misunderstood the other. Now, however, I either omit jokes from my general correspondence or tie a label to them. It is too great a risk to let them go uncatalogued.

The business and social and diplomatic possibilities of writing letters are infinite. It is a process by which we make and keep our friends, or increase our business, or widen our influence. By it we can hold people's attention, or awaken their inter-


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 est, or change their conduct. We can make them happy, or drive them to despair. I had a letter only recently from an old friend of mine whom I had not seen or heard from since we were boys of eighteen. He had stumbled upon my name and picture in a magazine, and these had recalled to him, as his letter recalled to me, all our boyhood relationships. His letter brought back to me my youth with all the friends I had known, all the escapades of which I had been a part, all the subtle influences which had combined to form my character. The few sentences of his letter spread out before me again the whole panorama of my youth. A letter I received thirty-five years ago or more—a very commonplace letter it might have seemed to a casual reader—changed my whole future. It made me give up the work I was then engaged in and drove me to college. It stimulated me to study and gave me an ambition to see the world.

Writing letters is something more than merely putting one word after another upon paper. It is an art, and an art almost universally employed, which is well worth our study. To write letters well we must


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 realize something of the effect of appearance and form as men and women must know the same thing if they are to dress becomingly. Since I have been writing these paragraphs I have seen a beautiful letter of condolence which came far short of its possibilities simply because it was written on the wrong sort of paper, and folded badly, and followed a crude form, and it fell still farther short of what it should have accomplished because it was written by an educated man who should have known better how to dress up his thoughts—and who was disappointing because he did it so badly. His letter was like a man going to a formal party in overalls.

The successful writing of letters is largely a matter of psychology. No two people are affected in quite the same way; what will be pleasing or compelling in one case will irritate or have little effect in another. We should study the individual. The form letter makes this individual study difficult or impossible. It is meant to apply to all cases. It must be like a proprietary medicine, compounded of such a variety of drugs as to


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 have some curative effect upon any disease to which it may be applied. It is a panacea for anything from measles to ingrowing toenails.

The writing of letters, as I have before suggested, must have some regard for the "time and the seasons." You cannot properly acknowledge the receipt of a Christmas present in July or express your appreciation of an act of courtesy shown you by a friend six months after the act has occurred. One of the greatest difficulties we all meet in writing letters is in finding the time to do it when it should be done. If Smith is elected to office and I wish to congratulate him, I must do it at once; if I owe Brown and cannot pay him at the time agreed upon, I must let him know before the loan is past due. Most letters should have attention on a definite day, or the critical or effective moment is gone for good.

I have always been sorry that I did not write Frank Barry when he lost his oldest son. We had been friends since our boyhood, and I knew that he would have been glad to hear from me. I was crowded with work at the time however; I meant to do


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 it, and then it went out of my mind until it would have been an insult rather than a courtesy for me to mention the matter to him in a letter. My chance was gone forever.

One is helped very much in meeting this situation of doing the thing on time by having a convenient place in which to write letters, with a proper assortment of materials at hand. A fountain pen, a box of stationery, and a convenient desk or armchair in a quiet corner are all conducive to promptness in this regard. There are leisure moments before breakfast sometimes, or after dinner, when if everything is within reach it is little trouble to write a letter. I have always felt about letter-writing as I do about reading. I know that if I have an attractive book on the table near which I sit or lie stretched out upon a couch when I am waiting for meals or resting for a little while at the end of the day, I am sure to reach for it, and, before I know it, I am well under way. Before many days the book is finished and I am ready for another. In the same way I write letters.

It is the unexpected letter that most


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 often brings pleasure. I run through the morning mail sometimes before the office boy lays it opened upon my desk. I know before the letters are opened what most of them will contain. They are letters in reply to mine of a few days before; letters of inquiry, of complaint, or of solicitation; letters from relatives or friends who write me regularly. But once in a while I find a surprise in the mail. Buxton, from whom I haven't heard for years, writes me from Shreveport, or Baker from New Orleans, or Noone from far away Cilicia and has something pleasant or complimentary to say to me. The whole day is brighter because of the unexpected pleasure the letter gave me, and I make up my mind that I, too, will write letters even when I am not under obligations to do so, because in so doing I may make some one happy, or I may hold or gain a friend.

There are various sorts of letters, each making its own exactions and each subject to its own particular conventions. A little knowledge of form, a directness, a frank sincerity, a regard for the interests and feelings of others, and a certain in-


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 sight into human nature, are about all that is required to write a good letter. If you have these, the result will surprise you and will be worth infinitely more than the effort it costs.


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Every morning as I look through the pile of letters that the office boy places on my desk, I am impressed with the disregard which the writers have had of established conventions, of form and arrangement, of proper materials, of some of the most essential details of a correct letter. My correspondence is not conducted to any extent with illiterate or uneducated people, but in most instances with people of more than average training and experience—high school graduates, teachers, college officials, city business men, and men of affairs. And yet I find curious inconsistencies, sentences without verbs or subjects, and words of the most weird orthography. The letters are often without margins or paragraphs, and are written upon paper of no particular size or style; high school boys and even teachers sometimes using ragged sheets torn from a notebook or paper that in no way fits the envelope. Many of the letters are not dated, and others contain an insufficient address; should I desire to reply I am compelled to hunt through my files for


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 an address. Women more often than men are guilty of this last fault, of omitting from the letter itself all indication of the specific address of the writer, and if they live in Chicago or some other large city the probability of such omission seems to become still greater. Usually, in such cases, if I will go into my outer office and stand on my head and paw about for a while in the waste paper basket where my clerk has thrown the envelopes containing the morning mail, I shall find an envelope on the front of which, or more often on the back, will be the address which should have been also in the letter itself. Ladies are most given to this error of writing their address on the back of the envelope only, never realizing that most business men never see the envelopes in which their letters come. Some men as well fall into it. Little discrimination is used as to complimentary beginnings and endings, "Very truly" and "Very sincerely" are used so indiscriminately that it is not possible by glancing at the letter to guess whether it has to do with strictly business matters or is a friendly letter of courtesy. Most of my correspondents as


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 well as yours have been taught a good deal about these and other details of form, but they have not considered them seriously or made them a part of their own daily habits.

A newspaper always gives particular attention to the make-up of its front page, because that is what first catches the eye. First impressions are frequently the most lasting ones. A pretty girl is even more attractive if she is well dressed, and a good dinner is made an excellent one if the table is tastefully arranged and the courses are carefully served. So a letter is presented in the most effective way only if the materials upon which it is written are carefully chosen, and the form into which it is thrown is well considered.

I still recall with vividness the pleasure I felt a few years ago on receiving a little note from Mr. Irving Bacheller. The stationery was distinctive, and I have no doubt was a sort regularly used by him throughout many years. The penmanship was beautiful and looked almost as if each letter had been made separately as one would devise ornamental script. The margins were wide, almost mathematically


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 even, and occupied quite half of the page. There were only two or three sentences in the entire letter, running down the middle of the page, but it gave me the lasting impression of careful arrangement, of fitness, and of perfect form. I have always wanted to write such a letter.

There are those who say that in a business letter at least it is only the facts presented which count. It amounts to little, they assert, whether you use green paper or yellow, whether "occurred" is spelled with one or two r's, whether the sentences contain verbs or limp along with participles, just so what is said can be understood. I do not believe this. I feel sure that even though the reader is not consciously affected by it, a slovenly, badly arranged, illiterate letter will fall short in its effect even upon the uncritical reader who is not trained consciously to recognize these weaknesses.

The materials used in writing a letter should, when possible, be in keeping with the character of the letter, and should be the best the writer can afford. A considerable number of people, especially women and young folks, are not likely to have


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 any sort of business stationery; they do not do a great deal of business by correspondence. Such people need not be embarrassed if they conduct such business correspondence as they may have to do on the stationery which they ordinarily use for social purposes. The business or professional man will have paper and envelopes especially printed or engraved for his business correspondence. A brief clear statement of his name and business or the name of his firm, with a definite unmistakable address, is, barring the date line or the telephone number, all that need be given. I often spend time in trying to decipher from the mass of material which is crowded into a letterhead just where to address the man whose name is subscribed to the epistle, and often the best I can do is to hazard a guess. The less detail a business letterhead has printed on it and the more modest the display, the more effectively, I am convinced, it will serve its purpose. I struggled through a complicated elaborately designed letterhead a few days ago during my morning dictation. I spent several minutes in analyzing it, and yet I am not at all sure


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 that I addressed my letter to the place where it should have gone.

The size of paper for business correspondence is usually eleven by eight and one-half inches, or it may be half this size or somewhat more than half. On the smaller sheets the letterhead may be printed either the short or the long way of the paper. It is quite safe if the color of the paper is white, though many people consciously choose rather striking colors, such as brown or yellow or blue, for distinctiveness and do so with good effect. When a given color or size of paper is once adopted, if it has any character, it should not be changed, for it will become in time a sort of trade-mark or sign of identification of the individual or of the firm. A successful business man whom I know has for years used a warm brown stationery printed in an ink of still darker brown, which gives an individual effect. I never see the color but it brings to mind his firm. It is to me one of his best advertising assets, and one which it would be a distinct mistake for him to change.

Envelopes should be of the same quality of paper as the letter sheets used, and


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 should be of a size easily to admit the folded sheets which they are to contain. Nothing is more exasperating than to find envelopes too short or too narrow to contain the folded letter, and nothing makes a sloppier looking letter than one turned up at the ends or folded into some unconventional shape and squeezed into a tight little envelope.

A sheet eight and one-half by eleven inches should be folded three times—first from the bottom of the sheet up as the sheet lies flat, leaving the under edge a trifle longer than the upper so that the letter may be opened easily when it is in the hands of the reader. The second fold should be from the left to the right, turning over slightly less than one-third of the double folded sheet. The third fold should be from the right to the left in a manner similar to the way in which the second fold was made. When completely folded the letter will be about three by five and one-half inches. There is no other way correctly to fold such a sheet. The smaller sheet mentioned above should be folded twice—from the left to the right and from the right to the left, and the


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 envelope used should be of the proper size to admit it easily. Sometimes a sheet eight and a half by seven and a quarter inches is used, but in such a case the envelopes should be seven and a half inches long. Otherwise the sheet will need to be folded up an inch or two from the bottom, a procedure which does not make a neat-looking letter. Such stationery as I have described with a business letterhead printed at the top is for business purposes only. It should not ordinarily be employed for social correspondence excepting, perhaps, between men who know each other well, and who are willing for the time being to ignore social conventions. The better' you know people the more liberties you can take in correspondence.

Stationery for friendly or social correspondence varies considerably in size. Women often use small folded sheets or correspondence cards about three and one-half by five and one-half inches. A standard size of paper is approximately seven and a quarter by ten and a half inches. This may be used as single sheets, in which case it is folded twice to go into the envelope—from the bottom up and from the


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 top down, and the size of the envelope in this case is four by seven and a half inches; or it may be folded into a double sheet five and a quarter by seven and a quarter inches, in which case the envelope is three and three-fourths by five and three-fourths inches. The single sheet eight and one-half by five and one-half inches which comes made up into blocks is not a good form to use. It suggests crude inexperience. No extreme shades will do for this sort of letter-writing, if one wishes to be thought to have good taste. White is the best, though soft shades of gray are permissible.

"Wonder what his correspondence is like?" Mrs. Cheveley asks of Lord Goring in Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband. And then as she looks at the letters, "Oh, what a very uninteresting correspondence! Who on earth writes to him on pink paper? How silly to write on pink paper! It looks like the beginning of a middle-class romance."

It looks, in fact, in these days like a sentimental child of fourteen. Many people never change the size or quality or shade of the paper on which they conduct their social correspondence. There is a certain individual personal touch


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 The first of the above-named methods is necessarily the one which must be pursued in schools; while the latter is well adapted to the circumstances of private education, and, if ably carried out, may more than compensate for the disadvantages acknowledged to attach to the domestic system.

It is very true, that the mere conveyance of those branches of knowledge which constitute a school course, does, in fact, carry with it and imply, a training of the faculties; and such a training as may be altogether a sufficient preparation for entering upon the common engagements of life; but we have in view something more than this.

And yet, in speaking, as I am about to do, of the culture of the intellectual faculties severally, I by no means intend that each, singly, and separately, and in formal consecutive order, should engage the attention of the teacher; as if he were first and exclusively to bestow his pains upon the development and exercise of the power which stands first on the list, and then, in due course, to proceed to the second, and so on. Nothing could be much more ill-judged, or impracticable, than such a plan of procedure. What is really meant is this:first, that the teacher should, himself, distinctly have in prospect the several ends he is to aim at, in the general culture of the mind, so as shall enable him to secure, at the last, the energetic and well-balanced action of all parts of the mental machinery; and secondly, that, in aiming at these ends, he should observe, as nearly as he can, THE ORDER OF NATURE; that is to say, should not anticipate late developed faculties, nor put the mind wrong at the outset, by doing first what should be done last, and last what should have been preliminary.

It is very possible, even while we avoid the error of stimulating the faculties too early, yet to occasion some lasting


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 in this adhering to one style that appeals to me. It shows a definiteness of taste, a certain stability of character that I admire. One man to whom I have written for many years never varies in his correspondence from the use of a light cadet gray. I recognize the familiar shade the moment the postman deposits his package of letters upon my desk, and the color itself has come to have for me the suggestion of a personality which I enjoy.

I do not know how much can really be told of a man's character through an examination of his penmanship; personally I can tell but little, but I feel sure that I could venture a pretty accurate guess concerning many of his personal traits by examining the general form of his letters. A letter without a margin looks about as attractive as a book or magazine would under the same circumstances, or aS a man without a collar, and if the margin is narrow or uneven the effect is not much better than it would be if there were none at all. There should always be a margin of three-quarters of an inch at least on the left side of the sheet.

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 otherwise even in business letters. They generally show laziness or haste, and both of these are bad qualities to reveal in any sort of correspondence. They are employed sparingly or not at all now by business firms who pay any careful attention to good form and good appearance. The indentations for paragraphs should be even. The first word of each paragraph should be indented about the same distance as the width of the margin left or even farther than this, but these indentations, whatever they are, should be in a straight line drawn the length of the page. The letter given below will illustrate what I have in mind with reference to abbreviations and the indenting of paragraphs.

Urbana, Illinois September 13, 1920

Mr. Ford E. Belt

Lyndon, Illinois

Dear Mr. Belt:

I would like to have you plan to work with a branch of our office during the registration days. It will be necessary for you to be present at a conference on Friday afternoon, September 17, with


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 Mr. A. J. Schuettner, and to register on Saturday afternoon, September 18.

I wish you would write to me at once as to whether or not you can be with us at that time. I must have a reply from you not later than Thursday, September 16.

Very truly yours,

Every one who writes should give at least a little attention to paragraphing. If the letter is written in longhand then the writer can manage this matter entirely as he wishes; if it is a dictated letter then the stenographer will need to exercise a little judgment in indicating by paragraphing when one topic ends and another one begins. A good many men who are careful as to their paragraph structure suggest to the stenographer as they are giving their dictation the beginnings and endings of paragraphs. The change of manner or the intonation of the voice is usually, however, sufficient indication to the stenographer. Some writers make almost every sentence of their letters into a separate paragraph, thinking that by this method they secure a greater emphasis. The real facts are that by so separating


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 their ideas they weaken their style and fail to secure emphasis at all. An entire typewritten page, on the other hand, without breaks, is jumbled and confusing. Such a page is less clear and definite than a broken page. Paragraphs in the ordinary letter should probably not exceed one hundred or one hundred and fifty words; otherwise the appearance is heavy.

There are conventional ways of beginning and closing all sorts of letters, and these we cannot ordinarily with safety deviate from materially. We are coming gradually to be more direct, less formal and more natural and human, perhaps, in the use of these forms, than we once were. Written speech has always been a little more studied, a little less natural than spoken. It is likely to continue so, I imagine, though the difference is gradually being minimized. Our grandfathers began their letters "Respected Sir and Friend" capitalizing everything in sight, and ended them, even when they had to do with the most trivial subjects discussed with the most ordinary readers, "Your Humble and Obedient Servant." We don't do it that way now; we seldom go so far


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 in these days as to sign ourselves "Respectfully yours," to any one.

Which leads me to say that a considerable number of people who have given indications in other directions at least of being intelligent sign their letters "Very respectively yours." How one could be "respectively" anyone's unless he were a firm or a board or a dual personality of some sort is too much for me to understand. It is not surprising, however, that high school boys and country storekeepers make the mistake when one runs onto it sometimes in the letters of college graduates.

The conventional beginnings and endings of letters, like all idioms, should seldom if ever be taken literally. When we say "How do you do?" to a friend as we pass him on the street we have no thought that he will halt and give us a detailed account of his mental and physical processes. It is in most cases purely a conventional form of recognition and greeting requiring no specific reply. So, too, when we begin a business letter with "Dear Sir" or a social one with "My dear Miss Jarvis," the recipients are not justi-


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 fied in feeling that either of these forms of address suggests any warmth of personal affection. One must begin some way, and these are simply the conventional forms which polite society approves, and which we are supposed to follow.

"How are ye this marnin', Mrs. McGinnis?" one Irishwoman greeted another over the back fence, "Not that I give a hang but just to start the talk." And in a similar manner, then, conventional beginnings and endings are simply to start and end the talk contained in letters.

A business letter addressed to a firm should begin "Gentlemen," or "Dear Sirs," or "My dear Sirs," the last being the most friendly. If addressing a business letter to an individual one may say "Dear Sir," "My dear Sir," or even "My dear Mr. Snyder." These forms are given in the order of their formality, the last one being the most friendly and the least formal, and a form which may very properly be used, which should be used, in fact, when men who are transacting business with each other are acquainted. If the two men are very close friends they may even in a business letter


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 address each other by their first names, as "My dear George." These complimentary beginnings excepting when they include proper names should in most cases have the first and last words only capitalized. Such a complimentary beginning is usually preceded by the name and address of the one to whom the letter is written, as in the following letter.


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 In the above letter, if it is thought best, the punctuation may be omitted from the ends of the lines. This method of punctuating is called the "open" method.

No one who has any knowledge of conventional forms now ever begins a letter "Sir," or "Mr. Jones," or "Friend Smith," or "Dear Friend." There is no special reason for this excepting that people who establish conventional forms do not do it, and one is considered "green" or inexperienced if he thus begins a letter.

The complimentary close of a business letter should be, "Truly yours," or "Yours truly," or "Very truly yours," or "Yours very truly," only the first word in any case being capitalized. Occasionally still we see, when an inferior officer is addressing a superior one, when a young man is writing to an old one, or when for any reason there is desire or cause for acknowledging or suggesting respect, the complimentary closing of a letter "Respectfully yours," or "Very respectfully yours." This ending is in good form only when the business relations between the persons are such as to inspire the feelings indicated by the word "respectfully," and this rela


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 tion does not commonly occur. It is never permissible to close with "Yours" or any single word. The letter below, written by a junior in college is in about as bad form as could be devised by an intelligent person who had tried to think out all possible violations of good form. The abbreviations are inconsistent, both complimentary beginning and ending are wrong, the punctuation is faulty, two sentences are without subjects, and the indentations are irregular and unbalanced, giving the letter a top-heavy, unstable effect. It is perfectly clear what the writer means, but the whole letter has a sloppy, illiterate appearance, and makes a bad effect. If given a chance to explain, the writer would undoubtedly say that he knew better, but that he had the mumps, was in a hurry to get his communication into the mail, and gave very little thought or attention excepting to the facts contained in it. The only answer to this is that we shall all have to do a great many things in a hurry during our lives, and we might just as well begin immediately to learn to do things both rapidly and accurately.


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The friendly or social letter should have a considerably different form from the business letter. It should taboo abbreviations entirely, it should be written on plain stationery such as has been already suggested, and it should begin and end differently from the business letter. The complimentary beginning should be "Dear Mr. Green" or "Dear Walter," as the closeness of the relationship decides. There is little if any difference between "My dear Grace" and "Dear Grace," some authors holding that one form and some that the other is the more formal. I


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 think it is a matter of paying your money and taking your choice. It is never correct to begin a letter "Mr. Babcock," or "Friend Harrington," or even "Dear Friend"; such forms are as unconventional and as unsophisticated as saying, "Mr. Brown, meet Mr. Jones," when introducing one man to another. Inexperienced people use such forms because they appear more friendly than the more conventional forms; old people use them because that was the custom when they were young. These last we can justify. If the address of the one to whom it is written is included it should not be placed at the beginning of the letter as is regularly done in business correspondence, but in the lower left-hand corner of the sheet, at the close of the letter. If it is not desired to include such an address at all, and there is no good reason why it should be included so far as I can see, then the letter may begin at once with the complimentary introduction and may give the date and place of writing in the lower left-hand corner at the end of the letter. The two letters below will sufficiently illustrate what I have in mind.


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 A married woman in signing her name to a letter addressed to any one excepting her most intimate friends should indicate the fact that she is married. She should sign her own name, as "Elizabeth B. Jones," followed by her husband's name (Mrs. John L.) in parentheses.

Any woman, married or single, should in some way indicate the fact of her sex, when writing to strangers, either by signing her name in full or giving at least one full given name, as "Edith L. White" or "Mary Jane Gray," and by prefixing "Miss" or "Mrs," in parentheses. It is usually confusing and often leads to embarrassing situations for a woman to sign merely her initials, as "M. L. Brown," in her business correspondence, or in correspondence with strangers. Women are not yet so regularly and familiarly addressed in business nor does their correspondence so unerringly show the feminine touch as to reveal their sex in correspondence without a little mechanical help.

What came very nearly being for me an epistolary tragedy not long ago arose from the fact that I had received a business


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 communication from a lady who erroneously imagined that our acquaintance was sufficiently close for me to recognize her signature in any guise. She signed her name merely with her initials, and not having any very definite impression of her, I, thoughtless man, addressed my letter in reply to "Dear Mr. Brown," not recognizing my fair correspondent. My inexcusable blunder brought down upon me a shower of vigorous criticism and imprecations that would have done credit to any masculine correspondent with whom I have ever done business. The experience taught me a lesson which I am eager to pass on to all of those who may read this book.

The matter of directing the envelope may seem trivial, but the neatly addressed envelope may often very favorably dispose the reader toward the writer even before he has taken the letter into his hand. It is the little things of life which often make a more lasting and definite impression upon us than do the larger and apparently more vital things. The address on an envelope should always occupy a little more than the lower half of the


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 available space, and should be placed toward the right end of that space. It will usually consist of but three or four lines, and these may be correctly arranged in one of two ways. The first of these is called the block method of arrangement. In this arrangement the lines are placed one under the other without indentation, and usually all punctuation is omitted, although regular punctuation may be used if it is desired. An illustration follows:

The second method is the more commonly employed. In this the first line of the address is placed very near the middle of the space indicated and the succeeding lines are evenly indented toward the right. The lines should not be indented so far as to give an unsupported or top-heavy effect to the address. This address may or may not be punctuated, as the writer prefers.


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 When in writing a letter one uses single sheets it is always better to write on but one side of the paper. It sometimes seems like a waste of good stationery to do this, but the ease of handling and of reading the letter, and the generally better effect of it all more than compensates for the seeming extravagance. A folded sheet of four pages is written upon in various ways so that it comes to be almost a matter of individual taste as to the order in which the pages shall come. One almost has to learn a new method of procedure with each new correspondent. If a suitable margin were left there is no reason why in writing on folded sheets we should not write straight across successive pages taking pages one, two, three, and four as they come. When no margins are left, as is frequently the case though it should not be, the lines on adjacent pages are likely to run into each other in a rather confusing way. The most common method employed is to write first across the narrow way of page one, to turn to page four next and write across it in the same way, and then to open the sheet and write upon pages two and three in a direction at right


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 angles to the lines on pages one and four. This would bring the signature and the end of the letter on the side of page three as the folded sheet lies before you. There is no particular sense or reason in this method of procedure; it is a good deal like always having the bow on the left side of one's hat, or a mourning band on one's left sleeve, but it is nevertheless a custom from which it is not wise to deviate.

One should always be careful with his signature. I say this with the more feeling knowing that my own must be a great trial to many people to whom I write and who have never before heard of me. Perhaps the military method of signing the letter over the typewritten name might be a good system to employ in all business letters. It is, in fact, being employed very much more generally in recent years than it was before the war, and it is a practice which may well be encouraged. In social letters, however, written in longhand, there is no such opportunity and here special care should be observed. Even in letters between friends it is not a bad practice to sign one's full name and to do it carefully. At Christmas time I spend


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 not a few moments in racking my brain to determine who "E. E. F." is or in deciding whether "Mac" is McEldowney, or McMasters, or McGinnis. Sometimes even the envelope when it bears a decipherable postmark, which is seldom, does not help me out a great deal, for one's young friends move without announcement from New York to Seattle, or from St. Louis to Cheyenne. Some men take pride in the cultivation of a signature that can neither be imitated nor deciphered. This fact may protect them from forgery, but it often occasions those to whom they write considerable annoyance, and is no sign either of erudition or of solid business standing. No one can afford so to sign his name unless it is printed or engraved at the top of the sheet upon which he is writing.

I have said nothing about punctuation, and it is, perhaps, unnecessary to say much. The tendency these days is toward simplicity in punctuation and in capitalization. This does not mean, however, that one can wander on interminably without any punctuation marks, or that proper nouns may not still claim the right te be


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 dignified with a capital letter. In short sentences, such as are commonly met with in ordinary correspondence, very little punctuation is needed. In longer sentences, however, or in the reproduction of conversation, considerable punctuation is required for the sake of accuracy and clearness. If one knows anything about the grammatical construction of sentences, this punctuation is not difficult to learn, and if one does not it is practically hopeless to give directions, for in such a case the writer will continue to use punctuation marks as a college student goes to church—when he feels like it.

The various details with reference to materials and mechanical form to which I have called attention in this chapter go far to the making of a good-looking letter. Their use gives a pleasing appearance and an impression that the writer of the letter is familiar with the ways of the world and that he is a person of experience and good taste. They may be easily learned if one is willing to give a little attention to them, It is surprising how soon they may become habitual, and after they are habitual they seemed a real part of oneself.


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 now and then with cold, and coming out to rub my legs into a lively friction, and only fishing here and there because of the tumbling water; suddenly, in an open space, where meadows spread about it, I found a good stream flowing softly into the body of our brook. And it brought, so far as I could guess by the sweep of it under my knee-caps, a larger power of clear water than the Lynn itself had; only it came more quietly down, not being troubled with stairs and steps, as the fortune of the Lynn is, but gliding smoothly and forcibly, as if upon some set purpose.

Hereupon I drew up and thought, and reason was much inside me; because the water was bitter cold, and my little toes were aching. So on the bank I rubbed them well with a sprout of young sting-nettle, and having skipped about awhile, was kindly inclined to eat a bit.

Now all the turn of all my life hung upon that moment. But as I sat there munching a crust of Betty Muxworthy's sweet brown bread, and a bit of cold bacon along with it, and kicking my little red heels against the dry loam to keep them warm, I knew no more than fish under the fork what was going on over me. It seemed a sad business to go back now and tell Annie there were no loaches; and yet it was a frightful thing, knowing what I did of it, to venture, where no grown man durst, up the Bagworthy water. And please to recollect that I was only a boy in those days, fond enough of anything new, but not like a man to meet it.


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"A great many people keep their friends in mind by writing to them," says Booth Tarkington in the Guest of Quesnay, "but more do not." "Friendships grow dull," Jowett writes to Margot Asquith, "if two persons do not care to write to one another."

I presume that the friendly letter is the one most commonly written, because people of all ages from nine to ninety write friendly letters, and I suppose, too, that it is the sort which we most commonly intend to write and then don't. The thought is disturbing me as I am writing this paragraph that I had promised myself today to write two friendly letters that should have gone yesterday and that I am afraid may not get off until tomorrow. The friendly letter is the most satisfactory sort of all, for it does not hold the writer to so rigid a routine, it is more flexible and less exacting in its requirements. Ordinarily it need not be written today; its composition may be deferred until tomorrow or next week, or to that pleasant and indefinite future when we plan to accom-


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 plish all things worthy and worth while; it is the letter we write because it gives us pleasure to do so, or more likely because we hope to give some one else pleasure.

Sometimes, in cases of acute emotion, when the writers are in love for example or imagine they are, the friendly letter is a matter of daily occurrence and goes to great lengths; but this high fever of friendship ordinarily reaches an early crisis and soon burns itself out. The more restrained it is, the more likely it is to be permanent. Friendly correspondence is in general, however, desultory, irregular, and for that reason often the more interesting because the arrival of the letter is unlooked for and unexpected. Once a month or once a year or every once in a while usually tells the story of the friendly letter. Such a correspondence is, as it should be, like the irregular meeting of friends whose paths do not regularly cross and who find keener pleasure in their occasional comings together. The occasional letter, like absence, tends to make the heart grow fonder.

The form of the friendly letter is like that of the letter of courtesy. It omits


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 from the beginning the street and the city address of the one to whom it is written; it eliminates, whenever possible or convenient, both in form and materials everything that would suggest the business letter, because it really does not concern itself with business. I say advisedly "whenever possible or convenient," because sometimes friendly letters are written in hotels or during business hours when a lull in the rush of business matters gives one a few minutes of leisure which may be occupied in friendly converse, with the materials at hand, just as one often makes a friendly call in his business dress not having either the time or the opportunity to put on the togs specified by the style book for such occasions. Many business men, and other people in fact, keep at hand various sorts of stationery to meet such social and business situations as may arise, but the average man does not make such provision, and takes liberties with social conventions when he is writing to his old friends and uses whatever materials are handiest. It is, however, only between intimate friends, who have known each other a good while, that such neglige in correspondence is per-


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 missible, or under other extraordinary circumstances.

In the friendly letter the person written to may be addressed, should be addressed in fact, as he would be spoken to in ordinary conversation when the correspondents are face to face. "Dear Bill," "Dear Doctor Brown," "My darling child," will go in a friendly letter if these are the terms ordinarily employed, and the signature may follow equally familiar lines. It is quite permissible to use a nickname; I still continue to address an old classmate, who occupies a most important and dignified position in real life, as "Face"—a name attached to him in college because nature had given him a very plain physiognomy. I am myself generally known by my initials or as "Tommy." It is well to keep in mind, however, that conservatism is always wisest in letter-writing.

It is safest never to write in a letter anything that would embarrass either correspondent or cause difficulty or regret if the letter should fall into other hands than those for which it was intended. Written secrets are dangerous. If it is necessary for you to say to your friend, "Burn this letter


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 after you have read it," it is just as well usually to burn it before it is sent and before anyone else has had a chance to read it. People generally are pretty careless with their correspondence, and it is safe to conclude that most letters, no matter how confidential they are assumed to be, fall into the hands of more than one person. Things that involve the good character or the exemplary conduct of a third person, particularly private things, things that are vulgar or sentimental, or that are purely personal gossip, are better avoided. Such things are difficult to retract when they have been written, and they are often quite as difficult and embarrassing to face, when, as is often the case, we are forced to do so. I have seen enough of such letters picked up by curious landladies, and inquisitive relatives, and prying acquaintances and sent back to trouble the writer, to realize how humiliating they may sometimes become.

The complimentary close of a friendly letter should usually be the conventional "Sincerely yours," "Cordially yours," or even "Lovingly yours" if that is the way you feel about it. The unusual ending


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 may be used only when the relationship between the two people concerned is unconventional or unusually friendly and familiar. In such cases the writer may close in any way that seems to him fitting. To close a letter in these days with "Your friend" is not considered quite good form, though there is no reason that any intelligent person can give why it should not be so. Everything that has been previously said concerning sentence structure, paragraphing, good grammar, abbreviations, and similar details holds for the friendly letter. There is as much reason why we should be careful of form and detail in writing to our friends as in writing to anyone else in the world, just as a proper husband feels under obligations to show his wife the same courtesy and thoughtfulness as he accords to other women. One should not neglect to show a man consideration and courtesy just because he is one's friend.

The purpose of friendly letters is to interest our friends, to keep in touch with them, and to keep alive the warm feelings which first awakened the friendship. To accomplish this we must tell them what


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 they want most to know, and what they usually want to know most concerns ourselves. At the beginning of the recent war a young friend of mine accompanied one of the first American units to go to France. It was with considerable agitation and feeling that I saw him leave, and I waited with eagerness and impatience to receive his first letter. As the days passed I followed in my mind every detail of his progress. I saw him embark, I met all the new friends with whom he came in contact on the voyage, I felt all the excitement contingent upon the dangers which he encountered on the sea, and I finally landed with him in France. I followed him to Paris over a not unfamiliar road, for I had been there two or three times myself, and I then waited to have him confirm all that I had imagined.

His first letter came within a month or so. He was having some difficulty with his credit, he told me; would I write his Chicago banker or call him up over the telephone and get the matter straightened out for him. He was uncertain just what he would get into or where he would be sent. There was not a word about the


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 voyage or the friends we both knew who were on the boat with him, not a word about himself or his impressions of anything or anybody. He had apparently not thought of me or of any interest I might have in him. I was disappointed, disgusted almost, and I replied as briefly and in as business-like a way as he had written me and wounded his feelings badly by doing so. He wanted what he had not attempted to give me! If he ever had any real adventures during the two years he was gone, he never said so. He philosophized a good deal on the different points of view which he encountered in France, he wrote me the detailed results of his introspections, but he seldom told me anything which I really wanted to know, and so far as he responded to anything which I asked or said in my own letters to him he might never have received or read any one of them. His letters were philosophical essays, not in any sense correspondence.

Another young fellow to whom I write at very irregular intervals makes a quite different impression upon me. His letters are very personal, and no matter how


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 negligent he is about writing or how long delayed his replies are, I am always quite sure when I receive his letter that when he wrote it he had my last communication before him. He catches my subtlest joke, he responds to my mood, whatever it may have been, as surely as he would have done were we together, and my slightest inquiry never goes unnoticed or unanswered. His letters seem to me almost as satisfying as if we were talking face to face. The difference between these two men was very little in temperament or in training; they were about the same age, they were educated similarly; it was largely a matter of knowing how to write a letter, of appreciating what will interest and hold the attention of one's friends. One kept his readers in mind when he was writing; the other thought very largely of his own personal feelings.

First of all it is well to remember that when people of approximately the same age are writing to each other, unless their main interests are technical or professional, the thing they want most to hear about is each other's movements. Protestations of love and undying friendship are all right


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 for a time as a subject to dwell upon in friendly correspondence, but we are all more or less the slaves of everyday routine; the day's work takes most of our time and thought, and before we have gone far in our friendly correspondence we begin to inquire, "What are you doing? Where are you going? What are you thinking about? What ambitions are stirring within you?" The main thing that interests us in our friends is the routine of their everyday life and thought.

A friend of mine not long ago read me a letter which she was about to send off to a mutual acquaintance. "You have told her nothing about yourself," I said, "and you haven't seen each other for years. She'll like what you have said, but she would much rather hear about you and your home and your children and your varied interests, than to read the impersonal details with which you have filled your letter."

"But it seems conceited to talk about oneself all the time," my friend replied. Well, so it may, but that is what our friends want unless it is for us to talk a little about themselves.


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 We have all met people who, no matter how much of an effort we make to introduce a new topic of conversation, continually cling to their own. You say something about your summer's experience, but they continue to discuss their housemaid's eccentricities; you ask a question, but they ignore it, and wander on recounting their own domestic trials, or discoursing on their own personal experiences. There is no one more exasperating than this sort of person in friendly correspondence. You introduce a topic, you throw out a suggestion, or you ask a question in your letter, but your topic is never taken up in his reply, your suggestion is never followed, your question is entirely ignored. It is all as if he had never received or read your letter. The result is disheartening. When you answer a friendly letter, it is safest to have it before you, to have re-read it before you begin the reply, and in imagination, at least, to have a little conversation with the individual to whom you are writing. As you recall his manner, his tricks of conversation, his facial expression, you will respond to these as if he were before you. And conversa-


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 tion both in writing and in oral discourse involves an interchange of thoughts. Some people have the erroneous idea that it is sufficient if one person does all the talking while the other simply listens, but this is not conversation, it is only monologue.

A real and satisfying reply to a friendly letter requires that all the questions be answered in some way or another, we seldom ask them simply to fill space; that there be a sympathetic response to suggestions, and an understanding and an appreciation of the tone and spirit in which the first letter was written. Otherwise there is no incentive or inspiration to continue the correspondence. "Have you read 'Main Street'?" I ask when I am writing Cornish, "and what do you think of it? It seems to me to have eliminated from the lives of its characters everything that is sweet and kindly and wholesome. It is true in every detail and yet false in that it omits so much that is also quite as true as what is presented." I wait for his reply, eager to get his point of view, for I know he is a keen critic, and that he is quite unlikely to agree with me, but when it comes he makes no reference to my in-


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 quiry. He has forgotten my question or has possibly never read my letter through. I am disappointed; I feel slighted as I might if I had attempted to take part in a conversation and had been totally ignored or crowded out of the talk.

The friendly letter should avoid formality and stiffness in style. It should be natural and conversational in its use of words, for in reality at its best it is only a conversation on paper. Contractions and elisions and the easy vernacular of everyday speech are not only permissible but quite desirable. Some letters I receive are as formal as a mathematical theorem or as the explanation of a new scientific fact. The friendly letter should be full of "aren't's" and "don't's" and "haven't's" and "shan't's" and the thousand and one contractions that give naturalness and movement to friendly conversation. There are many colloquial words and expressions sometimes closely related to slang which might not pass muster in a formal essay or even in dignified spoken discourse but which would be quite unobjectionable and even commendable in a friendly letter.


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 Lamb knew how to write a friendly letter. His were usually longer than most of us will today take the time to write, but they were so genuine, so unstudied, so free from conventional cant, so humanly like the man who wrote them. The following letter to his old friend Barron Field illustrates almost everything that is good in a friendly letter:

My dear Barron:

The bearer of this letter so far across the seas is Mr. Lawrey, who comes out to you as a missionary, and whom I have been strongly importuned to recommend to you as a most worthy creature by Mr. Fenwick, a very old, honest friend of mine; of whom, if my memory does not deceive me, you have had some knowledge heretofore as editor of the Statesman; a man of talent, and patriotic. If you can show him any facilities in his arduous undertaking, you will oblige us much. Well, and how does the land of thieves use you? and how do you pass your time, in your extrajudicial intervals? Going about the streets with a lantern, like Diogenes, looking for an honest man? You may look long enough, I fancy. Do give me


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 some notion of the manners of the inhabitants where you are. They don't thieve all day long do they? No human property could stand such continuous battery. And what do they do when they an't stealing?

Have you got a theatre? What pieces are performed? Shakspeare's, I suppose; not so much for the poetry, as for his having once been in danger of leaving his country on account of certain "small deer."

Have you poets among you? Damn'd plagiarists, I fancy, if you have any. I would not trust an idea, or a pocket-handkerchief of mine, among 'em. You are almost competent to answer Lord Bacon's problem, whether a nation of atheists can subsist together. You are practically in one:

Our old honest world goes on with little perceptible variation. Of course you have heard of poor Mitchell's death, and that G. Dyer is one of Lord Stanhope's residuaries. I am afraid he has not touched much of the residue yet. He is


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 positively as lean as Cassius. Barnes is going to Demerara, or Essequibo, I am not quite certain which. Alsager is turned actor. He came out in genteel comedy at Cheltenham this season, and has hopes of a London engagement.

For my own history I am just in the same spot, doing the same thing, (videlicet, little or nothing,) as when you left me; only I have positive hopes that I shall be able to conquer that inveterate habit of smoking which you may remember I indulged in. I think of making a beginning this evening, viz. Sunday, 31st Aug., 1817, not Wednesday, 2nd Feb., 1818, as it will be perhaps when you read this for the first time. There is the difficulty of writing from one end of the globe (hemispheres I call 'em) to another! Why, half the truths I have sent you in this letter will become lies before they reach you, and some of the lies (which I have mixed for variety's sake, and to exercise your judgment in the finding of them out) may be turned into sad realities before you shall be called upon to detect them. Such are the defects of going by different chronologies. Your "now" is not my "now"; and again, your "then" is not my "then"; but my "now" may be


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 your "then," and vice versa. Whose head is competent to these things?

How does Mrs. Field get on in her geography? Does she know where she is by this time? I am not sure sometimes you are not in another planet; but then I don't like to ask Capt. Burney, or any of those that know any thing about it, for fear of exposing my ignorance.

Our kindest remembrances, however, to Mrs. F., if she will accept of reminiscences from another planet, or at least another hemisphere.

C. L.

People of different ages and different experiences are interested in different things. Children are interested in adventures, in things which show surprise, which call for courage or which bring one into contact with personal danger. If there is a touch of sentiment or romance in it, so much the more will it please the young girl. If it involves personal encounters with wild animals, rivalry in sport, or hair-breadth escapes from death, it fascinates the boy. There is nothing like a painted Indian or a grizzly bear, a catamount or a jaguar to stir up interest when


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 writing to a boy. I don't really know just what a jaguar is, but I know he is interesting and dangerous. Things mean more to a boy than do people. No one recognized this fact better than. Theodore Roosevelt, and he has utilized it to a most interesting degree in his letters to his children. It is about dogs and horses and bobcats and other delightful animals that he constantly writes. One becomes acquainted with his dogs as if they were people with human characteristics and human feelings. Turk, the bloodhound, and "the pig named Maude" who went about the camp picking up scraps, and Skip, and Jack, are all like characters in a story book. As we read on through the letters we look eagerly for the reappearance of the familiar names as, I am sure, the Roosevelt children did while they were waiting for the coming of their father's next letter.

Men in active life are usually interested in business and sports and sometimes in politics, and these things should be kept in mind when writing to them in a friendly way. Their own particular business interests them more than does any other man's.


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 If you are writing to a farmer it is better to discuss crops and live stock and the prices of pork and other farm products than it is to ramble on concerning fashions and foulard, as if your friend were running a ladies' furnishing shop. His interests and tastes must always be considered. Women are fondest of personal gossip. They are more concerned with people than with things. Their time is taken up normally with the details of home life and association with their neighbors, and it is these that they dwell most upon in their letters. Intimate things are to them most interesting and most vital. Here is a Christmas letter, full of appreciation, cheerful, happy, and delightfully frank and personal. It makes one eager for the next one. It isn't written by Lamb or Stevenson or even by Charlotte Brontë, but just by a healthy, intelligent, friendly human being.

Dearest Alice:

I had your card this morning, and it was such a dear one that I came near shedding tears on my toast at the breakfast table. I am so sorry about


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 your eye, and know that it must be a most miserable experience. I surely hope it will be well in less than three months. I appreciate your writing at all.

I took your package to Wilmington with me, and did not waste any time in opening it on Christmas morning. Your gifts are always a delight, and I do a lot of bragging because Tom has a hand in them. I love this blue one, and my "face and fancy" are entirely suited. It is perfect on mahogany, and I have had a brown fruit basket on it, and today tried a blue bowl with a gay flowered rim, the blue in the bowl being just a shade deeper. I look with wonder and admiration upon the intricacies of that edge.

Are you wondering at the change in our address? I should have told you before about our adventures in housekeeping. We sold our house in August, and are living in an apartment until we can find a house we like better. We are on the first floor and have a back porch and a lawn and plenty of room and the cat, and I like it so well that I am not even thinking about a house at present.

Roger is in Rochester for a year as chemist in the Eastman Research lab-


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 oratory and returns to Hopkins in the fall for three years for his Ph.D. Richard is in his second year in Engineering, but is greatly interested in printing. Little A. K. is eight years old and goes to Friends' School. Arthur goes on frequent business trips, and you may see him one of these days. We are within two blocks of the University, so Richard leaves at eight twenty-nine for his eight thirty class.

Arthur is deep in "The Beloved Vagabond,"—do you and Tom adore "Aristide Pujol?" The boys had fits over it. And have you read any of Christopher Morley's books? I thought "Parnassus on Wheels" was great, and have read some of "Shandygaft."

I am so glad you had a fine Christmas. Arthur gave me a banjo clock which he got at Ovington's when he was in New York just before Christmas, and a lamp for my dressing table. "We all went to Wilmington as Father has not been well, and did not feel like leaving home. My sister lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, and has a darling baby a year old whom we call "Little Liz" to distinguish her from grandmother. The family history being now


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 concluded, I send you a kiss, and a Happy New Year, and two good eyes.

Having a new letter from you, I will tear up the one I had last year.

Loving you, as ever,

January 4, 1921.

People who are past their youth are fondest of reminiscence. The days of their childhood linger most tenderly in their memories. The friends with whom they went to school, the roads they traveled in boyhood, the scenes of early adventure when they were young and strong, have for them the keenest interest. Walter Nicholson wrote me not many months ago. We lived "across the section" from each other when we were children, just a mile apart, and we were together regularly. We have not seen or heard much of each other since we were eighteen, I think, and his home is hundreds of miles from mine. The letter is full of references to "Prairie Star" and "Kentucky" school houses, to spelling bees and revival meetings. Where are all the old fellows, he wants to know: Ves Byers, and Taylor Curtis, and the Gregory boys? And what


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 has become of the Baily girls? What hilarious times we used to have with them. So he rambled on, recalling old experiences and bringing back old memories. It was an interesting and delightful letter which made me feel young again, when I was able to forget how many years had intervened since we had walked together across the prairies or driven along the flower-bordered roads. It was unconscious art which gave him the power to re-create in my mind the vivid pictures of my young manhood.

Sometimes we may take for granted that our friends will be interested in the same things in which we find interest, but not always. It is safest, before we begin to write the friendly letter, to study the epistle to which we are making a reply, and then to give some serious consideration to the personal interests, to the likes and dislikes of the one to whom we are writing. Writing a friendly letter is like starting a conversation with a friend. There are a thousand things about which we might write. We should not write that which is most pleasing to us, but that which is likely to be most interesting to


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 him. That is the secret well worth your learning, of the effective friendly letter.


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My sister Virginia was giving a dinner, and she asked me to help her write the invitations. For several reasons the invitations were to be written and not engraved. Virginia is a stickler for social conventions and for thoroughly good form, so she couldn't have them printed, for both she and I knew that that would suggest that we are common and vulgar and inexperienced in social affairs; only those who are ignorant of what is done by the most careful people, or those who choose for the sake of haste or economy to ignore social conventions, ever have their calling cards or their invitations printed. There was not time to have them engraved, for Virginia had decided rather hastily to give the dinner, she could secure the caterer only upon a certain night, and she knew that she would have to give her guests ten days in which to reply to her invitation and to get their feathers preened up. The written invitation is quite as good form as is the engraved one, and so, as I said, my sister decided to write her invitations, and she asked me to help her.


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 It was to be a thoroughly nice dinner and a good-sized one. The guests comprised the best people of the town, that is the most experienced socially, the most refined, the best educated. It was no common country village in which Virginia lived, but a college town where culture and literary taste flourished, so we were justified in supposing that everything would be done both by the hostess and her guests in the most conventional form.

The invitation was written in the recognized form which such invitations are supposed to follow. We used Virginia's correspondence cards with her monogram stamped in gold in one corner. The writing was carefully placed on the card with wide margins so as to give the best possible suggestion of care and thoughtful arrangement. Such things count for more than most persons suppose. The card read:


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 They were all mailed promptly, and then we waited for the replies—formal replies they should have been, written in the third person and couched in the same direct language as had been employed in the invitation.

"How is your dinner coming on?" I asked Virginia three days later when she had had ample time to hear from every one. She smiled in reply and showed me a little pile of envelopes. Now every one knows who has had any experience or who has thought about it at all that a formal invitation should have an immediate reply; especially is this true of an invitation to dinner. The hostess must know exactly how many guests she is to entertain, she must prepare her menu, and arrange her tables, and decide upon the seating of her guests. Otherwise she will offend some one or her dinner will be a higgledy-piggledy affair without order or definite arrangement, and that was not the sort of dinner that Virginia was planning to give.

I took the envelopes in my hand, less than a dozen of them, and looked them over. They were of all shades and sizes, pink, lavender, cream, and yellow; there


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 were business envelopes with bold printed return cards in the corner, and there were envelopes so tiny as to suggest the announcement of a birth. The acknowledgments were equally bizarre. Mrs. Turner—her husband received a doctor's degree from Yale and teaches English—began her note "Dear Friend" and signed it "Yours Truly" with two capital letters, not being satisfied to make one error only in her complimentary close. Bob Bates, whom I had always looked upon as a shining example of what one ought to do and be in social affairs, wrote a rather crude informal note and used the stationery designed for the business operations of his uncle Ed's hardware store. Miss Eleanor Pratt, whose father is president of one of our local banks and who herself is a graduate of a most widely advertised girls' finishing school, affirmed that "Miss Pratt regrets that owing to a previous engagement, she will be unable to accept," etc., instead of saying as she really meant that she is unable to do so. Not a third of those invited had replied and only Mr. Scott's note was in actually perfect form, the only form which could correctly be


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 used, in fact. His stationery was beautifully simple and refined, with his street number embossed in dark blue at the top. His penmanship was even and regular and the note was carefully placed in the middle of the folded sheet. The indentations and the margins were very pleasing to the eye. When you saw the envelope, even before you took the card into your hand, you recognized the fact that Mr. Scott is a gentleman who knows social conventions and who follows them punctiliously.

The acknowledgments came straggling in until the day of the dinner. Some of those invited called up on the telephone at the last moment and declined or accepted, one or two sent word by friends, and in sheer desperation Virginia called up others to find out whether or not they were coming, explaining her action on the ground that she was afraid her own notes had gone astray in an uncertain mail. In one way or another she heard from the