When Mr.
Howells once asked him how he classified his audience, Bok replied: "We appeal to the intelligent American woman rather than to the intellectual type." And he gave her the best he could obtain.

As he knew her to be fond of the personal type of literature, he gave her in succession Jane Addams's story of "My Fifteen Years at Hull House," and the remarkable narration of Helen Keller's "Story of My Life"; he invited Henry Van Dyke, who had never been in the Holy Land, to go there, camp out in a tent, and then write a series of sketches, "Out of Doors in the Holy Land"; he induced Lyman Abbott to tell the story of "My Fifty Years as a Minister." He asked Gene Stratton Porter to tell of her bird-experiences in the series: "What I Have Done with Birds"; he persuaded Dean Hodges to turn from his work of training young clergymen at the Episcopal Seminary, at Cambridge, and write one of the most successful series of Bible stories for children ever printed; and then he supplemented this feature for children by publishing Rudyard Kipling's "Just So" stories and his "Puck of Pook's Hill." He induced F.Hopkinson Smith to tell the best stories he had ever heard in his wide travels in "The Man in the Arm Chair"; he got Kate Douglas Wiggin to tell a country church experience of hers in "The Old Peabody Pew"; and Jean Webster her knowledge of almshouse life in "Daddy Long Legs." The readers of _The Ladies' Home Journal_ realized that it searched the whole field of endeavor in literature and art to secure what would interest them, and they responded with their support.
Another of Bok's methods in editing was to do the common thing in an uncommon way.

He had the faculty of putting old wine in new bottles and the public liked it.

His ideas were not new; he knew there were no new ideas, but he presented his ideas in such a way that they seemed new.

It is a significant fact, too, that a large public will respond more quickly to an idea than it will to a name.
When, early in 1917, events began so to shape themselves as directly to point to the entrance of the United States into the Great War, Edward Bok set himself to formulate a policy for _The Ladies' Home Journal_.
He knew that he was in an almost insurmountably difficult position.
The huge edition necessitated going to press fully six weeks in advance of publication, and the preparation of material fully four weeks previous to that.