It had become a national institution such as no other magazine had ever been.

It was indisputably accepted by the public and by business interests alike as the recognized avenue of approach to the intelligent homes of America.
Edward Bok was content to leave it at this point.
He explained all this in December, 1918, to the Board of Directors, and asked that his resignation be considered.

It was understood that he was to serve out his thirty years, thus remaining with the magazine for the best part of another year.
In the material which _The Journal_ now included in its contents, it began to point the way to the problems which would face women during the reconstruction period.

Bok scanned the rather crowded field of thought very carefully, and selected for discussion in the magazine such questions as seemed to him most important for the public to understand in order to face and solve its impending problems.

The outstanding question he saw which would immediately face men and women of the country was the problem of Americanization.