HOW TO BEGIN

IMPORTANCE OF THE BEGINNING. The value of a good beginning for a news

story, a special feature article, or a short story results from the way

in which most persons read newspapers and magazines. In glancing through

current publications, the average reader is attracted chiefly by

headlines or titles, illustrations, and authors' names. If any one of

these interests him, he pauses a moment or two over the beginning "to

se what it is all about." The first paragraphs usually determine

whether or not he goes any further. A single copy of a newspaper or

magazine offers so much reading matter that the casual reader, if

disappointed in the introduction to one article or short story, has

plenty of others to choose from. But if the opening sentences hold his

attention, he reads on. "Well begun is half done" is a saying that

applies with peculiar fitness to special feature articles.



STRUCTURE OF THE BEGINNING. To accomplish its purpose an introduction

must be both a unit in itself and an integral part of the article. The

beginning, whether a single paragraph in form, or a single paragraph in

essence, although actually broken up into two or more short paragraphs,

should produce on the mind of the reader a unified impression. The

conversation, the incident, the example, or the summary of which it

consists, should be complete in itself. Unless, on the other hand, the

introduction is an organic part of the article, it fails of its purpose.

The beginning must present some vital phase of the subject; it should

not be merely something attractive attached to the article to catch the

reader's notice. In his effort to make the beginning attractive, an

inexperienced writer is inclined to linger over it until it becomes

disproportionately long. Its length, however, should be proportionate to

the importance of that phase of the subject which it presents. As a

vital part of the article, the introduction must be so skillfully

connected with what follows that a reader is not conscious of the

transition. Close coherence between the beginning and the body of the

article is essential.



The four faults, therefore, to be guarded against in writing the

beginning are: (1) the inclusion of diverse details not carefully

coordinated to produce a single unified impression; (2) the development

of the introduction to a disproportionate length; (3) failure to make

the beginning a vital part of the article itself; (4) lack of close

connection or of skillful transition between the introduction and the

body of the article.



TYPES OF BEGINNINGS. Because of the importance of the introduction, the

writer should familiarize himself with the different kinds of

beginnings, and should study them from the point of view of their

suitability for various types of articles. The seven distinct types of

beginnings are: (1) summary; (2) narrative; (3) description; (4)

striking statement; (5) quotation; (6) question; (7) direct address.

Combinations of two or more of these methods are not infrequent.



Summary Beginnings. The general adoption by newspapers of the summary

beginning, or "lead," for news stories has accustomed the average reader

to finding most of the essential facts of a piece of news grouped

together in the first paragraph. The lead, by telling the reader the

nature of the event, the persons and things concerned, the time, the

place, the cause, and the result, answers his questions, What? Who?

When? Where? Why? How? Not only are the important facts summarized in

such a beginning, but the most striking detail is usually "played up" in

the first group of words of the initial sentence where it catches the

eye at once. Thus the reader is given both the main facts and the most

significant feature of the subject. Unquestionably this news story lead,

when skillfully worked out, has distinct advantages alike for the news

report and for the special article.



SUMMARY BEGINNINGS





(1)



(_Kansas City Star_)



A FRESH AIR PALACE READY



A palace of sunshine, a glass house of fresh air, will be the

Christmas offering of Kansas City to the fight against tuberculosis,

the "Great White Plague." Ten miles from the business district of

the city, overlooking a horizon miles away over valley and hill,

stands the finest tuberculosis hospital in the United States. The

newly completed institution, although not the largest hospital of

the kind, is the best equipped and finest appointed. It is symbolic

of sunshine and pure air, the cure for the disease.







(2)



(_New York World_)



STOPPING THE COST OF LIVING LEAKS



BY MARIE COOLIDGE RASK



After ten weeks' instruction in domestic economy at a New York high

school, a girl of thirteen has been the means of reducing the

expenditure in a family of seven to the extent of five dollars a

week.



The girl is Anna Scheiring, American born, of Austrian ancestry,

living with her parents and brothers and sisters in a five-room

apartment at No. 769 East One Hundred and Fifty-eighth Street, where

her father, Joseph Scheiring is superintendent of the building.



The same economic practices applied by little Anna Scheiring are at

the present time being worked out in two thousand other New York

homes whose daughters are pupils in the Washington Irving High

School.







(3)



(_The Outlook_)



THE FIGHT FOR CLEAN MILK



BY CONSTANCE D. LEUPP



Two million quarts of milk are shipped into New York every day. One

hundred thousand of those who drink it are babies. The milk comes

from forty-four thousand dairy farms scattered through New York, New

Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and even

Ohio.



A large proportion of the two million quarts travels thirty-six

hours before it lands on the front doorstep of the consumer. The

situation in New York is duplicated in a less acute degree in every

city in the United States.



NARRATIVE BEGINNINGS. To begin a special feature article in the

narrative form is to give it a story-like character that at once arouses

interest. It is impossible in many instances to know from the

introduction whether what follows is to be a short story or a special

article. An element of suspense may even be injected into the narrative

introduction to stimulate the reader's curiosity, and descriptive

touches may be added to heighten the vividness.



If the whole article is in narrative form, as is the case in a personal

experience or confession story, the introduction is only the first part

of a continuous story, and as such gives the necessary information about

the person involved.



Narrative beginnings that consist of concrete examples and specific

instances are popular for expository articles. Sometimes several

instances are related in the introduction before the writer proceeds to

generalize from them. The advantage of this inductive method of

explanation grows out of the fact that, after a general idea has been

illustrated by an example or two, most persons can grasp it with much

less effort and with much greater interest than when such

exemplification follows the generalization.



Other narrative introductions consist of an anecdote, an incident, or an

important event connected with the subject of the article.



Since conversation is an excellent means of enlivening a narrative,

dialogue is often used in the introduction to special articles, whether

for relating an incident, giving a specific instance, or beginning a

personal experience story.



Narrative Beginnings





(1)



(_The Outlook_)



BOOKER T. WASHINGTON



BY EMMETT J. SCOTT AND LYMAN BEECHER STOWE



It came about that in the year 1880, in Macon County, Alabama, a

certain ex-Confederate colonel conceived the idea that if he could

secure the Negro vote he could beat his rival and win the seat he

coveted in the State Legislature. Accordingly the colonel went to

the leading Negro in the town of Tuskegee and asked him what he

could do to secure the Negro vote, for Negroes then voted in Alabama

without restriction. This man, Lewis Adams by name, himself an

ex-slave, promptly replied that what his race most wanted was

education, and what they most needed was industrial education, and

that if he (the colonel) would agree to work for the passage of a

bill appropriating money for the maintenance of an industrial school

for Negroes, he, Adams, would help to get for him the Negro vote and

the election. This bargain between an ex-slaveholder and an ex-slave

was made and faithfully observed on both sides, with the result that

the following year the Legislature of Alabama appropriated $2,000 a

year for the establishment of a normal and industrial school for

Negroes in the town of Tuskegee. On the recommendation of General

Armstrong, of Hampton Institute, a young colored man, Booker T.

Washington, a recent graduate of and teacher at the Institute, was

called from there to take charge of this landless, buildingless,

teacherless, and studentless institution of learning.







(2)



(_Leslie's Weekly_)



MILLIONAIRES MADE BY WAR



BY HOMER CROY



A tall, gaunt, barefooted Missouri hill-billy stood beside his

rattly, dish-wheeled wagon waiting to see the mighty proprietor of

the saw mill who guessed only too well that the hill-billy had

something he wanted to swap for lumber.



"What can I do for you?"



The hillman shifted his weight uneasily. "I 'low I got somethun of

powerful lot of interest to yuh." Reaching over the side of the

wagon he placed his rough hand tenderly on a black lump. "I guess

yuh know what it is."



The saw mill proprietor glanced at it depreciatingly and turned

toward the mill.



"It's lead, pardner, pure lead, and I know where it come from. I

could take you right to the spot--ef I wanted to."



The mill proprietor hooked a row of fingers under the rough stone

and tried to lift it. But he could not budge it. "It does seem to

have lead in it. What was you calc'lating askin' for showin' me

where you found it?"



The farmer from the foothills cut his eyes down to crafty slits. "I

was 'lowing just tother day as how a house pattern would come in

handy. Ef you'll saw me out one I'll take you to the spot." And so

the deal was consummated, the hill-billy gleefully driving away,

joyous over having got a fine house pattern worth $40 for merely

showing a fellow where you could pick up a few hunks of lead.



That was forty-five years ago and it was thus that the great Joplin

lead and zinc district was made known to the world.







(3)



(_Munsey's Magazine_)



FRANK A. SCOTT, CHAIRMAN OF THE WAR INDUSTRIES BOARD



BY THEODORE TILLER



One day in the year 1885 a twelve-year-old boy, who had to leave

school and make his own way in the world on account of his father's

death, applied for a job in a railroad freight-office in Cleveland,

Ohio.



"I'm afraid you won't do," said the chief. "We need a boy, but

you're not tall enough to reach the letter-press."



"Well, couldn't I stand on a box?" suggested the young seeker of

employment.



That day a box was added to the equipment of the freight-office and

the name of Frank A. Scott to the payroll.



(4)



(_New York Times_)



NEW YORKER INVENTS NEW EXPLOSIVE AND GIVES IT TO THE UNITED STATES



Nine young men recently rowed to the middle of the Hudson River with

a wooden box to which wires were attached, lying in the bottom of

the boat. They sank the box in deep water very cautiously, and then

rowed slowly back to land, holding one end of the wire. Presently a

column of water 40 feet through and 300 feet high shot into the air,

followed by a deafening detonation, which tore dead branches from

trees.



The nine young men were congratulating one man of the group on the

explosion when an irate farmer ran up, yelling that every window in

his farmhouse, nearly a mile away, had been shattered. The party of

young men didn't apologize then; they gathered about the one who was

being congratulated and recongratulated him.



The farmer did not know until later that the force which broke his

windows and sent the huge column of water into the air was the War

Department's newest, safest, and most powerful explosive; that the

young men composed the dynamite squad of the Engineer Corps of the

New York National Guard; and that the man they were congratulating

was Lieut. Harold Chase Woodward, the inventor of the explosive.







(5)



(_System_)



WHY THE EMPLOYEES RUN OUR BUSINESS



A BUSINESS OF THE WORKERS, BY THE WORKERS, AND FOR THE WORKERS--HOW

IT SUCCEEDS.



BY EDWARD A. FILENE



"I know I am right. Leave it to any fair-minded person to decide."



"Good enough," I replied; "you name one, I will name another, and

let them select a third."



She agreed; we selected the umpires and they decided against the

store!



It had come about in this way. The store rule had been that cashiers

paid for shortages in their accounts as--in our view--a penalty for

carelessness; we did not care about the money. This girl had been

short in an account; the amount had been deducted from her pay, and,

not being afraid to speak out, she complained:



"If I am over in my accounts, it is a mistake; but if I am short, am

I a thief? Why should I pay back the money? Why can't a mistake be

made in either direction?"



This arbitration--although it had caused a decision against

us--seemed such a satisfactory way of ending disputes that we

continued the practice in an informal way. Out of it grew the

present arbitration board, which is the corner-stone of the relation

between our store and the employees, because it affords the

machinery for getting what employees are above all else interested

in--a square deal.



DESCRIPTIVE BEGINNINGS. Just as description of characters or of scene

and setting is one method of beginning short stories and novels, so also

it constitutes a form of introduction for an article. In both cases the

aim is to create immediate interest by vivid portrayal of definite

persons and places. The concrete word picture, like the concrete

instance in a narrative beginning, makes a quick and strong appeal. An

element of suspense or mystery may be introduced into the description,

if a person, a place, or an object is described without being identified

by name until the end of the portrayal.



The possibilities of description are not limited to sights alone;

sounds, odors and other sense impressions, as well as emotions, may be

described. Frequently several different impressions are combined. To

stir the reader's feelings by a strong emotional description is

obviously a good method of beginning.



A descriptive beginning, to be clear to the rapid reader, should be

suggestive rather than detailed. The average person can easily visualize

a picture that is sketched in a few suggestive words, whereas he is

likely to be confused by a mass of details. Picture-making words and

those imitative of sounds, as well as figures of speech, may be used to

advantage in descriptive beginnings. For the description of feelings,

words with a rich emotional connotation are important.



DESCRIPTIVE BEGINNINGS



(1)



(_Munsey's Magazine_)



OUR HIGHEST COURT



BY HORACE TOWNER





"The Honorable the Supreme Court of the United States!"



Nearly every week-day during the winter months, exactly at noon,

these warning words, intoned in a resonant and solemn voice, may be

heard by the visitor who chances to pass the doors of the Supreme

Court Chamber in the Capitol of the United States. The visitor sees

that others are entering those august portals, and so he, too, makes

bold to step softly inside.



If he has not waited too long, he finds himself within the chamber

in time to see nine justices of our highest court, clad in long,

black robes, file slowly into the room from an antechamber at the

left.



Every one within the room has arisen, and all stand respectfully at

attention while the justices take their places. Then the voice of

the court crier is heard again:



"_Oyez, oyez, oyez_! All persons having business with the Supreme

Court of the United States are admonished to draw near and give

their attention, for the court is now sitting."



Then, after a slight pause:



"God save the United States and this honorable court!"



The justices seat themselves; the attorneys at the bar and visitors

do likewise. The Supreme Court of the United States, generally held

to be the most powerful tribunal on earth, is in session.







(2)



(_Collier's Weekly_)



JAMES WHITCOMB BROUGHER, A PREACHER TO THE PROCESSION



BY PETER CLARK MACFARLANE





Imagine the Hippodrome--the largest playhouse of New York and of the

New World! Imagine it filled with people from foot-lights to the

last row in the topmost gallery--orchestra, dress circle, and

balconies--a huge uprising, semicircular bowl, lined with human

beings. Imagine it thus, and then strip the stage; take away the

Indians and the soldiers, the elephants and the camels; take away

the careening stage coaches and the thundering hoofs of horses, and

all the strange conglomeration of dramatic activities with which

these inventive stage managers are accustomed to panoply their

productions. Instead of all this, people the stage with a chorus

choir in white smocks, and in front of the choir put a lean,

upstanding, shock-headed preacher; but leave the audience--a regular

Hippodrome audience on the biggest Saturday night. Imagine all of

this, I say, and what you have is not the Hippodrome, not the

greatest play in the New World, nor any playhouse at all, but the

Temple Baptist Church of Los Angeles, California, with James

Whitcomb Brougher, D.D., in the pulpit.







(3)



(_The Independent_)



THE LITTLE RED SCHOOLHOUSE A "FAKE"



What the Country Schoolhouse Really Is, and Why



BY EDNA M. HILL





The schoolhouse squats dour and silent in its acre of weeds. A

little to the rear stand two wretched outbuildings. Upon its gray

clapboarded sides, window blinds hang loose and window sashes sag

away from their frames. Groaning upon one hinge the vestibule door

turns away from lopsided steps, while a broken drain pipe sways

perilously from the east corner of the roof.



Within and beyond the vestibule is the schoolroom, a monotony of

grimy walls and smoky ceiling. Cross lights from the six windows

shine upon rows of desks of varying sizes and in varying stages of

destruction. A kitchen table faces the door. Squarely in the middle

of the rough pine floor stands a jacketed stove. A much torn

dictionary and a dented water pail stand side by side on the shelf

below the one blackboard.



And this is the "little red schoolhouse" to which I looked forward

so eagerly during the summer--nothing but a tumbledown shack set in

the heart of a prosperous farming district.



(4)



(_New York Tribune_)



THE ONE WOMAN OFFICIAL AT PLATTSBURG



BY ELENE FOSTER





The tramp, tramp of feet on a hard road; long lines of khaki figures

moving over the browning grass of the parade ground; rows of faces,

keen and alert, with that look in the eyes that one sees in LePage's

Jeanne d'Arc; the click, click of bullets from the distant rifle

range blended with a chorus of deep voices near at hand singing

"Over There"; a clear, blue sky, crisp autumn air and the sparkling

waters of Lake Champlain--that's Plattsburg.







(5)



(_Good Housekeeping_)



NEW ENGLAND MILL SLAVES



BY MARY ALDEN HOPKINS



In the pale light of an early winter morning, while a flat, white

moon awaited the dawn and wind-driven clouds flung faint scudding

shadows across the snow, two little girls, cloaked, shawled, hooded

out of all recognition, plodded heavily along a Vermont mountain

road. Each carried a dangling dinner pail.



The road was lonely. Once they passed a farmhouse, asleep save for a

yellow light in a chamber. Somewhere a cock crowed. A dog barked in

the faint distance.



Where the road ascended the mountain--a narrow cut between dark,

pointed firs and swaying white-limbed birches--the way was slushy

with melting snow. The littler girl, half dozing along the

accustomed way, slipped and slid into puddles.



At the top of the mountain the two children shrank back into their

mufflers, before the sweep of the wet, chill wind; but the mill was

in sight--beyond the slope of bleak pastures outlined with stone

walls--sunk deep in the valley beside a rapid mountain stream, a dim

bulk already glimmering with points of light. Toward this the two

little workwomen slopped along on squashy feet.



They were spinners. One was fifteen. She had worked three years.

The other was fourteen. She had worked two years. The terse record

of the National Child Labor Committee lies before me, unsentimental,

bare of comment:



"They both get up at four fifteen A.M. and after breakfast start for

the mill, arriving there in time not to be late, at six. Their home

is two and one-half miles from the mill. Each earns three dollars a

week--So they cannot afford to ride. The road is rough, and it is

over the mountains."







(6)



(_Providence Journal_)



HOW TO SING THE NATIONAL SONGS



To Interpret the Text Successfully the Singer Must Memorize,

Visualize, Rhythmize, and Emphasize



BY JOHN G. ARCHER





The weary eye of the toastmaster looks apologetically down long rows

of tables as he says with a sorry-but-it-must-be-done air, "We will

now sing 'The Star Spangled Banner'"; the orchestra starts, the

diners reach frantically for their menus and each, according to his

musical inheritance and patriotic fervor, plunges into the unknown

with a resolute determination to be in on the death of the sad rite.



Some are wrecked among the dizzy altitudes, others persevere through

uncharted shoals, all make some kind of a noisy noise, and lo, it is

accomplished; and intense relief sits enthroned on every dewy brow.



In the crowded church, the minister announces the "Battle Hymn of

the Republic," and the organist, armed with plenary powers, crashes

into the giddy old tune, dragging the congregation resistingly along

at a hurdy gurdy pace till all semblance of text or meaning is

irretrievably lost.



Happy are they when the refrain, "Glory, Glory, Hallelujah,"

provides a temporary respite from the shredded syllables and

scrambled periods, and one may light, as it were, and catch up with

himself and the organist.



At the close of an outdoor public meeting the chairman, with fatuous

ineptitude, shouts that everybody will sing three verses of

"America." Granting that the tune is pitched comfortably, the first

verse marches with vigor and certitude, but not for long; dismay

soon smites the crowd in sections as the individual consciousness

backs and fills amid half learned lines.



The trick of catching hopefully at a neighbor's phrase usually

serves to defeat itself, as it unmasks the ignorance of said

neighbor, and the tune ends in a sort of polyglot mouthing which is

not at all flattering to the denizens of an enlightened community.



These glimpses are not a whit over-drawn, and it is safe to say that

they mirror practically every corner of our land to-day. Why is it,

then, that the people make such a sorry exhibition of themselves

when they attempt to sing the patriotic songs of our country? Is it

the tunes or the words or we ourselves?



BEGINNING WITH A STRIKING STATEMENT. When the thought expressed in the

first sentence of an article is sufficiently unusual, or is presented in

a sufficiently striking form, it at once commands attention. By

stimulating interest and curiosity, it leads the average person to read

on until he is satisfied.



A striking statement of this sort may serve as the first sentence of one

of the other types of beginning, such as the narrative or the

descriptive introduction, the quotation, the question, or the direct

address. But it may also be used entirely alone.



Since great size is impressive, a statement of the magnitude of

something is usually striking. Numerical figures are often used in the

opening sentences to produce the impression of enormous size. If these

figures are so large that the mind cannot grasp them, it is well, by

means of comparisons, to translate them into terms of the reader's own

experience. There is always danger of overwhelming and confusing a

person with statistics that in the mass mean little or nothing to him.



To declare in the first sentence that something is the first or the only

one of its kind immediately arrests attention, because of the universal

interest in the unique.



An unusual prediction is another form of striking statement. To be told

at the beginning of an article of some remarkable thing that the future

holds in store for him or for his descendants, fascinates the average

person as much as does the fortune-teller's prophecy. There is danger of

exaggeration, however, in making predictions. When writers magnify the

importance of their subject by assuring us that what they are explaining

will "revolutionize" our ideas and practices, we are inclined to

discount these exaggerated and trite forms of prophecy.



A striking figure of speech--an unusual metaphor, for example--may often

be used in the beginning of an article to arouse curiosity. As the

comparison in a metaphor is implied rather than expressed, the points of

likeness may not immediately be evident to the reader and thus the

figurative statement piques his curiosity. A comparison in the form of a

simile, or in that of a parable or allegory, may serve as a striking

introduction.



A paradox, as a self-contradictory statement, arrests the attention in

the initial sentence of an article. Although not always easy to frame,

and hence not so often employed as it might be, a paradoxical expression

is an excellent device for a writer to keep in mind when some phase of

his theme lends itself to such a striking beginning.



Besides these readily classified forms of unusual statements, any novel,

extraordinary expression that is not too bizarre may be employed. The

chief danger to guard against is that of making sensational,

exaggerated, or false statements, merely to catch the reader's notice.





STRIKING STATEMENT BEGINNINGS



(1)



(_Illustrated World_)



FIRE WRITES A HEART'S RECORD



BY H.G. HUNTING





A human heart, writing its own record with an actual finger of

flame, is the startling spectacle that has recently been witnessed

by scientists. It sounds fanciful, doesn't it? But it is literally a

fact that the automatic recording of the heart's action by means of

tracings from the point of a tiny blaze appears to have been made a

practicable method of determining the condition of the heart, more

reliable than any other test that can be applied.







(2)



(_Boston Transcript_)



TAKING HOSPITALS TO THE EMERGENCY By F.W. COBURN



Taking the hospital to the emergency instead of the emergency to the

hospital is the underlying idea of the Bay State's newest medical

unit--one which was installed in three hours on the top of Corey

Hill, and which in much less than half that time may tomorrow or the

next day be en route post haste for Peru, Plymouth, or

Pawtucketville.







(3)



(_Kansas City Star_)



MUST YOUR HOME BURN?



Autumn is the season of burning homes.



Furnaces and stoves will soon be lighted. They have been unused all

summer and rubbish may have been piled near them or the flues may

have rusted and slipped out of place unobserved in the long period

of disuse. Persons start their fires in a sudden cold snap. They

don't take time to investigate. Then the fire department has work to

do.







(4)



(_New York Times_)



ONLY PUBLIC SCHOOL FOR CHILDREN WITH POOR EYES



There was opened down Hester Street way last week the only public

school in the world for children with defective eyes. Bad eyesight

has been urged for years as a cause of backwardness and

incorrigibility in school children. Now the public school

authorities plan, for the first time, not only to teach children

whose eyes are defective, but to cure them as well.



(5) (_The Outlook_)



DISEASED TEETH AND BAD HEALTH BY MATTHIAS NICOLL, JR.



The complete disappearance of teeth from the human mouth is the

condition towards which the most highly cultivated classes of

humanity are drifting. We have already gone far on a course that

leads to the coming of a toothless age in future generations. Only

by immediate adoption of the most active and widespread measures of

prevention can the human tooth be saved from the fate that has

befallen the leg of the whale.







(6)



(_Harper's Weekly_)



THE SPAN OF LIFE



BY WALTER E. WEYL



You who begin this sentence may not live to read its close. There is

a chance, one in three or four billions, that you will die in a

second, by the tick of the watch. The chair upon which you sit may

collapse, the car in which you ride may collide, your heart may

suddenly cease. Or you may survive the sentence and the article, and

live twenty, fifty, eighty years longer.



No one knows the span of your life, and yet the insurance man is

willing to bet upon it. What is life insurance but the bet of an

unknown number of yearly premiums against the payment of the

policy? * * * * The length of your individual life is a guess, but the

insurance company bets on a sure thing, on the average death rate.







(7)



(_The Outlook_)



"AMERICANS FIRST"



BY GREGORY MASON



Every third man you meet in Detroit was born in a foreign country.

And three out of every four persons there were either born abroad or

born here of foreign-born parents. In short, in Detroit, only every

fourth person you meet was born in this country of American parents.

Such is the make-up of the town which has been called "the most

American city in the United States."







(8)



(_Kansas City Star_)



A KANSAS TOWN FEELS ITS OWN PULSE



Lawrence, Kas., was not ill. Most of its citizens did not even think

it was ailing, but there were some anxious souls who wondered if the

rosy exterior were not the mockery of an internal fever. They called

in physicians, and after seven months spent in making their

diagnosis, they have prescribed for Lawrence, and the town is

alarmed to the point of taking their medicine.



That is the medical way of saying that Lawrence has just completed

the most thorough municipal survey ever undertaken by a town of its

size, and in so doing has found out that it is afflicted with a lot

of ills that all cities are heir to. Lawrence, however, with Kansas

progressiveness, proposes to cure these ills.



Prof. F.W. Blackmar, head of the department of sociology at the

University of Kansas, and incidentally a sort of city doctor, was

the first "physician" consulted. He called his assistant, Prof. B.W.

Burgess, and Rev. William A. Powell in consultation, and about one

hundred and fifty club women were taken into the case. Then they got

busy. That was April 1. This month they completed the examination,

set up an exhibit to illustrate what they had to report, and read

the prescription.







(9)



(_Popular Science Monthly_)



BREAKING THE CHAIN THAT BINDS US TO EARTH



BY CHARLES NEVERS HOLMES



Man is chained to this Earth, his planet home. His chain is

invisible, but the ball is always to be seen--the Earth itself. The

chain itself is apparently without weight, while the chain's ball

weighs about 7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons!



(10)



(_Associated Sunday Magazine_)



IN TUNE WHEN OUT OF TUNE



BY JOHN WARREN



How many persons who own pianos and play them can explain why a

piano cannot be said to be in tune unless it is actually out of

tune?







(11)



(_Railroad Man's Magazine_)



MAKING STEEL RAILS



BY CHARLES FREDERICK CARTER



To make steel rails, take 2 pounds of iron ore, 1 pound of coke, ½

pound of limestone, and 4½ pounds of air for each pound of iron to

be produced. Mix and melt, cast in molds, and roll to shape while

hot. Serve cold.



Rail-making certainly does seem to be easy when stated in its

simplest terms; it also seems attractive from a business standpoint.







(12)



(_Leslie's Weekly_)



WHAT ELECTRICITY MEANS TO YOU



ONE CENT'S WORTH OF ELECTRICITY AT TEN CENTS PER KILOWATT-HOUR WILL

OPERATE:



Sixteen candle-power Mazda lamp for five hours

Six pound flatiron 15 minutes

Radiant toaster long enough to produce ten slices of toast

Sewing machine for two hours

Fan 12 inches in diameter for two hours

Percolator long enough to make five cups of coffee

Heating pad from two to four hours

Domestic buffer for 1¼ hours

Chafing dish 12 minutes

Radiant grill for 10 minutes

Curling iron once a day for two weeks

Luminous 500 watt radiator for 12 minutes



Hardly as old as a grown man, the electrical industry--including

railways, telephones and telegraphs--has already invested

$8,125,000,000 in the business of America. Its utility companies

alone pay Uncle Sam $200,000,000 every year for taxes--seven out of

every ten use it in some form every day. It is unmistakably the most

vital factor to-day in America's prosperity. Its resources are

boundless. As Secretary of the Interior Lane expresses it, there is

enough hydro-electric energy running to waste to equal the daily

labor of 1,800,000,000 men or 30 times our adult population.



BEGINNING WITH A QUOTATION. Words enclosed in quotation marks or set

off in some distinctive form such as verse, an advertisement, a letter,

a menu, or a sign, immediately catch the eye at the beginning of an

article. Every conceivable source may be drawn on for quotations,

provided, of course, that what is quoted has close connection with the

subject. If the quotation expresses an extraordinary idea, it possesses

an additional source of interest.



Verse quotations may be taken from a well-known poem, a popular song, a

nursery rhyme, or even doggerel verse. Sometimes a whole poem or song

prefaces an article. When the verse is printed in smaller type than the

article, it need not be enclosed in quotation marks. In his typewritten

manuscript a writer may indicate this difference in size of type by

single-spacing the lines of the quotation.



Prose quotations may be taken from a speech or an interview, or from

printed material such as a book, report, or bulletin. The more

significant the quoted statement, the more effective will be the

introduction. When the quotation consists of several sentences or of one

long sentence, it may comprise the first paragraph, to be followed in

the second paragraph by the necessary explanation.



Popular sayings, slogans, or current phrases are not always enclosed in

quotation marks, but are often set off in a separate paragraph as a

striking form of beginning.



The most conspicuous quotation beginnings are reproductions of newspaper

clippings, advertisements, price lists, menus, telegrams, invitations,

or parts of legal documents. These are not infrequently reproduced as

nearly as possible in the original form and may be enclosed in a frame,

or "box."





QUOTATION BEGINNINGS



(1)



(_New York Evening Post_)



"DIGNIFIED AND STATELY"



BEING AN ACCOUNT OF SOME HIGH AND LOW JINKS PRACTICED ABOUT THIS

TIME ON COLLEGE CLASS DAYS



BY EVA ELISE VOM BAUR



_Our sorrows are forgotten,

And our cares are flown away,

While we go marching through Princeton_.



Singing these words, 'round and 'round the campus they marched,

drums beating time which no one observed, band clashing with band,

in tune with nothing but the dominant note--the joy of reunion. A

motley lot of men they are--sailors and traction engineers,

Pierrots, soldiers, and even vestal virgins--for the June

Commencement is college carnival time.



Then hundreds upon thousands of men, East, West, North and South,

drop their work and their worries, and leaving families and

creditors at home, slip away to their respective alma maters, "just

to be boys again" for a day and a night or two.





(2)



(_Harper's Monthly_)



THE PARTY OF THE THIRD PART



BY WALTER E. WEYL



"The quarrel," opined Sir Lucius O'Trigger, "is a very pretty

quarrel as it stands; we should only spoil it by trying to explain

it."



Something like this was once the attitude of the swaggering youth of

Britain and Ireland, who quarreled "genteelly" and fought out their

bloody duels "in peace and quietness." Something like this, also,

after the jump of a century, was the attitude of employers and

trade-unions all over the world toward industrial disputes. Words

were wasted breath; the time to strike or to lock out your employees

was when you were ready and your opponent was not. If you won, so

much the better; if you lost--at any rate, it was your own business.

Outsiders were not presumed to interfere. "Faith!" exclaimed Sir

Lucius, "that same interruption in affairs of this nature shows very

great ill-breeding."





(3)



(_McClure's Magazine_)



RIDING ON BUBBLES



BY WALDEMAR KAEMPFFERT



"And the Prince sped away with his princess in a magic chariot, the

wheels of which were four bubbles of air."



Suppose you had read that in an Andersen or a Grimm fairy tale in

the days when you firmly believed that Cinderella went to a ball in

a state coach which had once been a pumpkin; you would have accepted

the magic chariot and its four bubbles of air without question.



What a pity it is that we have lost the credulity and the wonder of

childhood! We have our automobiles--over two and a half million of

them--but they have ceased to be magic chariots to us. And as for

their tires, they are mere "shoes" and "tubes"--anything but the

bubbles of air that they are.



In the whole mechanism of modern transportation there is nothing so

paradoxical, nothing so daring in conception as these same bubbles

of air which we call tires.





(4)



(_Good Housekeeping_)



GERALDINE FARRAR'S ADVICE TO ASPIRING SINGERS



INTERVIEW BY JOHN CORBIN



"When did I first decide to be an opera singer?" Miss Farrar smiled.

"Let me see. At least as early as the age of eight. This is how I

remember. At school I used to get good marks in most of my studies,

but in arithmetic my mark was about sixty. That made me unhappy. But

once when I was eight, I distinctly remember, I reflected that it

didn't really matter because I was going to be an opera singer. How

long before that I had decided on my career I can't say."





(5)



(_The Delineator_)



HOW TO START A CAFETERIA



BY AGNES ATHOL



"If John could only get a satisfactory lunch for a reasonable amount

of money!" sighs the wife of John in every sizable city in the

United States, where work and home are far apart.



"He hates sandwiches, anyway, and has no suitable place to eat them;

and somehow he doesn't feel that he does good work on a cold box

lunch. But those clattery quick-lunch places which are all he has

time for, or can afford, don't have appetizing cooking or

surroundings, and all my forethought and planning over our good home

meals may be counteracted by his miserable lunch. I believe half the

explanation of the 'tired business man' lies in the kind of lunches

he eats."



Twenty-five cents a day is probably the outside limit of what the

great majority of men spend on their luncheons. Some cannot spend

over fifteen. What a man needs and so seldom gets for that sum is

good, wholesome, appetizing food, quickly served. He wants to eat in

a place which is quiet and not too bare and ugly. He wants to buy

real food and not table decorations. He is willing to dispense with

elaborate service and its accompanying tip, if he can get more food

of better quality.



The cafeteria lunch-room provides a solution for the mid-day lunch

problem and, when wisely located and well run, the answer to many a

competent woman or girl who is asking: "What shall I do to earn a

living?"





(6)



(_Newspaper Enterprise Association_)



AMERICANIZATION OF AMERICA IS PLANNED



BY E.C. RODGERS



Washington, D.C.--America Americanized!



That's the goal of the naturalization bureau of the United States

department of labor, as expressed by Raymond P. Crist, deputy

commissioner, in charge of the Americanization program.





(7)



(_Tractor and Gas Engine Review_)



FIRE INSURANCE THAT DOESN'T INSURE





BY A.B. BROWN



"This entire policy, unless otherwise provided by agreement endorsed

hereon, or added hereto, shall be void if the interest of the

insured be other than unconditional and sole ownership."



If any farmer anywhere in the United States will look up the fire

insurance policy on his farm building, and will read it carefully,

in nine cases out of ten, he will find tucked away somewhere therein

a clause exactly like the one quoted above, or practically in the

same words.



BEGINNING WITH A QUESTION. Every question is like a riddle; we are never

satisfied until we know the answer. So a question put to us at the

beginning of an article piques our curiosity, and we are not content

until we find out how the writer answers it.



Instead of a single question, several may be asked in succession. These

questions may deal with different phases of the subject or may repeat

the first question in other words. It is frequently desirable to break

up a long question into a number of short ones to enable the rapid

reader to grasp the idea more easily. Greater prominence may be gained

for each question by giving it a separate paragraph.



Rhetorical questions, although the equivalent of affirmative or negative

statements, nevertheless retain enough of their interrogative effect to

be used advantageously for the beginning of an article.



That the appeal may be brought home to each reader personally, the

pronoun "you," or "yours," is often embodied in the question, and

sometimes readers are addressed by some designation such as "Mr. Average

Reader," "Mrs. Voter," "you, high school boys and girls."



The indirect question naturally lacks the force of the direct one, but

it may be employed when a less striking form of beginning is desired.

The direct question, "Do you know why the sky is blue?" loses much of

its force when changed into the indirect form, "Few people know why the

sky is blue"; still it possesses enough of the riddle element to

stimulate thought. Several indirect questions may be included in the

initial sentence of an article.



QUESTION BEGINNINGS



(1)



(_Kansas City Star_)



TRACING THE DROUTH TO ITS LAIR



What becomes of the rainfall in the plains states? This region is

the veritable bread basket of our country; but in spite of the fact

that we have an average rainfall of about thirty-six inches, lack of

moisture, more frequently than any other condition, becomes a

limiting factor in crop production. Measured in terms of wheat

production, a 36-inch rainfall, if properly distributed through the

growing season and utilized only by the crop growing land, is

sufficient for the production of ninety bushels of wheat an acre.

The question as to what becomes of the rainfall, therefore, is of

considerable interest in this great agricultural center of North

America, where we do well if we average twenty-five bushels to the

acre.





(2)



(_New York Evening Sun_)



WE WASTE ONE-QUARTER OF OUR FOOD



If a family of five using twenty-five bushels of potatoes a year at

$2 a bushel, lose 20 per cent on a bushel by paring, how much has

the family thrown into the garbage can during the year? Answer, $10.

Applying this conservative estimate of dietitians to other foods,

the average family might save at least $100 a year on its table.





(3)



(_New York Times)_



FARM WIZARD ACHIEVES AGRICULTURAL WONDERS



BY ROBERT G. SKERRETT





Can a farm be operated like a factory? Can fickle nature be offset

and crops be brought to maturity upon schedule time?



These are questions that a farmer near Bridgeton, N.J., has answered

in the most practical manner imaginable.





(4)



(_San Francisco Call_)



DOES IT PAY THE STATE TO EDUCATE PRETTY GIRLS FOR TEACHERS?



BY KATHERINE ATKINSON





Does it pay the state to educate its teachers?



Do normal school and university graduates continue teaching long

enough to make adequate return for the money invested in their

training?





(5)



(_Newspaper Feature Service_)



HOW HUNGER IS NOW MEASURED AND PHOTOGRAPHED



Just what hunger is, why all living creatures suffer this feeling

and what the difference is between hunger and appetite have always

been three questions that puzzled scientists. Not until Dr. A.J.

Carlson devised a method of ascertaining exactly the nature of

hunger by measuring and comparing the degrees of this sensation,

have investigators along this line of scientific research been able

to reach any definite conclusion.





(6)



(_The Outlook_)



GROW OLD ALONG WITH ME



BY CHARLES HENRY LERRIGO



Are you interested in adding fifteen years to your life?



Perhaps you are one of those sound strong persons absolutely assured

of perfect health.



Very well. Two thousand young persons, mostly men, average age

thirty, employees of commercial houses and banks in New York City,

were given a medical examination in a recent period of six months;

1,898 of them were positive of getting a perfect bill of health.



Here are the findings:



Sixty-three were absolutely sound.



The remaining 1,937 all suffered from some defect, great or small,

which was capable of improvement.





(7)



(_Country Gentleman_)



SIMPLE ACCOUNTS FOR FARM BUSINESS



BY MORTON O. COOPER



Is your farm making money or losing it? What department is showing a

profit? What one is piling up a loss? Do you know? Not one farmer in

ten does know and it is all because not one in ten has any accounts

apart from his bankbook so he can tell at the end of the year

whether he has kept the farm or the farm has kept him.





(8)



(_The Outlook_)



AN ENFORCED VACATION



BY A CITY DWELLER



Have you, my amiable male reader, felt secretly annoyed when your

friends--probably your wife and certainly your physician--have

suggested that you cut your daily diet of Havanas in two, feeling

that your intimate acquaintance with yourself constituted you a

better judge of such matters than they? Have you felt that your

physician's advice to spend at least three-quarters of an hour at

lunch was good advice for somebody else, but that you had neither

time nor inclination for it? Have you felt that you would _like_ to

take a month's vacation, but with so many "irons in the fire" things

would go to smash if you did? Do you know what it is to lie awake at

night and plan your campaign for the following day? Then _you_ are

getting ready for an enforced vacation.





(9)



(_Leslie's Weekly_)



TAKING THE STARCH OUT OF THE MARCH



BY GERALD MYGATT



Don't most of us--that is, those of us who are unfamiliar with army

life and with things military in general--don't most of us picture

marching troops as swinging down a road in perfect step, left arms

moving in unison, rifles held smartly at the right shoulder, head

and eyes straight to the front (with never so much as a forehead

wrinkled to dislodge a mosquito or a fly), and with the band of the

fife-and-drum corps playing gaily at the head of the column? Of

course we do. Because that's the way we see them on parade.



A march is a far different thing. A march is simply the means of

getting so many men from one place to another in the quickest time

and in the best possible condition. And it may astonish one to be

told that marching is the principal occupation of troops in the

field--that it is one of the hardest things for troops to learn to

do properly, and that it is one of the chief causes of loss.



ADDRESSING THE READER DIRECTLY. A direct personal appeal makes a good

opening for an article. The writer seems to be talking to each reader

individually instead of merely writing for thousands. This form of

address may seem to hark back to the days of the "gentle reader," but

its appeal is perennial. To the pronoun "you" may be added the

designation of the particular class of readers addressed, such as "You,

mothers," or "You, Mr. Salaried Man." The imperative verb is perhaps the

strongest form of direct address. There is danger of overdoing the

"do-this-and-don't-do-that" style, particularly in articles of practical

guidance, but that need not deter a writer from using the imperative

beginning occasionally.



DIRECT ADDRESS BEGINNINGS



(1)



(_New York Times_)



SMALL CHANCE FOR DRAFT DODGERS IF DOCTORS KNOW THEIR BUSINESS



A word with you, Mr. Would-Be-Slacker. If you 're thinking of trying

to dodge the selective draft by pretending physical disability when

you get before the local exemption board, here's a bit of advice:

Don't. Since you are Mr. Would-Be-Slacker there is no use preaching

patriotism to you. But here is something that will influence you: If

you try to dodge the draft and are caught, there is a heavy penalty,

both fine and imprisonment; and you're almost sure to get caught.





(2)



(_American Magazine_)



THE GENERAL MANAGER OF COWBELL "HOLLER"



BY BRUCE BARTON



You would never in the world find Cowbell "Holler" alone, so I will

tell you how to get there. You come over the Big Hill pike until you

reach West Pinnacle. It was from the peak of West Pinnacle that

Daniel Boone first looked out over the blue grass region of

Kentucky. You follow the pike around the base of the Pinnacle, and

there you are, right in the heart of Cowbell "Holler," and only two

pastures and a creek away from Miss Adelia Fox's rural social

settlement--the first of its kind, so far as I know, in America.



(3)



(_Chicago Tribune_)



THE ROAD TO RETAIL SUCCESS



BY BENJAMIN H. JEFFERSON



You all know the retail druggist who has worked fifteen or sixteen

hours a day all his life, and now, as an old man, is forced to

discharge his only clerk. You all know the grocer who has changed

from one store to another and another, and who finally turns up as a

collector for your milkman. You all know the hard working milliner

and, perhaps, have followed her career until she was lost to sight

amid sickness and distress. You all have friends among stationers

and newsdealers. You have seen them labor day in and day out, from

early morning until late at night; and have observed with sorrow the

small fruits of their many years of toil.



Why did they fail?





(4)



(_Illustrated Sunday Magazine_)



THE MAN WHO PUT THE "PEP" IN PRINTING



Look at your watch.



How long is a second? Gone as you look at the tiny hand, isn't it?

Yet within that one second it is possible to print, cut, fold and

stack sixteen and two-thirds newspapers!



Watch the second hand make one revolution--a minute. Within that

minute it is possible to print, cut, fold and stack in neat piles

one thousand big newspapers! To do that is putting "pep" in

printing, and Henry A. Wise Wood is the man who did it.