A little bunch of people have gathered to see the train pass.

They have not come down to see me -they are interested in the train, but I think there may be a possible customer among them, so I lift up my voice and cry:

"Good people, I can save you money,
Or, "I can give you greater comfort,
Or, "I can cure your disease,
Or, "I have something you need-

I start with an appeal to some uni versal, fundamental instinct or desiresomething that will appeal to their love of comfort, their greed, or love of life. I tell them what it is, and what it will do for them. I tell them how I sell it how small a risk they run in ordering, and then as the train pulls out I have only time to add my name and address and maybe crowd in a key number.

All the time it may be that half a dozen other business men have been trying to attract their attention, for my ad is on a page with half a dozen others so I realize that I must present my story in an attractive manner. I must be convincing enough to make them believe me, and interesting enough to make them want to know more.

It's a big job, as you doubtless have discovered.

But if you have analyzed your prime factors and really know the actual relations existing between your Commodity and your Customer, you ought to be able to select the facts which will appeal most strongly to the Customer.

And after that, it's merely a question

of your use of English and your ability to secure proper display.

How you tell your story must be determined by your different media and the class of customers you are attempting to reach through them.

It may be one advertisement or one style of advertisements will suit all the media you will use. It may be that you will want several different styles; it all depends on conditions as you discover them. But whatever else you do. don't think you have to write down to people. Don't adopt the "dearly-beloved,” condescending style. There may be people to whom it appeals, but they are few, and besides the style has been greatly overworked.

I find it a good plan after an advertisement is written to go over it word by word, sentence by sentence, and make every word, every phrase give a good excuse for being in the ad. What condition calls for this word-for this sentence for this argument. If it has no good excuse, cut it out.

The Circulation

The circulation you will give your story will be determined by the customer you think you can most easily persuade and convince. Experience is the only guide I know of in this. But don't make the mistake of supposing that because a certain publication sells one line of goods, it is certain to sell as many of another line. You must know publications and their readers, and then decide whether or not there is a sufficient number of your possible customers among them.

T

HERE is a happy medium between doing everything yourself and leaving everything to others-between cleaning your own inkwells and authorizing your assistant to sell out the business if he thinks best-a happy medium that constitutes good management.

The exact place to locate the boundary line between these two extreme policies is a matter of perpetual dispute, not only with those who think they can do it better than you can, but within your own thought also.

Different lines of work require different policies, and varying degrees of the same policy; and in the same office the work of the forenoon may require different treatment from that of the afternoon; or that of the present moment from that of a moment ago. But through all this the man who thinks deeply soon works out a policy which is expedient, elastic, and generally satisfactory.

But not every manager thinks as deeply as he might-perhaps none do for that matter. And when a lack of proper thought on this point enters into the condict of an office, it does about as much harm as can any other policy known in business. For management in its very nature is dominating, and its spirit permeates quickly and effectively all parts of the organization, and shows itself in every division of the work.

There are three types of managers: the one who does too much himself, the one who does too little, and the one who keeps in just about the right relation to his fellow workers and the work. Like all "types" these three are in a measure interwoven in each individual, so that no one person is a complete ex

ample of the type. But we may so consider them.

The first manager works very hard, partly because he loves hard work, and partly because he has not trained himself to pass detail down the line. He can do a great deal of work himself, and do it well. He enjoys the expression of his skill. He has more energy than patience, and would rather do a thing himself than to take the trouble to teach an assistant to do it. Because he can do the work better than can some young man or young woman who has never been taught to do it, he lacks confidence in their ability to do it as he thinks it should be done. As first efforts to come up to a high standard are often failures, when he tries to pass some of his work down the line he finds that it is not done as well as he could do it himself, and he settles into the habit of doing it.

The second man goes to the other extreme. He leaves things to his assistants that should have his personal attention, and yet retains the information which would enable them to do the work intelligently. "After all," he says to himself, "it is more pleasant to let the boys take care of the routine while I mingle with men of affairs." The tendency grows on him until he loses the thread of the work, and becomes so interested in "affairs" that his personal interest in the work slackens. A proposition that would once have been regarded as important enough to require his undivided attention is soon regarded as "a mere detail which any bright young man can attend to."

The third man comes just between these two. It is not, however, because

he is less industrious than the first, and not quite so careless as the second. It is probable that he is more intelligently industrious than the first, and has few of the easy-going habits of the second. It is because he has learned a few important points in the matter of conserving his own time and talents, and of getting the most out of his assistants.

Intelligent industry is not so much a question of bodily motion as of mental activity. The man who does work that properly belongs to workers further down the ranks is inactive mentally in the proportion that he is unnecessarily active in routine work.

The effect of these three policies are worthy of consideration. The results show on the manager, on the work, and on the workers. One effect of the first policy-that of the manager who does too much is that it keeps him doing detail that is not worth his time-not that the detail is unimportant, but rather that it could be done more economically by less expensive workers. It also draws his attention away from the fundamentals of the business, and lets more important work go undone, and even unthought of. For it is possible to be so busy watching lightning bugs that you have no time to look at the stars. The work, being robbed of the vital thought and impetus which a more thinking manager would impart to it, loses in its effectiveness to a very great degree. Things go at loose ends because the manager is too busy to attend to them, and his assistants have never been taught how.

If it were only possible to show in figures and otherwise what the alternative results might have been, it would be plain that this policy is anything but a profitable one. But in these days of prosperity in business many mistakes are made and not appreciated because the general profit of the business covers them up. The man with a pocketful of change never misses the quarter he drops.

The effect of this policy on the assistants is to make them incompetent. When the most vital part of the work is kept out of their hands the very life of the work is gone. And when no confidence is placed in an individual by his business superiors his own confidence in his ability begins to wane.

Many an otherwise capable man has been weakened in his natural efficiency because his manager did too much of the work and left him only the unimportant parts. He felt the lack of confidence in him, found his work uninteresting, and settled into a dull mediocrity.

The policy of the second man-the one who slights his duties-has its effects also. He becomes careless, lazy and disinterested. His work runs wild like a garden full of weeds. His assistants, while they may develop a great deal of initiative, develop it in an untrained way; and because of the lack of proper counsel and check, acquire habits and methods of work which are almost impossible to correct without great effort, and a distinct understanding that a new policy is in force.

But the policy of the third man-the man who does just enough himself, and leaves just enough to others-in the proportion that he actually does this, has a very wholesome effect on the work and on the workers, as well as on his own career and character. By dropping the less important detail he is free to consider the fundamentals of his business. And there he finds work of vital importance. It may be work where a day or a week would make no conspicuous showing, but if left undone would eventually make a great difference in the welfare of the whole business. It is a work akin to that of the pilot on an ocean steamship. Only by the aid of chart and compass can he tell if the ship is keeping its course. The people on deck who are watching the progress of the ship merely as a matter of interest do not know whether it is headed just right or not. So long as it plows

the waves they are content. And if the pilot spent his time in social diversions with them he would have just as meager a knowledge of the course as they have. And if he spent his time with the engineers below he would also be ignorant as to the direction of the ship. But he stays at his post, and lets the passengers do the talking and the engineers keep the machinery going, while he watches his chart and guides the ship in the right course. He may not rush around as much as the passengers, nor keep as active as the engineers, but his work is vital to the welfare of both.

By placing a proper amount of responsibility on the workers down the line, this man who knows where the highest function of a manager comes in-brings out the best there is in each assistant. He teaches them to develop initiative, skill, self-reliance, and interest in the business. And from these qualities grow the highest order of work, the soundest loyalty, and the most ready response to the directions of the manager.

The more intelligent and responsible the engineers the more satisfactorily will they assist in keeping the ship to its course, and the more readily will they respond to the signals in time of danger or quick action.

Some men have a tendency to draw around them an efficient staff of assistants-others to keep incompetent men about them, perhaps that their own talents may show the better by contrast. The underlying thought is akin to that which makes up the difference between the first and third types of managers.

The very policy of the efficient manager requires efficient assistance, and at the same time is developing it. The good judgment which appreciates the importance of leaving large sections of the work to others realizes the need of having men who are able to accept this responsibility intelligently. And the same policy, perhaps more than any other, develops untrained men to reach

the higher phases of their possible efficiency.

The man who declines, neglects, or does not know enough to surround himself with a staff of efficient workers, finds the work for himself multiplying to such an extent that he must stay by it day and night-giving him little time to train assistants he may have, and less in which to think of fundamentals which mean so much to a business. Not thinking of them he does not find his work in those lines, and necessarily stays in the midst of the routine and detail, doing himself, for want of something better to occupy his attention, the very work his assistants should be doing, and could easily learn to do if he would get out of their way.

Perhaps few things in business go more conspicuously to make up the difference between a great man and a small man than these two policies. A man is not to be judged, however, by the bare facts in the case, for these may be so on account of circumstances over which he has no control. The need of doing much himself may be forced upon him, either through his own financial necessity in maintaining an inexpensive staff, or it may be the policy of those above him in the control of the business who do not appreciate actual conditions.

Thousands of men in managerial positions are so dominated by officers and directors that they are prevented from expressing their own policies, even to such an extent that they are limited to a certain price for an office boy, and must often put up with an incompetent one, doing a great deal of work themselves which a brighter and more expensive office boy could do. And sometimes a manager finds assistants entrenched in positions through favoritism and personal relation, from which he canno displace them, and in which he cannot successfully instruct them; so the work, because of these and kindred circumstances often resolves itself into certain forms which may be far different from