THE OPEN LETTER
This is a New Year number of The Mentor—so let us look backward and forward. The first Mentor was published on February 17, 1913—not quite three years ago. Three years is a short span in the life of a periodical publication, but it is long enough in most cases to relegate the back numbers to oblivion, or at least to the department of bound magazines in libraries. But the first number of The Mentor is still in demand—and so are the numbers that followed it. Thousands of the early numbers are ordered every week. This means something. It means that The Mentor is not a magazine, but a popular educational course. While you like some numbers more than others, you want them all. You like The Mentor plan, and you hope that we are succeeding, and you would like to see The Mentor plan extended all over the world—these and many other warm words of encouragement have come to me from you day by day. Many of you have asked how we are doing now at the close of our third year. I am glad you have asked, for the answer is a very satisfactory one. At the end of the first six months of its life, The Mentor Association numbered about 5,000. It now numbers more than 60,000, and it is growing by hundreds every week. In that big and growing membership is the assurance that a new idea has taken definite form and that thousands of you have found it worthy. That makes the New Year look bright to us.
As we take our backward look the original ideal of The Mentor presents itself to us anew. The word "ideal" should be carefully used, but we do not hesitate to apply it to The Mentor. What is an ideal? It is not a sufficient answer to say that it is the "best possible," for idealism does not concern itself with what is possible. The "best possible" is simply a standard—not an ideal. When the schoolboy said, "Standards are the things we live up to, ideals are the things we fall short of," he showed a worldly wisdom beyond his years. There are several shades of definition in the dictionaries, but "ideal" as we conceive it is the finest and fullest dream of achievement in any line of endeavor. The dream may seem impossible. It does seem so in the case of the most precious ideals. But that matters not. We treasure the ideal the more that it is unattainable. An ideal, like a fixed star, is far enough off to be steadfast and unchangeable. It may never be reached, but its guiding light may always be depended on.
But this is not an essay on ideals. My purpose is definite and practical. It is simply to recall the fact at the beginning of a new year that The Mentor was conceived in idealism; that it has been conducted in the spirit of idealism, and to reaffirm on this day our devotion to the ideal that has dominated The Mentor from the beginning—the ideal of Service. The Mentor Association was founded for the benefit of thousands of people who are eagerly seeking for information in the various fields of knowledge. We set out to give such information in a simple, attractive way by text and by pictures, and to add to that a general service of information. We were told by many that the ideal of service that we had before us could not be realized in this present day and generation of busy periodical publishing. Our ideal, like that of many others, was pronounced a Utopian dream—a visionary undertaking. It has often been remarked that while idealists are perfectly confident of the successful outcome of their dreams, very few will put any money into them. Just this in your ear, good reader: those who founded The Mentor not only had convictions, but had the courage of them. Many thousands of dollars have been spent on The Mentor Ideal, and now that The Mentor Plan is an assured success we know that we are "turning our dreams into fact."
It is not an editorial "we" that I am using. "We" includes those of us who are conducting The Mentor, but it means chiefly "you"—the 60,000 of "you" who make up The Mentor Association. Whether The Mentor Ideal was a distant, unattainable one was not clear to us until we heard from you. Now we know. You made The Mentor, and The Mentor is made for you.
W.D. Moffat
Editor
The Mentor Association
ESTABLISHED FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF A POPULAR INTEREST IN ART, LITERATURE, SCIENCE, HISTORY, NATURE, AND TRAVEL
THE ADVISORY BOARD
| JOHN G. HIBBEN, President of Princeton University |
ALBERT BUSHNELL HART, Professor of Government, Harvard University |
| HAMILTON W. MABIE, Author and Editor |
WILLIAM T. HORNADAY, Director New York Zoölogical Park |
|
JOHN C. VAN DYKE, Professor of the History of Art, Rutgers College | DWIGHT L. ELMENDORF, Lecturer and Traveler |
The purpose of The Mentor Association is to give its members, in an interesting and attractive way, the information in various fields of knowledge which everybody wants to have. The information is imparted by interesting reading matter, prepared under the direction of leading authorities, and by beautiful pictures, produced by the most highly perfected modern processes.
THE MENTOR IS PUBLISHED TWICE A MONTH
SUBSCRIPTION, THREE DOLLARS A YEAR. FOREIGN POSTAGE 75 CENTS EXTRA. CANADIAN POSTAGE 50 CENTS EXTRA. SINGLE COPIES FIFTEEN CENTS. PRESIDENT, THOMAS H. BECK; VICE-PRESIDENT, WALTER P. TEN EYCK; SECRETARY, W. D. MOFFAT; TREASURER, ROBERT M. DONALDSON; ASST. TREASURER AND ASST. SECRETARY, J. S. CAMPBELL