Notice to all members.
It is desired to correct the Order's records, especially all changes in addresses. The new Patent is now ready, and all will want it. It is far handsomer than the old certificate. We make a special request, therefore, to all Founders and members to send us at once their names and permanent addresses. Use English capital letters, which you can easily make with your pen, and spell out in full at least one Christian or given name.
A "given" name is the name given you by your parents, as distinguished from your last name, which you have from your father. Use a postal card, not a letter, and put no other matter upon it. Address the card Messrs. Harper & Brothers, Publishers, New York, and put in the lower left-hand corner the words "Round Table." On the back of the card write the letter "A," and follow it with name, as directed, and address in full—street and number if any, town or city, and State. If you are a Founder, write that word in full anywhere on the card. Your new Patent will then bear that word. If you were not a Founder, do not use the word.
Remember that if a certificate was ever issued to you, you are still a member, no matter if you have now passed your eighteenth birthday. Chapter officers are asked to send, on postal cards, names and addresses of their Chapter members. They are also asked to send names of any grown-up friends of the Chapter whom they may wish to honor by making them Patrons of the Round Table Order.
All who have not passed their eighteenth birthday, even if not formerly members, are urged to send postal cards as directed. So, too, are grown folks interested in the Order. If you have passed your eighteenth birthday, and have not previously held a certificate of membership, send your name and address and use the letter "D." Members are urged to send names and addresses of their friends, that we may give Patents to them. Your teacher may be made a Patron.
To all who comply with these suggestions we will send Patents in the Order, bearing their names, creating them Founders, Knights, Ladies, or Patrons. The advantages of belonging to the Order will be attached—and there are many. We will also send our prize offers for 1895-6, in which money incentives are to be offered for pen-drawing, story-writing, poems, nonsense verses, entertainment programmes, photography, and music settings, and for distributing some advertising matter about Harper's Round Table.
This matter consists of announcements and a Handy Book. The latter is a neat memorandum-book, which, besides blank pages, contains lists of words often misspelled, interscholastic sport records, a calendar, list of books to read, hints about amateur newspapers, how to get into West Point, values of rare stamps and coins, and a great number of other useful facts.
Of course no member or Patron is required or even asked to undertake this work any more than they are asked to compete for prizes. Many members wish to earn the rewards offered by the Table, and to all such we desire to offer the first chance. These rewards consist of Order badges in silver and gold, rubber stamps bearing your name and address, fifty visiting cards with the copper plate, and a very limited number, because we have only a few copies, of bound volumes of Harper's Young People for 1893 or 1894. These rewards are offered, not for subscriptions, but for giving printed matter to your friends. The offer is limited, since we can allow only one member or Patron to accept it in each town or neighborhood.
We repeat that the Order has no "have to's." But it has many literary and prize advantages. We want the names and permanent addresses again in order to correct our records. To all who send us such we forward the Order's new Patent and our prize offers. Use a postal card—and write as soon as convenient.