A man deserves profit who sends this message to millions of readers:

There are three kinds of cleanliness:

First, the ordinary soap-and-water cleanliness.
Second, the so-called "beauty" cleanliness.
Third, prophylactic cleanliness, or the cleanliness that "guards against disease."

But the man who sells soap ought to be the one to use this advertisement, not a man who sells toothwash that, when pure, is little better than water, that is seldom pure, and that always hurts the teeth. Many children and adults are being cured of flat foot by men who make money by selling shoes designed to strengthen the arch of the foot. Millions would never know how to discover the evil effects upon themselves of coffee and alcohol except for money-making advertisements. Little Jo's Smile taught a nation that the majority of crippled children are victims of neglect on the part of adult consumptives.

Certain it is that advertising is an art promoted by the severest competition of the cleverest brains. It is a force which we cannot afford to ignore. If we can harness it to the promotion of aids to health, it will do more good than all the hygiene books ever written. To this end we must educate ourselves to distinguish between goods which do what they profess to do and those which do not. A good eye opener would be to keep for a week clippings from a high-priced daily paper, a penny daily paper, and one or two representative magazines, including a religious paper. Teachers and parents can very easily interest children in such clippings. Moreover, they can use the bulletin method, the stereopticon exhibit, the cumulative illustration of a fact, which is the essence of successful advertising. Boards of health can use all the typographical aids to clear understanding,—cuts, diagrams, interesting anecdotes. In New York both the health board and the school board have issued circulars and given illustrated lectures, some of them being in school and some on public squares. Medical and sanitary societies and other educators can be induced to follow what a successful business man has called the three cardinal rules of advertising:

First, put your advertisement where it will be seen. (Tell your story where it will be heard.)

Second, write it so that people will read it. (Tell it so that people will understand it.)

Third, tell the truth, so that people will believe it.