In about three weeks vacation days will be over and the fall season for reading clubs and home reading circles will begin. There are hundreds of clubs using The Mentor—some as their regular course for the season, others as supplementary to their own courses. During June we had many demands from reading clubs for information concerning The Mentor plans for next year. This information was wanted in most cases for use in club booklets which were then in course of preparation. In order to meet the needs of reading clubs we prepare plans of The Mentor far ahead. Our numbers for the year 1917 are already scheduled, and some of them are in actual preparation. Our descriptive booklet tells all about future as well as past numbers.
I do not think that the members of The Mentor Association who are not active in reading clubs appreciate what The Mentor is doing for club work. We could make up a book many times the size of The Mentor simply out of the letters of appreciation that we have received from clubs all over the country bearing testimony to the service that we give. The following, just received, is a fair example:
“Some time ago you sent me a suggested program for the study of South America. The club of which I am president has just voted to study that subject, and they are following the program that you laid out, and it is so much better than anything that we could have laid out for ourselves that it saves the program committee a great deal of work. We hardly see how you can afford to do this, but we want to express our appreciation.”
This letter is really typical. A great many ask us how we “can afford to do this work” for nothing. Some offer to pay. So let us make it clear now to every member of The Mentor Association that the preparation of special programs and courses of reading is a regular part of The Mentor Service, and that we give it freely and gladly. The service includes other things besides. We answer questions on all kinds of subjects in the various fields of knowledge. Our daily mail is heavy with inquiries, and we give the questioners the benefit of the knowledge and experience of recognized authorities.
Just another word about programs. Some people do not understand what a program for a reading club means. The ordinary program is so slim and elementary that there is no inspiration in it. We prepare programs that contain the meat of the subject in condensed form, and we supply appropriate introductions to the meetings, and suggest supplementary reading matter. In special cases, such as that of a music course, we furnish lists of appropriate compositions to be played in the meetings as illustrations. We make programs on many subjects. Of course we look forward to a time when it will not be necessary for us to make special programs on most subjects, because they will be covered in The Mentor itself. At present we supply a special program on South America. This will not be necessary in another year, for we shall have a series of Mentors that will cover South America, and they will supply all the material necessary for clubs studying the subject. The first number in the South American series has just appeared, so Mentor readers can judge of the character and scope of these numbers.
Write in at once and get our booklet descriptive of The Mentor Service. In this booklet we have arranged The Mentors in special courses, suitable for any number of meetings of a club, from three up to twenty or thirty. We also give full directions as to the use of The Mentor in a reading club. Read this booklet and you will find that The Mentor is not only a source of pleasure and profit in its unit form as it appears twice a month, but that each unit is a stone in a rapidly growing structure. There is no need of talking about what it will look like when this structure is completed, for of knowledge there is no end. The Mentor institution will simply go on growing. In three years of existence, it has already come to assume an impressive aspect with its array of interesting departments, each rich in information and beautiful illustration. You will appreciate this if you send for our book, and read it.