THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY 



319 



member his first visit, on April i, 1899, 

 to the Society's headquarters, which was 

 half of a small room on the fifth floor of 

 the Corcoran Building in Washington. 



The little space of which he was to as- 

 sume charge was littered with old maga- 

 zines, newspapers, and a few books of 

 records, which constituted the only visible 

 property of the Society, The treasury 

 was empty, and had incurred a debt of 

 nearly $2,000 by the expenditure of its 

 life-membership fees to keep alive. The 

 Society, however, was not so poor as it 

 seemed, for its management had a revo- 

 lutionary idea, an ambition to make ge- 

 ography popular, and to take this great 

 subject out of the archives of the tech- 

 nical physiographers. Behind the idea 

 was an unusually strong Board of Man- 

 agers, who had faith in the new policy, 

 and who have always been willing to help 

 and give liberally of time and suggestion. 

 To evolve a magazine that would not 

 lower the dignity of the Society and that 

 would win popular support was the task 

 that was intrusted to me. 



The Society was so poor that it could 

 employ no clerical assistance, and for a 

 time the Editor was even obliged to ad- 

 dress the Magazine envelopes himself. 

 The names of the members Vv^ere then 

 printed on long slips, and it was the prac- 

 tice to cut these slips up with a pair of 

 scissors and then paste them on the en- 

 velope. After addressing one edition of 

 900 copies in this way, the first invest- 

 ment in office furniture made by the 

 Editor was the purchase, at the expense 

 of $20, of an addressing machine. 



Magazine men who were consulted 

 said that it was impossible to develop a 

 circulation for a geographic magazine, 

 because the subject of geography was too 

 technical. And no doubt this was true, 

 for we should remember that at that time 

 geography was to the layman an unknown 

 quantity and meant boundaries, moraines, 

 erosion, glaciers, wind belts, etc. 



It is not necessary here to review the 

 successive progress made in the develop- 

 ment of the Society. A fairy tale, it is 

 sometimes called. Today there is no so- 

 ciety in the world comparable with the 



National Geographic Society m size or 

 activities ; and it has become the most far- 

 reaching activity of its kind in the history 

 of American educational development. 



It might be well to place on record 

 some of the principles which your Editor 

 has followed in the development of the 

 Magazine : 



THE GUIDIXG PRINCIPLES 



1. The first principle is absolute ac- 

 curacy. Nothing must be printed which 

 is not strictly according to fact. The 

 Magazine can point to many years in 

 which not a single article has appeared 

 which was not absolutely accurate. 



2. Abundance of beautiful, instructive, 

 and artistic illustrations. 



3. Everything printed in the Magazine 

 must have permanent value, and be so 

 planned that each magazine will be as 

 valuable and pertinent one year or five 

 years after publication as it is on the day 

 of publication. The result of this prin- 

 ciple is that tens of thousands of back 

 numbers of the Magazine are continually 

 used in school-rooms. 



4. All personalities and notes of a 

 trivial character are avoided. 



5. Nothing of a partisan or controver- 

 sial character is printed. 



6. Only what is of a kindly nature is 

 printed about any country or people, 

 everything unpleasant or unduly critical 

 being avoided. 



7. The contents of each number is 

 planned with a view of being timely. 

 Whenever any part of the world becomes 

 prominent in public interest, by reason 

 of war, earthquake, volcanic eruption, 

 etc., the members of the National Geo- 

 graphic Society have come to know that 

 in the next issue of their Alagazine they 

 will obtain the latest geographic, histor- 

 ical, and economic information about that 

 region, presented in an interesting and 

 absolutely non-partisan manner, and ac- 

 companied by photographs wdiich in num- 

 ber and excellence can be equaled by no 

 other publication. 



The following table shows the growth 

 of the Society for each year since 1907 : 



