being careful to include the name of every boy and girl present, and
next morning took the account to the city editor of the _Brooklyn
Eagle_, with the sage observation that every name mentioned in that
paragraph represented a buyer of the paper, who would like to see his
or her name in print, and that if the editor had enough of these
reports he might very advantageously strengthen the circulation of _The
Eagle_. The editor was not slow to see the point, and offered Edward
three dollars a column for such reports. On his way home, Edward
calculated how many parties he would have to attend a week to furnish a
column, and decided that he would organize a corps of private reporters
himself. Forthwith, he saw every girl and boy he knew, got each to
promise to write for him an account of each party he or she attended or
gave, and laid great stress on a full recital of names. Within a few
weeks, Edward was turning in to _The Eagle_ from two to three columns a
week; his pay was raised to four dollars a column; the editor was
pleased in having started a department that no other paper carried, and
the "among those present" at the parties all bought the paper and were
immensely gratified to see their names.

So everybody was happy, and Edward Bok, as a full-fledged reporter, had
begun his journalistic career.

It is curious how deeply embedded in his nature, even in his earliest
years, was the inclination toward the publishing business. The word
"curious" is used here because Edward is the first journalist in the
Bok family in all the centuries through which it extends in Dutch
history. On his father's side, there was a succession of jurists. On
the mother's side, not a journalist is visible.

Edward attended the Sunday-school of the Carroll Park Methodist