The _Forum_ had hardly made an impression on public thought and had attracted very few readers, although it had lost large sums of money for its progenitors.

These public-spirited gentlemen now turned to Page as the man who might rescue them from their dilemma and achieve their purpose.

He accepted the engagement, first as manager and presently as editor, and remained the guiding spirit of the _Forum_ for eight years, until the summer of 1895.
That the success of a publication is the success of its editors, and not of its business managers and its "backers," is a truth that ought to be generally apparent; never has this fact been so eloquently illustrated as in the case of the _Forum_ under Page.

Before his accession it had had not the slightest importance; for the period of his editorship it is doubtful if any review published in English exercised so great an influence, and certainly none ever obtained so large a circulation.

From almost nothing the _Forum_, in two or three years, attracted 30,000 subscribers--something without precedent for a publication of this character.