The things that he had been doing for the _Forum_ and the _Atlantic_ he aspired to do for a larger audience than that to which publications of this character could appeal.

Scholar though Page was, and lover of the finest things in literature that he had always been, yet this sympathy and interest had always lain with the masses.

Perhaps it is impossible to make literature democratic, but Page believed that he would be genuinely serving the great cause that was nearest his heart if he could spread wide the facts of the modern world, especially the facts of America, and if he could clothe the expression in language which, while always dignified and even "literary," would still be sufficiently touched with the vital, the picturesque, and the "human," to make his new publication appeal to a wide audience of intelligent, everyday Americans.

It was thus part of his general programme of improving the status of the average man, and it formed a logical part of his philosophy of human advancement.

For the only acceptable measure of any civilization, Page believed, was the extent to which it improved the condition of the common citizen.