Still another phase of this problem is presented by the case of N.J.F. This man also wanted to be an editor and writer. He was a big, fine-looking fellow, fairly well educated, had some ability in written expression, and frequent good ideas. With his aptitudes, training, and talents, it seemed, at first sight, that he certainly ought to be able to succeed in an editorial capacity. Further examination showed, however, a lamentable lack of discrimination, a deficient sense of the fitness of things, and consequently, unreliable judgment. These deficiencies are worse than handicaps to an editor. They are absolute disqualifications. An editor's first duty is to discriminate, to sift, to winnow the few grains of wheat out of the bushels of chaff that come to his mill. Editors must have a very keen sense of the fitness of things. It is true that the discriminating reader of newspapers and magazines may be tempted to feel at times that this sense of the fitness of things is very rare in editors. Unquestionably, it could be improved in many cases, and yet, on the whole, it must be admitted that newspaper and magazine editors perform at least one important function with a very fair degree of acceptability, namely, they purvey material which is at least interesting to the particular class of readers to whom they wish to appeal. If readers could be induced to wade through for a week the masses of uninteresting material which is submitted, they would doubtless have far greater respect for the intelligence, criticism, peculiarities, and sense of fitness of things of the editors. But we digress. N.J.F. was incapable of sound judgment, not because he did not know the facts, but because, instead of reasoning logically to his conclusion, in accordance with the facts, he was entirely governed by his rather erratic feelings. In other words, he could not reason well from cause to effect; he did not understand people, and so could not sense what would interest them, and his powers of criticism, such as he possessed, were destructive rather than constructive. Contrary to our advice, N.J.F. persisted in his editorial ambitions and in time managed to persuade the owner of a certain publication to entrust him with its editorial management. Almost immediately the periodical began to lose subscribers. Down, down, down went its circulation until it almost reached the vanishing point. Finally, it expired. The trouble was not that its pages contained anything bad, harmful or illiterate, but simply that there was page after page of dry, discursive, uninteresting, valueless material. It was a pity, because, under a competent editor, the periodical in question had occupied an important and useful place in the current literature of the period, and also because, as a dealer in coal, lumber, lime, and building materials, N.J. F. would have been a useful and successful member of the community.