This is a New Year number of The Mentor--so let us look backward and forward. The first Mentor was published on February 17, 1913--not quite three years ago. Three years is a short span in the life of a periodical publication, but it is long enough in most cases to relegate the back numbers to oblivion, or at least to the department of bound magazines in libraries. But the first number of The Mentor is still in demand--and so are the numbers that followed it. Thousands of the early numbers are ordered every week. This means something. It means that The Mentor is not a magazine, but a popular educational course. While you like some numbers more than others, you _want_ them all. You like The Mentor plan, and you hope that we are succeeding, and you would like to see The Mentor plan extended all over the world--these and many other warm words of encouragement have come to me from you day by day. Many of you have asked how we are doing now at the close of our third year. I am glad you have asked, for the answer is a very satisfactory one. At the end of the first six months of its life, The Mentor Association numbered about 5,000. It now numbers more than 60,000, and it is growing by hundreds every week. In that big and growing membership is the assurance that a new idea has taken definite form and that thousands of you have found it worthy. That makes the New Year look bright to us. * * * * * As we take our backward look the original ideal of The Mentor presents itself to us anew. The word "ideal" should be carefully used, but we do not hesitate to apply it to The Mentor. What is an ideal? It is not a sufficient answer to say that it is the "best possible," for idealism does not concern itself with what is possible. The "best possible" is simply a standard--not an ideal. When the schoolboy said, "Standards are the things we live up to, ideals are the things we fall short of," he showed a worldly wisdom beyond his years. There are several shades of definition in the dictionaries, but "ideal" as we conceive it is the _finest and fullest dream_ of achievement in any line of endeavor. The dream may seem impossible. It does seem so in the case of the most precious ideals. But that matters not. We treasure the ideal the more that it is unattainable. An ideal, like a fixed star, is far enough off to be steadfast and unchangeable. It may never be reached, but its guiding light may always be depended on. * * * * *