In Philadelphia

Mary Louise Curtis Bok, daughter and only child of Publisher Cyrus Hermann Kotzschmar Curtis (Saturday Evening Post, Ladies' Home Journal, New York Evening Post, etc.) and wife of Edward W. Bok (onetime editor Ladies' Home Journal), last week permitted her name to come out of quiet domestic retirement in two announcements. To the Curtis Institute of Music which Mrs. Bok founded in Philadelphia three years ago with $500,000, she had given seven millions, bringing its endowment to $12,500,000. As President of the Institute, she had promoted the head of the piano department to the head of all --Director-in-Chief Josef Hofmann.

Boks and Curtises have a way of making things go ahead. Just as her father expanded his magazines, just as her husband expanded his editorial reputation and the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra, so Mrs. Bok made her Institute of Music in three years' time into one of the few wonders of the music world. Money is much, but far from all in that world. At a music institute the teaching staff is all-important. To hers Mrs. Bok attracted Mme. Sembrich, Emilio de Gogorza, Carl Flesch, Moritz Rosenthal and many another. A program comes next. The Bok administration provides needy students not only with instruments and instruction, but with living expenses and funds for their debut concerts as well.

Director-in-chief Hofmann's pol icy will doubtless continue to permit Curtis Institute teachers to perform as well as instruct. Active interplay of public and professional life keeps classrooms alive. Herr Hofmann was himself taught by Anton Rubenstein at an active period during the latter's career. Conversely, Herr Hofmann has found time during his best piano years for activities outside the concert hall, not only teaching but inventing mechanisms. Many a luxurious motor car bears Hofmann shock absorbers. By a Hofmann device, the finest shadings of a master's touch can be charted beside the perforations in pianola music rolls.

Music, literature and her family are the chief activities of Mary Louise Curtis Bok. Unlike her energetic husband, she seldom takes the limelight. But the Curtis Institute is evidence of far greater self-determination in Mrs. Bok than is suggested by the most intimate glimpse of her the public has yet had, in her husband's biography of her father, The Man from Maine.

Here Mr. Bok shows himself as the dynamic young editor-secretary of the successful publisher. He and the publisher are in Europe:

"There was an amusing side to these joint trips of ours. He would of course receive letters from his wife and daughter, and certain signals had already passed between the latter and myself to lead to mutual thoughts. I was more than curious to know what was in these letters, but of course I could not ask and he ventured no information, as it had never for a moment occurred to him that anything save the most casual acquaintance existed between his editor and his daughter.

"One day we were riding from Calais to Paris when, after reading a letter from his wife, he said, in answer to my question as to how things were at home: 'My wife says that daughter is showing evidences of being interested in some young man,--she is quiet, very thoughtful, and all that. Of course, my wife is wrong,' he continued with perfect self-sufficiency. 'Daughter is too young for that sort of thing.'

"This was a line of talk in which I was, of course, intensely interested, and I determined to follow up the advantage.

" 'That may be,' I said, 'but some day that fact will face you. What then?'

" 'Oh, yes, of course, some day, but not for a long time yet.' Then he mused and added: 'Well, I hope the fellow will be a decent chap: not one of those that I see standing on the steps of hotels sucking cigarettes.'

"As I was smoking a cigarette at, that moment, this was not an auspicious beginning.

" 'What's the matter with an occasional cigarette?' I ventured. 'That would put me under your ban.'

"He laughed. 'Well,' he said, 'not; as you smoke a cigarette, but you know the type I mean.'

"This was encouraging, and I determined to lead him on. I felt guilty, but my interest in the moment was too great.

" 'What kind of a chap have you in mind for your daughter?' I ventured.

" 'I want him to be first of all decent. Then I ask that he will be a good business man. He need not have arrived, of course, so long as I can see that he has the qualities for effective work. I intend to have these two things looked into.'

" 'How?' I asked.

" 'Have his private life looked into by a detective and his business standing by Bradstreet right away,' he answered decisively, and the thought seemed to give him infinite satisfaction.

"When somewhat later the suitor for his daughter's hand came to him, the young man added that he was perfectly willing to be looked up by a detective and Bradstreet!

"He looked at the young man, lit a cigar, smiled wanly, and said: 'Yes, I suppose so.' "