Next to letters, about the most popular form of writing today is the diary. In fact, almost all of the best letter writers keep some sort of book in which they jot down their impressions from time to time - trips they have made, people they have enjoyed meeting (they sometimes collect autographs or addresses for future reference), thoughts that they find very good and stimulating to meditate on. There are all sorts of things for a diary, depending upon the individual likes and dislikes of the compiler. Almost everyone keeps his diary as a secret treasure chest under lock and key, just for himself. From time to time he refers to its pages to find out the dates of birthdays he should remember, of names he has forgotten, or to recall more clearly some incident that he would enjoy thinking over and recounting to others.

Keeping a diary is becoming more and more an American habit. Libraries today invite owners to bequeath their treasures to them, so that posterity may benefit from the wealth of intimate details of everyday life of our age and enjoy knowing and understanding us better. Diaries of housewives, auto drivers, debutantes, airplane pilots, businessmen, teachers, pupils, actors, radio announcers, and artists - all of these are wanted. You have surely read excerpts from the diaries of people who lived long ago.

The Beginning of a Round-Robin Letter.

Just A Sample

Here is one taken from the diary of Philip Hone* written before the age of radio and telephone:

"Thursday, Sept. 7. - Wonderful Dispatch. There never was a nation on the face of the earth which equaled this in rapid locomotion. The President's message was brought on to this city by railroads, steamboats, and horsemen, and carried from hence to Boston, which place it reached in the inconceivably short period of 24 1/2 hours from Washington, a distance of 500 miles."

And here is an incident from the life of Theodore Roosevelt, written when he was a boy.† This is exactiy how he wrote it, spelling and all.

"In the bush. August 9th/71

"West, Jake and I went fishing before breakfast and Jake caught six trout. After breakfast West and I waded through the rapids fishing but caught no fish. Jake and Ellie went up stream and Father and Godfry down stream. These brought in about two dozen trout. After dinner all of us began to 'whip' the rapids. At first I sat on a rock by the water but the black flies drove me from there, so I attempted to cross the rapids. But I had miscalculated my strength for before I was half way across the force of the current had swept me into water which was above my head. Leaving the pole to take of itself I struck out for a rock. My pole soon stuck and so I recovered it. I then went half wading, half swimming down stream, fishing all the time but unsuc-cesful. West and Ellie were equally unsuccesful, but Father caught two and the guides a good many. At last Father and we three boys left our poles to the guides and went racing down stream. Mose told us the following story: in winter he and another man had been out hunting deer. They were on snowshoes which enabled them to go much faster than the deer so that instead of being armed with guns they had only stave tipped with iron to beat down the deer when they come up with them. They had one hound with them. Well, they had hunted for a long time unsuccesfully when Mose noticed what he thought was the track of a dog, leading up to a fallen tree. When he had reached there a large animal bounded away and he went after it, when it suddenly went slower and his companion cried out stop, Mose, stop! He stopped and saw to his horror a large panther going slowly of. It had been to astonished at first to think of resistence. He said that in another minute he would have been in the clutches of the beast."

* Hone, Philip, The Diary of Philip Hone (1828-1851). Dodd, Mead and Company, New York, 1927.

† Roosevelt, Theodore, Theodore Roosevelt's Diaries oj Boyhood and Youth. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1928.

You can well imagine how interesting our diaries may be to the general public a hundred or two hundred years from now. Perhaps travel by auto will be as out of date as the one-horse shay or the magic carpet, and clothing will no doubt be as different then as ours is different from that in the Washington era. Food, some think, may be mostly synthetic. Do you know what that means? If you haven't a dictionary handy - and, by the way, a real writer needs one for ever so many things, such as spelling and synonyms - the word synthetic means "formed by artificial means."

A Few Tips

If you are going to keep a diary with all these suggestions in mind, you'll have to be very cautious not to make unwise remarks. Remember never to write anything you may be ashamed of later. This doesn't mean that you should not give an honest opinion or state your attitude on a subject as long as it is said with regard for others' feelings. Do show your true character, that is all.

A diary, too, reflects the writer. If you are a very busy person and just interested in events, you'll enjoy keeping a line-a-day book that lasts for five years. Five years sound like an eternity, but as the days fly by you'll find that you have a hard time keeping your entries up to date. You may have to call upon friends and neighbors to help you fill in the gaps during extra-busy seasons. You could make a book, but it takes a great amount of time to do all the ruling and you can easily buy a five-year diary for a quarter. Here's how to keep it:

June 5

19- Up at 8. Uncle Art came at 9. Drove us to Smith's cabin on Schroon Lake. Cooked our lunch out of doors. Canoeing until 3. Explored creek back of cabin. Found Indian arrowhead. Helped Nell build fire. Broiled steaks. Games, marshmallows, and moonlight. Home at 11.

The next year your entry might be this, right under it for you to compare the difference.

19- Up at 6. Lunch packed. Off by bus at 8 with class to N. Y-via Lincoln Tunnel. Aquarium. Empire State. 102 floors! Ate in Central Park. To Art Museum. Roman exhibit. Planetarium to 3 o'clock show. Grand! Thrill when stars come out! Bus along Riverside Drive. G. W. Bridge. Home at 6. Nancy and Dan from Brooklyn! To movies "Marco Polo Steps Out." Fun.

If you have the time, you might enjoy making and keeping a more personal type of record, in which you have the space to write your true reactions to this amazing life all about us. You will only write in this diary when you feel like it. It will eventually grow into a priceless collection of accounts of all the interesting things you have been doing - grand story plots that you have been interested in or have yourself developed; a slice of life that you witnessed; jokes or stories that you have enjoyed; facts of unusual interest culled here and there; games that are fun; your opinions of movies, books, people of note; reports of trips you have taken with all the events along the way. Even prices paid for articles become interesting data for reference later, in case others seek advice from you as one who knows the ropes.

So be up to the minute and don't be caught dead without a diary. Be sure it is bequeathed to the New York or San Francisco or Chicago Public Library with the stipulation that it shall not be read for the lapse of ever so many years, so that all your dear friends and neighbors may continue to mourn the loss of such a noble soul!

Some of this material that you collect for your diary may provide the foundation for a good story. Life is full of interesting plots and surprises. Some new people you meet may challenge your imagination and you could have a fascinating time considering how they might act in situations that have been problems to other folks. Given a certain interesting situation and certain people. do vou know what would happen? What would you yourself have done? Try writing a few of these solutions for your diary.