Life, 1911-12-07 · page 50 of 112
Life — December 7, 1911 — page 50: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page documents a **Life magazine caption-writing contest**. Readers submitted titles for the illustrated scene showing a man in Scout or military uniform and a woman in a dress by a stream, with the question "Ah, Brother Piet, which shall it be—'Onward, Christian Soldier' or 'Abide with Me'?" The contest received over 25,000 entries. A panel of five judges independently selected from 213 finalist titles, ultimately choosing a winning caption (not fully visible on this page). The winning entry came from E.N. Smith of San Francisco. The humor derives from the absurd contrast implied by the dialogue—juxtaposing two hymn titles against the romantic/outdoor scene depicted. The judges' process is documented here to show the contest's legitimacy and rigor, a common feature of early-20th-century magazine contests designed to boost reader engagement and circulation.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Ah, Brother Piet: “ Onward, Chris HE winning title to the contest picture reproduced on this pag was sent in by EN. SMITH, Hate Brotiters, Ixcosronateo, Saw Francisco, Catirorsta. The picture was first. published in Thank in the issue following, Novem- Life’s iving Number, and Ler 9, The contest closed at noon on Sat- urday, November 18. -LIFE- The Winner in Life’s Contest THE WINNING TITLE y, Which shall it be— There were in all 25,436 answers re- ceived. Over 3,800 envelopes were re- ceived on Saturday, the day of closing. From all of the answers, 213 were selected among the probabilities. Each of the five judges (four men and one woman) took a separate list of these 213 titles and independently selected five which in his or her judgment were the best. This resulted in twenty-three titles. Then each judge made from this list a final selection of five titles, placing them in the order of merit. Tt an Soldier,” or ‘“‘ Abide with Me"? was then discovered that two of the judges had the winning title first on their lists, one had it second and one had it third, while one judge did not have it at all. Several of the best titles were not considered by the judges, as they were times. Of the Pilgrim,” for instance, dhundreds of nls were ree The titles finally considered by the judges were (omitting the winning title) the twenty-two that follow: comicbooks erm