THE STARRY HEAVENS IN SEPTEMBER 



151 



eclipse but the eclipse will not be total, 

 only eighty-six one-hundredths of the 

 moon's diameter being hidden. Our 

 satellite will emerge from the shadow 

 at 10.33 A. M. Unfortunately, through- 

 out the entire eclipse the moon will 

 have set to observers in Europe and in 

 the United States, and so the eclipse 



will not be visible to us. It may be 

 seen, however, from Asia, Oceania, 

 Australia and from all points of the Pa- 

 cific Ocean. 



On September 23 at 4.34.16 the sun 

 will cross the equator in its southward 

 journey, and at this instant autumn 

 will begin. 



The High Cost of Living. 



As the world rolls onward the cost 

 of living tends to decrease in the prod- 

 ucts made by an aggregation of man, 

 and to increase in those completed by 

 the individual workman. This is the 

 logical outcome of mankind's social in- 

 stinct. We naturally flock together. 

 A man will in a factory accept a wage 

 lower than that that he will accept for 

 hoeing corn in an isolated field. The 

 reason why we seek one another was 

 well expressed by the Boston woman 

 that explained her return from the 

 country, where she had been sent by 

 a philanthropist, by saying, "I came 

 back because I like people better than 

 stumps." You cannot change the peo- 

 ple but you can show them the un- 

 suspected attraction of the stumps and 

 the stumps' surroundings. The inter- 

 ests of the factory, of the crowded city 

 or of the village are more easily dis- 

 cerned. They lie on the surface, 

 whereas it needs keen eyes, a seeking 

 heart and an observing mind to dis- 

 cover Mother Nature's secrets. The 

 knowledge of these attractions has in- 

 creased within the last decade. . Hun- 

 dreds of families are now living in 

 suburban or in isolated and widely 

 separated homes, where twenty-five 

 years ago there was only one. Within 

 the memory of many that have reached 

 the years of maturity, wealthy people 

 had their homes in the city. Now, ow- 

 ing perhaps to the automobile, they are 

 back in the open, far from their fel- 

 lows, and having for neighbors the 

 stumps and other things in which wild 

 nature rejoices. The ambitious coun- 

 try boy longs to be a school-teacher; 

 the school-teacher from love of liter- 

 ary matters longs to be an editor; the 

 editor, in touch with wealthy people 



and seeing their joys, longs to become 

 a banker ; and the banker, that recog- 

 nizes the futility of seeking real joy 

 from artificial things longs to return 

 to the farm. The farm is the ulti- 

 mate destination. By many the re- 

 turn journey has been made. The city 

 is only the halfway house. It is a 

 strange fact that many country people 

 long to go to the city, and many city 

 people are casting envious glances to- 

 ward the country and a home among 

 the graceful trees and the green fields. 



One cause of the high cost of living 

 is the desertion of their farms by coun- 

 try people, but the reaction is begin- 

 ning. Farms, abandoned for years, 

 are now being cultivated by others 

 with perhaps more capital and knowl- 

 edge. Cheering results are already in 

 evidence. The cost of living will con- 

 tinue to increase in city-made products 

 so long as the city is overcrowded and 

 to decrease in those that are country 

 made as the exodus to the country in- 

 creases, and the city-countryman dis- 

 covers the beauty and the friendliness 

 of the stumps and their surroundings. 

 But another factor is rapidly entering; 

 the benefits of the social amenities are 

 now obtainable in the country as well 

 as in the city. The automobile and 

 the trolley car are working a revolution 

 in our methods of living, but the one 

 great remaining need at present is to 

 show city people the educational value 

 of Mother Nature. This is our reason 

 for thinking, and it is a good reason 

 for believing that the most important 

 organization on earth just now is The 

 Agassiz Association or it would be if 

 fully developed by proper financing. 

 Long ago Wilson Flagg told us : "Then 

 shall mankind learn that they are un- 

 happy only as they depart from the 

 simplicity of nature, and that they re- 

 gain their lost paradise when they 

 learn to love nature more than art, and 

 the heaven of such a place as this more 

 than the world of cities and palaces." 



