Summer Meeting. 75 



THE ETHICAL AND PEACTICAL VALUE OF FLOWERS. 

 By Mrs. G. E. Dugan, Sedalia, Mo. 



"So fair, so sweet, withal so sensitive : — 

 Would tliat the little flowers were born to live 

 Conscious of half the pleasure the.v give : 

 That to this mountain daisy's self were known. 

 The beauty of its star-shaped shadow thrown 

 On the smooth surface of this naked stone." 



— Wordsworth. 



Xature, the great mistress of all art, harmoniously blends the eth- 

 ical with the practical, the crude with the aesthetic, the useful with the 

 beautiful and there is never any clashing of colors, no mistake in tone, 

 the foregTOund and background unite perfectly to give the wished for 

 effect. AVe are told that nothing was ever made in vain A wise 

 incomprehensible purpose controls all existence. Both animal and vege- 

 talile life must bow to the supreme law, for He who made the world will 

 guide it, to its ultimate destiny. If this essay gives greater prominence 

 to the ethical and the aesthetic than to the practical side of the question,, 

 remember that the ethical comes first, as flowers precede fruit, therefore 

 in the province of nature these are the first consideration. 



• 



"There is to me 

 A daintiness about these early flowers 

 That touches me like poetry. 

 They blow out 



With such a simple loveliness among 

 The common herbs of the pastures, and thej' breathe 

 Their lives so unobtrusively, like hearts 

 Whose beatings are too gentle for the world." 



You do not mean to say that fiowers have a moral value do you? 

 They have an aesthetic value I will grant, but what can a flower do for 

 moralitv? These words were written bv a friend who had seen the title 

 selected for this paper, and it took considerable argument to convince 

 her that these bright messengers coming so sweetly heralded by the 

 singing of birds, and the humming of bees in tlio l^abny springtime, are 

 actual moral influences, uplifting and making ha{)pier, and l)etter the 

 souls of such of earth's children as are not so sadly impregnated by sordid 

 ideas as to be impervious to their gentle teachings. 



