196 MISSOURI STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



constantly placed before them for amusement and companionship, why- 

 should not their hearts and eyes be educated to appreciate the marvels 

 of bird and insect life around them, or to take delight in the cultivation 

 of fruits and flowers, an occupation for which none is too high and none 

 too low. 



Mr. Darwin has long- ago called our attention to the utility of beauty 

 in the animal kingdom. He tells us how the brilliant plumage and 

 beautiful markings of the males of many birds, insects and other ani- 

 mals have, by the theory of natural selection, helped to preserve the 

 various groups of the animal kingdom. And he has also shown beauty 

 to be a valued adjunct of utility in the exquisite blending of harmoni. 

 ous colors in flowers and fruits. What superficial observation might 

 consider as furnished for the delectation of man alone, he has shown 

 to be of most important service in the economy of plant life. The bril- 

 liant coloring of flowers, in striking contrast to the green leaves, attracts 

 insects and birds which, by their visits, convey the pollen from one to 

 another, and thus bring about fertilization. It is a well-known fact 

 that we should have no apples or pears were it not for insects. Equally 

 important is the rich beauty of our fruits that so attract the animals 

 which serve as disseminators of seed and planters of new harvests. 



It is often the circumstance of utility alone which gives an element 

 of beauty to what would otherwise be unattractive. That substance, 

 so homely in form and color, dug from the bowels of the earth, becomes 

 the " black diamond " because of its brilliant service to almost every 

 interest of human life. The ignorant mind may widely separate the 

 beautiful and the useful, but the broadening influences of education 

 tend more and more to correlate them. Let us hope that there are but 

 few minds so closed to esthetic influences as that of the Yankee, who, 

 before the magnificence of a Niagara, could only exclaim : "What a 

 place to run a mill !" 



AVhat a recent writer has said of the average Englishman in con- 

 nection with this part of our subject is equally true of the average 

 American: "The weakness of the Englishman lies in the want, or scanty 

 action within him, of the love of excellence for its own sake. AVhen 

 this love is absent or feeble, men will not undergo the strain of aiming 

 ever at the highest. Consciously or unconsciously, every man has for 

 himself a standard for work. In the energy with which he works up 

 to that standard, the Englishman is, perhaps, unmatched; but the 

 standard itself is too low. It is not the standard of the excellent, of the 

 ideal, of the very best the mind can conceive in each kind and form; it 

 is what the custom will take; it is the standard of the market." 



