190 On the Campus 



Thus it appears that the higher response of the vegeta- 

 ble world comes only when man reaches the higher possi- 

 bilities of his nature. So long as man demands food 

 only, the plant furnishes forth bread ; when man demands 

 shelter, the plant is rich in shade ; and now at last when 

 the human spirit craves for beauty the plant blazes 

 in color and proclaims in every feature the lines of har- 

 mony and grace. It is a fact not wholly insignificant 

 that the earliest page of human record puts man in a 

 garden, not in a tent, much less in ceiled house or 

 palace, but in a garden, where vegetation should respond 

 to every need. In 1625 Lord Verulam says in one of 

 his famous essays: 



"God Almighty first planted a garden and indeed it 

 is the purest of human pleasures; it is the greatest re- 

 freshment to the spirit of man, without which buildings 

 and palaces are but gross handyworks ; and a man shall 

 ever see that when the ages grow to civility and elegancy 

 men come to build stately sooner than to garden finely 

 as if gardening were the greater perfection. ' ' 



To "build stately" is only the second stage then in 

 human culture as concerns the use of the habitable world. 

 First, food, then shelter, then beauty. First the wild 

 delicious beauty of the Iowa wilderness ; then the simple 

 homes of wood set down amid the ranking corn or 

 grouped in villages beside the streams; then the paved 

 streets, the palaces in brick and stone : now the return to 

 Nature. Wealth profiteth us not ; the roar of commerce 

 ceases to be music to our vexed and wearied ears. We 

 are homesick children, all of us ; we seek paradise. Now 

 paradise means park. When to enlightened humanity 





