THE RETURN TO NATURE. 99 



teacher, not a lecturer, and should remain long enough in a com- 

 munity to establish the school upon a firm basis. Denmark 

 maintains fifteen of these itinerant teachers, who go from place 

 to place, establishing departments of domestic science. If this 

 society were interested to take the initiative in a movement to 

 equip and maintaiu one of these schools with one itinerant teacher, 

 it might lead to far-reaching results. 



It would be well if the jMassachusetts Forestry Association and 

 the Federation of Women's Clubs could be induced to cooperate 

 with the JMassachusetts Horticultural Society, not alone for the 

 purpose of sharing the expense, but because these other organiza- 

 tions would prove helpful in disseminating the nature idea. We 

 have only to notice the work they have accomplished in the pro- 

 tection of the trees to see their usefulness and power in the better- 

 ment of community life. The devastating gypsy and brown-tail 

 moths have met adversaries bent upon deadly destruction. 



Up to this point we have emphasized the economic and social- 

 istic asjjects of the question, but the return to nature is destined 

 to serve a far higher and nobler end, namely, to quicken the 

 spiritual Ufe of man. People are beginning to realize that if we 

 would save the poor from his poverty, the weak from his weak- 

 ness, the public conscience must be aroused to understand what 

 wise men have always known, that "to watch the corn grow and 

 the blossoms set ; to draw deep breaths over ploughshare or spade ; 

 to read, to think, to love, to hope, to pray — these are the things 

 that make men happy." 



