52 



HOME AND FLOWERS 



grateful holiday reflections," are these (we 

 quote) : 



"The practical art of living healthfully and 

 well is acquired every year by an increasing 

 multitude. The sanitary conquest over ig- 

 norance and neglect goes on at a rapid rate. 

 The American children of today have not 

 only a better chance of healthful life than 

 the children of any preceding generation 

 had, but they have also a more natural child- 

 hood; more of them grow up close to na- 

 ture; more of them have good training and 

 a fair start in life. So, too, the building-up 

 of American womanhood goes on. A saner 

 and better balanced and more cheerful social 

 life exists in almost every part of the land 

 than existed a generation ago. . . . So, 

 too, goes on the building-up of good family 

 stocks in our democracy — a greater and 

 greater pride in good breeding." 



The editor of The Clinic, a medical journal, 

 while agreeing that we have much to be 

 thankful for as a people, doubts whether we 

 will ever really understand how to take a 

 vacation, or realize why we should take one 

 at all. He refers sarcastically to a friend 

 of his, a manufacturer, who died because he 

 refused to take time to live. One day, as this 

 man was rushing from one part of his fac- 

 tory to another, says the M. D., "ready to 

 blow someone sky-high for not pushing more 

 pig-iron into plowshares, one of his weak- 

 ened arteries burst, and the doctor who was 

 called only charged for one visit. A large 

 and elegant funeral followed, and the factory 

 opened the following morning." 



Don't waste any time, for time If; money, is 

 his comment. 



"Eat when you have to, and get back in 

 ten minutes. There is always some new pat- 

 ent medicine on the market warranted to 

 do the work of the stomach. Keep a bottle 

 in your pocket and save the time necessary 

 for mastication suflicient for digestion. 

 What's the stomach anyhow but a bag to 

 hold stuff in? Sort of a warm-cold-storage 

 cell. And didn't a doctor cut out a whole 

 stomach once, and didn't the man (or was it 

 a woman) live several weeks? 



"Eat, drink and sleep on the jump, and 

 leave the idea of vacations to school chil- 

 dren. If someone says you need a rest, why 

 go to Europe, cram three months' sight- 

 seeing into three weeks, carry on all your 

 business by cable, and skip back by the 

 fastest boat to be found. 



"That's the way to live! There is nothing 

 slow about us. If you don't sleep well, laKe 

 bromides or chloral. If you are constipated 

 so your bowels become as hard as a bag of 

 potatoes, take physic. The pill men are 

 great advertisers, and of course you want to 

 patronize those who hustle. . . . These 

 ideas of natural laws and hygienic living 

 and physical culture and mental control, 

 etc., are all poppycock, anyway. They are 

 suitable for old maids and vegetarians, but 

 the idea of a hustler studying such things! 

 Might as well ask such a man to study 



Browning. The very idea is preposterous^ 

 that there is any relation between eating^ 

 drinking, breathing, sleeping and exercise,, 

 and one's condition of health. It is one of 

 those crank ideas. Above all, don't waste 

 any time this summer on a vacation. It is a 

 terrible loss of time, and time is money." 



With proper allowance for the medical 

 editor's perturbed state of mind, is he not, 

 after all, very nearly correct in his diagnosis? 



"Beauty is God's handwriting, a wayside 

 sacrament." — Milton. 



Bird and Plant Protection 



The French naturalist who declared that, 

 without the insectivorous birds, man could 

 not inhabit the earth after nine years, would 

 rejoice at the international agreement just 

 made for the protection of the feathered 

 friends of man. On March last, in Paris, 

 representatives of France, Belgium, Switzer- 

 land, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Austria and 

 Greece, and several principalities, signed 

 an agreement to protect the birds useful to 

 agriculture. Germany is expected to join 

 the league soon. The protection in the case 

 of the most useful birds is to be absolute at 

 all seasons, covering eggs and nests as well 

 as birds. Ravens, magpies and jays, how- 

 ever, must look out for themselves. Where 

 stands the United States of America in this 

 matter? 



Perhaps we can plead extenuation for neg- 

 lecting the birds in the fact that we now 

 have "The Wild Flowers Preservation So- 

 ciety of America," while Europe has no such 

 organization. 



This society has been founded for the praise- 

 worthy purpose of doing for our wild flowers 

 .what the Audubon Society has done for the 

 birds. It is feared that many varieties of 

 the American flora are actually in danger of 

 extermination. It is proposed to form chap- 

 ters of this new society in the public schools 

 of cities and towns. Through leaflets and 

 elementary instruction in botany, the chil- 

 dren may acquire still further interest in 

 nature study. At the same time they may be 

 taught how to bring home from their excur- 

 sions in the country specimens of plant life 

 so culled as not to destroy the parent vege- 

 tation. The Cornell Nature Study lessons 

 carried on by "Uncle John" Spencer, through 

 Pets and Animals (Springfield, Ohio) are 

 doing much to aid in this good work. 



"Material prosperity without the moral 

 lift toward righteousness means a dimin- 

 ished capacity f6r happiness and a debased 

 character." 



