BEAUTY AND MORAL WORTH 



97 



of peoples". And, looked at from one 

 point of view, the professor is quite 

 correct. 



^ ^ ^ 



A citizen of these LTnited States, tramp- 

 ing along the roads of southern France, 

 stopped for a moment at a village inn. 

 A beautiful young girl, scarcely into her 

 teens, timidly entered the arbor, where 

 were gathered over their wine a dozen or 

 more Frenchmen, Italians and Spaniards 

 — and two Americans. "Will you buy my 

 flowers, please?" she asked. Latin gal- 

 lantry could not refrain from coarse fa- 

 miliarity, and one insult was so outrageous 

 that Saxon blood began to boil. In a flash, 

 three were sprawling on the floor and the 

 girl was escorted back to the road as 

 though she had been a queen. "Who is 

 the gentlemen, that we may thank him?" 

 — this from the real men present. "Oh, 

 I'm an American, that's enough" — and he 

 was gone. I confess that when I heard 

 him, I was proud to claim him as a 

 countr}Tnan, much prouder than when the 

 Yankee drummer for reaping machines 

 boasted in Vienna, in my hearing, that we 

 are the richest nation on earth. 



:^ ^ :^ ^ 



In more than one phase of development 

 the United States has had more rapid 

 evolution than Europe. Industrially and 

 commerciall}', declares ex-assistant Secre- 

 tary of the Treasury Vanderlip, speaking 

 of the "American commercial invasion of 

 Europe", "it is already old America and 

 young Europe". During the past decade, 

 since the World's Columbian Exposition 

 taught us the great lesson of "the gain and 

 fascination of public beauty", we have 

 been rapidly and surely creating a real 

 esthetic "atmosphere". The wide-spread 

 sentiment in favor of public beauty, the 

 conversion of the business man to the value 

 of attractive business surrounding's, the re- 

 vival, already upon us, of the old arts and 

 crafts associations — all these would seem 

 to indicate that we are bringing about, 

 one might almost say deliberately and con- 

 sciously, what Earope has attained only 



passively and through the accumulation of 

 the centuries. 



Will more beautiful physical surround- 

 ings help us, as a people, to live a better, 

 more beautiful American life ? Will they 

 tend to make us better and more moral? 

 I have asked a number of men and women 

 who think deeply on these questions for 

 their opinion. President Arthur T. Had- 

 ley of Yale University, President Charles 

 W. Eliot of Harvard, Dr. Paul Carus, 

 editor of The Open Court, Howard J. 

 Eogers, chief of the department of Polit- 

 ical and Social Science of the St. Louis 

 Exposition, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, vet- 

 eran suffrage reformer. Bliss Perry, editor 

 of The Atlantic Monthly, Dr. Oscar L. 

 Triggs, secretary the Industrial Art 

 League, Joaquin Miller, the venerable 

 "poet of the Sierras", "Marion Harland", 

 Senator George F. Hoar, of Massachusetts, 

 Julia Ward Howe, abolitionist and author- 

 ess, Florence Morse Kingsley, novelist, 

 Ella Wheeler Wilcox, poet and authoress, 

 W^illiam Marion Eeedy, editor of The 

 Mirror, Cynthia Westover Alden, presi- 

 dent of the International Sunshine Society, 

 John 0. Woolley, temperance reformer, 

 orator, E. L. Shuey, manufacturer. Young 

 Men's Christian Association worker, Ells- 

 worth Woodward, president of the New 

 Orleans Art Club; men and women of 

 such widely diversified interests and activ- 

 ities as these, all agree most emphatically 

 with the contention that more beautiful 

 homes, cities and factories will materially 

 help to make us a better, more moral 

 people. 



Julia Ward Howe says: "As the old 

 adage says ^cleanliness is next to godli- 

 ness', I think that the cultivation of good 

 taste greatly promotes good morals". 

 Bliss Perry is "in the heartiest sympathy 

 with the entire movement represented by 

 Home and Flo overs''. Mrs. Stanton 

 declares," We certainly have improved with 

 a more liberal education in the arts and 

 sciences and more refined modes of living, 

 and more orderly habits and surround- 

 ings". The interesting and hopeful thing 



