The World Beautiful 



A SURVEY OF CURRENT BETTERMENT EFFORT 



Conducted by the Editor 



A "Winter Use for Summer Assemblies 



THE practical logic which has opened the 

 school buildings of our great cities to va- 

 cation classes is being applied to several 

 of the summer assembly properties in the middle 

 West. The Winona Agricultural and Technical 

 Institute, at Winona Lake, Ind., is the answer 

 to the question, Why should the great assemblies 

 be closed and vacant eight months in the year, 

 especially when located near needy city popu- 

 lations? The institute aims to furnish the 

 boys of fourteen and older such surroundings 

 and training in agriculture, horticulture and 

 the use of tools and machinery, including 

 courses in English branches and the English 

 Bible, "as will assist them in their growth 

 toward Christian manhood and useful citizen- 

 ship." 



"The man on the farm, more than any other 

 of our citizens, today is called upon continually 

 to exercise the qualities we like to .hink of as 

 typical of the United States."— Preside7it Roose- 

 velt, in Ms speech at Bangor, Maine. 



Babes and Blossoms 



A business man of Chicago recently told the 

 Physicians' Club of that city that one hun- 

 dred thousand children in Chicago did not 

 know a rose from a dandelion, nor a violet 

 from a daisy. The M. D.'s did not be- 

 lieve this, and one of them took bouquets of 

 flowers to three schools in the slum district. 

 The rose was the only flower recognized by 

 the children. The flower-famished little ones 

 callet violets "lilacs" and "lily buds," and chrys- 

 anthemums "cabbage flowers" and "football 

 flowers." Think of it, comments the Buffalo 

 Times : 



"A hundred thousand children in one city 

 who do not know a rose from a daisy, or a 

 carnation from a dandelion! A hundred thou- 

 sand little souls whose innate love of the beau- 

 tiful, whose natural longing for the fields and 

 woods, have been suppressed throughout their 

 short, cheerless lives by the heavy hand of pov- 

 erty and gloom, A hundred thousand children 

 in one city who never watched a flower bud 

 and blossom, who never heard the quail pipe 

 from the stubble, or the robin call his mate, 

 who never heart the blue-bird's whistle, the 

 hum of the bee or the whirr of the locust. God 

 save them ! What sort of citizens and citizens' 

 wives will they makef" 



There are agencies at work which will make 

 such a state of affairs impossible in the fu- 

 ture. The nature study* movement and tne 

 interest in school gardens are spreading abroad 

 among the children a love for and knowledge 

 of fl-owers. In addition to the garden at Groton, 

 Massachusetts (described by Miss Louise Klein 

 Miller, in Home and Flov^ers for January), 

 it is a pleasure to note the recent founding of 

 gardens at Helicon Hall, Englewood, New Jer- 

 sey, and at Los Angeles, California. It is a 

 significant fact also that the woman's clubs 

 are beginning to take up flower study. The 

 study of flowers, declared an Alabama club 

 woman recently, could be made quite as fas- 

 cinating and profitable as the study of Keats 

 or Browning. Why not begin with your chil- 

 dren, she continued, and teach them? Yes, 

 and why not begin when they are very young, 

 as suggested in our prize offer on another page 

 of this issue? Our cover shows how the youngs- 

 ters look upon this matter. 



"That thing which I understand by real art 

 is the expression by man of his pleasure in 

 labor."— William Morris. 



Figures Tell the Story 



Massachusetts, according to the annual re- 

 port of the state board of health, is a pretty 

 healthful region to live in. In 1892 the death 

 rate was 20.84, in 1901 it was 17.5, and for the 

 year ending September 30 last it had dropped 

 to 16.82, and this while the population of the 

 commonwealth was nearly doubling in numbers. 

 Of course, many facts enter into the explana- 

 tion of this better public health, but The Beacon 

 (Boston) declares that the improvement is 

 mainly due to "the active propaganda of recent 

 years in behalf of fresh air, rational exercise, 

 sunlight and nourishing food." 



"Almost all of our great presidents have 

 been brought up in the country, and most of 

 them worked hard on the farms." — Theodore 

 Boosevelt. 



Why Not a Sunset Club? 



It was Eider Haggard who declared that the 

 wilderness was never lonely for him, because 

 "the further you get from man, the nearer yoil 

 grow to God." Many will feel inclined to dis- 

 pute this, he adds, but "I am sure that anybody 



