Medal of Honor 
The Medal of Honor of the Garden Club of America has been 
long in the making. Before war or rumors of war had come to dis- 
tress the world, the project of such a medal to be given each year to 
the person who had done the most for the cause of horticulture, had 
been much discussed. The suggestion was received with enthusiasm, 
and eventually a committee was appointed consisting of Mrs. W. S. 
Brewster, Mrs. Max Farrand, Mrs. Arthur Scribner, Mrs. Harold 
Pratt and Mrs. Allan Marquand with Mrs. Francis King as chairman, 
to make the plan known to all the Member Clubs, to raise the neces- 
sary funds, to select a sculptor, and with him to decide upon the 
design of the medal. At the outset all went swimmingly. Member 
Clubs approved, money began to come in. The committee thor- 
oughly enjoying the pleasant duty which faced them of becoming 
acquainted with the work of the best American medalUsts, selected 
Mr. John Flanagan as their sculptor, and looked forward to a speedy 
accomphshment of their task. However, our own entry into the war 
arrested this enterprise with every other of a hke nature, and with 
the ready consent of all concerned, the whole question of the Medal 
of Honor was set aside to await happier days, while the members of 
the committee, from the chairman down, turned all their energies to 
food conservation, war gardens and organizing the Land Army. 
In the autumn of 1 9 1 9 when a year of peace had, to a certain measure, 
restored us to our normal interests and occupations, Mrs. King was em- 
powered to issue a new plea for funds for our medal, and Mr. Flanagan 
having made for the committee several sketches was finally given his 
commission in March, 1920, to design the medal from the sketch which 
had been selected, as meeting with the general approval of the committee. 
And now a word as to our sculptor of whom Daniel Chester French 
says: "He is one of the few men who know all about the technique 
of medal making. " A pupil of St. Gaudens, he studied for some years 
in France, first with Henri Chapu, and at the Ecole des Beaux Arts 
with Alexandre Falguiere, and also became thoroughly acquainted 
with the works of such men as Roty and Chaplain among modern 
masters, and with those of Pisanello, that great Itahan medalUst of 
the fifteenth century, whose breadth, simpUcity, and sincerity have 
left their mark on all of Mr. Flanagan's work. Returning to this country 
he soon made a name for himseh by a number of large works, among 
them the monumental clock in the Library of Congress at Washington, 
a large reHef in the PubUc Library at Newark, and the Bulkley 
Memorial at Hartford, and by the charm and beauty of his plaque ttes 
and medals, among which may be cited the Hudson-Fulton medal, 
and the medal of the Pan-American Exposition, the plaquette of 
"A Marshal of the First Empire," etc., etc. While the Garden Club 
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