Committee were considering entrusting their medal to him, Frederick 
MacMonnies wrote a member of the committee: 
"I consider him the leading medallist of America, an artist of high 
rank, and a craftsman of infinite sincerity and devotion to his work. 
If I were you I would entrust him with the designing of your medal 
and feel perfectly confident of a fine result. " 
The Government has awarded to Mr. Flanagan the making of a 
medal to be presented by the United States to the City of Verdvm 
in commemoration of her glorious stand against the German invaders 
in 1916, and the design for this medal, together with our own medal, 
were in Mr. Flanagan's studio on the occasion of a recent visit paid 
him there by the well-known French critic, Leonce Benedite. It 
was after this that Mr. Benedite wrote a member of the Garden 
Club Committee: "J'ai ete, justement, serrer la mainde notre ami 
Flanagan que je n'avais pas revu depuis dix-huit ans et que j'ai ete 
heureux de feUciter de ses derniers travaux. II n'a rien perdu, bien 
au contraire, de ses fines quahtes d'observateur precis et d'arbitre 
deHcat." As we go to press we learn that Mr. Flanagan has been 
awarded by the American Numismatic Society the Saltus medal for 
merit in the branch of plaquettes and medals. 
Our Medal of Honor shows, on the obverse, the figure of a young 
girl stooping over a group of poppies with a gesture half caressing. 
Her dress is more suggestive of the modern than the classic, and one 
sees in her the symbol of those women of today whose love of growing 
things drew them together in the bond of a common interest to found 
the Garden Club of America. The connection with their sisters 
of the past is charmingly emphasized by the quotation, selected by 
Mrs. King, — "They set great store by their gardens," — a translation 
from the original Latin of Sir Thomas More's " Utopia. " The reverse 
of the medal bears the inscription — "Medal of Honor. The Garden 
Club of America" — on its outer circumference, while on the car- 
touche appears the name of the recipient in 1920 — "Charles Sprague 
Sargent." Through the use of a removable steel plate in our die, 
the name of the recipient of our medal can be changed at will. Atten- 
tion should be drawn to the great beauty of the lettering in all the in- 
scriptions, a detail which adds greatly to the distinction of the medal. 
The Committee, consulting with Mr. Flanagan, selected the flowers 
to be used on the medal — poppies, irises and roses — as among the 
most popular garden flowers, common to all gardens, great or small, 
and which would lend themselves to sculptural treatment. Although 
the completion of our medal has been long delayed, to know and 
watch it in the making has been a keen interest to the Committee, 
and they hope, now it is no longer a dream but a reality, that the 
Garden Club will feel its patience rewarded and the medal worth 
waiting for. E. C. Marquand. 
32 
