r energies, so that the owner of the beehive
shall gain high profits.

No matter if they gather a thousandfold as much honey as they can
consume, they never seek iniquity. Man takes all their wealth from them,
and in the spring, in the beautiful month of May, when the flower cups
begin to fill, the little hustlers resume their work again without
complaint and without murmur.

Probably some economists regret that workmen are not endowed by nature
with such an instinct for work as would let them feel nothing else but
the desire to accumulate wealth for others.

It is too bad, indeed, that house builders, railroad workers, miners,
garment workers and farmers are creatures with thinking faculties. That
they should be able to analyze, to compare, to draw conclusions is
really very unfortunate for the "Captains of Industry."

Next to the bee, the Asiatic coolie is the favorite ideal of the
every-day economist. In one respect he surpasses the bee--he does not
destroy drones.

How smoothly everything might run along in this world of material
supremacy, if only the workers were made up of such a desirable mixture
as the bees and coolies.

Fortunately, Fate hath not willed it so.

[Illustration]

VITAL ART.

ANNY MALI HICKS.

IN order to estimate the value of any movement, whether social,
economic, ethical or esthetic, it must be studied in its relation and
attitude to general progress. Its effectiveness should be judged by what
it contributes to the growth of the universal conscience. That "no man
liveth unto himself alone" is never so true as now, because now it is
more generally realized. Therefore, any expression which concerns itself
solely with its own special field of action finds itself soon set aside,
and presently becoming divorced from reality, ends as a sporadic type.
Any expression, however, which responds to the larger life gains a
vitality which insures its continuance.

Thus, the effort to apply certain truths not new in themselves, is a
tendency to work in harmony with progress. The effort to apply
principle, however imperfectly expressed, is important, not because of
its results, but because of the desire to relate theory and action in a
conduct of life. Almost every type of expression is undergoing its phase
of application. Esthetics have somewhat aligned themselves to the
others, but at last there is a movement, known as the arts and crafts
movement, more properly called applied esthetic