NEW YORK, Tuesday—I hated to leave the country on yesterday morning. The dogwood tree, which reaches up to my bedroom window, was just bursting into bloom, and next weekend I hope the flowers will be really out.

The first week in May the woods are always glorious with white dogwood blossoms. I like this particular show almost as much as I like any of the other spring manifestations. On Sunday at Hyde Park, however, I picked daffodils and narcissuses to my heart's content, filled bowls in the house with them and brought some down to New York City, and all were lovely.

The spring, even on a rainy weekend, is fascinating, but I hope the rain has at last come to an end so from now on we will have pleasant weekends.

The United States delegation gave a cocktail party on Monday afternoon for the members of the Human Rights Commission and when it was over some of my family and I went to dine at the little Finnish restaurant next to the Finnish shop. I like this particular little restaurant—one does not have to talk in competition with a band or an orchestra. It is quiet and peaceful and unhurried and at the end of a long day is a pleasant place to go.

In the Magazine Digest for May which someone sent me, there is the condensation of an article from the Independent Woman which tells the story of the introduction of a Negro doll, called "Saralee".

Saralee Kreech and Maxeda von Hess were responsible for my interest in their venture, which is a truly artistic venture. Now that I have read the story of how they got a sculptor in St. Louis, Sheila Burlingham, to make a number of heads and then found Mr. David Rosenstein, president of the Ideal Corporation, to manufacture the doll, I am wondering whether from that early beginning "Saralee" has progressed to really successful popularity among the children of America.

There is another fascinating story told in a book called "Wide Neighborhoods" by Mary Breckinridge.

This is the story of country nursing, started in the Kentucky mountains more than 25 years ago. At the same time it is the story of a very interesting woman who spent her active life in many parts of the world—Russia, France, Switzerland, the British Isles, and the United States of America from the Deep South to Canada.

You will know more about your own country when you have read this book, and I think it is a fitting companion for another book, "The Use of Resources in Education" by Elsie Clapp, which will be published on May 7 by the John Dewey Society.

This latter book tells the story not of nursing in the Kentucky mountains but of work done in a rural school in Kentucky and in Arthurdale, W.Va.. It will be valuable to all who are interested in community education, and I think valuable not only here but in many other areas of the world. I want to see it find its way to India and hope it will be read by some of the people who are planning a new life in the Indian rural villages.