NEW YORK CITY, Thursday—Miss Read and I flew over to New York last evening, and had an almost perfect flight. The new flight stewards put on by the Eastern Air Lines are extremely solicitious for everyone's comfort and I think our particular one was deeply grieved because I did not smoke and did not need any attentions of any kind, even being able to fasten my own safety belt!

Arrived in New York, we separated at the Pennsylvania Hotel and I went to dine with two friends, one of them from the Middle West is here on a visit. They had a perfectly delicious dinner awaiting me, and the only person who seemed a little dissatisfied was the police dog who had to wait until we were finished before his feeding time came. He smelled me all over because of the two dogs I had left in Washington and he is a joy to watch with the rubber toys which Santa Claus presented him with for Christmas. My dogs are too sedate to play with these toys and give me a look of great contempt when I try to interest them. They practically tell me that I should know better at my age than try to make dignified dogs play like puppies.

I started out early this morning to do some errands and a few minutes after eleven I was at the Junior League Club House to open a course which I organize every winter in connection with the Todhunter School. After my talk on the course, its purposes and probably interest, the Junior League entertains me at lunch and I am allowed to talk again for a few moments to the members present. As I was talking an inspiration suddenly came to me for the course. Every year the group has come to Washington for two days in the spring and visited various government departments and met a few government officials. I think this year it would be interesting to suggest a change. Why not take a short trip to see various government activities instead of spending two or three days in Washington? There are fairly close together, and not far from Washington, four Homestead developments under the Resettlement Administration, each of which has distinctive problems, and I wonder if a visit to them might not be an interesting educational experiment.

I am beginning to think that we ought to have a new purpose in travelling. Heretofore, we have travelled for pleasure or educational purposes—why not take trips now and then to improve our citizenship, by giving us a better knowledge of various government activities and of different parts of our country?