CIVIC IMPROVEMENT, 65 



country in this line, for I talve it that in a country of this Ivind with so 

 many progressive cities in the east the older city long snce having given 

 up to embellishments and iti the west the younger cities rivalling each 

 other in business activity. Much can be gained which are suggestions 

 to us for adaptation in our own communities. 



Among the things considered by the wideawake improvement clubs 

 are the following: County park systems, forestry, fountains, good roads 

 and good streets, guide boards to points of interest, increased attract- 

 iveness of farm life, photography as an improvement agency, preserva- 

 tion of outdoor features, street signs, street and road planting, athletic 

 and outdoor pastimes, floral exhibitions, open air picnic grounds, 

 parks for all of the people, public lavatories, public gymnasium, rest 

 rooms in towns and cities, shelter houses in parks and cemeteries, ar- 

 tistic public advertising, care of vacant lots, cemetery improvement, 

 garbage disposal, improvement of city water front, beauty in bridge 

 building, practical and artistic street planting, cleaning of streets and 

 alleys, proper naming of streets, public lighting as an aid to city beauty, 

 public squares, sidewalk planting, grouping of public buildings, im- 

 provements of yards, prize awarding, vine planting and the like. And 

 there is no reason why improvements of this kind should not be done at 

 the city's expense if in a city, or at the expense of the village if in a 

 village. But those reforms will Hot be brought about by the city officials 

 in many cases, and for no other reason than that the people do not 

 see their necessity until they are a part of the organization which de- 

 mands them. 



"There is nothing," says the Practical Farmer, "That gives a passer-by 

 a poorer opinion of a farm than a road side incumbered with a weed 

 and scrub nursery. On many a farm which is otherwise apparently 

 clean, the roadside is allowed to furnish weed seeds enough to keep 

 up the supply for the whole farm for the next season. Even where there 

 is some effort to keep the roadside clean, to let the weeds remain until 

 fall when the weed seeds are ripe, and then have a cleaning up, accom- 

 plishes very little." And to the stranger or passer-by the roadside, like 

 the first approach to a village or city, to a great extent conveys the 

 idea of that which lies back of it. Too little attention is given to mat- 

 ters of first approach as we might term it. Our first impressions stay 

 with us for a long time and are hard to obliterate. 



The first improvement league in America was founded at«6tockham, 

 Mass., in 1853, while the development of city and village improvement 

 clubs has taken place in the last dozen years. In fact the great impetus 

 to improvement was given by the World's fair in Chicago, which from 

 its beautiful and systematic construction awakened the drowsy senti- 

 ment of the people to what could be and should be, and the various ex- 

 positions that have followed over the various parts of the country have 

 given new stimulus to the idea of civic betterment and beauty. The 



