THE NEW- YORK PARK. 



park, far more fittingly than in the noise and din of the crowded streets of the 

 city. 



We have said nothing of the social influence of such a great park in New- York. 

 But this is really the most interesting phase of the whole matter. It is a fact not a 

 little remarkable, that ultra democratic as are the political tendencies of America, its 

 most intelligent social tendencies are almost wholly in a contrary direction. And 

 among the topics discussed by the advocates and opponents of the New Park, none 

 seem so poorly understood as the social aspect of the thing. It is, indeed, both curi- 

 ous and amusing to see the stand taken on the one hand, by the million, that the park is 

 made for the " upper ten," who ride in fine carriages, and on the other hand, by the 

 wealthy and refined, that a park in this country will be " usurped by rowdies and 

 low people." Shame upon our republican compatriots who so little understand the 

 elevating influences of the beautiful in nature and art, when enjoyed in common by 

 thousands and hundreds of thousands of all classes, without distinction ! They can never 

 have seen, how all over France and Germany, the whole population of the cities pass their 

 afternoons and evenings together, in the beautiful public parks and gardens. How 

 they enjoy together the same music, breathe the same atmosphere of art, enjoy the 

 same scenery, and grow into social freedom by the very influences of easy intercourse, 

 space and beauty, that surround them. In Germany, especially, they have never seen 

 how the highest and the lowest partake alike of the common enjoyment — the prince 

 seated beneath the trees on a rush bottomed chair, before a little wooden table, sup- 

 ping his coffee or his ice, with the same freedom from state and pretension as the 

 simplest subject. Drawing-room conventionalities are too narrow for a mile or two 

 of spacious garden landscape, and one can be happy with ten thousand in the social 

 freedom of a community of genial influences, without the unutterable pang of not hav- 

 ing been introduced to the company present. 



These social doubters who thus intrench themselves in the sole citadel of exclu- 

 siveness, in republican America, mistake our people and their destiny. If we would 

 but have listened to them, our magnificent river and lake steamers, those real palaces 

 of the million, would have had no velvet couches, no splendid mirrors, no luxurious 

 carpets. Such costly and rare appliances of civilization, they would have told us, could 

 only be rightly used by the privileged families of wealth, and would be trampled upon 

 and utterly ruined by the democracy of the country, who travel 100 miles for half a dol- 

 lar. And yet these, our floating palaces and our monster hotels, with their purple and fine 

 linen, are they not respected by the majority who use them, as truly as other palaces by 

 their rightful sovereigns ? Alas, for the faithlessness of the few, who possess, regarding 

 the capacity for culture of the many, who are wanting. Even upon the lower platform of 

 liberty and education that the masses stand in Europe, we see the elevating influences of 

 a wide popular enjoyment of galleries of art, public libraries, parks and gardens, which 

 have raised the people in social civilization and social culture to afar higher level than we 

 have yet attained in republican America. And yet this broad ground of popular refine 

 ment must be taken in republican America, for it belongs of right more truly here, than 

 elsewhere. It is republican in its very idea and tendency. It takes up popular education 



