TOWN AND VILLAGE IMPROVEMENT, ~ goe 
Children are the closest of observers, and let them be convinced they 
can be really useful and they will work with the greatest enthusiasm. This 
is true education. It is the beginning at the bottom. It is teaching 
children that they are a part of the general community and that their in- 
fluence has its weight. Col. Waring found the assistance of the New York 
children of utmost value in his big task of renovating that city. The league 
recommends the organization of local teachers in order to influence the 
children. 
The matter of beautifying the school grounds should receive attention, 
and when the principal is especially interested the grounds may be made 
real beauty spots. I would urge teaching the children the care of the plants 
and the turf, a task not difficult to secure with the co-operation of the 
teacher. The pleasing effects of the children’s arrangement of flower beds 
which I have seen on several school grounds and window boxes are very 
commendable, although I regret to say no attempt at flower culture has 
been made in the schools.of my own city. 
If a child is taught to be clean and orderly, thoughtful and considerate 
of the comfort of others, the habit formed will follow him through life 
and will manifest itself throughout the larger aveuues of experience. This 
thought evidently influenced the town and village improvement committee 
of our State Federation to put forth the card of “Do and Don'ts.” If one 
child alone is educated to adhere to these suggestions, it is well. One 
home will be made happy. But if all the children of a community, genera- 
tion after generation, are similarly brought up, what a paradise on earth 
we would have. Is it not well working for. 
Every town and village should have a park commission, to whom would 
be instructed the care and management of all public grounds, streets, al- 
leys, roadway, etc. The members should be selected for their interest in 
the work and the fitness for the position. In the absence of such a com- 
mission it is well for the improvement league to co-operate with the park 
committee of the city council by the arranging for and placing of flower 
beds, fountains, seats, etc., and above all the mowing of the grass and gen- 
eral tidy appearance, and you need not be surprised if the park commission 
look so favorably upon the work of the league as to ask them to take full 
charge of the parks, as is the case with the park commission of my own 
city. The first year the work was ordered by the ladies and the bills sent 
to the council for approval and payment. This year a certain amount is 
appropriated, and the entire supervision is in the hands of the improvement 
league. 
Perhaps you have not heard of Adamless Eden, a pretty New Jersey 
town governed entirely by women. I read an article stating that men 
there were a-plenty in the pretty New Jersey town, but that they did not 
amount to much in the face of 200 women who had gained control of the 
town. It further states that the common council was a pigmy compared 
to this women’s league. The women had looked up laws that had been 
dead for years. They have kept the streets clean, have driven bill posters 
away, have preserved trees from mutilation, have forced careless property 
owners to keep their lawns well trimmed and their premises in artistic con- 
dition, and other big reforms have been accomplished, and it was all through 
moral suasion, explained Mrs. Wilson Smith, its president, as they had 
really no legal authority back of them. What they did was done through 
their influence as women. 
