COUNTY PARKS. 



173 



3d. To preserve to other times and men something of 

 primeval Nature. 



Let us consider these points briefly in the order named. 



All of us in one way or another know something of ihe mo- 

 notonous grind which makes up the life-long experience of by 

 far the larger number of our fellow-men. On the farm, in the 

 shop, in the mine, day after day, one unceasing round of toil 

 into which the idea of pleasure or freshness never enters. 

 How many thousands of ouf fellow-men, tens of thousands of 

 our women see nothing but the revolving steps of labor's tread- 

 mill, day in, day out, winter and summer, year after year, for 

 the whole span of mortal life. This is especially so here, in 

 these western states where the highest ideal is industry, the 

 highest accomplishment, speed. Our rural population is wear- 

 ing itself out in an effort to outwear "labor-saving machinery." 

 If you do not believe it take a journey across the country 

 anywhere through Iowa and see how our people are actually 

 living. They know no law but labor, their only recreation is 

 their toil. Now it is needless to say how abnormal all this is. 

 We are as a people entrapped in our machines and are by 

 them ground to powder. The effect of it is apparent already 

 in the public health and will be the most startling factor in the 

 tables studied by the man of science in the generations fol- 

 lowing. Not to paint too darkly the picture, attention may 

 be called to the fact that rural suicides are not uncommon and 

 that the wives of farmers are a conspicuous element in the 

 population of some of our public institutions. There must be 

 something done to remedy all this, to preserve for our people 

 their physical and mental health and to this end, as all experi- 

 ence shows, there is nothing so good as direct contact with 

 Nature, the contemplation of her processes, the enjoyment of 

 her peaceful splendor. If in every county, or even in every 

 township there were public grounds to which our people might 

 resort in numbers during all the summer season a great step 

 would be taken, as it seems to me, for the perpetuation, not to 

 say restoration, of the public health. We are proud to call 

 ourselves the children of "hardy pioneers," but much of the 



