OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS 



157 



time with the elements of beauty in the 

 natural world, with the beauty of trees, 

 shrubs, plants, flowers, lakes, streams, 

 ponds, and forests ; and, in developing" 

 open landscape, you take account of all 

 the beauties of the sky. The elements 

 with which you work are beautiful, 

 wholesome, and winning. One cannot 

 say that of the elements in which the 

 physician, or the lawyer, or the business 

 man works, particularly if the business 

 is one involving the factory system, for 

 the factory hand is apt to suffer from mo- 

 notony, too great division of labor, and 

 an eclusion from natural joys. You 

 have the satisfaction of always working 

 towards good, towards enjoyments, to- 

 wards enlargements of view, which bet- 

 ter human nature and better the world. 



You can win a further satisfaction, 

 namely, that your product or result. if well 

 contrived, is a durable thing. Earth 

 work is more durable than any other hu- 

 man work. Roads are very durable, as 

 the Roman roads testify. So are bridges, 

 unless they are made of wood ; and so is 

 all park work, particularly public park 

 work. Your work is much more durable 

 than that of the architect. I was a mem- 

 ber of the committee which, with great 

 pains and trouble, got built on Copley 

 Square the Boston Museum of Fine Arts ; 

 and already, within a little more than 

 thirty years, the building has disap- 

 peared. Even the churches the architects 

 build disappear, or are moved to another 

 site, like the Second Church in Copley 

 .Square ; or are dwarfed by huge commer- 

 cial structures, as in New York ; or are 

 left to go to decay, abandoned by the 

 population, as on many of the hilltops of 



the higher parts of Connecticut and 

 Massachusetts. If I were of your pro- 

 fession, that durability of my work would 

 be a cheerful thought. It has been a 

 satisfaction to me during all my working 

 life that, although my own daily work 

 was generally evanescent, just a little 

 step forward in the march of education, 

 yet I had put some hard-burnt bricks in- 

 to the walls of an enduring institution. 

 You can have analogous satisfaction in 

 the durability of many of the works that 

 you plan and construct. The public parks 

 around Boston, the Central Park of New 

 York, and the great Chicago parks, are 

 going to be extraordinarily permanent. 

 Their superficies may be altered ; but the 

 parks themselves will endure so long as 

 this nation endures. The artist may be 

 forgotten, or may be recalled only by the 

 writers and readers of history ; but the 

 landscape artist's work will live. To be 

 sure, we have to anticipate changes 

 throughout the United States in regard 

 to the holding of large landed estates, 

 changes which may affect the durability 

 of private country places. You cannot 

 be sure that the country places now con- 

 structed by you will be passed down in 

 the same family, or carried on hereafter 

 in the same style and spirit ; but public 

 works are going to be of great duration. 

 So in spite of the difficulties which at- 

 tend the development of a young profes- 

 sion whose cai)acities are not yet fully 

 appreciated, I congratulate you most 

 heartily on the nature of the work to 

 which yuu have devoted your lives ; and 

 I fully believe that your professional 

 lives will be unusually happy, and will 

 bring you durable satisfactions. 



