PUBLIC PARKS OF IOWA 287 



and fall. The child will appreciate the beautiful and in old age will re- 

 call the pleasant memories of long ago. The area of land bought for 

 each of these community parks need not contain more than twenty or 

 twenty-five acres. 



The county park idea was advocated by Professor T. H. Macbride in 

 1896, in these words: "All of us in one way or another know something of 

 the monotonous grind which makes up the lifelong experience of by far 

 the larger number of our fellowmen. On the farm, in the shop, in the 

 mine, day afteir day, one unceasing round of toil, into which the idea of 

 pleasure or freshness never enters. How many thou'sands of our fellow- 

 men, tens of thousands of our women, see nothing but the revolving steps 

 of labor's treadmill, 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 accom- 

 plishment is speed. Our rural population is wearing itself out in an effort 

 to wear out 'labor-saving machinery.' 



"A county ipark well kept and cared for would, 'be a perpetual object les- 

 son to the whole community, would show how the rocky knoll or deep 

 ravine on one's own eighty-acre farm, might be made attractive, until 

 presently, instead of the angular maiple groves with which our esthetic 

 sense now vainly seeks appeasement, we should have a country rich in 

 groves conformable to nature's rules of landscape gardening if not to na- 

 ture's planting." 



Later, in 1915, Prof. M. F. Arey said: "In a rich and progressive state 

 like Iowa, there ought to be found a way of combining with suitable modi- 

 fications, the best features and characteristics of both the city and na- 

 tional parks. How can this better be done than by means, of the country 

 parks? In the average city park, useful as it may be, there is not enough 

 of nature at heir best to gratify the inherent longings of men, women and 

 children for change, rest, something that attracts, cheers, uplifts, if only 

 for a few hours. Multitudes have neither the time nor the means to go 

 to the country, to the mountains, the forests, or the seasore. They can 

 take a day off for a family, neighborhood, township or country picnic; for 

 a club meeting, rally, or convention and be the better for it. There is too 

 little o<f social intercourse measurably freed from formality and the con- 

 ventional, a kind of sociability that ministers often to the completest re- 

 freshment and inspiration." 



These parks necessarily will have to be located with reference to 

 permanent roads, and in time each park will have a lodge. The lodge 

 should have some comforts and accommodations for the pu'blic. There 

 should also be a keeper whose duty it would be to look after the upkeep 

 of the park. Sites should be selected with a spring of running water. If 

 this cannot be had then a good, deep well should be provided. If possible, 

 of course, some arrangement should be made for the keeper of the lodge, 

 with the highway commission, to patrol the highway. 



