LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE. 87 



consists in the development and tasteful adaptation of the 

 natural features of the place to the objects to which they 

 are to be devoted. The first cost of designing such 

 arrangement is more than that of the rectangular system ; 

 but the cost of the latter in its execution, and the inci- 

 dental expenses attendant on and resulting from it, is 

 often tenfold what the former would have been. Is it not 

 time that an effort be made to instill correct ideas of what 

 constitutes beauty, both by precept and example ? 



We boast of our system of public education ; but the 

 lessons which are learned in school comprise only the 

 rudiments of the education which goes to make up the 

 popular character. In how many Western towns may 

 be seen a huge building which the inhabitants point out 

 with pride as the college or university, with some high 

 sounding title attached, and which on examination is 

 found to be only one wing of an edifice, the rest of which 

 is still in the clouds, but which is expected to confer a 

 literary odor upon the place, and generally to promote its 

 prosperity. The original endowment has been exhausted 

 in constructing this fraction of the building, which of 

 course is only a deformity while standing by itself. No 

 means are left for improving the grounds around it, which 

 are generally bare and neglected. Does it never occur 

 to principals, teachers or boards of education, that if not 

 inculcating a lesson that is directly evil by the example 

 of extravagant outlay for an ostentatious object which is 

 not half accomplished, they are at least neglecting one of 

 the most important and valuable means of educating the 

 tastes of their pupils, by suffering them to become 



