EFFIGIES AND MONUMENTS IN PARKS 



faction of would-be donors. It is not difficult for the designer of 

 new parks to eliminate statue sites, in fact it is usually a problem to 

 provide place for them. Except in the case of very formal axial 

 designs, the need of providing a site for a statue is usually a trying and 

 limiting condition. A memorial statue presented in advance of a park 

 development is a bete noir to the designer; presented afterwards it 

 changes, chameleon-like, to a white elephant. In most cities and towns 

 very much better sites can be found either at street intersections or in 

 open squares where the statues may have mass value and focal interest 

 without detracting from park beauty. The sculptors may invariably 

 be depended upon to favour the election of street venues for their work. 

 The author of a recent statue in Washington fixed his choice imme- 

 diately and unreservedly upon a site terminating a street vista which 

 was in every other respect vastly inferior to several park sites offered 

 for his approval. 



COMMENDABLE SUBSTITUTES FOR EFFIGIES 



There are many better ways of perpetuating the virtue or glory 

 of an individual than by this physical form. Someone has said that it 

 is a common-place people who do not symbolise rather than record. 

 Let the G. A. R.'s and the D. A. R.'s and the S. A. R.'s be urged to 

 commemorate past greatness by fountains and water basins and garden 

 areas, which are sure to be gratifying to the toilers of to-day, rather 

 than to apotheosise their forebears in statue groups which too often 

 call forth little but facetiousness. In Washington a favourite sug- 

 gestion has gone the rounds that the nude female figure composing a 

 part of the pedestal relief of the Rochambeau statue, in presenting a 

 sword to Rochambeau, who stands with heavy army cape across his 

 arm, is saying, " I will swap you this sword for that cape," an in- 

 dignity to a very well executed statue group, but one that is irrepres- 

 sible. William Howe Downes in a critical article on the monuments 



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