1895.] ESSAYS. 109 



The result is, that we have in fifty or one hundrefl years an effect, 

 pleasing more or less perhaps, possibly actually tiresome by its artifici- 

 ality and monotony. Nature in the same time and with the same ex- 

 penditure of brawn might have given us a thing of beauty and a joy 

 forever. The one who directed the planting of the Antwerp garden, 

 l)0ssibly some reverend abbot with abundant leisure, a passionate lover 

 of nature in general and of trees especially, and of cathedral music, 

 must have possessed prophetic imagination to enable him to see how 

 his trees would appear fifty, one hundred, two hundred years after his 

 planting. In a city whose cathedral chimes have been ringing the hours 

 and quarter-hours since prior to 1492, many such things are possible. 



We next ask ourselves concerning the purposes of such a garden 

 and their fulfilment. It evidently serves many uses. It is a breath- 

 ing-space in a close and overcrowded city. It is an educational insti- 

 tution of the first order. Not only does it teach botany and zoology, 

 but it inculcates canons of the highest taste. Do many come to gain 

 these lessons? The grounds are full of happy looking people, whole 

 families, from the parents and even grandparents down to the little 

 children, all apparently enjoying the place immensely. An ample 

 corner at the rear of the garden is evidently set apart for a chil- 

 dren's playground, and is fitted up with a great number of swings and 

 whirligigs, merry-go-rounds, low trapezes and turning-poles. Here 

 we find hundreds, if not thousands, of little boys and girls, from about 

 four to ten years of age, in a perfect ectasy of play. Close by, the 

 laughing and screamiug is almost deafening, but every tone is happy. 

 There are collisions and tumbles, but the time is far too precious to 

 stop and cry about them. 



Full of people as the garden is, I think I am correct in saying that 

 it is not disfigured by a single sign indicating proper conduct, and 

 attendants are not conspicuous. Yet not even the smallest child 

 evinces any desire to straggle off the walks, and there is not a tram- 

 pled border or corner of lawn to be found in the entire place. 



Financially, too, this garden is a success. It is one of the few 

 institutions of the kind that is entirely self-supporting. 



We are now ready to compare notes. The first question is. Should 

 not every city have such a garden ? At first thought, we exclaim : 

 " By all means." Every city would derive an infinite amount of 

 benefit socially, morally and intellectually from such an investment. 

 It is not, however, until we begin to thread the close and dirty streets 

 of Antwerp, see the houses built in solid blocks and piled one on the 

 other, see people living in the peaks of the roofs like pigeons in a 



