CENTRAL PARK, NEW YORK: A WORK OF ART 



505 



often assumed that he entered on the 

 construction of Central Park as an in- 

 experienced amateur, and succeeded by 

 a miracle. I>ut he had a strong natural 

 inclination for such work. He had 

 traveled through Europe, and studied 

 its scenery natural and artificial. He 

 had traveled 5,000 miles on foot and 

 horseback, to observe the scenery of his 

 own country ; and, in fact, for fifteen 

 years he had steeped himself in the 

 works of nature, and of art as applied 

 to nature, and was so full of her pre- 

 cedents and suggestions that he could 

 discover and explain the sentiment in- 

 herent in any piece of ground, and pro- 

 pose a fitting method of treatment. He 

 had also had not inconsiderable ex- 

 perience in actual constructive work, 

 and, though his training w r as not that 

 of the schools, it was perhaps in reality 

 as thorough as that of anyone who has 

 prepared himself for the practice of an 

 art, for genius will occasionally do bet- 

 ter and travel farther when left to its 

 own guidance than ordinary talent di- 

 rected by others. And, after all, his 

 education was not different in principle 

 from that of other art students. They 

 study the work of their predecessors 

 and exemplars, the works of nature and 

 man's interpretation of them, until they 

 have amassed a store of impressions 

 and experience, from which they can 

 draw the power to express what is in 

 them when opportunity arises. Their 

 training differs from Olmstead's only in 

 that their choice of examples is guided. 



and their conclusions from them con- 

 tinually criticised, by their teachers. He 

 made his own choice of subjects, and 

 drew from them his own conclusions 

 unaided. It is worth while to linger a 

 little on ihis man who, by his career 

 and his achievements, was one of the 

 very greatest of American artists. His 

 personality, his career, and even his 

 writings, bear many striking rese.ri- 

 blances to those of Humphrey Repton 

 in England, in the previous century, 

 whose books are probably the most 

 valuable contribution to the literature 

 of landscape design in existence, at 

 least in the English language. 



The value of all this discussion is not 

 very great, except as it supplies us with 

 answers to hostile criticism, which 

 sometimes proceeds from apparently 

 high authority, and aids us in focusing 

 and strengthening our own impressions. 

 The fact remains that few people can 

 enter Central Park without becoming 

 sensibly happier, that it produces to a 

 greater or less extent in those who en- 

 ter it such sensations as its designers 

 wished. And, surely, for a man to be 

 able by his creation to arouse in in- 

 numerable others who come after some 

 such sense of beautiful in nature as has 

 inspired himself, to instill into them 

 something of his own spirit, is a great 

 achievement ; and the means by which 

 he does it is entitled to be termed in a 

 very high degree a Work of Art. 



*By courtesy of Landscape Architecture. 



The Western Forestry and Conservation Association, representing the fii-c timber 

 Pacific States, sets the standard for forest fire prevention as nv// as forest fire fighting. 

 Among its methods is the circulation ainoinj the people of hundreds of thousands of 

 pamphlets, play-cards, stickers and it'arniin/s. which are sometimes appeals, and sometimes 

 icunrnc/s, as to <he importance of the forests through the community at large and what 

 3 hss would be involved in their destruction. 



NINE GRADUATES AT MO XT ALTO 



The graduating class at the State Forest Academy, Mont Alto, Pennsylvania, which 

 held commencement c.i'ercises on August 14, comprised Walter A'. Evans. Xathanicl B. 

 Funk, Joseph R. Hagcntogler, James A. Irvin, Charles R. Meek, J/ur/<v Muslin, Milton 

 O. Robinson, James B. Ryon, and George W . Sheclcr. 



