THE NATIONAL PARKS SYSTEM 281 



Of course, the parks must pay the cost of con- 

 centration by virtual destruction of the natural qual- 

 ity of the areas of concentration. The price is tri- 

 fling in comparative acreage, but occasionally it is 

 very costly in quality. The incomparable Yosemite 

 Valley, to name the most distinguished example, is, 

 since the opening of the new road, destined to be the 

 most crowded always of them all. There is no help 

 for that, now. 



"As has been shown/ 7 reported the Joint Com- 

 mittee on Recreational Survey of Federal Lands in 

 1928, "the history of National Parks has established 

 the national conception that their primary purpose 

 is preservation of areas of extraordinary majesty and 

 beauty in a condition of unmodified nature. In the 

 main, not only the parks themselves, but the very 

 character of the features which they represent, have 

 established their own standards, but neither their 

 purposes nor their standards have as yet been clearly 

 defined in law. To those who hold that the historic 

 standards of the National Parks must be maintained, 

 a recently developed tendency to consider the parks 

 primarily as popular playgrounds appears rightly to 

 be a serious danger. If principles and standards are 

 to be maintained, then playground use must be co- 

 ordinated as secondary to these primary principles 

 and objectives. And further expansion of the land 

 area of the parks necessarily will be limited extremely. 



"If, on the other hand, the tendency growing out 

 of public clamor for outdoor playgrounds is permitted 

 to set aside National Park principles and to substitute 



