152 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



These social doubtere who thus intrench themselves in the sole 

 iitadel of excliisivehessm republican America, mistake our people 

 md their destiny. If we would but have listened to them, our mag- 

 lifioent river and lake steamers, those real palaces of the million, 

 vould have had no velvet couches, no splendid mirrors, no luxurious 

 larpets. Such costly and rare appliances of civihzation, they would 

 lave told us, could only be rightly used by the privileged famihes 

 )f wealth, and would be trampled upon and utterly ruined by the 

 lemocracy of the country, who travel one hundred miles for half a 

 lollar.- And yet these, our floating palaces and our monster hotels, 

 vith their purple and fine linen, are they not respected by the mar 

 iority who use them, as truly as other palaces by their rightful sov- 

 ireigns ? Alas, for the faithlessness of the few, who possess, regarding 

 he capacity for culture of the many, who are wanting. Even upon 

 he lower platform of liberty and education that the masses stand 

 n Europe, we see the elevating influences of a wide popular enjoy- 

 nent of galleries of art, public libraries, parks and gardens, wjjich 

 lave raised the people in social civihzation and social culture to a 

 ar higher level than we have yet attained in republican America. 

 Vnd yet this broad ground of popular refinement must be taken in 

 epublican America, for it belongs of right more truly here, than 

 ilsewhere. It is republican in its very idea and tendency. It takes 

 ip popular education where the common school and ballot-box leave 

 t,'and raises up the working-man to the. same level of enjoyment 

 vith the man of leisure and accomplishment. The higher social 

 ihd' artistic elements of every mail's nature lie dormant within him, 

 md every laborer is a possible gentleman, not by the possession of 

 noney or fine clothes — but through the refining influence of intel- 

 ectnal arid moral culture. Open wide, therefore, the doors of your 

 ibraries and picture galleries, all ye true republicans ! Build halls 

 vhere knowledge shall be freely diffused among men, and not shut up 

 vitiiin the narrow walls of naiTower institutions. Plant spacious 

 jarks in yOur cities, and unloose their gates as wide as the gates of 

 norhing to ihe whole people. As there are no dark places at noon 

 lay, so education and culture — the true sunshine of the soul — will 

 janish the plague spots of democracy ; and the dread of the igno- 

 rant exclusive who has no faith in the refinement of a republic, will 



