18 AMERICAN 
want pure city; but they want some of the best qualities of 
the city combined with the beauty and some of the natural- 
ness of the country. 
‘oo many town ** improvers ”’ make the mistake of setting 
before themselves a city ideal. They cut down hills and 
trees to secure streets that are level and straight; they get a 
handsome bank or church or school or library built flush 
with the street; they induce the laying of cement walks, and 
they cut the lovely wild growth on the rural roadsides, substi- 
tuting a waste of burned stubble for a beautiful flowery 
tangle, and think they have made improvements! What is 
needed is a village ideal—a vision as distinctly and frankly 
fitted for the town as the dream of “ the city beautiful,”’ 
and of the thrifty farm is adapted to the special condition 
each has to meet. Let us consider concretely what this ideal 
demands. 
Coming into the suburban village by the steam railroad, 
one’s introduction to it is the station. ‘This should be made 
attractive both in its architecture and in its gardening sur- 
roundings, but it should not have a commanding situation 
in respect to the town. It is partly in protest against the 
things that the railroad exemplifies and stands for that the 
town 1s populated. ‘The railroad is a convenience that must 
be made use of, and we may soften all we can its points of 
contact with the town, but even so its steel touch will leave a 
scar that should not be emphasized. In a suburb, at any 
rate, direct ways of communication from various parts of the 
town should focus to the station; but the ideal would be to 
have them center in the concourse radiant with flowering 
shrubs, behind a bank of which the little station would be half 
hidden. ‘The vista down the various streets would not then 
suggest hurry, noise and dust; but a pleasant trysting place, 
a little park, where babies might be brought to meet their 
fathers returning from work in the city. 
Officially to emphasize the neighborly, social side, there 
should be a grouping of the civic structures: The town hall, 
the post-office and library should be gathered together at the 
meeting of important streets, and each should have rather 
an air of domesticity than of officialdom. ‘The principal 
street should be treated more as a parkway than as a com- 
mercial thoroughfare. 
There will still remain the preservation of natural beauty 
and its encouragement. If there is a watercourse through 
the town, its border must be secured; if there is an easily 
accessible hill, commanding a beautiful view, its summit and 
a means of approach should also be reserved. Nothing is 
more incongruous and pathetic than that the residents of 
countless villages have a right to none of the out-of-doors 
save that of their own little yards and the town streets. Ani 
it is a simple matter, this question of parks for towns. No 
large reservations for driving are essential, the country lying 
all around with a variety and length of drive that would be 
the despair of a park. ‘There is only to be reserved for pub- 
lic enjoyment the community’s loveliest natural feature— 
perhaps the borders of a pond or stream, with its invitation 
to boating; perhaps a waterfall, a gully or a view where the 
country lies below like a park and the sinking sun splashes 
gloriously the canvas of the sky. 
The “common,” which is so familiar a feature of New 
England towns, may properly be developed as a social ren- 
dezvous. There should be plenty of seats. The town bulle- 
tin board might well be at its edge, as may also be the drink- 
ing fountain, with its invitation to drivers to loiter. A stand 
for music and speaking should also be here, and because it 1s 
a permanent feature it should be more than a covered scaf- 
fold. Around the common the public buildings might well 
be gathered, and there could hardly be a more appropriate 
location for the public sculpture, which the town should use 
sparingly in quantity but lavishly in quality. 
Most notably on the broad, principal street, the trees are 
lO Wes) 
AND GARDENS January, 1906 
likely to be a beautiful feature. In fact, taking all the 
streets together, they and the gardens are probably the town’s 
chief glory and are to be treasured, protected and nourished 
accordingly. It should not be possible for a householder 
to mar the vista of the street by cutting down a tree in front 
of his own home; their noble trunks, the living columns of a 
cathedral nave, must be defended from advertisements; and 
no public service corporation should have it in its power to 
mutilate them by cutting limbs and boughs. In some States 
the trees are pretty well protected by law (if only it be en- 
forced) from human pests, and in all towns their care shouid 
be made an official charge. 
In all this not a word has been said about the more do- 
mestic—what may be likened to the housework—part of 
town improvement effort, such as street cleaning, garbage 
disposal, care of the common, cemetery, etc. “That is im- 
portant. How important is shown by the unanimity with 
which the societies take it up. Indeed, it is a prerequisite 
to success; but it is only a prerequisite, not the whole 
achievement, and is properly servants’ work, which the 
town improvers should accomplish by the election of those 
who will be faithful officials. It is not the society’s business, 
nor an economical use of its energies, to perform itself the 
work that should be done by the town officials. 
And if the large undertakings outlined do not lie within 
its means—if it can not change the setting of the station and 
is powerless for the present to effect a grouping of the public 
buildings, can only dream of scenic reservations, and finds 
its energies insuficiently occupied in the development of the 
common, while the law protects the trees—then there are yet 
many things, of more detail but still consistent with the 
larger view, which the society can properly undertake for the 
town’s improvement. 
Local history is to be recorded, notable sites are to be 
marked, interesting and beautiful architectural legacies from 
the past preserved. The school and its surroundings are to 
be beautified; and the churches, as semi-public structures, 
should exemplify civic virtue in the outward aspect of their 
property. The fixtures of the streets—their name signs, 
guide posts, the lighting apparatus, the trolley pole, the town 
bulletin board—all these may well enlist the society’s en- 
thusiasm, for there are artistic designs to be secured. Prize 
competitions may be inaugurated to arouse the dormant 1n- 
terest and stir the civic spirit of those who have the ability 
to design artistically, and in some cases—as in that of the 
trolley and light pole—a design has now, happily, been 
already made and there is need only that the proper appara- 
tus be secured. Finally, there are the private houses with 
their gardens, these giving to the town their most persistent 
characteristic. The society has no right to intrude upon the 
home, but many homes will be comprised within the direct 
influence of its membership, and it may yet more broadly 
exercise some persuasiveness. 
This is a long list of undertakings which it would be en- 
tirely desirable for the improvement society to contemplate. 
It comprises the undertakings that are best worth while, 
and, offering scope for every conceivable interest in the mem- 
bership, it ought to leave no energy for a misdirected zeal 
in cleaning streets, inviting skyscrapers, mowing the lovely 
growth on rural roadsides, magnifying the railroad’s civie 
prominence, tearing up good boardwalks, cutting down trees 
on the ‘business’ street, and doing various other unwise 
things through loyalty to a city instead of to a town ideal. 
There are towns, of course, that are growing into cities 
—suburbs that are becoming parts of cities, and towns whose 
urban destiny can be certainly foretold and which must be 
developed for the future that lies before them. 
are the few, not the many; they are not even typical, and for 
all the other towns the ideals of the city are false gods—to be 
abandoned for town development in a true sense. 
But these © 
