Art. XIII. A Plan for a Park for the City of Albany : — by 

 David Murray. 



[Read before the Albany Institute, June 1863.] 



No city government is wise which neglects to provide 

 suitable and ample pleasure grounds for its citizens. Such 

 a proposition would scarcely need enforcement, if we did 

 not know that there are those who think that the duty of 

 men called to preside over the interests of the city has no- 

 thing to do with the pleasures and amusements of citizens. 

 To provide and keep in order streets and wharves for the 

 transaction of business, to secure the safety of person and 

 property, to enforce laws as to the order and peaceableness 

 of public resorts, to guard against pestilence ; such many 

 would claim to be the only and the legitimate spheres in 

 which the functions of city rulers may be employed. But 

 to furnish delights to eye and ear, to provide holiday shows, 

 to spend money merely to amuse ; these belong to private 

 taste and enterprise, but do not come within the scopo of 

 municipal supervision and government. 



Views, as narrow and illiberal as these, are fortunately but 

 rare. There are not many men who would deny to a city 

 government a very liberal exercise of its authority in 

 ornamenting as well as governing their city — in seeing that 

 taste as well as usefulness should be consulted in public 

 buildings — in employing the water which serves the pur- 

 poses of health and cleanliness, for the embellishment of 

 public grounds, and in furnishing with a free and liberal 

 hand the facilities for sports by land and water. Yet it 

 would not be hard to prove even to such that the establish- 

 ment of suitable pleasure grounds — and the providing for 

 the cultivation and gratification of public taste were in 

 themselves so strictly requisite for the health, order, growth 

 [Trans. iv.\ 3 1 



