48 



HOME AND FLOWERS 



a new basis, or in some way making life 

 better, fuller, higher for his countrymen? 



The late Henry G. Marquand, president of 

 the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, 

 may be fairly accorded exemption from this 

 writer's criticisms. Mr. Marquand was a 

 man of unusual taste, a lover of art in the 

 very highest sense of the word, and a judge 

 of rare powers of discrimination. His col- 

 lection of the work of English portrait paint- 

 ers, of the pottery of the Hispano-Moresque 

 period, and the great assortment of rugs, 

 tapestries, porcelains, and terra-cottas, were 

 always at the disposal of the public — many 

 of them, indeed, were presented to public 

 galleries and museums. During his later 

 years Mr, Marquand gave almost all his time 

 and vast means to a splendid pioneer work 

 in public art instruction, a work which is 

 now showing its fruition in the public beauty 

 sentiment so wide-spread today. 



The wealthy man of public spirit might 

 realize, as suggested by the editor of Ear- 

 pefs Weekly, that good roads are essential 

 elements of the success of libraries, univer- 

 sities, hospitals and churches. He might 

 follow the example set by Mr. George Gould, 

 who has just offered to bear one-third of the 

 cost of improving the public highways in the 

 vicinity of Lake wood, New Jersey. Harper's 

 Weekly wisely remarks that 

 "gentlemen of great wealth who regard 

 themselves somewhat in the light of trustees 

 for the proper administration of the fortunes 

 their wisdom and energies have built up, 

 cannot find a better field for their expen- 

 ditures than in making these possible. A 

 library of magnificeiat architecture and su- 

 perbly equipped with the stores of learning, 

 set off in a forest, would be of little avail 

 were the paths leading thereto but trails 

 and the highways hub-deep with mud. The 

 congregation at a sublime cathedral would 

 be small indeed were the approaches built 

 of mire or sand, and the beautiful philan- 

 thropy of the hospitals would go for naught 

 if the avenues leading to their doors, through 

 their unscientific construction, but added to 

 the pain of those brought thither to be cured. 

 . . A good public road is not only pleas- 

 ant to look upon and to ride over, and in 

 the manner of its keeping an indication of 

 good or bad government, and therefore a 

 useful lesson in civics, but, beyond all else, 

 it is also an auxiliary of such import to all 

 other public benefactions as to leave them 

 practically worthless withoui it." 



If any millionaire is really pining for sug- 

 gestions as to how he can best distribute his 

 surplus wealth, the American League for 

 Civic Improvement stands ready to supply 

 such suggestions gratis and at short notice. 



"Somebody says that politeness is like an 

 air-cushion — there may be nothing in it, but 

 it eases our jolts wonderfully." 



Picking Flowers in the Parks 



The address of President Charles P. Eliot, 

 of Harvard University, at the recent conven- 

 tion of the American Park and Outdoor Art 

 Association, at Boston, was a strong and con- 

 vincing plea for more and better recreation 

 opportunities. Good parks and good roads 

 and an intelligent use of them, he urged, are 

 essential to an exalted citizenship. Dr. Eliot 

 even advocated the revolutionary idea of 

 permitting park visitors to pick flowers and 

 berries. So valuable is this privilege, he 

 declared, that "it is better to run some risk 

 of the extermination of desirable growths, 

 than to prohibit picking. . . . Some fra- 

 grant things ought to be carefully raised in 

 the parks expressly for the enjoyment they 

 give to the people." 



"To be honest, to be kind — to earn a little, 

 and to spend a little less, to make upon the 

 whole a family happier for his presence, to 

 renounce when that shall be necessary and 

 not be embittered, to keep a few friends, but 

 these without capitulation — above all to 

 keep friends with himself — here is a task 

 for all that a man has of fortitude and deli- 

 cacy." — Robert Louis Stevenson. 



"Why Not An American Country Estate? 



Commenting on this address of President 

 Eliot, The Chroniele, of Brookline, Massachu- 

 setts, makes a plea for the beautiful family 

 estate, and its perpetuation. President Eliot 

 declared that public parks are destined to 

 furnish almost the only opportunity for most 

 Americans to enjoy country life, owing to 

 the difiiculty of creating a beautiful family 

 estate in this country and of transmitting 

 it from generation to generation. He knew 

 of only one such estate even in the neighbor- 

 hood of Boston. The Chronicle deprecates 

 the practice of American wealthy city men 

 of spending vast sums of money on estates, 

 in the Berkshires, the Adirondacks, in South 

 Carolina, visiting them for a short period in 

 the summer only, and eventually parting 

 with them "because these baubles are re- 

 garded as places to be resorted to for re- 

 creation and change, not in any sense family 

 homesteads." The English idea of fine old 

 estates improved by generations of occu- 

 pancy and transmitted from father to son 

 does not seem to be in favor or even possible 

 here. But we quite agree with our Massa- 

 chusetts contemporary when it says: 



"A handsome country estate contributes 

 to the happiness of the people, in that it edu- 

 cates the popular taste, and in that it in- 

 creases the fondness of the masses for whole- 

 some out-of-door living. . . . The public 



