26 
THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE OF AMERICA 
Parks are composed of natural elements, some inert 
and unchanging, though changeable, and others changea- 
ble and continuously changing. From these rudiments 
they are distributed and arranged and controlled for the 
pur]iose of serving society to secure and preserve greater 
health and happiness. To only reasonably fuliill the park 
])urpose. the ideals and cravings of the individual and 
the composite group of the entire populace must be con- 
tinuously studied, served, assisted, supported, directed 
or controlled. A separating process should be perpet- 
ually in operation to single out the valuable kernels from 
the worthless and ephemeral voicings of mere chaff. To 
know when and how to suppress or stultify, when to ex- 
]3and and encourage, when to experiment, to press for- 
ward vigorously and beyond all local conception of rea- 
son, and when to firmly, yet tactfully, retard and re- 
strain, requires experience and judgment. When to fol- 
low public opinion, when to lead it, when to give it ex- 
pression or an outlet for venting its effervescence, and 
likewise when to oppose it or ignore it, becomes a matter 
of careful and deep study, of personal courage and in- 
dividual enthusaism and belief in society. 
Parks are more than mere physical properties, and a 
want of that concept is the great cause of failures among 
engineers and gardeners as executives in park work. It 
is not for a superintendent to decide between the petitions 
of local peo])le clamoring for improvements or the initia- 
tion of new ideas or change except insofar as his in- 
structions from the commission require. That is dis- 
tinctlv a matter of policy whose determination is within 
the scope and office of a board, and requiring careful, 
deliberate and studied thought, and sometimes years of 
experience to develop a superior judgment upon. He 
should, however, be fully equipped to know how to put 
into practice in a straightforward, prompt, safe, effective 
and economical fashion an}- scheme the board concludes 
to adopt. By knowledge, anticipation and forethought 
he should be equipped to avoid flagrant errors in an en- 
tirely new undertaking : he should be thoroughly qual- 
ified to do his ])ractical ))art by organizing and con- 
ducting the operation in a thorough, sym])athetic fashion, 
and if possible to a successful conclusion. 
In this general, casual glimpse of the fiekl of labor, 
and the necessary equipment to fulfill the park superin- 
tendent's office, it is apparent that park affairs have been 
and ever will be in a state of evolution, and their civic 
and social function inherently causes them to exert a 
potent force in any future change. We are now emerg- 
ing from a ])layground movement that reached its high- 
•est development at Chicago in the last decade, and from 
whence we are now seemingly making some final ad- 
justments; we are on the threshold of an era of city 
planning that will have vital and ])rofound influence 
upon ])arks. We are in the midst of an epoch of new 
ideals of society : to what lengths it will lead and the 
forms it may assume are still only hazily jierceptible 
and appear to be changing and have new interpretations 
with the advance of time. We will be privileged at this 
session to listen to some of the active workers who are 
])roniinent in leadership among the. forces that are elu- 
cidating the atoms of the compound that goes to make 
this human flux ; they are engaged in determining the 
separate properties, understand their potencies, social 
and psychological action : thev are studying the sources 
from whence they come, their beneficent and harmful 
uses, and their utility and methods of control for human 
advancement. Prudent are we if we learn the lessons 
they bring and show j^roficiency in applying to our local 
uses the principles they point out. To the executive of 
the middle class city these discussions will apply speci- 
ficallv and perhaps with greatest force : to him from the 
smaller city the lessons will be none the less pertinent 
though possibly oft'er less opportunity of complete 
demonstration. 
To cities of the largest size, park service is so dis- 
tinctive in many of its aspects as to almost be a law 
unto themselves. Emphasis is on quantity and scale of 
service, upon providing sometimes more by suggestion 
than presentment the type of values procurable in their 
completeness in the smaller cities. When it becomes 
necessary to construct walks 20 to 30 feet wide, lay 
dreary expanses of concrete and make passageways so 
direct in alignment, easy in grade and wide in dimen- 
sion that the service works are more conspicuous than 
the surroundings they are intended to develop, we are 
introducing vitiating agents to an extent warranting a 
serious study of whether they do not constitute the 
dominant objective, and real park phases become so 
subordinate that they are a mere incident, and thus cause 
an altogether different result than that which we orig- 
inally set otit to establish. The physical features of 
use become so im])ortant in the park properties of large 
cities, it is periodically necessary to reconsider whether 
a redesigning and radical change in the plan is not a 
first requisite of administration. How to create an or- 
ganization that has the efficiency, the flexibility and the 
co-ordinated unison of action is of major importance 
in a large city, but how to manipulate the propertv to 
bring out the essence of value in serving the com- 
munity is even more important. 
It is well to ponder over the work of the superin- 
tendent, view his task from diff'erent angles and by 
strategy, tactics and plan, adopt a working scheme 
fitted to accomplish duties assigned to the park admin- 
istration lest one become a mere timekeeper, general 
foreman, a technical specialist or hide bound rote ojjer- 
ator. In a small city a park superintendent's duties 
will always be elastic, and will include many which in 
a large cit\' are assigned to a number of different spe- 
cialists. Methods in use in a small city are quicklv con- 
trasted and brought into high relief when used in the 
larger cities, where organization features and intensive 
practices are uppermost characters. Timeliness of any 
operation, jttdgment in selecting the personnel that has 
the capacity to perform it and technique of procedure 
is always a present circumstance demanding the best 
thought and administrative capacity of a chief executive 
in a park department. If he continually delves too 
deeplv into all the minor details an immense amount 
of high-priced effort may be wasted that would better 
be devoted to a programme of anticipation and foresight 
so as to control movements in their incipiency rather 
than waiting until remedy and change is rec|uired at all 
hazards, and demanding wholesale and costly upheavals 
and reconstructions. One leads by guiding at the head 
and the other is embarrassed by working under forced 
drau"ht and the insistence and ]M-essure of public 
opinion. 
That park superintendent is well fortified who can 
clearlv d.efine his own duties and responsibilities, and 
by a combination of broad sympathies, thorough training 
in technique and aptitude, to organize and direct, so 
conduct his office that it will bring out with prominent 
emphasis all the merits of policies promulgated by his 
commission, and to alleviate, remedy or abandon with 
dis]iatch and opportuneness any tmtoward programmes 
started in conformity with his board's instructions. He 
can the more easilv and felicitously cause the propelling 
motives of the commission to respond in ]niblic practice 
if he appreciates the public sentiment acting u])on and 
for the commission. 
