It is particularly desirable to preserve large and characteristic trees 
along the highways to serve as memorials of the past. 
"9. That, as a means of cementing all Park interests into a har- 
monious whole and to provide for further conference and exchange 
of ideas, this body recommends the adoption of a poHcy of an Annual 
Meeting of this character and recommends in particular the organiza- 
tion of a second Conference on Parks in 1922; in pursuance of this 
object it also recommends the appointment of a committee which 
shall have power to make the necessary arrangements for this second 
Conference. 
" ID. This body expresses the hope that a way may be found to 
publish the proceedings of this First National Conference on Parks, 
and for this purpose it recommends the appointment of a committee 
on publication. 
"11. This Conference hereby expresses its grateful appreciation 
of their services to all who have made this Conference possible." 
Our National Park and Monument System 
Stephen T. Mather 
Director of the Work of the National Park Servic • of the 
Department of the Interior 
Can you name a national park? If this question were asked in 
nearly any gathering of adults or school children in the United States, 
undoubtedly 90 per cent of the answers would be Yellowstone. But 
how many of those could name more than three other national parks? 
Yet there are nineteen national parks in our park system, seventeen 
in the United States proper, one in Alaska and one in the Hawaiian 
Islands. 
Few persons are aware that Congress in creating the National 
Park Service, has estabhshed the principle of National Park conserva- 
tion in prescribing its duties — "to promote and regulate the use of 
the Federal areas known as national parks, monuments and reserva- 
tions, by such means and measures as conform to their fundamental 
purpose, which is to conserve the scenery and national and historic 
objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the same in such 
manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the 
enjoyment of future generations." 
With the establishment of the Park Service thirty-seven national 
reservations, sixteen parks and twenty-one national monuments came 
under its control, so that today our national park system is comprised 
of nineteen national parks and twenty-four national monvmients. 
In 191 6 there were 356,097 visitors to our national parks; during 
the season of 1920 the total of 1,058,455 visitors shows a healthy and 
substantial growth of tourist travel in America. 
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