THE MODERN CEMETERY. 
63 
are allowed to grow in luxuriant profusion. The 
Friends’ funerals are devoid of all formal ceremoni- 
al. There is heartfelt grief visible, veiled with a 
calm dignity that surmounts misfortune and turns 
tears of bitterness into thanksgiving to the great 
God above for his innumerable mercies. A Quaker 
funeral is as sad and impressive as is a Quaker meet- 
ing house. There is always present with them that 
reserve and dignity which has come to make them 
respected and admired wherever they have lived 
and been known. 
The Modern Cemetery a Social Force.* 
(Copyrighted 1894 by the Memorial Art League.) 
In rejecting the English law of primogeniture 
and entail we have denied ourselves much that is 
good in order to avoid more that is evil. The en- 
tailed estate is the balance wheel of English Society. 
It is to that more than to any other one cause that 
England owes that persistency of laws and of insti- 
tutions which has placed her in the forefront of 
civilization. To it the Englishman owes that pride 
of ancestry which acting through many generations, 
has made him the straightforward, intolerant, sturdy 
and adorable bigot who is instantly recognized as 
an Englishman. His family name is his fetich, but 
his worship of it is in many ways a public benefac- 
tion. 
But this pride of birth can flourish only when 
its roots are struck deep into the soil, and it bears 
transplantation no better than an English Oak. In 
the “turbulence of transition” that threatens to be- 
come the normal condition of the American’s life, the 
homestead that has sheltered three successive gen- 
erations is becoming more and more a curiosity and 
the flood of forgery, defalcation and embezzlement 
advances commensurably, yet we do not ques- 
tion the wisdom of our fathers in safe guarding us 
against the dangers of the “cumulative estate.” 
Are we then hopelessly adrift upon a shifting 
sea of dispersion? Have we nothing that can serve 
as a stable nucleus around which our family tradi- 
tions may gather — ^about which a saving family 
pride may crystallize? 
Our modern cemetery, we believe, may be made 
to answer exactly these conditions. ‘ ‘There are few 
occupations more wholesome to the soul than the 
care of a tree that one’s grandfather planted” — and, 
we may add, this is never more true than when that 
tree shades its planter’s grave. The unconscious 
recognition of this truth is the underlying cause of 
the vast popularity that greeted the establishment 
of our first Rural Cemeteries. 
Opened less than fifty years ago; in many ways 
unskillfully managed as was to be expected where 
“This article is the first of a series of articles by the Memorial Art 
League of Piiiladelphia. Pa. 
there were no guiding precedents; encumbered and 
disfigured by useless and barbarous stone-work, 
whose producers, wholly mercenary and generally 
ignorant, were quick to see and to seize their oppor- 
tunity, and whose monstrosities quickly antagonized 
the most exquisite effects of the landscape gardener; 
notwithstanding all these adverse influences — some 
of which have persisted to this day in spite of the 
present admirable management, — The Modern 
Cemetery has developed with a constantly accel- 
erating rapidity. 
That the family lot may become to us very much 
what the entailed Homestead is to the Englishman, 
we are certain; that it will quickly become so we 
firmly believe when our cemetery companies fully 
open the way for it. 
1st. By encouraging and facilitating the pur- 
chase of ample plots. 
2nd. By inducing interest on the part of lot- 
owners, in the personal care of their lots. 
3rd. By discouraging ostentation and teaching 
that stone-work is an adjunct of the lot — not the re- 
verse — as so many seem to consider. 
4th. By a constant insistence that nature, un- 
der judicious guidance, is not excelled (except in 
costliness) in her products, even by some stone-cut- 
ter. 
Let the members of the A. A. C. S., at their 
pending convention take up this aspect of the sub- 
ject in earnest; let them find a way to formulate the 
idea definitely and clearly to their intending lot- 
owners; let them adopt a system by means of which 
the wishes (as they certainly find them to be) of our 
most cultured classes can be fully realized, and our 
modern cemeteries will very quickly assume their 
rightful position — that of a veritable saving force 
upon our character as a people. 
It would be a gross impertinence in us to at- 
tempt to suggest ways and means to such a body of 
men as will make up this convention; and besides, 
we have no coal to send to that Newcastle; but 
there is much preparatory work to be done in free- 
ing the minds of prospective lot-owners from false 
and pernicious notions regarding lot “improve- 
ments.” In clearing away this rubbish, we do feel 
a moderate confidence in our ability, and shall en- 
ter upon the task con a^norc in our next paper; in 
the meantime will the convention adopt as a sub- 
ject of discussion, this; 
“How shall the Modern Cemetery be enabled 
to realize its grandest Potentiality?” 
The Supreme Court of Vermont will not allow any extension 
of the Barre Cemetery, which makes the purchase of a new ceme- 
tery imperative. Barre is one of the most important towns of the 
state on account of the granite industry, and the decision is prob- 
ably a wise one as the town is growing very rapidly. 
