PARK AND CEMETERY 
AND LANDSCAPE GARDENING 
Vol. XX Chicago, April, 1910 No. 2 
Conference on City Planning 
The American Civic Association announces a Conference on 
City Planning to be held in Rochester, N. Y., May 2 - 4 . This 
subject is one of the principal activities of the association this 
year and the interest manifested, particularly in the west, 
promises gratifying results. The conference at Rochester 
will be devoted to a serious consideration of the problems 
that confront cities and city planning experts in preparing 
plans for the most efficient development of community growth. 
The delegates and guests will be entertained by the Roches- 
ter Chamber of Commerce and the Civic Improvement Com- 
mittee, and there will be an exhibit on City Planning and 
Congestion at the rooms of the Chamber of Commerce. The 
sessions on Tuesday, May 3, will be devoted to The Causes 
and Prevention of Congestion of Population; on Wednesday 
to the Circulation of Passengers and Freight in its Relation 
to the City Plan and Some Problems of Legal and Adminis- 
trative Procedure affecting the City Plan. A luncheon and 
banquet will be features of the entertainment. 
Ng Ng 
Sensible Gifts 
A very high sense of patriotism is shown by those public 
benefactors whose gifts stand for permanent results. In look- 
ing at the case of Omaha, Neb., whose park system has bene- 
fited to the extent of some 444 acres derived from donations 
of public spirited citizens, not to mention objects of art, 
scholarships and collections of curios, we see that such gifts 
stand for the future of the city; for their physical value under 
ordinary circumstances will constantly increase, while at the 
same time they are yearly tending to impart a higher morality 
to the city’s inhabitants. If in the mind of a donor a memo- 
rial is the half suppressed consideration, no higher type could 
very well be dreamed of than the ever improving gift and 
increasing respect shown for the donor, both as an historical 
fact of the city a^id as a fine benefaction for his fellow man. 
There is an improving field for such gifts all over this great 
country, and a little thought would soon determine a proper 
object for the attention of those inclined to “build” their own 
memorials in this way. 
^ ^ 
The Recovery from Commerciahsm 
Nothing more strikingly proves the awakening from the 
incubus of commercialism through which this country has 
been passing for the past twenty-five years, than the more 
concentrated attention that is being paid to the finer qualities 
of citizenship in the broader education of the young. To the 
observer it needs no sign post. Children’s playgrounds and 
gardens, the beginning of agricultural education in the schools, 
the revolution against “faddism” in the school curriculum, 
the cultivation of school and neighborhood social relations 
and many other movements leading the minds of the young 
away from the almighty dollar, all show a change in national 
thought looking to higher things. And now comes a step 
further in the proposition of the superintendent of Chicago’s 
Public Schools, Mrs. Ella F. Young, a noted educator, who 
intends that humane education and moral training shall be 
taught as systematical^' as arithmetic and geography. It is 
high time that the care and treatment of our domestic ani- 
mals should be a feature in the school course, for if as a 
great authority has said, the treatment of useful and domestic 
animals is an indication of a people’s civilization, we have 
much to learn, and a little of the wealth has to be squandered 
in bequests, turned in the direction of the “Prevention of 
Cruelty” societies would redound to the credit of those be- 
queathing it. 
The Civic Exposition, Stuttgart, Germany 
A City Plan Exposition is to be opened at Stuttgart, Ger- 
many, in the near future, and favorable replies have been re- 
ceived in response to invitations from the German authori- 
ties from some American citie* The invitations were sent 
out through the German foreign office to the German Amba.s- 
sador at Washington. The Civic League of St. Louis will 
send a model of its proposed city plan, and Boston is expected 
to be represented by a number of exhibits. The German 
officials have been making great preparations, and models of 
many departments of Germany’s city improvement work will 
lie shown. One of the largest and most important exhibits 
will be the industrial establishments of Berlin in conjunction 
with the city’s railway and canal systems. Many new canals 
are proposed, and it would be well for our own people to 
begin to study the economic measures and the public works 
involved in providing for dense populations. This exposition 
is one of the most important annual exhibitions held in Ger- 
many. 
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The Effect of Example 
There has recently been brought to our attention a fact 
that makes the effort to improve the country cemeteries the 
paramount dut_\' of those who recognize the value of such 
improvement. It is a case where the neighboring burial 
grounds of similar class were moved by the example set to 
go and do likewise, and there followed a general cleaning 
up which is being maintained, with the result of altogether 
more praiseworthy conditions in the small burial grounds of 
the locality. The contrast in appearance between a tidy and 
well kept country burial ground and what is unfortunate^ 
usuall}' to he seen, is so marked, and the appeal made so 
strong thereb}' for better conditions, that it may almost be 
taken for granted that with an example to follow, improve- 
ment will soon l)e undertaken! It is an appeal not only to 
sentiment connected with the dead which is always strong in 
the individual, but it also moves that latent love of beauty 
in human kind that only needs arousing to manifest itself. 
And if it could only be brought about to seriously begin to 
systematically improve one cemetery in a neighborhood others 
would be sure to follow. 
Vig sg 
The Cemetery in the South 
It is very gratifying to note an increasing desire to make 
improvement in the conditions of the cemetery in the South ; 
in fact there are quite a few propositions engaging attention, 
looking to the establishment of cemeteries similar to the finer 
examples in the north. This is a matter worthy of all en- 
'couragement, for nature has been left too much to her own 
sweet will in the warmer, sections of the country, and while 
she makes beautiful pictures left to herself, so much cannot 
be said when she is interfered with as will be the case in the 
country cemetery. And both climatic and other conditions 
have tended to leave to nature the work which human hands 
should lovingly do; but there is an awakening, and the possi- 
bilities of attractive cemeteries, rivaling those of the north 
in their wealth of perennial natural beauty, are so easy of 
accomplishment, that once the movement gathers headway we 
look for a period of activity which will put another face on 
the cemetery conditions of our warm zone. 
