PARK AND CErMRTERY 
218 
Civic Art for Small Towns. 
By Charles Mulford Robinson. 
Author of "The Improvement of Towns and Cities," and "Modern Civic Art." 
“Town improvement” is not necessarily, nor even 
in its commoner meaning, civic art. Primarily it is 
neatness, cleanliness, order ; and secondarily it usually 
proves in practice some decorative planting. Though 
laying a proper foundation for civic art’s reasonable 
and logical development and expression, none of these 
things is, properly speaking, civic art. An analysis of 
the term shows the truth of this, granting the decorative 
planting to be, as a rule, informal and unrelated. Civic 
art, narrowly defined, is art applied to town ; and art 
is the final expression of culture and taste. Town 
improvers have, and need, much faith ; they have 
strong and high ideals, and the patience to work for 
them ; but toward civic art their attitude is usually 
that suggested hy the doubting question, “What has a 
town to do with civic art?” 
It is significant that, as Park and Cemetery — 
which for so long has voiced and guided town im- 
provement efforts — begins its fifteenth annual volume, 
there can be brave answer of the question. In many 
towns the preliminary work has now been so success- 
fully accomplished, the foundations so well laid, that 
the citizens can dare to have aspirations for real civic 
art, that they can ask the question — not v.uth doubt and 
covert sneer, but with lively interest and hope. 
When one considers the true significance of civic 
art, and with what propriety it is a late development, 
wonder ceases that there is so little of it now in small 
towns. A Western woman, reading a paper before 
the General Federation of Women’s Clubs in 1900, 
said that when an American thinks of “the interest and 
beauty of towns like Amiens and Chartres, of Rouen 
and of Blois, he cannot avoid memories of beautiful 
old churches, interesting fountains, or ancient statues, 
and will ask himself why Rockport or Smithville 
should not also have something to remember ” 
“During the year,” she continued, “I have visited 
many towns filled with refined and progressive peo- 
ple, but as I did not feel a great interest in the creamery 
or the glucose mills, there was little for my host to 
show me. There was little external evidence that life 
meant more to the average citizen than the daily round 
of eating and sleeping and rising to labor. The streets 
were hopelessly right-angled, sterile and uninteresting.” 
Happily, there now rush to mind a whole host of 
things to say to her comment. Answering for the 
progressive towns — which are the greater number of all 
our towns — it may be said that their development is 
much more logical and consistent than was that of 
Chartres, Blois, and the rest. They have not, perhaps, 
beautiful churches and fountains ; but they have broad 
streets, clean highways, and in innumerable instances 
great trees that are of more delicate structure than 
any sculpture and more marvelous in point and counter- 
point than any architecture. When the fountains and 
the churches do come, they will be the better seen be- 
cause of these possessions and the more appreciated for 
their chronological fitness. 
But as to the “hopelessly right-angled streets,” it 
may be admitted that she names there an initial error — 
not that the foreign towns are any better, in their hope- 
less twisting and jumble. They represent the lack of 
any system in their street planning ; while our towns 
represent the adoption of a wrong one. Thus is there 
little to choose between them. Both at home and 
abroad, however, towns are learning to call in experts 
to advise about the proper readjustment of their 
ground plans, to make them conform more to scientific 
principles — a fundamental task for the right develop- 
ment of civic art, and the first step in real civic art. 
Our task, too, is easier than theirs. So there is nothing 
shameful in the implied admission, when one asks 
