PARK AND CEMETERY 
and Landscape Gardening. 
Vol. XV CHICAGO, JULY, 1905. No. 5 
Concerning Con'beniions. 
The convention season this year finds the commit- 
tees of the various associations struggling more ener- 
getically than ever with the vexing question of what 
! shall the program be? The problem is how to com- 
j bine the various factors of discussion, inspection of 
exhibits, official business and entertainment to get the 
most good out of the brief period of the meeting. In 
bodies like the associations of park and cemetery’ su- 
perintendents, where the “exhibits” are the parks or 
cemeteries of one or more cities, this feature is recog- 
nized as the most vital and practical part of the pro- 
i ceedings. Recent correspondence from the cemetery 
superintendents which has appeared in these columns 
indicates a feeling toward the condensation of the 
talk, the reduction of the entertainment, and more 
inspection of actual work. At the recent very suc- 
cessful meeting of the American Association of Park 
Superintendents at Buffalo, these men of energy and 
action “reformed it altogether” by abolishing the ban- 
quet and relegating the discussions to the mails by 
means of traveling bulletins which circulate among 
the members throughout the year. Each bulletin is a 
symposium on some live park matter, toward which 
each member contributes, and a collection of them is 
more than a substitute for the papers of the average 
convention. This is a step which is almost a jump in 
the right direction — perhaps a little too far in the right 
direction. There can be no doubt that the entire time 
of the meeting is all too brief for the proper examina- 
tion of the parks of Buffalo, Niagara Falls and Roch- 
ester ; there can also be small question that some talk, 
perhaps brief statements from some local official about 
the places to be visited, would give form and system 
to the examination. Commissioner Barry’s little talk 
about the Rochester Park system at Highland Park is 
a suggestion. Another consideration is the weather, 
which interfered somewhat with the long and interest- 
ing program of the American Association of Nursery- 
men at West Baden, Ind., last month. Signs indicate 
that conventions, like the other things in life, are 
tending toward the tabloid form. 
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Natare Study in the Public Schools, 
An experiment has recently been successfully ac- 
complished in connection with the combination of Na- 
ture Study with the ordinary course of instruction, in 
the public schools of the Bronx district of New York. 
In his last annual report to the Board of Managers 
of the New York Botanical Garden, Dr. N. L. Brit- 
ton, director in chief, recommended that "it would 
be desirable to develop a lecture system with special 
reference to the needs of teachers and students in the 
schools.” The experiment was tried in pursuance of 
the recommendation of tlie Board of Education on 
the “Course of Study in Nature Study, Elementary 
Science and Geography” to the effect that “classroom 
work should be supplemented by visits to the parks 
and museums” and “the children should be brought 
into actual contact with the object of study whenever 
possible, either in or out of the classroom.” Arrange- 
ments were made by Dr. Britton for an illustrated 
lecture to be given in the large lecture hall of the 
Museum Building on a subject parallel to the school 
work, on one afternoon of each of the months of 
April, May and June, and each lecture was followed 
immediately by demonstrations of the subjects treated, 
in the museums, the grounds and the conservatories, 
the children being led in “squads of fifty or more to 
objects described in the lecture,” where they were met 
by demonstrators, who emphasied the special points 
of the lectures. Much interest was displayed by both 
students and teachers, and some 2,300 of the scholars 
of the Bronx schools attended the three lectures. Each 
lecture was repeated to accommodate all desiring' to 
avail themselves of the privilege. The opinion was 
unanimous that the experiment was a marked suc- 
cess, and that it prepared a way to solve the main 
difficulty in the proposed combination of studies in 
our public schools, — the outdoor requirements of na- 
ture study. The advantages of nature study in the 
development of character and mental vigor in our 
children is becoming a deep-seated conviction, and our 
educators now face the problem of effectually making 
it a part of the graded school education of the young. 
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Street Statuary, 
The recent serious discussion of the proposed reloca- 
tion of the Soldiers’ and Burnsides monuments at 
Providence, R. I., leads the thought to the report of 
the Art Commission of New York, in which is given a 
list of all the works of art belonging to the city with 
their locations. The main criticism, outside the gen- 
eral one of comparatively poor quality, is that the ma- 
jority of them are placed wrong. Our only excuse for 
this is that the question of harmony with surroundings, 
or surroundings made to conform to the art require- 
ments of the monument, has not in the past been ac- 
corded the attention it demanded. The decision both 
on the design of a public monument and its location 
should be left to competent judgment, and this judg- 
ment will not alone consider the immediate present, 
but will endeavor to anticipate future conditions. 
