PARK AND CEMETERY. 
151 
GOVERNMENT STATISTICS OF PARK SERVICE NEEDED 
[Paper by G. A, Parker at the Convention or Park Superintendents,) 
Our president has asked me to discuss what assistance our 
United States Census Bureau or some department of our 
national government could be to municipal park work. I do 
so gladly, believing it lies in its power to be an immense help 
in our work, for it seems certain that nothing short of a 
national vision is able to take in the work as a whole and 
bring to 'it that unity, simplicity and character upon which it 
depends in order to produce those beneficial results which it 
is capable of doing. 
The indications are that within a generation or so about 
one-half of the nation’s children will be born and brought up 
under urban conditions and that the city must depend upon 
its own children to an ever increasing extent to manage its 
own affairs ; that it will be impossible for the country to fur- 
nish a sufficient number of young men and women for the 
city’s needs, as they have been able to in the past. It, there- 
fore, becomes imperative that city conditions are such that 
children city born and bred may have such environments as 
will enable them to grow into healthy and vigorous men and 
women physically, mentally, morally and spiritually, and the 
function which is to have a most important bearing upon this 
work is the park. The need is great, the result to be ac- 
complished worthy of the nation’s best effort, and conditions 
are such that nothing short of a national work can bring it 
about. A city, no matter how great, is but a small factor in 
the question as a whole. It would also require an expendi- 
ture of money in a way that city charters do not provide for. 
A state is too local to take up the question as a whole. The 
nation is the smallest unit that can successfully do this work, 
for it means the study of a world-wide problem, a study of 
what other countries are doing as well as our own. 
The Census Bureau is already doing a very good work in 
giving out such information as can be obtained from inquiries 
and examinations of records at the city hall. To each city of 
over 25,000 population an agent is sent with a series of ques- 
tions relating to municipal affairs, and in that list of ques- 
tions are several most valuable ones relating to parks, and, 
as far as information is obtainable at the city halls of our 
cities, these special agents obtain it along with the information 
relating to other municipal functions ; and a most valuable 
mass of statistics has been sent out since Congress passed 
the act authorizing it some eight years ago. 
At first thought this might seem to be all that would be 
needed and that parks were as well provided for in this re- 
spect as our streets, sewers, lighting, policing, schools, libra- 
ries, etc., and that we had no reason to seek further, but 
park conditions differ from other functions. The others 
which are of equal or of apparently more importance have 
had the thoughts and experiences of the best minds for sev- 
eral generations, or they have offered such a promising field 
for personal gain that they have attracted to them the best 
energies of many men of ability, as is well illustrated by the 
introduction of electricity. Parks, on the contrary, while of 
as much importance as the most important city functions, have 
not yet received the accumulated wisdom of several genera- 
tions of experience, nor have they attracted that thought 
which comes so promptly where there is an opportunity for 
personal gain, for the possibility of great gain in park work 
does not exist, and, therefore, men of great ability in the 
full vigor of their lives have not the stimulant to engage in 
this work. True, men of the greatest capacity and from the 
best motives have devoted years of time to the work, but 
usually in a philanthropic way with other interests sharing 
their thoughts and time. Great and good results have been 
accomplished by them, but that hard and vigorous, positive 
knowledge of what is best for a city as to its parks or how 
to best construct them and manage them does not exist. 
We lack woefully positive knowledge as to the relationship 
of park areas and what they should do for the people. There 
has been much discussion and many suppositions have been 
brought forward as to what different people have thought 
this relationship ought to be ; but positive knowledge is 
wanting, and none realize this fact more than those who have 
studied the question most. Unfortunately, parks have been 
considered as a sort of a luxury, as a womanish, childish 
affair, somewhat unnecessary and yet well enough to have 
but which could be dispensed with without great detriment. 
This feeling toward the parks is fast changing and they are 
being recognized as a necessity, and their function as one 
of the greatest importance ; yet conditions are such that they 
offer no inducement for speculative enterprise as a private 
business proposition. They offer but little inducement in the 
way of returns for time and energy spent. Salaries are low 
and bring poorer returns than can be obtained for the same 
amount of superior efficiency elsewhere, and, therefore, 
many times men are employed who are not able to fill the 
requirements, and this, of course, means slow progress, 
gives a false light and a great loss to the city. How 
great this loss is few people realize. 
It takes more than a house to make a home. It takes more 
than a piece of land for a park to fulfill its function in 
municipal life. Primarily, a park is not a lot of open land 
within a city. It is the people who use the land that con- 
stitute the park and not the land they use; just as it is the 
people who live in the city that make the city and not 
the buildings and streets. New York would not be a city if 
ever}- human being was to leave it; it would be but a city 
corpse. Not that a city can exist without buildings, but I 
want to emphasize the fact that the buildings are the shell 
and the people are the city and that the park, unless used, 
is a dead thing and not in its primary sense a park at all, 
no matter how divinely beautiful it may have been made. 
A park is land within a city where people may have the 
freedom and influence of the country. 
I want to establish another viewpoint of parks than by the 
acre. For several years I have tried earnestly to solve the 
park problem by acreage to determine what acres might pro- 
vide. Apparently the strongest attractions for the great mass 
of people in our cities are other people ; and the outdoor places 
frequented the most are the streets, but the street is purely 
urban, with an artificial floor and artificial sides. True, over- 
head there is the sky ever beautiful and ever changing, but 
the range of sight seldom goes above the second story. 
Now, if urban scenes and influences can make that which 
is- best of the human body, mind, and heart, then the whole 
problem might be solved by widening our streets into promen- 
ades, but experience has proven in the past, and it probably 
will remain true in the future, that purely urban conditions 
cannot produce that which is best in mankind, that only 
through country freedom and country influences can the best 
in him be developed. Therefore, parks are absolutely essen- 
tial to city life, if those who are born and bred in the city 
are to be kept from degenerating. 
It has become so unsatisfactory to me to say that a park 
system consists of so many acres and has such a ratio of 
area to population or valuation, and has cost such an 
amount, and has such a rank when compared with other 
cities that I want to set up another yardstick to measure 
our parks by, especially as I believe it is a better one. 
It is not of so much importance whether we are doing 
