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PARK AND 
It sets before the community what has been, what needs to be 
done, what can be done. 
Among smaller communities we find civic centers being 
established in the shape of town halls and local centers, and of 
libraries, and of public schools; so that the people have a rally- 
ing place~a place where they can go to discuss their local 
needs. For instance, the town of Framingham, Massachusetts, 
has executed a ten years’ lease of its town hall to the Improve- 
ment Association of that place at a nominal rental. The asso- 
ciation proposes to restore and alter the building, fitting it for 
a general community center, with club rooms, an assembly hall, 
and a stage. 
Wherever we go, whether by railroad, boat, or carriage, 
we find tlie same tendency toward improvement. In Dayton, 
Ohio, the president of a large local concern has of his own 
volition secured an expert and provided the means for im- 
proving the surroundings of the railroad station. In other 
communities the water front has been similarly improved, to 
the great advantage not only of the people who live in the 
community, but of those who visit it, or who may pass by it 
on the boats. 
We find that our school houses are better built, are better 
decorated, are coming more and more to be centers of refine- 
ment, of helpful infiuence on those who come within their 
walls, whether as students or as adults. Chicago’s experiment 
along these lines is particularly striking. It is spending large 
sums of money for the erection of suitable- buildings for its 
school children. These school houses are civic centers in the 
truest and highest sense — centers of infiuence, of refinement, of 
uplift. The school house should be made the real civic center 
of the community, and that instead of being a place where the 
children resort for a few hours each day for five days in the 
week and forty weeks in the year, they should be open at all 
times to all the community and made a constant source of 
helpfulness to all classes. 
Fortunately, “citizen-making” and “city-making” are com- 
ing to be regarded, as they of right should be, as the most 
pressing questions of the present day. The schools and the 
colleges and the universities are awakening to their oppor- 
tunity and are striving mightily in every direction to meet the 
obligations laid upon them by new conditions. They are appre- 
ciating the necessity of preparing the citizens to make greater 
and grander cities, through the creation of better prepared 
citizens. 
Not only, however, upon the ethical side is the impulse 
manifesting itself, but likewise upon the material. “City- 
making” is a new art, but more and more we find men of intel- 
ligence, of capacity, of statesmanlike quality devoting them- 
selves to its pursuit. I find upon my desk, reports upon group 
plans and civic centers from San Francisco; from Denver, from 
Cleveland, from Indianapolis, from Los Angeles, from Cincin- 
nati; from Providence, Rhode Island; from Philadelphia, from 
Manila, from St. Louis, from Hartford. Connecticut; from To- 
ronto, Canada; from New York, from Columbia, South Carolina, 
and I have by no means exhausted the roll-cali of the cities. 
It is now coming to be the common practice for a community 
to retain the services of experts to suggest ways and means for 
improving present conditions and for planning for the future, 
The San Francisco experience has been another of the most 
significant lessons of the year. In an address before the. Ameri- 
can Civic Association, at Cleveland, I referred at length to the 
far-re, aching plans which had been devised by Mr. Burnham 
and his colleagues for the improvement of the great metro- 
politan city of the Pacific coast. At that time those plans were 
looked upon as a civic theory, to be realized only in the far 
distant future; but when the great disaster of last April came 
the people of that city resorted to those plans for suggestions 
as to its immediate pressing needs. The Merchants’ Associa- 
tion of the city likewise had been studying various problems of 
municipal improvement and embellishment. Some were de- 
signed for the present, others for the future; but when the 
earthquake overtook San Francisco and made a new beginning 
necessary, those plans were found to be essential in consid- 
eration of the establishment of a new order of things. 
I have spoken of the Niagara Bill as being the first national 
recognition of the demand for civic improvement; but there has 
been another national effort, less conspicuous, it is true, but 
in many respects quite as hopeful and significant, which should 
be mentioned as a further indication of the national impulse 
for civic improvement. I refer to the work which has been 
undertaken at Manila under the superintendence of Mr. Burn- 
ham, by the direction of the United States Government, looking 
toward the remodelling and improvement of that island capital. 
The employment by the federal government of an expert in 
CEMETERY. 
city-making establishes a precedent that I am sure will have 
far-reaching effect, taking its place, as it should, alongside 
of the famous plan for the improvement of the capital city of 
the nation. These precedents strengthen the demand of the 
American Institute of Architects for a federal advisory board 
on art to “secure beauty in the buildings, parks and monuments 
belonging to the Federal Government.” The Washington Com- 
rnission of 1901 has been and is being followed as a growing 
list of cities, and if the principle of federal control in mat- 
ters of civic art is once established, it will not be long before 
the states and municipalities will fail in line. 
In the same connection, reference must be made to the 
growing number of reports upon the systems of public reserva- 
tions and parks. For instance, the Metropolitan Park Com- 
mission of Providence has just issued a most striking report on 
the park development of that community, with extended refer- 
ences to what has been done in all the leading communities 
of the country along the same lines. This is the second great 
effort of the same kind, the first being that of the Allied Or- 
ganizations of Philadelphia upon the parks and public reserva- 
tions of that city. These reports arc important not only be- 
cause they are arousing public sentiment, but because they 
are cultivating it and directing it along right lines. 
This national impulse for civic improvement to which I 
have been referring is the beginning of an awakening of a 
general civic consciousness which means the redemption of our 
American communities from the sordid and the selfish and the 
base. As my friend Horace Traubel has put it: “We are going 
to reclaim the cities for souls and love. We are going to save 
the human spirit for itself. We are going to give the cities a 
chance to show that the city may be as beautiful and as whole- 
some as the farm. There is no reason except in so far as 
man’s greed is ailing why the air of the city should be dangerous 
to breathe. We will impart to the cities the opportunity of 
the noblest human husbandry. We are not willing to admit 
that the cities need to be destroyed. We are going to prove 
that the cities need to be saved. We want the cities. We want 
to save the cities with a soul. Are we to confess that we may 
live very far apart in amity but that we cannot live together 
in amity? » * * * Our cities are set right here. Are already 
here. Do not mistake the place or the year. The year is this 
year. The place is the spot on which you stand.” 
The reports of the department vice presidents were next 
in order, and Mrs. M. F. Johnston, of Richmond, Ind., was 
called upon to tell of the work of the Arts and Crafts De- 
partment. It is the aim of this department to assist in- 
dividuals and communities to get works of art, to institute 
arts and crafts work, to arrange exhibitions, and furnish 
information in general about arts and crafts. It is especially 
desirous of serving those in small towns away from the 
great art centers. 
The report of the Department of Children’s Gardens was 
presented by Vice President Dick J. Crosby, of Washington, 
D. C. The work of this department during the past year 
was directed chiefly toward getting definite information con- 
cerning the relation and attitude of seedsmen, nurserymen 
and growers toward the school garden movement. 
The general sentiment seemed to be that school garden 
work was seed sown on good ground, and that it was pro- 
ductive of good results, increased orders for seeds, and in- 
creased demands for plants, trees and flowers. The best 
of the nurserymen are heartily in sympathy with the move- 
ment, have done much to promote it and are willing to do 
more. 
Frederick L. Ford, of Hartford, Conn., presented the re- 
port of the Department of City Making. There was never 
a time, said Mr. Ford, when so much money was being ex- 
pended for municipal improvements. He spoke briefly of a 
number of the greatest of these movements. Washington, 
D. C., is planning municipal improvements that will cost 
$25,000,000, and make it one of the grandest cities in the 
world. Cleveland has a comprehensive plan for grouping 
of public buildings that is already under way ; $5,000,000 
has been expended for the land, and several of the buildings 
are under construction. St. Louis has prepared plans for 
a municipal court and parkway, which if carried out will 
