511 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
FIELD HOUSE IN HAMLIN PARK, LINCOLN PARK SYSTEM, CHICAGO. 
ing. The men's and boys’ gymnasium 
field is fenced separatel_v, containing 
combination frames for athletic pur- 
poses and fitted out with a seven-lap 
running track. The women’s and chil- 
dren's playgrounds are adjacent, sep- 
arated only by an open shelter and be- 
ing enclosed by the same fence. The 
grounds, other than the outdoor gym- 
nasium areas, are unfenced, emphasis 
being gi\'en to the walk entrances by 
thickly massed shrubbery along the 
boundaries. The main building is set 
off b}- shrubbery plantations and flower 
beds and by a well arranged system of 
flower boxes placed at intervals along 
the balcony edge. 
Two other small parks are under con- 
struction by the commissioners, one of 
peculiar interest being Stanton Park, lo- 
cated near the Chicago river, in an un- 
usually congested district. The chil- 
dren’s playground in this case is iso- 
lated from the women’s outdoor gym- 
nasium field, the children being provided 
with a pergola containing toilet facili- 
ties. A kindergarten teacher is in 
charge of this department at all times 
and leads the children in juvenile plays 
and .games. Inasmuch as this play- 
ground is distant but a few blocks from 
another of the system the two field 
houses are arranged to be complements 
of each other in general facilities, in 
one case containing gymnasia, assembly 
hall,' library, lunch room, etc. ; in the 
other an open loggia, shower baths and 
an auxiliary swimming pool with nec- 
essary equipment. In designing these 
grounds as much emphasis as possible 
has been placed on the gardening fea- 
tures and considerable areas of lawn 
and shrubbery plantations, together with 
flower beds, trees and vines are fur- 
nished. 
A third park of ten acres named for 
Lincoln’s noted secretary of the navy, 
Gideon Welles, is located in one of the 
less congested portions of the park dis- 
trict, and has been designed with the 
idea of providing merely a restful lawn 
area, with meagre facilities for sports, 
until such a time as the increased popu- 
lation of the neighborhood shall demand 
a more complete equipment. The inter- 
esting features of this park will be con- 
sidered in a later issue. 
PUBLIC RIGHTS TO THE 
The doctrine of public rights in 
scenery is becoming more and more 
firmly established, and yet there seems 
to be no abatement in the impudence 
of the advertising sign companies. 
Lands along the great railway thor- 
oughfares are in greater demand than 
■ever before for the erection of the hid- 
eous monstrosities called “signs.” At 
every turn one is confronted with the 
advertisements of a soap or nostrum. 
If you take a railway journey you are 
beset on every side with catch-penny 
advertisements. Looking from the ad- 
vertising in the so-called “literary” 
magazine to the billboard you are con- 
fronted with the same names and testi- 
monials. 
It is time that it was generally un- 
derstood that natural beauty is an in- 
heritance of all the people, that it has 
a real value like pure air and fresh wa- 
ter, and that the man who destroys it 
therefore violates as distinctly the 
rights of the public as one does who 
fills the air with noxious vapors or pol- 
lutes the sources of public water sup- 
ply. Few people even now, after years 
of public discussion, realize the fact 
that landscape beauty unadorned is a 
mental and spiritual necessity for a 
healthy, happy people. 
The plain truth is, that natural beauty 
has an intrinsic value as a refresh- 
ment to the spirit, and a restorer of 
the health of mind and body. It is 
practically and actually effective in mak- 
ing such appeal to the imagination that 
as we contemplate it we are elevated 
for the time above the wear and weari- 
ness of every-day life into an atmos- 
phere of restoration and repose — into a 
realm of higher and serener thoughts 
which bring health to the body through 
their tranquilizing influence on the 
spirit. In short, the contact with nat- 
ural beauty is one of the potent agen- 
cies for establishing sound minds in 
sound bodies ; and since this is the 
source and condition of all well-directed 
ambition and effort, a reckless destruc- 
tion of this beauty is a blow not only 
at one of the highest and most satis- 
fying pleasures of the people, but at the 
public health and the public wealth. 
This is not a merely sentimental or 
fanciful view of the case. When Low- 
ell writes that “the landscape, forever 
LAN DSCAPE 
consoling and kind, pours her wine and 
her oil on the smarts of the mind,” 
when Wordsworth asserts that the pres- 
ence of nature “disturbs him with the 
joy of elevated thoughts,” and when- 
ever, in the highest poetry, the elemen- 
tary and controlling feelings of the soul 
find expression, this profound truth is 
recognized. No enlightened man dis- 
putes it. Why, then, should it not be 
accepted as sound doctrine that it is 
pne of the inalienable rights of man to 
enjoy the unimpaired beauty of the 
world into which he has been born, and 
that it is the duty of society which has 
inherited this beauty to transmit it un- 
impaired to posterity? We may be as- 
sured in the first place that this is no 
transient sentiment which will pass out 
of fashion. The imagery of the Old 
Testament and the earliest poetry of the 
world prove that these same emotions 
swayed the races who laid the founda- 
tions of our modern civilization. Sus- 
ceptibility to the influence of natural 
beauty is one of the original and essen- 
tial qualities of the human mind, and it 
is never likely to be outgrown. Indeed, 
we may be sure that the beauty of the 
