PARK AND CEMETERY. 
534 
to give the best possible opportunity 
to live and work in full efficiency. I 
insist that no well maintained park 
is ever an expense. It is always an 
investment, and to an audience like 
this I need not press that point. 
I venture to propose a definition of 
the word “park,” more modern than 
that given in the dictionary, thus : 
“The purpose of a park is to serve 
best those who need it most.” Very 
few men of wealth or large means or 
mo, derate means need or use park 
facilities. The old idea that formerly 
prevailed that a park was primarily 
to furnish a driveway for those who 
had horses and a wonderful profusion 
of flower beds for others who walked 
has disappeared. We are not now 
considering those who drive, even 
though we must consider a whole lot 
those who automobile, not because we 
want to, but because they will have 
it so. They are really intruders. 
Nor are we considering the kind of 
parks we use.d to have, with “keep off 
the grass signs,” the flower bed 
parks, the stone dog parks, the iron 
figure in parks, the kind in which the 
“art” of the gardener of the day used 
to be exploited to the greatest ex- 
tent. I have recently seen one of 
these parks, about twenty acres in ex- 
tent. You know it at once when you 
come near it because of the entrance. 
The gates combine all the styles of 
architecture that man has ever imag- 
ined and many which he ought never 
to have imagined while sober. Inside 
you are faced with wonderful carpet 
bed, or possibly I should say, a cur- 
tain bed. You see an elaborate and 
ugly residence for the superintendent 
and his assistants. Then you climb 
painfully up a roadway, an asphalt 
paved hill roadway. You see a walk 
paved with such absurd formality that 
you try to step off and walk on the 
grass, but in it you see some wonder- 
ful' contortions that really alarm you. 
As much as I could make out of it 
they seemed to read “you be 
damned,” but I was told they were 
carpet beds. When you get to the 
top you find an open space in which 
you may stand, to then turn around 
and walk down again, for an inter- 
esting view has been carefully plant- 
ed out with Carolina poplars. This 
park is twenty acres in extent and 
costs $20,000 a year to maintain. There 
is not one single thing in it to e.xcite 
anything but derision. 
The first requisite in a proper mod- 
ern service park is that it shall give 
fresh air to the people, and provide 
them with facilities for recreation. I 
maintain that parks which go into 
fancy gardening, at least until all the 
population of that town have had an 
opportunity for wholesome play and 
recreation, are wasting somebody’s 
money. 1 guess it is the people’s 
money. 
The modern parks are intended to 
promote body building on the part of 
all the people, men and women, boys 
and girls, because the city needs well 
built men and women, boys and girls, 
and because parks are cheaper than 
policemen or hospitals. Another rea- 
son for the existence of parks is to 
provide safe and pleasant social meet- 
ing places for the people of their com- 
munity. These modern parks are not 
always large in area. You who are 
engaged in actual park work would 
not have large parks, but as many 
small ones as you can arrange for. 
Such parks should be so frequent that 
they would serve in the city as rib- 
bons of green into the folds of which 
may easily come the tired worker. 
Modern parks ought to go a step 
further and offer municipal competi- 
tion to the forces that now tend to 
deplete the physical energies and sap 
the moral strength of the people. The 
American saloon is a widespread and 
evil institution, yet it meets a definite 
social need. It is at present the only 
place in which the average laborer 
can secure equality, society, light and 
color. He finds his only opportunity 
for relaxation in the saloon, unless 
the community comes into competi- 
tion and provides him with suitable 
opportunities in the park. 
Summing this all up, I say that the 
present purpose of the park is to pro- 
mote the highest standard of com- 
munity efficiency. It is not to have 
us who are concerned in the making 
and maintaining of parks merely make 
them beautiful. It is to use the items 
of park beauty to the end that the 
people may be better able to' work 
and make mpney, and therefore be 
more efficient in the community. 
Former Mayor McClellan of New 
York has written some significant 
words. He said: 
“In a self governing community 
the ultimate object of government is 
the happiness of the governed. * * * 
Something more is needed to make 
the happy city than health and wealth 
and wisdom. * * * The city healthy, 
the city w'ealthy and the city wise 
may excite satisfaction, complaisance 
and pride, but it is the city beautiful 
that compels and retains the love of 
her people.” 
Nothing goes so far toward mak- 
ing the city beautiful as efficient 
parks. Your truly beautiful park is 
efficient, and then the people are ef- 
ficient. 
The broadest judgment must be 
used as to what makes for beauty in 
parks. I do not consider that park 
beauty consists in making gaudy flo- 
ral carpet beds or in the statuary or 
stone contortions such as you find in 
some portions of Central Park, as a 
little reminiscence of the time when 
the more money that could be spent 
the better it was! I have mentioned 
the example of the old style parks, 
the purpose of which was to exploit 
the gardener’s art. 
The new style park is to increase 
the efficiency of the community. Such 
are found in many places. Particu- 
larly they are found in Chicago. I 
have in my own mind some of these 
South Side centers — little parks of 
about ten acres. Some of you know 
them better than I do. They are 
scattered about the city. They have 
green grass. They have tree.s be- 
yond, and a field-house, and the Ijeld- 
house is the people’s country .club. 
Those small parks are open every 
day in the year; there is something 
doing in them pretty nearly every 
minute of the .day after ten o’clock 
in the morning. In the summer days, 
as you know, there are swimming 
pools and open air gymnasia for the 
children; fot the older people there 
are reading rooms and lecture halls, 
in which in the winter lectures are 
provided and in the summer assem- 
blies arranged by the people. There 
are rooms used by the familiCsCor 
clubs for social purposes. The whole 
effect of these wonderful centers is 
to promote the social efficiency of 
the community. No one would say 
for a minute that the man, woman or 
child who had been in Davis Square 
came away lesS able "to fight the 
battle of life than before. When the 
Superintendent of Davis^Square said 
to me one hot July Sunday-morn- 
ing: “Yesterday afternoon 2,763 men 
from these stock-yards bathed in the 
shower baths after four o’clock in the 
afternoon,” he was saying in effect 
that those 2,763 men did not imme- 
diately visit such places, on leaving 
their work, as would make them less 
able to return in good order to work 
on Monday morning. And so you 
see how Chicago, perhaps almost ac- 
cidentally, has the highest ideals of 
parks. These baths and the other fa- 
cilities of the small parks, meet a 
great need of the people and afford 
them means and .^opportunities, .that 
would otherwise have to be dispensed 
with. 
