PARK AND CEMETERY. 
261 
dead, I many years ago accepted the situa- 
tion and learned to recognize as inviolable 
the sacred purposes of the cemetery and in 
reasonable degree to sympathize with those 
who find consolation in the memorials they 
erect. 
To eliminate the monument entirely ap- 
pears to be impracticable in the present 
age. In no cemetery that I know of has 
the management had the courage or deemed 
it expedient to arbitrarily exclude all mon- 
umental structures except perhaps from 
certain sections of the grounds. In fact, I 
believe the prevailing opinion among cem- 
etery officials is not in accord with a policy 
which would ignore that delicate and beau- 
tiful sentiment implanted by nature in the 
human heart which prompts us to mark the 
! resting place of some loved one or sym- 
bolically give expression to the esteem and 
love in which the departed one is held by 
surviving relatives or friends in the erec- 
| tion of a monument or memorial at his 
I grave. 
A monument, if artistically designed and 
S skillfully executed, becomes a work of art 
! and is always interesting and appealing to 
I one’s sense of beauty and appreciation of 
the handiwork of man. Erected as a me- 
morial it is doubly interesting and instruct- 
ive if the artist has intelligently conceived 
| and clearly indicated the sentiments he has 
i endeavored to portray in perhaps paying 
tribute to some distinguished citizen, or in 
giving expression to a mother’s love for 
I her lost child whose memory she would 
: cherish in fitting memorial of stone. The 
; one may be designed for the park or pub- 
■i lie square, the other to take its place in the 
: cemetery. Either one, if given a proper 
location and artistic setting in the park or 
i cemetery, may be so harmoniously adapted 
to its environment as to be regarded as a 
I component part of the general scheme, per- 
] haps enhancing the beauty of the landscape 
i and creating the impression that without it 
the scene would be incomplete. If, then, 
i we could curtail the number of monuments 
and memorials within reasonable limitations 
and could select such styles and sizes as 
were best adapted for their respective loca- 
tions, whether in groups or as isolated fea- 
tures, with appropriate settings and embel- 
lishments of trees, shrubs and even vines 
clinging to rock-like forms in the more 
picturesque situations, and on the other 
hand could we without undue opposition 
eliminate all structures we might consider 
superfluous and all inferior designs, re- 
ducing in size and height, preferably flush 
with the surface of the ground, all plain 
markers or index stones and corner posts, 
exercising the utmost care in supervising 
material and workmanship to insure dura- 
bility, would we not be approaching the 
ideal with consistency and reasonable suc- 
; cess? 
Within the past twenty-five years a won- 
derful change of sentiment has taken place 
in this direction. At one time it was a uni- 
versal custom for lot owners to place a 
monument of some kind on their lots. To 
that extent did this custom prevail that, for 
example, in the event of the death of a 
husband it appeared to be the duty of his 
widow to erect a monument to his memory 
with as little delay as possible. Failing to 
do this, she might expect to be subject to 
criticism or even censure on the part of 
her relatives or friends. In many instances 
this was a real hardship on the bereaved, 
as frequently a very large part of the small 
savings of the husband was expended in 
the purchase of a monument. This cus- 
tom, practiced with little or no opposition 
on the part of the cemetery authorities, re- 
sulted in the greatly overcrowded portions 
of cemeteries to be seen everywhere, with 
their heterogeneous assortment of monu- 
ments and tombstones, creating the stone- 
yard effect so frequently and aptly referred 
to. With the development of new ideas, 
lot owners gained courage in the exercise 
of their own opinions, and are now no 
longer slaves to custom or worried by 
what the world may say or think. 
While it is true many lot owners still 
assume the right to erect a monument on 
their lots, and that, too, of their own 
choosing, it is nevertheless a fact, judging 
from our experience in Forest Home, that 
a large number, constituting, I believe, a 
majority of all who acquire lots, are pro- 
nounced in their opposition to monuments 
or indifferent to such structures and are 
easily persuaded to forego the privilege of 
erecting anything more than a very simple, 
unobtrusive individual marker. 
The higher motive which inspires the 
erection of a monument being the desire to 
give fitting expression to sentiments of rev- 
erence, affection and esteem, it follows that 
memorials should be indicative of purpose, 
expressive of personal selection and taste, 
beautiful in style and symmetry, and, above 
all things, appropriate to location and in 
harmony with environment. Simplicity of 
form and unity of style are always com- 
mendable, but ornate designs, if artistically 
conceived and intelligently decorated, mav 
be more expressive of charm and beauty. 
The desire to produce something unique 
and create new and attractive fashions has 
encouraged designers to give unbridled 
rein to their fancy, resulting in forms 
which utterly disregard and violate the well 
understood principles of monumental ar- 
chitecture. In general the creations of this 
new fad which have appealed beyond un- 
derstanding to many of our lot owners are 
travesties on true art, exposing the pur- 
chasers to charges of bad taste and igno- 
rance of the fundamentals of artistic ex- 
pression. These curios, usually comprising 
in their composition imitations of nature 
and art and representations of symbolic 
forms and allegoric figures, often jumbled 
together in one structure, only display pov- 
erty of design and are generally ludicrous. 
Needless to say they should be excluded 
from all cemeteries making any pretentions 
to beauty. 
With reference to location, a monument 
may be pleasing or discordant, according to 
whether or not it is suited to the lot it 
occupies, is essentially different, but in har- 
mony with other monuments in proximity 
and satisfying in relation to the surround- 
ing landscape. The landscape in art, as 
you are all aware, is divided into two dis- 
tinct classes, the Beautiful and the Pic- 
turesque. For the Beautiful, with its 
sweeps of level lawn and gently undulating 
slopes, classic monuments and chaste me- 
morials are admirably adapted. The Pic- 
turesque, with its rugged, irregular and 
abrupt lines, suggests Gothic forms. Here 
plain rock-faced structures or boulder mon- 
uments, so popular with some people, may 
also be successfully introduced; but we 
should shun all forms of decoration fre- 
quently attempted on rock-like designs. A 
plain, unassuming design may be dignified 
and suggestive of repose if adapted to lo- 
cation, but a much more pretentious and 
perhaps more beautiful structure may prove 
unsatisfactory because of its dominating, 
discordant effect. These considerations 
test the creative genius of the designer, the 
judgment of the cemetery authorities and 
disposition of the lot owner. 
In my address to the monument dealers 
I offered suggestions relative to the styles 
of monuments best adapted to certain loca- 
tions and for landscape effect ; for example, 
low designs for lots in the foreground and 
for knolls, hillsides and the crests of 
abrupt slopes, especially if near the ave- 
nue, and taller forms for the background 
and on the higher levels. Undulating 
ground may be effectively emphasized by 
placing monuments of low and relatively 
broad lines in the lower levels and taller 
styles on the higher elevations. This gen- 
eral arrangement does not preclude low 
monuments from groups of higher designs 
if all are in harmony; in fact, variations 
in height are essential for artistic effect. 
Men in the monument profession fre- 
quently aver that architects are not suc- 
cessful designers of monuments. This may 
be true of architects in general and for the 
reason that monumental designing is a spe- 
cial branch of art. Few men in any pro- 
fession in this busy world have the time 
to familiarize themselves in all its intrica- 
cies. The rural architect must be familiar 
with nature and appreciate rural scenery to 
successfully harmonize his structures with 
their environment. Likewise the designer 
of monuments must have a proper concep- 
tion of the relation of architectural features 
to the landscape of the cemetery. In this 
experience is valuable and specializing leads 
to success. 
The problems involved in the develop- 
ment of the landscape cemetery, embracing, 
as I have endeavored to show, a study of 
the principles of monumental architecture, 
not necessarily in all its details, but at 
least in its relation to landscape art, de- 
mand for their solution and a successful 
