PARK AND CEMETERY 
AND LANDSCAPE GARDENING 
Vol. XXII Chicago, March, 1912 No. 1 
A School and Playground Plan 
The West Park Board of Chicago has been planning 
to establish a pla 3 r ground adjacent to one of the large 
schoolhouses, and it has been proposed to the Board of 
Education bj" the City Club’s Committee on Parks and 
Playgrounds to utilize the school house as a field house 
for the playground. The City Club’s Committee believes 
that if this combination should prove successful it could 
be brought into general and advantageous use in the 
future, for on general principles it would seem that the 
school and the playground have a common interest. No 
conflict of authority under proper administration need be 
feared at all, and the advantages of one to the other 
should be conducing to the higher development, physical 
and mental, of the scholars. In the continued develop- 
ment of our public school system, it might be readily ex- 
pected that every school house should have a playground 
and small park in connection with it. There would be an 
approach to the ideal in such educational conditions. 
Arbor Day 
It is well that we have the children to keep up the enthus- 
iasm in regard to Arbor Daj r , and that it has become such an 
eagerly awaited spring event in most of the schools of the 
country; because its object is still a necessary inspiration 
to the work of planting trees and shrubs wherever advisable. 
And, not alone, by any means, is this all the good which 
comes and is expected from the observance of Arbor Day; 
it tends to develop a love and knowledge of trees and plants, 
something that is of incalculable worth in the course of 
life, and incidentalty the trees protect the birds,, without which 
neither city nor country would be half so attractive. So the 
regular gubernatorial proclamations should be hailed with 
pleasure and their admonitions given attention by both young 
and old. Every one, jmung and old alike, who plants a tree 
and cares for it until established, is doing a work for genera- 
tions to come, whose gratitude may be as safely and surely 
depended upon as the return of the seasons. 
The Chicago Spring Flower Show 
Inspired perhaps by the great success of the Massa- 
chusetts Horticultural Society’s Spring Flower Show in 
Boston last year, the Horticultural Society of Chicago are, 
at time of writing, in the midst of an effort to interest the 
public in spring flower shows in that city, for which its 
management has been making preparations for some time. 
And if, apart from the season, the weather has anything 
to do with the success of such an undertaking, the pro- 
tracted winter, and unprecedented continued low tempera- 
ture should compel a large attendance in search of relief 
from the depressing influence of wearisome meteorologi- 
cal conditions. The exhibition is set in the Art Institute 
and was opened on March 12th with an exceedingly at- 
tractive combination of statuary, plants and flowers and 
will continue for a week, a frequent change in the make 
up and arrangement of the exhibits adding to the very 
interesting and beautiful display. One can hardly imagine 
a more appropriate place for a display of floral beauty 
than the Art Institute of Chicago, with its wealth of at- 
tractions. and if this combination of art and nature is en- 
couraging to its promoters, the Spring Flower Show may 
become a permanent institution, instead of a tentative 
innovation as it is this year. Besides the commercial and 
private exhibits, the park boards of the city have joined 
in the experiment, and have drawn from their wealth of 
material to make the exhibition one to be remembered 
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Public Comfort Stations in Our Larger Cities 
An occasional account in the public press of an attempt 
to provide a public comfort station reminds us of how, as a 
nation, we lag behind certain of the European countries in 
caring for the necessary comfort of our citizens, and it is 
only within a very few years that such accommodations in 
our great parks have hardly been fit for a respectable citizen 
to enter. Of course, that is nearly all changed now and 
up-to-date park buildings are designed and constructed with 
a careful regard to all the sanitary and personal requirements 
of -visitors. But the larger question of the provision of such 
necessary utilities in our leading cities is a much neglected 
opportunity to display progress. Public comfort stations are 
really a public necessity in large business districts, to a 
greater or less degree according to prevailing conditions ; 
and in spite of the expense and difficulty of their construc- 
tion, in many cases they may, of necessity, be underground 
structures, their importance as part of the appropriate equip- 
ment of a modern city of approved sanitary development, de- 
mands that the question be carefully considered wherever a 
situation arises that suggests their usefulness. 
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Dr. William Trelease 
The news of the resignation of Dr. William Trelease 
as Director of Shaw’s Garden, St. Louis, Mo., will come 
as a surprise to probabty most of our readers; and it 
would be more or less an unsatisfactory one, were it not 
for the fact of his declaration, in speaking of it, that it 
was his earnest desire to pursue scientific research work 
without interruption from administrative duties. The de- 
votion of Dr. Trelease to the varied interests of the 
Garden since he assumed office on Mr. Shaw’s death in 
1889, which comprehended devotion to an ideal in a 
very practical sense, is to be continued in the work he 
has resolved to pursue, and if the results of the coming 
years keep up the ratio of what he has already accom- 
plished in that wonderful St. Louis garden, his career 
will be followed with the intense interest of those who 
have profitted by his work in the past. That far-sighted 
philanthropist, the late Henrj r Shaw, of St. Louis, chose 
well, when on the recommendation of the famous botan- 
ist Asa Gray, he selected Wm. Trelease for the position 
of director of the garden he intended to bequeath to St. 
Louis, and no one can have become acquainted with the 
director without recognizing his capacity for work of a 
high order, conducted in so courteous a manner as to 
command both study and respect. As a botanist Dr. 
Trelease has attained international fame, and his attain- 
ments in knowledge are attested by his numerous univer- 
sity honors. He was graduated from ‘Cornell University 
with the degree of B. S.; took his Doctor of Science de- 
gree at Harvard University in 1884; and received the hon- 
oraty degree of LL. D. from the University of Wisconsin, 
Washington University, St. Louis, and the University of 
Missouri. He has held a number of public official posi- 
tions and is a member of many of the leading learned 
associations. His scholarship in botanical subjects is of 
world-wide recognition and his word is authoritative. It 
