6o 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
ff IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATIONS. 
'mL Conducted by 
Frances Copley Seavey. 
N5.- 
Leave the World a pleasanter place than you found it. 
SUGGESTIONS. 
In Eastern town and villages the Improvement 
Associations is practically a club, and the monthly 
meetings, held in turn at the homes of the mem- 
bers, are pleasant gatherings, with discussions of 
the objects and methods of the organization. 
Unselfish efforts to improve the general, good and 
to make life better and worth living for all the 
people, are the themes that occupy attention, and 
are questions of more importance than fashion and 
village gossip and bring no after regret for misspent 
time. Few will question that they are also of 
greater moment than the avowed objects of many 
clubs. 
The study of art, of Browning and of kindred 
subjects, while all right in themselves, are of less 
practical value than the study of how to improve 
the immediate surroundings of our homes and of 
our families. 
There is both reason and excuse for squalor and 
ugliness in parts of large cities, but there is no 
occasion for either in towns and villages, nor 
around urban and suburban homes. If they exist 
in such locations there is something wrong — wrong 
with the people, and the remedy for unpleasant or 
common-place surroundings lies with themselves. 
Frequently, perhaps generally, the disagreeable 
unsanitary and unsightly conditions that prevail are 
due to pure thoughtlessness on the part of the 
majority of the adult population, and often there 
is justification for this lack of attention in the fact 
that the bread-winners have no strength left for the 
struggle with long-existing bad conditions of home 
life. Again, there is the feeling that if their town 
is unattractive and behind the times it is not their 
^affair. But it is the affair of every human being 
to live his own life, and it is his right and should 
be his pleasure to use every legitimate means to 
make that life pleasant and comfortable. In every 
community there are those who can and should take 
this matter in hand for their own and the common 
good. 
Squalid surroundings invariably mean unsani- 
tary conditions, and the health of every man, 
woman and child is jeopardized by neglect in 
rectifying such evils. Once accustom a family to 
cleanliness, order and attractive planting in and 
around their home, and its absence will be missed. 
The youth of a family can usually be depended on 
to secure a continuation of what adds to the pleas- 
ure of living even if the adult portion is careless or 
too lacking in energy and ambition to take the 
steps necessary to maintain it. Pure air is more 
agreeable than foul air; grass plots, vines, flowers 
and shade trees are more attractive than rusty tin 
cans, ash heaps and broken crockery, and the child 
accustomed to poor surroundings is the first to note 
and to appreciate any change for the better in 
these conditions. 
The Improvement Society may become an 
important social factor, the more so because it 
furnishes a common interest, something in which 
the entire community should be and usually will 
be concerned. x\ll shades of religious and political 
feeling may safely combine on the important issue 
at stake — the physical and moral well being of 
their own families and of the people with whom 
they and their children come in contact. Every 
one must needs have an interest whether he will or 
not, for the neglect of one home, however humble, 
means discomfort and danger to every other home 
in the neighborhood. There is no better proof 
that “no man lives for himself alone.” No such 
thing is possible, and a recognition of this prin- 
ciple is a strong argument for the necessity of the 
associations we advocate. 
The chief dependence in developing a move- 
ment that shall penetrate the homes of the masses 
is the children. Develop their latent taste for 
pleasant surroundings and the work is practically 
accomplished. And the simplest and most direct 
means to reach them is through the public schools. 
Children look upon the school as theirs, and every- 
thing connected with it makes some impression on 
their minds. When it is a frequently repeated 
pleasant impression, it becomes a life-long memory 
and lesson. Egleston says in his “Home and Its 
Surroundings,” to which I have before referred, 
that “the school house should be surrounded by 
well arranged grounds, in this respect comparing 
favorably with the best private grounds in the 
neighborhood. Can any one say why the whole 
village should not combine to make the place where 
all their children spend a large part of their time 
during the most impressible period of their lives 
more pleasant and more beautiful than any single 
dwelling place among them? The influence of 
such surroundings would be healthful, shaping the 
life and the character for good.” 
i\long this line there is a legitimate labor for 
Improvement Societies to take i*n hand that should 
prove even more a labor of love than other 
branches, though all their work has something ot 
this flavor. 
