PARK AND CEMETERY. 
235 
W 
mPROVEMENT ASSOCIATIONS, 
«| 
Conducted by 
Frances Copley Seavey. 
J/L 
Leave the World a pleasanter place than you found it. 
PLANS. 
Winter is the time to think — especially to 
think of the out-of-door work of the coming spring. 
Improvement Clubs might profitably give at- 
tention now to a carefully thought out plan for the 
work of the coming season. 
The new hundred — 1900 — demands something 
special from all. It should mark an era in the ad- 
vancement of the masses — and this advancement 
may well begin by a general improvement in the 
neatness, healthfulness and beauty of every day life 
and surroundings. And Improvement Clubs are 
the legitimate, ready-made centres from which the 
widening circles of such a movement must radiate. 
Many, probably all of the clubs, have already 
done work that will prove them to have budded 
bettc-r than they knew. 
In planning for the coming year, it will certainly 
be wise to arrange for several events that will serve 
not only to attract the attention of the public to the 
immediate objects in hand, but also to fix that at- 
tention on the cause of these visible, definite effects, 
viz., each society as a society. The probable result 
will be increased resources in membership and 
means. It should not be forgotten that in union 
and in numbers lie strength. 
Arbor day would seem to furnish both excuse 
and reason for the first of this open air series of 
events, and the improvement of school house 
grounds may fittingly be chosen as the chief feature 
of the work. 
To perpetuate this line of effort, children must 
be educated in it, and nothing will catch and hold 
their attention as will work connected with their 
own special interests of which their school life is 
the bead and centre. 
Again, work done on the school grounds is not 
done for one set of pupils only, but for all who will 
come after — a long and motley procession of chil- 
dren will rejoice in the shade and attractiveness 
resulting from the well planned, carefully executed 
work of one Arbor day. 
An open meeting of the Club might be held as 
a preliminary of this event, and every inducement 
should be brought to bear to insure a full attendance 
of non-members. At this meeting opinions as to 
what the town most needs might be elicited and 
then, by discussion and suggestion the ideas of the 
Club may gradually become the general opinion 
and desire. 
This discussion should emphasize the educational 
fact that merely setting out, in hap-hazard fashion 
any sort of a tree in any sort of a place is not the end 
and aim of Arbor day. One kind of a tree is 
GCVPTOSTROBUS PENDUT.A . 
In Tower Grove Park, St. Louis. 
good for one purpose and set of conditions while 
another kind is better and even necessary for other 
purposes and environments. For instance: it can 
be clearly shown by photographs, half-tones or 
stereopticon views, that while the stately, vivid 
green spire made by the bald, southern cypress is 
inspiring as a feature of the landscape, it is useless 
