28 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
Wherever the improvement of out-door conditions 
about the homes of the masses has been undertaken 
on a large scale, the boys and girls have been re- 
quisitioned and have brought about marvelous re- 
sults, not only to themselves, but to the work they 
were called upon to do. And it will always be 
found to be a natural fact, that once get the chil- 
dren, of eligible age, interested in garden and out- 
door improvement work, and the love of nature in- 
herent to them and the persistent effort they will 
make to succeed under encouraging conditions, 
will be a stimulant to the children of older growth 
who need a constant spur to keep ambition alive. 
The adaptability and enthusiasm of children to 
work out such details of Improvement work as come 
within their intelligence and strength should be rec- 
ognized far more fully than it is. In the manifold 
directions in which village improvement societies 
find duties awaiting them, much of the detail could 
well be relegated to organized child effort, and such 
encouragements could be readily arranged as would 
by Treating healthy emulation, ensure the best of 
service. Little hands and bright eyes have through 
all the ages been afforded affectionate recognition 
for usefulness and brightness, and we find as the 
world grows older duties to perform which are real 
pleasures after all, and duties in which a great part 
of the education and character training of the child 
may be incorporated, and in which the little hands 
and bright eyes may also be made of real usefulness 
to the community at large. 
APATHY IN Apathy is at the root of much of the 
CEMETERY carelessness and neqlect observed in 
WELFARE . ^ ° .. 
the management of our smaller ceme- 
teries, and some of the larger ones too for that 
matter. It is a condition which when once fairly 
established in a community leads rapidly to retro- 
gression instead of progress, putting matters at a 
standstill as it were, which soon develops into de- 
cay. In all public affairs this must be vigorously 
fought, and there is no better channel through 
which to keep up a constant warfare against possi- 
ble stagnation than the public press. But even the 
press is powerless unless armed with facts and in- 
duced by systematic direction to prosecute a cam- 
paign of education in the desired field. The proper 
persons to take up such work are those officially en- 
trusted with the care of the cemeteries, be they 
trustees or civil committees. It should be a con- 
stant and persistent work on the part of such au- 
thorities to keep the press educated to the require- 
ments of the situation, and encouraged to take 
every opportunity to impress the necessities of well 
kept cemeteries before the minds of the people. In 
some places the public press is keenly alive to the 
situation and freely gives space. In others the lack 
of appreciation and more frequently lack of know- 
ledge dulls it to a sense of the importance of the 
work, and here it is manifestly the duty of those 
having the care of the cemetery at heart to inspire 
by constant effort a proper regard for the resting 
place of the dead as a leading factor in the welfare 
of the people. All the literature of an educational 
nature on the subject of the cemetery should be 
published as far as possible in the local press, and 
the advent of spring makes this an opportune time 
for awakening an interest in cemetery improvement 
among lot ownen^, officials and the community gen- 
erally. 
STATUARY The recent rules formulated by 
^NEV^YORK PARKS Board of Park Commission- 
ers of New York to regulate the 
acceptance and location of statuary in the parks of 
that city are a move in the right direction, which 
may well be adopted by the park authorities of all 
our large cities. They are as follows: 
“No statue, bust or memorial building shall be erected in 
any part of any park where the scenery is of a predominating 
natural character, and statues shall be placed only as adjuncts 
to buildings, bridges or viaducts. 
Statues of great national, civic or univer.sal interest and of 
great artistic beauty may be placed in any of the small parks at 
the intersection of two or more avenues. 
No existing natural scenery, rock, woodland, drive or lawn 
shall he destroyed or altered to accommodate any statue or me- 
morial. 
No statuary, however satisfactory as a work of art, shall be 
accepted unless it will help to heighten the beauty of the land- 
scape. 
Statuary and structures already in the parks, if not placed 
in conformity with these rules, may, if condemned by the 
art commission, be removed by the commissioners of 
parks.” 
There have been many grave blunders made in the 
acceptance and location of statuary in the public 
parks and squares as well as in the city streets, 
due largely to the question of sentiment connected 
with the gift or giver, and a check to this false po- 
sition in regard to public art is quite timely. On 
their face the rules however, read somewhat arbi- 
trary, and there is a seeming contradiction between 
the first and fourth paragraphs, which will tend to 
lessen the apparent arbitrariness. As a matter of 
fact neither the landscape architect nor the sculptor 
can prescribe hard and fast rules in relation to the 
application of his art. The question of appropri- 
ateness is a broad one and a park created on purely 
landscape lines may include exceptionally good 
sites for an ideal group or figure which would have 
a recreative or educational interest, akin to the 
pleasure of seeing a stag or group of deer stand- 
ing at attention in a picturesque glade of the 
woods. 
