102 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
altogether, but it would appear that the provisions' 
of the ordinance are practically prohibitive, and it 
will be at least a praiseworthy start in the direction 
of preventing future encroachments of this charac- 
ter on the field of municipal improvement. 
CHILDREN'S One of the most striking featur&s 
in the movement for out- door im- 
AND> GcARDENS. . , , , , 
proveiTuent is that the children of 
to-day appear to be the chief motive. Wherever 
we note signs of activity in the community looking 
to the increase of park areas, the planting about 
the homes, or other work in connection with the 
betterment of living conditions, wc find great con- 
sideration given to the part the children are to play 
or the benefits which will accrue to them. This is 
natural and logical. The incentive of every forward 
movement may be traced to the children, but credit 
has not always been given to them for the subtle 
force they exercise in the promotion of good works. 
This recognition in the last year of the century im- 
presses one with the oft expressed idea that the 
next century will be the humanitarian one. Prac- 
tical philanthropy to-day is largely exercised in be- 
half of the young, and it is working in many chan- 
nels. The thought of providing better surround- 
ings about the homes and more breathing spots in the 
crowded districts of our cities, has suggested to some 
owners of larger homegrounds to the appropriate- 
ness of opening their gardens to the children of the 
neighborhood under certain conditions; while others 
have been devoting themselves to improving cer- 
tain of their vacant lots for the purpose of supply- 
ing the neighborhood children with attractive play- 
grounds. There would seem fo be very large op- 
portunities for good in the latter ccurse, and with 
less prospect of disagreeable results occasionally. 
There would be additional reason for the clearing 
up of vacant places in the city streets, and by uti- 
lizing the pent up forces of child nature — enthusi- 
asm, adaptability, devotion and gratitude, such lots 
might be made playgrounds and schoolgrounds at 
the same time; children are natural garden-lovers 
and under wise leadership have demonstrated their 
ability in this direction. 
Apropos to the above a movement has been 
started in Detroit, Mich., by Mr. Edward C. Van 
Leyen, a park commissioner of that city, to trans- 
form the grounds surrounding the public schools 
into children’s public playgrounds, and in connec- 
tion therewith the beautifyingof the school grounds. 
This is a direct result of a suggestion made in a 
discussion at the convention of the American Park 
and Out-door Art Association in Chicago, and is 
one well worthy of consideration everywhere. 
School-gardens are also becoming valuable agents 
in training children, although as yet the work is 
in its infancy. The last issue of the Transactions 
of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, Part II, 
gives some very interesting reports on the school 
gardens in and around Boston, and quite clearly es- 
tablishes the wisdom of the addition of such oppor- 
tunities for child development in a public school ed- 
ucation. Its after effect in connection with home 
and municipal improvement as the years roll by 
may be readily appropriated. 
Perpetual care as a means of conserv- 
CEMEiEj\i» ^ 
ing the beauties and maintaining the 
status of our present day cemeteries, is an impor- 
tant feature of cemetery management, if not the 
most important, looking to the future. It is em- 
phasized and endorsed as such by the attention now 
being given to the older burial grounds in many 
sections of the country. Vherever a community 
has risen to the plane of regarding external condi- 
tions as an indication of moral advancement, the 
cemetery as well as other public places immediately 
become objects of attention, and it is a well recog- 
nized fact among enlightened people that it is the 
quality of this care which betokens the moral pro- 
gress of the caretakers, or community. In taking 
up the improvement of the older burying grounds, 
there are other phases of the question that present 
themselves. There is a renewal of reverence for 
those gone, in itself a valuable agency in education; 
there is the historical question, the preservation of 
whatever remains in the way of monumental effort, 
which together with other existing records, make 
historical connection with the past in a material 
way; and there is the idea, a valuable one, that of 
creating a beauty spot of broad educational and re- 
fined recreative influences. It is true the commun- 
ity may have outgrown its rural cemetery; there 
may be nothing therein warranting extraordinary 
expense to preserve; the “short and simple annals of 
the poor’’ may be all the records legible, and the 
expansion of the village or hamlet may decree ex- 
tinction; these are matters requiring conservative 
and wise consideration, but the general principle 
remains that to keep the cemetery, wherever it may 
be, as far as possible a burial park, accords with 
the present growing sentiment. This should be 
the aim of every improvement association. A ceme- 
tery committee should be appointed whose duty 
should be not only to interest the lot owneis and 
others in the cemetery to secure what help was pos- 
sible, financial or otherwise, but to actually take 
in hand the work of improvement, and as “exam- 
ple is better ihan precept,” commence operations at 
the first opportunity. 
