PARK AND CEMETERY. 
1 26 
and acceptable channels, but the rash majority are 
not so happily constitutad and are incapable of 
devising or directing work in which taste is in- 
volved. Therefore, wherever any planting is to be 
done for perm meat effects in a public sense, the 
services of a landscape gardener should be called 
in. Permanent work should receive thorough 
study by expert practitioners; the cost of such a 
course will be amply repaid in the long|iun','""an^ 
the results will always be gratifying. Mhhy fiontt, 
munities have such experts in their midst and can 
secure their services, but the fact remains that out- 
door art requires out-door artists to advise upon it 
and improvement associations should be governed 
by this thought. 
SCHOOL School gardens are rapidly coming for- 
ward in public interest, as a useiul addi- 
tion to school studies as well as an important fea- 
ture in education. In Germany this has been de- 
veloped to a remarkable extent and with results 
that have proved the wisdom of the course. In 
our own country the Massachusetts Horticultural 
Society, in collaboration with some of the public 
schools in Boston and its vicinity is encouraging 
the idea, and the children so favored not only 
evince much delight in their garden work, but it 
proves an incentive in other directions. It is well 
worthy of adoption as part of our public educational 
system generally. 
AN ASSOCIATION A new organization has been 
OF VILLAGE formed by a number of village 
OFFICIALS. • iv/r- u- .-.i .u 
officers in Michigan entitled the 
Michigan Villages Association. Its object and 
purpose is the mutual benefit, instruction and im- 
provement of the members in municipal govern- 
ment. At a meeting held in Detroit in July it was 
decided to hold the first annual meeting at Lansing 
in May next when the legislature will be sitting. 
There are over two hundred villages in the state 
and it is expected that a majority of them will be- 
come members. Among the matters discussed at 
the meeting were: Water systems and the methods 
of collecting revenue; and electric lighting. This 
is a good move but it is to be earnestly hoped that 
no politics, in the sense that the term nowadays 
denotes, will impede its usefulness. There is 
much that is crude and elementary in the governr 
ment of our villages, and while the sentiment is so 
rapidly expanding in the direction of municipal 
improvement and reform, it is opportune that an 
association should be formed to absorb all the in- 
formation to be obtained and to evolve therefrom 
the most practical and beneficial rules and proced- 
ure for the proper conduct of village public af- 
fairs. 
FREE The question of free bathing facilities in 
TMS ^ ^ 
our large cities has become an important 
question for municipal authorities. Every summer 
takes the matter farther and farther from the 
ccsthetics of civic progress and makes it a practical 
feature of the health department. Free baths of 
sufficient capacity and under proper and healthful 
conditions should be furnished in every city having 
water facilities or privileges.'^ The city health 
department should be able to afford ample reasons 
for their establishment. The yearning and long- 
ing, witnessed in Chicago this season, evidenced 
by the long and patient waiting of hundreds of 
boys for a swim in the limited quarters provided 
by the great city for the purpose, is appeal enough 
to all city authorities in this year 1900. 
SMALL PARKS The committee on small parks for 
IN CHICAGO, . f f... , j . j 
the city of Chicago has adopted a 
wise course in the matter of their location in call- 
ing for the suggestions of those organizations estab- 
lished in the crowded districts for the purpose of 
uplifting the poor — the university settlements, 
Hull house, and such. Constant contact with the 
governing conditions, combined with continual 
study to ameliorate them, educates those engaged 
in such work to a profound sense of the require- 
ments of the situation and gives to their judgment 
a positive character the value of which must be 
acknowledged by the municipal officials. This co- 
operation will invite public confidence and should 
result satisfactorily to all concerned. 
TN^hETARKS deplored on first prin- 
ciples, it is often a good thing for 
the future when degrading political methods in 
park affairs make themselves so outrageously offen- 
sive that public sentiment rouses itself to the 
intent of effecting immediate and scathing reforms. 
This is the probable outcome of the conditions 
which have for a long time prevailed in the Chicago 
Lincoln Park Board, resulting in that beautiful 
park having been allowed to run down in its park 
characteristics and in its management until it is a 
public scandal. With large expenditures there is 
practically little accomplished, and repairs required 
by storms and other sources of damages are left 
from year to year, to the depreciation of the park, 
and the disrespect of tax payers. Politics, too 
have cost two of the city’s parks their landscape 
gardeners and a third is ‘marked ’ for removal. '1 he 
proposed move on the part of the citizens to enact 
legislation that will remove this blemish and place 
the parks of Chicago in the hands of a competent 
board of commissioners above all possibility of 
political taint will receive the hearty co-operation 
of all taxpayers. 
