PARK AND CEMETERY 
45 
upon the children of the public schools is so great that 
both in the farm, the home and its surroundings there 
is already an awakening to a sense of beauty which 
will soon take on a practical manifestation. It is certain 
that no movement of modern times in public school edu- 
cation has had a broader effect on the minds of both 
children and parents than the institution of Arbor Day. 
And as yet there has been no limit set to its beneficence 
in its broad field. 
^ ^ ^ 
Education in Landscape Gardening. 
It has been a matter of interest and study to watch 
the growth and progress of our professions as the coun- 
try has developed, and without referring to those which 
have become established factors in our condition and 
prosperity, a glance at that of Landscape Gardening 
will be timely. It has been noted in these columns from 
time to time the establishment of courses of instruction 
in the art at Harvard and elsewhere, and it is certain 
that the spreading interest in the subject among edu- 
cated people will bring about such a demand for com- 
petent landscape gardeners that both men and women 
of taste will be moved to adopt the profession as a life- 
work. Already many educational institutions are tak- 
ing steps to follow the example of Harvard, and so 
intimately related to higher life and living is the culti- 
vation and improvement of our natural outdoor sur- 
roundings that a course of study in the direction of 
stimulating and imparting knowledge to this end will 
become a prominent feature of University education. 
The Agricultural colleges are recognizing the impor- 
tance of landscape gardening and the culture and use 
of the natural material required in the work of outdoor 
improvement, and are moving in some of the states to 
make this department more prominent. The schools 
have always been prone to take immediate advantage 
of a promising movement toward universal betterment, 
and this in spite of the protesting spirit so frequently 
manifested by the practicing professional. No doubt 
such a movement and the improved means of acquiring 
knowledge increase the number of aspiring amateur 
practitioners and writers, but it is a narrow policy to 
discourage such effort, for it means, and has always 
led up to, an increasing demand for the services of the 
professional proper, by impressing upon the public at 
large the utility and in due course the necessity for 
their services, which a constantly increasing breadth of 
view establishes. 
^ ^ 
Memorial Day. 
Memorial Day, in many sections of the country, es- 
pecially in the North, East and West, is the red letter 
day of the year in the cemeteries. In the preparation 
tor it the cemetery superintendent summons all his re- 
sources, and throughout the early spring he bends his 
energies to secure the best possible effects, so that when 
the day arrives the crowds shall be impressed with the 
results of his labors. At no other time of the year, 
perhaps, are the superintendent’s duties more exacting 
than during the weeks preceding Memorial Day. His 
anxieties fluctuate in harmony with the spring weather, 
and his hopes and fears rise and fall as its changes re- 
cur. Frequently an inclement season frustrates all his 
endeavors, and his expectations only in part materialize. 
How little the numerous visitors on Memorial Day ap- 
preciate the labor and intelligent care involved in the 
array of beauty about them can to some extent be real- 
ized by the average carelessness and sometimes ruth- 
lessness displayed by them, and especially so when the 
G. A. R. ceremonies attract large crowds ! The weeks 
of loving and hopeful care of the superintendent and 
his men for this one day must be followed by further 
effort to repair the damage and give to the lawns and 
shrubberies renewed vigor and beauty. Knowledge, in- 
telligence and a great capacity for persistent work char- 
acterize the up-to-date cemetery superintendent, but his 
reward stands before his face at every glance he takes 
at the lovely conditions he has helped to consummate 
around him. 
^ ^ ^ 
Lhe Garden an Index of Value. 
A very striking indication of the progress of the out- 
door improvement movement is the interest manifested 
in the purely agricultural press. As a general thing 
resthetics is avoided in the farm journal. But the im- 
portance of the question has become so apparent that 
its value in relation to the farm has compelled recog- 
nition, and as might have been expected the authorita- 
tive farm periodicals are taking the matter up intelli- 
gently and forcibly. We are particularly attracted to 
recent articles in the “Breeders’ Gazette,” of Chicago, 
in which the question is carefully discussed, and its ap- 
plication and desirability, in connection with the farm, 
its life and work, brought down almost squarely to a 
dollar bill basis, an argument which will appeal to the 
average farmer. In an article on “The Farm and Its 
Factors of Value” in the above journal the proposition 
is broadly stated that “the garden is an index to the 
value of any farm home,” and with this as a text it 
proceeds to apply the proposition both to the farm lands 
and the farm home and its dooryard. The closing para- 
graph is worth repeating: “But there is something 
more than mere commerce and the commercial effort 
in life. The man who beautifies his farm and makes a 
garden of it must in the very nature of things get far 
more enjoyment out of his earthly span than the man 
who has no time for such things, who sees nothing to 
admire in trees and flowers and who centers his entire 
energy on his pursuit of wealth, heeding not the condi- 
tions amid which he pursues it. The gifts of Nature 
are allotted to us all alike to use. Not to make use 
of them is deliberately to spurn a proffered aid. 
