PARK AND CEMETERY 
171 
in making a written report of their work. During May 
and June more than 1,000 children joined this league. 
Eleventh. The inauguration of two plans of school 
gardening. One plan is to have a garden in each school 
yard, or on a near-by vacant lot, where each room 
of the school shall have several small plots of ground 
upon which to grow and study plants. 
The other system, the Junior School of Horticulture, 
is modeled in part after that of the Hartford School 
of Horticulture, and that of the National Cash Register 
Co. It provides a garden of good size for any boy 
in the city who wants one. Competent instruction 
is given, and boys come miles from different sections 
of the city to take their lessons. This has already as- 
sumed such proportions that if there is a demand for 
them as many as 1,000 boys can be given gardens and 
horticultural instruction next year. 
SYSTEM OF CEMETERY ADMINISTRATION, 
Paper read by Frederick Green, of Cleveland, O., at the Rochester Con- 
vention of Cemetery Superintendents. 
Immediately subordinate to a board of trustees or 
directors there are usually found in a cemetery or- 
ganization, a treasurer, a clerk, and superintendent, 
and sometimes an engineer, each directly appointed by 
and responsible to the board. 
The superintendent usually divides his employees 
into gangs according to the nature of the work they 
are to do. Thus he has a foreman and a gang whose 
duty it is to clean the roads, another to dig graves, a 
third to cut grass, a fourth to put in foundations, etc., 
the size and number of the gangs depending upon 
the volume of business. 
When one in his first bereavement goes to one of 
our large cemeteries to arrange for the burial of a 
beloved one, a man called a salesman helps him to select 
a lot, another takes his order for an interment, a third 
receipts for his money, a fourth, whom he may never 
see again, lowers his best beloved into the grave, and 
later a gang of mowers cuts the grass as often as 
the superintendent thinks necessary and the financial 
policy of the board permits. 
A large cemetery so administered seems to lack 
heart, while the small cemetery, where the superintend- 
ent comes directly into touch with his lot owners, has 
the advantage of a personality which makes for good. 
To efficiently administer the affairs of a cemetery 
it would seem there should be a large board of trustees, 
who should meet about once in six months to hear re- 
ports and determine the larger questions of policy. 
This board should appoint an executive committee 
of, say, five members, who should meet as often as once 
each month. The executive committee should select 
an executive officer, who would be responsible for all 
the duties usually devolving upon the clerk, treasurer, 
•superintendent and engineer. This executive officer, 
by whatever title known, should hire and discharge, di- 
rectly or indirectly, all employees of the association, 
and his word should go in the office or on the grounds. 
As far as practical the men on the grounds should 
be worked not in gangs, but as individuals. For in- 
stance, a man should be given a part of the cemetery, 
say a section, and it should be his business to cut the 
grass, water and care for the flowers, clean the road- 
ways, and, at the same time, to check any unseemly- 
conduct on the- part of visitors. He should know the 
location of each lot on his section, and it should be his 
duty to render any little assistance in his power to any 
of the lot owners on his section. In short, it shoud 
be his business to know his lot owners and to be a 
favorite with them. 
A number of contiguous sections should constitute 
a division, and, of course, the number of divisions 
would depend upon the size of the cemetery. Each di- 
vision should be placed in charge of a foreman, or 
perhaps a better name would be “Division Superintend- 
ent.” He should, with the approval of the executive 
officer, hire and discharge the section men, and in- 
struct them in the performance of their duties and 
keep their time. He should attend all funerals on his 
division, and be responsible for the neat appearance 
of the opened grave, the orderly conducting of the 
funerals, the closing of the grave, the placing of the 
cut flowers after the interment, and the removal from 
the lot of all material used at the burial. He could, of 
course, call upon the section man fo help him, and in 
this way both he and the section man would be en- 
abled to remember without effort the names and loca- 
tions of the more recent interments, and afterwards to 
readily respond to inquiries from friends or relatives. 
A book of rules definitely defining the individual 
and general duties of each employee would be a great 
aid in promoting a feeling of individual responsibility 
for the general welfare of the whole cemetery. 
In Lake View good discipline is largely enforced 
by a committee of the employees selected by them. 
Complaints of lot owners are referred to this com- 
mittee and report is made at the next monthly meet- 
ing of the employees, and if anyone has been at fault 
the committee states the case and announces the as- 
sessment of a small fine, which is paid into the em- 
ployees’ sick benefit fund. 
It is also the imperative duty of certain employees, 
and it is the privilege of all, to report to the commit- 
tee any mishap, delay or other accident. 
The fundamental idea upon which we are working 
in Lake View is to develop individualism as opposed 
to gangism in the management of employees, result- 
ing in a federation of small cemeteries, thus adding 
the good points of the small organization to the nu- 
merous advantages possessed by a large enterprise. 
