28 
PARK AND CEMETERY 
THE FIELD OF IMPROVEMENT WORK. 
The growth of public interest in the improvement 
of the external conditions of life in our cities and towns 
is remarkable, and the most casual observer must note 
with satisfaction the progress made in the last de- 
cade. Education is being more widely diffused, and 
education leads to refinement. We cannot now endure, 
as in days gone by, treeless streets, crude and inap- 
propriate architecture and makeshift efforts to tide 
things over to the future. Education has shown us 
that man needs good food for his intellectual and artis- 
tic nature, as well as for his physical senses, and to 
fill a part of this need requires that his surroundings 
shall be in keeping with the growth of intelligence. 
The setting aside and securing possession of beauty 
spots, historical and picturesque, the organization of 
art commissions for the embellishment of their cities, 
and many similar steps are manifestations of the spirit 
of out-door improvement. That such a movement 
should have begun, and that it should be growing rap- 
idly, is cause for .rejoicing, but in its development it 
must not be confined to any particular class. 
Some keen observers have been impressed with the 
idea that there is a missing link in the chain of co- 
operative endeavor ; one class of people blessed with 
leisure and money are confining their efforts to im- 
proving the condition of the slum-dwellers, another 
class devotes its energies to bringing to perfection the 
external surroundings of the cultured and luxurious, 
while the great middle class, between the two, is in 
danger of becoming neglected and neglectful. 
Out-door art must be general to fulfill its highest 
purpose, and it is the duty of the apostles of the work 
to enlist the sympathy and co-operation of the middle 
class, that the love and longing for beautiful sur- 
roundings may be gradually diffused through every 
stratum of social life. Women’s clubs are one of the 
very best agencies to carry on this work, reaching as 
they do into the homes, the schools, the factories and 
workshops, municipal governments and state institu- 
tions. How far-reaching is their influence cannot be 
computed till the next generation shall show fruits of 
their work. The impetus recently given to the move- 
ment for out-door art may be traced in some measure 
to club women. 
The women of New Jersey have undertaken the 
work of civic improvement with vigor. In eleven 
towns civic associations have been formed, the work 
already done including adequate street-lighting, an or- 
ganized system for the disposal of household waste, 
the placing of waste paper receptacles at street corners 
and in school yards, the giving of prizes to high school 
pupils for essays on the way to make an ideal city, 
the establishment of plav-grounds and small parks, and 
the erection of bulletin boards on which advertising 
posters are placed instead of disfiguring trees, fences, 
and buildings, as is the custom in many small places. 
Many other states have done good work in similar 
directions. There is no country neighborhood, no vil- 
lage, town, or city, but offers opportunity for work in 
out-of-dOor art or civic improvement. Do you live 
in the country? There are treeless roadsides every- 
where. One of the first and most important steps to- 
ward beautifying towns and villages is the planting, 
preservation and care of trees. 
Do you live in the city ? Let people in your 
block put out trees ; plant shrubbery between the walk 
and the street ; cultivate a love for flowers ; take 
all tags off trees and poles in the block ; make the 
children a police force to care for and protect these 
things, and you will be training them for future use- 
fulness, giving an object lesson to people in adjoining 
blocks and improving your own surroundings. Do 
you live in a village ? Then you have a greater oppor- 
tunity for work than elsewhere. If trees are needed, 
plant them for such persons as will promise to care 
for them and replace them if they die. Are the tele- 
phone and telegraph poles, the trees and fences with- 
in the corporation limits covered with bills? Get the 
village board to pass an ordinance forbidding it and 
then take off those already on. If the papers and rags 
thrown around give your street an untidy appearance, 
place wire baskets labeled “Please put waste paper 
here” at needed points. After these are in place ask 
the board to allow the street commissioner to empty 
them when full. It will generally do so and you are 
educating the members. Are your depot grounds un- 
tidy? Set out trees and ask the help of the railway 
company. If you have three or four women who will 
undertake to form an organization, form it and you 
will succeed. Form it of women rather than men, 
for they are more economical and more willing to work 
with small beginnings, but do not reject the men if 
they offer to help ; the united effort of men and women 
is the ideal combination for effective work, and if the 
children want to have a hand in it, give them their 
small tasks, bless them! It will make them happy 
even though they do not help much. Is it foolish or 
unreasonable to believe that some sense of artistic 
beauty is inherent in every soul and that in helping 
to develop it we are aiding to carry out the Maker’s 
purposes? “How near to good is what is fair,” says 
old Ben Johnson, and our own Emerson adds : “Art 
is the path of the Creator to his work,” and “Beauty 
is the Creator of the universe.” 
Louise J. Pearson 
