PARK AND CEMETERY 
91 
a fitting finale to the most resourceful and effective 
convention yet held by the association. 
In the unavoidable absence of Mayor Rose, Mr. 
John Johnston acted as toastmaster. The following 
were among the toasts : “Breathing Spaces,” President 
L. E. Holden ; Mrs. McCrea spoke on the town en- 
trances of railroads; “The City Beautiful” was re- 
sponded to by Mr. James G. Flanders ; Mr. George 
W. Peck replied to “The Intelligent Cultivation of the 
Dandelion;” Mr. Wm. M. Wight spoke on “The 
Ethics of Outdoor Art,” and Mrs. Herman J. Hall and 
President Holden again expressed the thanks of the 
association for the generous courtesy and hospitality 
extended by Milwaukee. 
Delegates and visitors present were : 
Cyrus Peck, Newark, N. J. ; Warren H. Manning, Boston, 
Mass.; Miss Edith A. Canning, Warren, Mass.; Harlan P. 
Kelsey, Boston, Mass.; Miss Edith Browning Kelsey; Dr. J. 
V. N. Standish, Galesburg, 111.; E. J. Parker, Quincy, 111; 
Edwin A. Kanst, Chicago; John W. Weston, Park and Cem- 
etery, Chicago; Miss Edith K. Weston; Mrs. A. E. McCrea, 
Chicago; Mrs. Eben Byron Smith, Chicago; Mrs. Walter C. 
Nelson, Chicago; Michael Barker, Chicago; J. C. Vaughan, 
Chicago; Seymour G. Nelson, Chicago; James Jensen, Chi- 
cago ; Mrs. Erances Copley Seavey, Chicago ; Mrs. Alice S. 
Blount, Chicago; Dr. Sarah Buckley, Chicago; R. H. War- 
der, Cincinnati, O. ; L. E. Holden, Cleveland, O. ; M. L. 
Moore, Toledo, O.; William Beatty, Toledo, O. ; D. J. Thom- 
as, Springfield, O.; J. G. W. Cowles, Cleveland, O. ; B. P. 
Critchell, Cincinnati, O. ; C. M. Coring, Minneapolis, Minn. ; 
Harry W. Jones, Mrs. Bertha T. Jones, Minneapolis, Minn.; 
J. A. Ridgeway, Minneapolis, Minn.; Fred L. Smith, Min- 
neapolis, Minn. ; G. A. Parker, Hartfor.d, Conn. ; Thomas H. 
Macbride, Iowa City, la.; C. J. Maloy, Rochester, N. Y. ; W. 
J. Stevens, Carthage, Mo. ; F. L. Ridgeley, Mrs. F. L. Ridge- 
ley, St. Louis, Mo. ; W. Ormiston Roy, Montreal, Canada ; 
Thomas B. Meehan, Germantown, Philadelphia ; Mrs. Sarah 
Webb Maury, Louisville, Ky. ; Miss M. Eleanor Tarrant, 
Louisville, Ky. ; Wm. R. Adams, Mrs. Wm. R. Adams, Oma- 
ha, Neb. ; Mrs. Burstall, Miss Landigan, Omaha, Neb. ; J. H. 
Adams, Omaha, Neb.; Mrs. Arthur C. Neville, Green Bay, 
Wis. ; Mrs. Lily H. McCue, Madison, Wis. ; and Henry Web- 
er, August Rebhan, Daniel Erdmann, Adelaide Ester, Mrs. 
S. S. Frackelton, Mrs. George H. Ide, Wm. A. Starke, Chris- 
tian Wahl, Mrs. C. B. Whitnall, Mrs. Charles Catlin, Mrs. 
Frederick H. Shepard ; Mary Beekman Sabin, Mrs. Henry 
Lowell Cook, Mrs. Otto Reinhardt Hanson, Mrs. Janvier 
Lc Due, Miss Cornelia S. Kneeland, Mrs. James Sidney 
Peck, Rev. Aden L. Bennett, Mrs. George R. Nash, Mrs. 
James McAlpine, Mrs. H. C. Clas, Lucille Eleanor More- 
house, Mrs. William Passmore, Miss Marie Dohlman, Miss 
Ada Schiller, Elmer Grey, Mrs. Martin W. Sherman, Mrs. 
Casimir Gouski, Mrs. Wm. Radley, Milwaukee. 
THE OPEN SPACE MOVEMENT IN ENGLAND- 
Mrs. Basil Holmes, Honorary Secretary Metropolitan Public Gardens 
Association, London. 
It is difficult, in the course of a short paper, to 
speak of work which has been going on for centuries 
in our country, or rightly to convey any idea of the 
magnitude of the need for open spaces and the various 
manners in which succeeding generations have endeav- 
orded or have neglected to meet this need. The tend- 
ency to congregate into towns has always been in 
existence, but there has been a corresponding desire 
on the part of the people to spend their holidays and 
the unoccupied hours of their working days in the 
fields and amongst trees and hedges. The early chron- 
iclers of English history describe all manner of sports 
in the fields, the making of spring garlands. May-day 
feasts and rejoicing in the woods, and many pleasures 
and pastimes on the open lands, the moors or com- 
mons, surrounding the towns and villages. The 
“open space movement” has been represented during 
the past three or four hundred years by innumerable 
struggles to keep free from encroachment such public 
lands as the Moorfields, on the north side of the city 
of London, and the commons, heaths, and forests 
throughout England, by ancient enactments limiting 
the increase of towns and the proximity of houses, by 
the opening of the royal parks, by the formation of 
square gardens and pleasure grounds, by the provision 
of fore-courts or back yards to both small and large 
houses, and by public and private benefactions and 
legacies of lands to be dedicated to the people as vil- 
lage greens, commons, parks, or allotments. During 
the nineteenth century, when the development of the 
towns became so extraordinarily rapid, a more vigor- 
ous effort was needed to provide breathing spaces for 
their inhabitants; and since the year 1847 many Acts 
of Parliament have been passed relating wholly or 
partly to the preservation, acquisition or maintenance 
of open spaces. 
Voluntary societies have come into existence to 
preserve or provide public recreation grounds, with 
the result that large parks, and commons have been 
secured in and around our towns, church yards, 
squares, and other small spaces have been laid out 
amongst the streets, while trees have been planted and 
seats have been placed in the public thoroughfares. 
But these have been somewhat spasmodic efforts, car- 
ried out with varied methods, and in England it has 
not been possible to provide open spaces in any very 
systematic manner from the time of the commence- 
ment of the building of the cities. 
There is much room for improvement in the way 
we build our towns and allow our suburbs to stretch 
out from them, ruthlessly swallowing up the rural 
surroundings and picturesque estates. The plan so 
much in vogue, some fifty or one hundred years ago, 
of building houses in “squares” has much to commend 
it. Such squares, however, should not surround gar- 
dens enclosed with railings, to_ which entrance is only 
alllowed to the tenants of a certain limited number of 
houses. In planning new towns or parts of towns 
the square gardens should resemble the Continental 
“places,” open day and night, provided with grass, 
trees, fountains, flower beds and seats, and under the 
