PARK AND CEMETERY 
93 
minimized, and it was made more easy to secure them 
as public gardens. 
“The Metropolitan Public Gardens Association 
was started to gather together scattered workers and 
to collect funds for the carrying out of definite 
schemes. It has been singularly successful in gaining 
approval and support, and by its quiet, constant efforts 
it has educated the opinion of individuals and the 
views of the public authorities.” 
It is a good work to take the people of our crowded 
cities into the country, but, if not a better, it is at any 
rate one of more permanent benefit, to bring a bit of 
the country near to their dwellings. 
— — — — ^ 
IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATIONS 
CONDUCTED BY 
FRANCES COPLEY SEAVEY. 
REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON TOWN AND VILx 
LAGE IMPROVEMENT WORK, 
Read at the annual meeting’ of the American Park and Outdoor Art 
Association, Milwaukee, June, 1901. 
Research and investigation shows that improve- 
ment work offers the opportunity of the age for pre- 
liminary millennial endeavor; that the best men and 
the best minds, the best brain and the best brawn the 
country has to offer, is no whit too good to be en- 
listed in a work that reaches from the topmost layer 
down through every stratum of society, touching 
Avith magic wand the love of beauty inherent in every 
heart; and that to arouse and cultivate that tendency 
in the child is to establish for life a deflection toward 
saving grace. 
To accomplish this desirable end, examples must 
be distributed in every quarter; each street and court 
must contribute to the general effect of beauty; every 
door yard must yield its tribute. 
. The child who creates his ideals of life in minia- 
ture, under his own flowering shrub and sheltering 
vine, will not forget these comforts when his play 
merges into the active affairs of mature years. Ash 
heaps and unclean alleys are not good enough 
for him as a child, and nothing less than the environ- 
ment produced by the best citizenship will satisfy him 
in maturity. 
We find that while much has been done in this 
country, improvement work is relatively in its infancy 
in these United States. 
We have reports from about 150 improvement 
organizations, including several foreign societies. 
Twenty-two states, from Maine to California and 
from Minnesota to the Gulf, are represented, Massa- 
chusetts being the banner state, with a showing of 
45, and Pennsylvania second on our list in point of 
numbers heard from. Nearly all of the organizations 
sending in reports in answer to our inquiries have 
taken active interest in tree planting, some on a verv 
large scale. Many have done good and much needed 
work in the improvement of schoolhouse and rail- 
way station grounds, building and repairing side- 
walks, establishing and maintaining street lights, 
street sprinkling and street cleaning. Quite a num- 
l:)er have abolished weeds, some have corrected the 
bill posting nuisance, and a few have succeeded in 
passing and enforcing ordinances against spitting in 
j^ublic places ; and one has put a stop to the dangerous 
habit of throwing broken glass about. In the east 
good work has been done in fighting destructive in- 
sects, and in placing memorial tablets to mark historic 
s])ots. The clubs at Clinton, Maine, Lake Charles, La., 
and Stephen\dlle, Tex., are active and deserve encour- 
agement. Parks have been established through the ef- 
forts of the association of Bennington, Vt., Petaluma, 
Cal., Athens, and Huntingdon, and Honesdale, 
Pa., Helena, Mont., Black River Falls, Wis., 
and Fairhaven, Mass., which last has, in addition, dis- 
tinguished itself by building a drinking fountain and 
one hundred bath houses. But the societies that have 
reported are as a drop in the bucket in relation to 
the actual number in existence. There is no way to 
even approximately estimate the number in this coun- 
try. They are being formed faster than they can be 
counted ; there is a moving beauty wave, the ripples 
of which reach from shore to shore. 
Still we have much to learn from foreign work 
and workers. The leading features of improvement 
work abroad that might most effectively be applied 
here are, first, a more diffused knoAvledge of the mate- 
rial value of beauty — a matter so well understood over 
the water that business men are the staunchest sup- 
porters of beautifying movements ; and second, a 
greater appreciation of water, especially in streams, 
which in foreign countries is held in higher esteem 
and where fuller advantage is taken of its proximity. 
We learn from reports received that in Canada 
there are so-called Horticultural Societies which have 
practically the same aims as our Improvement Asso- 
ciations and which are doing good work that it is 
hoped and expected will be greatly increased and 
strengthened ; and that the Countess of Minto is taking 
active steps to promote this work in Ottawa by offer- 
ing a series of prizes for the best garden where a 
gardener is kept, and a duplicate series where no 
gardener is employed. 
In Norway there is an annually appointed “Plan- 
tation Day” when the children take part in exercises 
corresponding closely to those of our Arbor Day. An 
Improvement Society has been formed in Christiania 
