202 
PARK AND CEMRTERY 
is understood that a mosque looks better in 
Turkey, and a pagoda better in China, and 
the zest for new things which led to many 
wonderful transplantations is controlled by some 
crit’cal sense of appropriateness. Yet it is still hard 
for many people to realize the beauty of what is sim- 
ple and natural. Where there exists no natural beau- 
ty, as in the case of a level prairie, the resources of 
landscape gardening must be vigorously applied to 
create an artificial park. But where nature has al- 
ready contributed a high degree of charm, where the 
surroundings are rural, where the park is on a large 
scale, and is primarily resorted to for an outing, the 
best as well as the simplest thing is to follow the lead 
of nature. Moreover, when this choice is made, it 
should be followed consistently, and ornaments which 
might be appropriate to a city square or a formally 
laid out park should be rejected as inappropriate. 
Unfortunately there have been so jmany bad exam- 
ples of park making, and decoration has been so lav- 
ishly and improperly used that many people find it 
a little hard to think of a great area of wild, beautiful 
land as being really a park. In the ordinary city park 
tawdry shams, uncouth mixtures of incongruous ele- 
ments, have run riot. A taste for the weakly romantic 
has been nourished on devices the most ab- 
surd. Rustic, classic. Gothic, oriental have 
sprawled together. Ugly statues disfigure spots 
where no statue could look well. On fountains the 
fancy of the designer has done its direst. Sham 
ruins, palpably artificial waterfalls, with geometric- 
ally designed ripples, cast-iron stags, rock heaps of 
studied artifice, bogus grottoes, — nothing has been 
lacking to pervert the uneducated taste. To the city- 
bred American the very word “park” brings up some 
such scene rather than a luxurious expanse of beauti- 
ful natural scenery dedicated to the people, a bit of 
nature reclaimed to give the jaded dwellers in towns 
a taste of rural charms. 
It is unfortunate for several reasons that it is upon 
the parks that the first efforts at beautifying American 
cities have so often been spent. Many people who 
would think it a useless “fad” to try to make the city 
as a whole beautiful, will easily make a concession in 
favor of a city park, as a recreation and show place. 
It is here that they would have all the ornamentation 
put — in the very place where it does not belong. Three 
evil effects of this are to be noted : ( i ) The parks 
have borne the brunt of the worst epoch in our ar- 
tistic taste; (2) the parks, which ought to be for an 
urban population a substitute for the country, have 
been citified; (3) the habit of looking at the park as 
the decorated part of the city, the show-place, has 
retarded the esthetic improvement of the cities. The 
^•ruth is that art except as an unobtrusive handmaiden, 
belongs not in the park, where it competes with na- 
ture, but in the city. The contrary notion has spoiled 
the parks without benefiting the town. 
THE SHAW BANQUET, ST. LOUIS, MO, 
The twelfth annual banquet to the gardeners, 
florists and nurserymen, provided for in the will of 
the late Henry Shaw, the founder of Shaw’s Botanical 
Garden, was given Dec. 7th, at the Mercantile Glub, 
St. Louis. It was in every respect as enjoyable an 
occasion as in former years. Covers were spread for 
about 100 guests. The after-dinner speeches related 
principally to the possibility of making needed im- 
provements in the appearance of St. Louis by the 
concerted action of citizens in planting suitably 
selected trees on their residence streets. 
Mr. W. J. Stevens, formerly of Carthage, Mo., but 
now a resident of St. Louis, told of the improvements 
in home and school grounds which had been brought 
about there by the public schools and women’s clubs. 
He said that about two years ago the Century Club 
of ladies offered prizes for the most beautiful window 
in any school room, the decoration to be made by 
plants grown in the schoolroom within a specified time 
and grown from cuttings, seed or bulbs. The pupils 
and teachers became interested in this form of nature 
study to such an extent that in February, 1900, fifteen 
prizes were offered to the children of the public schools 
for gardens grown ovitside. Five of these were for 
the most artistic planting arrangement and training 
of vines on houses or any other object, five for the best 
flower garden of China asters not covering more than 
fifty square feet, and five were for the best vegetable 
garden, covering not more than two rods square. 
When these prizes were announced several citizens 
offered like prizes, until there were thirty in all. The 
Commercial Club appointed a committee of one man 
for each ward, who was to appoint a sub-committee 
for each street. These committeemen made a house- 
to-house visitation to interest others in the work. 
Nearly 1,500 entries were received for the thirty 
prizes, but many withdrew when the hot weather 
started, until only 300 remained faithful to the end, 
which was the first week in October. The result of 
these contests led many to improve the appearances 
of their liomes and did much to make Carthage a more 
beautiful city. 
Mr. Stevens suggested the adoption of similar 
plans in St. Louis in order to beautify the city in time 
for the Fair in 1903. He said in closing: 
“The American Park and Out Door Art Associa- 
tion is to meet here in 1903, as is also the American 
League for Civic Improvement. The Architectural 
League of America, the National Teachers’ Associa- 
tion and numerous educational, religious and art asso- 
ciations, national and international, will make St. 
