34S 
PARK AND CEMETERY 
levards half-covered in front of the cafes with small tables, 
at which hundreds of men sit in the open air to eat, drink, 
smoke and read the newspapers. It takes persistent rain or 
unusually cold weather to clear the boulevard sidewalks of 
this furniture, even in the raw Paris winter. In Germany, 
during the milder half of the year, the people insist on eat- 
ing and drinking out of doors to an extent which is nowhere 
equalled in this country, e.xcept in the German quarters of 
some of our western cities. No restaurant can succeed in 
Hungary or South German}' or Austria unless it has a place to 
seat its patrons out of doors. 
“The problem I now ask you to consider is how to secure 
a better popular utilization of public squares, gardens, park- 
ways and parks in the United States. 
"It is useless to provide a public forest or a large country 
park, five or ten miles from the center of the city, unless this 
distance can be traversed in an agreeable manner at a lo^y fare. 
Hence the value of parkways, which are merely well-built, 
decorated highways, reserved for pleasure travel. In all such 
parkways through which large reservations are approached, 
there should invariably be a separate space for electric cars, 
and this space should be neither paved nor asphalted, but 
turfed, as a protection against dust and reverberated noise, 
and as a means of health for the adjacent rows of trees and 
shrubs. 1'his practice has been already partially adopted, but 
should become universal. 
“One of the great privileges in European public gardens, 
or other reservations, is broad, open spaces in which — under 
suitable shelter — to eat and drink in the open air. Outside of 
Prague, for example, but within easy reach of the city, are 
some beautiful meadows, the edges of which are adorned with 
fine woods. Thousands of persons resort to these meadows 
every fine Sunday to eat and drink in the open air. A whole 
family will go together — father, mother and children, with 
family friends ; they get a table near one of the restaurants, 
and spend five or six hours in this beautiful spot, enjoying the 
open air, the sight of the meadows and the sky and light mu- 
sic from a good band. The whole process is democratic and 
simple — never rowdy ; but people who know each other can 
meet there in a pleasant way, and agreeable hospitalities can be 
exchanged. 
"One would suppose, from the deserted aspect of the Bos- 
ton Metropolitan parks in winter, that our New England 
people had never observed that winter is nearly as interest- 
ing a season in the open air as summer, the beauty of ice 
and snow replacing the beauty of foliage. The enjoyment 
of winter, however, requires more forethought, more at- 
tention to clothing and more care to avoid wind and storm. 
On the whole, winter is a far lietter season for walking in 
public parks and forests than summer is. One sees much 
more of the broad scenery when the leaves have fallen. 
Moreover, it is a mistake to put away one’s bicycle in win- 
ter. Wherever there are well macadamized roads, it is possi- 
ble to ride a bicycle very comfortably on many winter days — 
particularly in the early morning before the wind has risen 
or the sun has softened the surface of the roads. I need not 
say that the w'inter aspect of a forest, after a fresh fall of 
snow, or after cold rain has frozen upon every twig and 
lingering leaf, is one of extraordinary beauty. Less under- 
stood is the beauty of bare trees, of the half-frozen brook, 
and of the blue shadow's on the fields of snow. 
“The enjoyment of the populace in large country parks and 
forests can be greatly promoted by allowing the picking of 
flowers and berries ; and this permission may be safely given, 
provided plants are not dug up by the roots, either by design 
or through carelessness. So valuable is this privilege that it 
is better to run some risk of the extermination of desirable 
growths, than to prohibit picking. It is, of course, possible 
to keep sow'ing the plants which are most apt to be picked, 
like the columbine, the wild geranium, the anemone, the violet 
and the strawberry blossom. Some fragrant things ought to 
be carefully raised in the parks expressly for the enjoyment 
they give to the people who discover them appearing in their 
season. Such are the mayflower, the linnsea anfl the laurel. 
“In scenery parks the enjoyment of the people can be great- 
ly promoted by providing numerous footpaths, leading to the 
best points of view and to seats there provided. These paths 
should of course be nothing more than trails, from which the 
underbrush and other obstacles to passage have been removed. 
Seats at good points of view are very important parts of this 
provision. The people need to be tempted to linger in the 
parks for hours, and to do this without covering great dis- 
tances or enduring anything which can properly be called 
fatigue. It is the open air and the quiet aspect of nature 
w'hich are wholesome and refreshing, and to get the benefit 
of these influences takes time and a sense of leisure and rest- 
fulness. 
“When once convenient access by electric cars to a reserva- 
tion. or to many reservations, has been provided, it becomes 
the interest of the transportation company or companies to 
announce good skating on the pond, or fine surf on the 
beaches, or a light snow in the w'oods, or the blooming of 
spring flowers, or the ripening of the berries. Through all 
possible agencies, public-spirited or self-interested, the open- 
air habit should be cultivated among us Americans. Unless 
public reservations are to be enjoyed by the people generation 
after generation, it is hard to imagine where Americans are to 
get the opportunity of enjoying country scenery at all; for 
if seems to be almost impossible in our country to create a 
beautiful family estate and transmit it unimpaired from gen- 
eration to generation. 
“I have spoken of the utilization of public reservations as if 
they were to be expected to yield only health and enjoyment 
and improved pow'ers of perception, but I should deal with the 
subject very imperfectly if I did not point out that the right 
utilization of public reservations is a strong agency for 
promoting public morality and a high standard of family life. 
It is a safeguard for society to provide means of pleasure for 
men, women and children together. The pleasures men share 
with their wives and children are apt to be safer pleasures 
than those they take by themselves. In pleasures thus shared 
there is little likelihood of coarseness or excess or careless 
selfishness. They cultivate considerateness, gentleness, and 
tenderness towards the young or the feeble. The appropriate 
pleasures of forest reservations or country parks are all cheer- 
ing, refining, and cleansing; they are soothing and uplifting; 
they separate city men and women from the squalor, tumult 
and transitoriness of the human anthill, and bring them face 
to face with things calm, lovely, grand, and enduring. At 
the park and the beach men and women can lift up their eyes 
to the hills and the sky, or look off to the infinite verge of 
ocean, or come face to face with some of the endless varieties 
of beauty in color, form, and texture with which the surface 
of the earth is decked. It is, then, for the elevation of human 
nature on its every side that the better utilization of lublic 
reservations is to be urged. It has been the lot of the present 
generation to select for the urban populations of the present 
and the future many of these great treasures. It will be for 
future generations to maintain, enlarge, and to adorn them, 
and to develop among the people a greater power of enjoy- 
ing them.” 
