409 
PARK AND ce:me:te.ry 
Of small size parks, several of from fifty to lOO acres 
area, should be scattered where they are called for. 
Within the confines of any such area we may be per- 
mitted to provide building ground for museums, gov- 
ernment buildings, libraries and the like. 
Of yet smaller parks, from twenty to fifty acres, 
cjuite a number should be provided. They are needed 
when congested population craves for playgrounds, 
and where the congregation of factories bring about 
a forbidding appearance. 
Anvthing smaller than 15 acres is no longer a “park,” 
though we, in California, have fallen into the habit of 
misapplying the term to just such “squares.” Public 
squares are the most welcome means of cheering the 
picture that a city represents. Near the depot they 
serve to welcome the visitor and bid a cheering good- 
bye to the departing friends. Near the public build- 
ings — which, so far, we have failed to provide with 
an appropriate setting — they spread the idea of dig- 
nity. Near the schools they may substitute the plav- 
grounds which we never yet have learned to consider 
part and parcel of the educational system. In the 
business district they serve as display of liberality. In 
the settled portions of the city they supply the abso- 
lute want, the dire need of tumbling ground for the 
infants and little tots, and ofifer the aged and infirm an 
opportunity to enjoy a glimpse of God’s earth without 
entering on a long journey from home. 
Aside from the many playgrounds, the school yards, 
the kindergartens and the green spots and strips en- 
circling public and private buildings, every street tree 
and every shrub along the sidewalks belongs to the 
proper park system. 
You ask, perhaps, where do we meet with such ar- 
rangement, to see its effect and benefit, to justify its 
establishment? Nowhere in California. San Fran- 
cisco’s condition is most widely known, and by it I can 
illustrate not what ought to be, but what ought not 
to be. All of the park improvement in California has 
been of the labor class ; to none have ideas been ap- 
plied. Only a city of the immense present and pros- 
pective wealth that San Francisco has can afford to 
develop a spot like the ground on which Golden Gate 
Park is located. It proves about as costly as it would 
be to make a park out of the entire Oakland marsh, 
and is equally useless. Far less money would have 
reached better and grander ends in a location which 
Nature designated as suitable for park improvement, 
Furthermore, no area of such size should spread in 
such shape through the streets of any city. Our 
metropolis of the west will find it very much to the dis- 
advantage of the development of the western part to 
have this park strung out in such direction. Again, 
there was no need for such large area. The enormous 
cost, dictated through the unwise selection, has proven 
the deathblow for the development of any scheme of 
park improvement in every and all parts of that city. 
Some of the grandest scenery of the peninsula lies un- 
appreciated and begging for preservation, when all 
of the labor spent in Golden Gate Park will never rep- 
resent such effects as were to be had for the asking 
in other parts of town. Boston, the ideal of park im- 
provement for the entire world, has sixty-six squares 
and twenty-three playgrounds, and San Francisco has 
eleven of the former and rented the ground on which 
she has one of the latter. Of boulevards, those con- 
necting links for the different parts of a park system, 
she has only one, and this one unimproved — Van Ness 
Avenue. True, she does not require them at this date, 
as she has no more than a nucleus to a park system, 
and this nucleus so monstrous as to forbid adding to it. 
The lesson to be learned from this is : First, know 
what is required for the ultimate development of the 
community ; then start in to secure such, piece by 
piece. Secure the ground and do the development 
gradually, as your tax-list increases. Never go to the 
outskirts for ground as long as one parcel near the 
center of your city calls for previous reservation. 
Solve sanitary questions while serving the purpose 
of adding to your park area. Preserve waterways, de- 
velop creeks, leave rocks untouched and consider the 
native growth of trees and shrubs sacred. Throw 
playgrounds, with free, unobstructed vistas, into your 
tenement districts and let the residence portion take 
care of itself. Do not believe that building ground in 
the business part is too costly to be beautified, and try 
and strive for dignified settings for your churches. 
Would your workingman and mechanic brush his best 
suit of clothes against every pair of overalls that 
presses against him on a work day? Neither should the 
house of worship be surrounded with shanties and 
shops, with dust and dirt. 
The improvement of streets and fire-fighting appa- 
ratus does not stand for community spirit ; far from it. 
Such prove only that the citizens do what is expected 
from them in the course of “business.” The soul of a 
community speaks through grander improvements, 
through boughs and greensward. But let us take cara 
of the manner in which we proceed, that it may no 
longer be right what the most promising landscape 
architect of the East said of us : “Every city of the 
West may have its carpet-bed park, if it so wishes.” 
Whatever has been done up to date in California is 
useful only in so far as it serves as an example of what 
should not be. There is no country that promises 
greater to a genius than this sun-kissed Cali- 
fornia. But the era of improvement will not set in till 
we leave off whitewashing rocks in the parks of Los 
Angeles, planting palm avenues in the very shadow 
of the last “Palo Alto,” and propose to line the main 
thoroughfare in the town of the “University of the 
Oak” with elm trees.” 
