House and Garden 
THE TROCADERO AT PARIS 
A permanent feature of the City resulting from the Exposition of i8j8 
States, not by the will of the Caesars, of a 
Napoleon or even of a Haussma-nn, but by 
the will of eighty million people of different 
races and with different views, a large major¬ 
ity of whom have no appreciation of the 
subject and are moreover sordid and think¬ 
ing of the present without any consideration 
for the future. 
This is what makes the task so difficult 
and at times so very discouraging, for with 
our democratic institutions men are mov¬ 
ing in and out of office, policies are being 
changed, and a great scheme of municipal 
improvement is no sooner thought of and 
partly worked out than it is completely up¬ 
set, as in the case of Washington by the 
death of Senator McMillan, and in the case 
of many other cities by a mere change of 
administration and the lack of that continu¬ 
ous personal element which has always been 
indispensable as the force behind any creative 
movement. And yet though our people, 
especially in the more civilized parts of the 
country where their views have become set 
and their conceit somewhat well developed, 
do not rise and demand permanent and 
artistic improvements, they do appreciate 
such improvements as are actually accom¬ 
plished, so that men like Boss Shepard in 
Washington or Boss Tweed in New York 
may be justly held to have conferred such 
blessings upon their cities that the time will 
come when all their sins will be forgotten in 
the glory of their good works. 
Aristotle defined a city as “a place where 
men live a common life for a noble end.” 
How can we accomplish this end unless we 
make our city so attractive and so beautiful 
as to spread a beneficent influence over our 
homes and our entire life ? Have we at¬ 
tained this end, when every selfish and mate¬ 
rial interest for self-preservation and personal 
comfort and profit has been developed to 
the fullest extent, if we have neglected the 
ideal side of life and have done nothing to 
make our homes and their various surround¬ 
ings beautiful and elevating, if we have not 
appealed to the imagination and through it 
to everything that is best in us, if we have 
not provided the most natural and whole¬ 
some and direct means of recreation of the 
kind that is immediately within the reach of 
everyone, and by process of assimilation in¬ 
fluences our entire life ? 
