House & Garden 
to offer the welcome background of verdure 
to civic statues. 
That formalism is the better mode of 
general treatment, has not been emphasized, 
because it has been obvious in each cited 
the square a decorative adjunct of the 
street, adorning by the opportunity it 
offers to bring to the street’s aid such 
powerful and unusual factors for city 
beauty as flowers and trees and running 
case. Behind it, however, there is this 
reason : the open space of the city, if 
it be not large enough properly to be 
called a park, is too small to shut out 
the city. Even if there be no architec¬ 
tural or monumental construction to give 
the keynote to the square’s arrangement, 
the city’s buildings will peer over all its 
boundaries and the noise of traffic will 
be heard in its quietest corners. To 
attempt, then, to imitate the country 
here, with naturalness of effect, were 
absurd. It is best to accept frankly 
the urban conditions and to make 
water—but using these with respect for the 
architecture. 
There are further considerations regard¬ 
ing the treatment of city squares that 
will have to be saved for another time, 
for some squares that have a special 
function to perform require a special 
treatment. But even for them the general 
principles here discussed are applicable, 
since these are definite points in the Science 
of Modern City Making, and whatever 
complexity is subsequently developed starts 
with these assumed. 
Charles Mulford Robinson. 
307 
