The Proper Functions of Open-Air Statuary 
THE MONUMENT OK THE REPUBLIC, BY PEYNOT 
placing open-air statuary in your city—the 
honor it will reflect on you ? Is it not true 
that the ablest men in all ages prize honor 
more than anything else? Why should 
not a city seek honor more than any¬ 
thing else? Do you suppose that your 
schools and jails, sewers and hotels, rail¬ 
ways and docks, trolley-cars and cod¬ 
fish multiplied a thousand-fold will bring 
you—special honor? Not much, believe 
me! If you want Boston to become 
honored the world over and double its 
population in twenty-five years, do as they 
did in Paris—proceed to spend liberally for 
monuments, fountains and statuary in your 
streets and parks, surround them with 
flowers and keep them properly. 
What would that cost each man and 
woman per year ? Let us see. There are 
about 100,000 men in Boston. One 
respectable cigar costs fifteen cents at any 
respectable shop. If 100,000 men would 
each treat the city of Boston to one 
cigar per year it would bring in $15,000. 
AT LYONS 
For this you could erect a fine statue or 
fountain. Now, if every woman in Boston 
would treat the city to a bunch of violets 
you would have another $15,000. Thus, 
for the price of one cigar for each man 
and a small bouquet of flowers for each 
woman in Boston you could put up 
two fine monuments per annum, fifty in 
twenty-five years. Besides, the money would 
not be destroyed. F'or the average cost of 
the raw material of a $15,000 monument 
would be about $2,000. The rest would 
circulate as wages and support a dozen 
families for a year. 
Before closing let me say you should 
always bear in mind the importance of 
properly placing your statuary. You may 
accept it as an axiom that the greater 
the man and the more strenuous the life 
he led the larger should be his monument 
and the space around it, and the closer 
to the daily life of your city. Hence a 
statue of Washington or Lincoln placed 
in a small side square would be ridiculous. 
492 
