the necessity for spaciousness in the production of scenery that is broad and natural and beautiful. One of the chief problems of the landscape architect is to make these parks available and useful to great numbers of people without destroying the natural appearance of their scenery, the main purpose for which they have been created. The conviction is steadily spreading that a city needs not only to provide itself with each class of recreation grounds, but that these grounds should be outlined, acquired, and developed as a system, each part having relation to every other part. Just as a city needs a street system, a school system, a water system, and systems to provide for its other municipal activities, so it needs a comprehensive, well-distributed, well-developed system of parks and pleasure grounds. As yet few cities have been able to secure a wellbalanced park plan. Some cities have a liberal provision of public squares, but few playgrounds and parks, and no parkways. Others have large parks and boulevards, but no playgrounds, while still others have parks and boulevards and playgrounds, but few public squares. Many examples could be given of the unsatisfactory and incomplete and one-sided way in which our so-called park systems. have been developed. The public grounds of practically all our cities have been selected and improved by isolated and desultory. proceedings. The result in most cases has led to an unnecessary waste of money and opportunity. Happily, there are exceptions. A few of the larger cities have, with the aid of expert advice, worked out thoughtful and consistent plans, and in the Middle West even the smaller cities have conceived a system, and gradually, piece by piece, this system is being patiently executed. One of the greatest influences now operating toward a better provision for parks and other recreation facilities in this country is city planning. The movement is spreading rapidly from city to city and from town to town. Its aims are many, but primarily it is an attempt to forecast and provide for the requirements of the city as a whole, and to anticipate by a reasonable period the improvements and developments which such a forecast shows to be desirable. and in some form or other inevitable. City planning is, therefore, an effort to save waste-waste due to thoughtless delay, to haphazard procedure and to ill-considered plans. When city planning is wise it works in harmony with local conditions, takes account of topography, and responds to the peculiar social and economic influences of the locality. One of its dominant purposes always, however, is to promote, to extend, and to make more adequate and more perfect the provisions for public recreation. The conclusions that appear justified by this brief survey of parks and pleasure grounds are: (1) That the national parks are of inestimable worth, but their greatest value requires a somewhat different administration, and the existing parks in the West. should be supplemented and balanced by parks in other sections. (2) That the comparatively small beginnings of state parks should be carried to their legitimate developments until every state in the Union has a comprehensive system, embracing its most valuable and characteristic natural scenic resources. (3) That city parks should be selected with more discrimination, designed with more skill, greatly increased in area, and developed in a more co-ordinate fashion. But parks, even in the broad sense in which the term is here used, do not constitute the only facility for public recreation. Music and the drama, art galleries, scientific museums, zoological gardens, these offer most important and efficient facilities for public recreation. Unfortunately, many American towns and cities are unprovided with these facilities, and even when they exist, they are often inadequate. The people are not yet willing to appropriate. money in sufficient sums to acquire and maintain parks or to provide for such other recreation facilities as those mentioned. The action of the Paris Chamber of Deputies a month ago, authorizing a loan of $180,000,000 for an elaborate scheme of improvements, has no proportional parallel in this country. As an illustration of the scale of expenditure here, a bond issue of the Providence Metropolitan Park Commission may be cited. After great effort approval was secured for a loan of $250,000 for the development of the Providence metropolitan district, which contains a population of nearly half a million people. According to the official report of this commission, the annual cost per capita of this bond issue is not quite equal to "that of three striped sticks of candy." Private individuals have in some cities made generous gifts to the recreation of the people, and in other cities, notably New York, there has been a successful co-operation between public appropriations and private wealth. This is most encouraging and is likely to continue, for there is an increased appreciation of the intimate relation between public recreation and the public welfare. One of the main conclusions of the committee that investigated the social evil in New York City a few years ago under the chairmanship of the late William H. Baldwin, Jr., was the necessity of "furnishing, by public provision or private munificence, of purer and more elevating forms of amusement to supplant the attractions of the low dancehalls, theatres, and other similar places of entertainment that only serve to stimulate sensuality and to debase the taste. The pleasures of the people need to be looked after far more earnestly than has been the case hitherto. If we would banish the kind of amusements that degrade, we must offer to the public in this large cosmopolitan city, where the appetite for pleasure is keen, some sort of suitable alternatives." In conclusion, it may be said with regard to facilities for public recreation, as with regard to so many other matters, that, first of all, a clearer conception is needed of what is possible. We must escape from certain narrow, petty, and conventional views, low standards and ungenerous ideals. We must see the great possibilities of recreation, form a more definite policy, and bring to bear upon its execution a greater measure of wisdom, energy, and wealth. |