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.

TYPICAL PARKS

National, State, County, and City

OUR NATIONAL PARKS AND RESERVATIONS

BY WILLIAM ELEROY CURTIS,

Washington Correspondent of the Chicago "Record-Herald."

Within the last few years three kinds of reservations have been authorized upon the public domain which now include 199,672,240 acres, and fifty-four game and bird reservations under the control of the Agricultural Department for the protection and preservation of the wild game and feathered denizens of our land. Several other reservations are proposed, including one for the permanent pasturage of the last large herd of elk which have been evicted from their hereditary winter grazing grounds in Wyoming, south of the Yellowstone Park, and find it difficult to get food enough upon the ranges that have not been taken up by farmers or eaten off by domestic stock.

There are four kinds of reserves: the National Forests, which embrace 194,505,325 acres in the United States proper, Alaska and Porto Rico; the national parks, which include 3,624,472 acres; national game preserves embracing about one million acres; national monuments which include 1,542,443 acres, and the numerous small bird preserves which have not been surveyed except in a few cases.

After years of labor by the American Institute of Archæology, the Geological Survey, the General Land Office and patriotic individuals, an act of Congress was passed in 1906 authorizing the President "to declare by proclamation, historic landmarks, prehistoric structures and other objects of historic and scientific interest situated upon the lands controlled or owned by the United States, to be national monuments, and to reserve, as a part thereof, parcels of land, the limits of which in all cases shall be confined to the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected." All persons are forbidden, under heavy penalty, to injure, destroy or excavate at such places except for the benefit of museums, universities, colleges and other scientific or educational institutions, under proper permits from the proper officers. Under this law twenty-three national monuments have been created.

National Forests

Until a few years ago the great timber areas of the United States were everybody's field for plunder, and the mountains and plains were rapidly stripped of trees. The consequences, as shown by the floods and droughts along the water courses that were fed by springs formerly sheltered by this timber, as well as the appalling wastage by forest fires and timber pirates, finally impressed Congress so that a law was passed authorizing the President to withdraw from sale and settlement such forest areas as in his opinion should be protected and preserved.

Under the authority of that act National Forests have been created in the several states as follows:

In addition to these reserves within the boundaries of the United States proper, there are two in Alaska with a total of 26,761,626 acres, and one in Porto Rico of 65,950 acres, making a grand total of 194,505,325 acres in one hundred and fifty National Forests.