The Art of Public Improvement

OUR New World demands an art expression characteristic and national. Hence the question often arises, What is to be the art of America? In what visible form, enduring and distinguished, shall the country embody its high aspiration, and its intimate conception of eternal beauty ?

All nations of intense vitality have found artistic ways of their own to express their peculiar genius. Some have invented, while others have borrowed and vitalized an idea; in either case the stamp is that of the people who made the thought of moment; for even an echoed art takes on the characteristics of the feebler nation which refines, or of the move powerful race which emphasizes and gives grandeur to the primitive conception.

The English race has never been triumphant in the plastic arts, from the fact that with it the idea is apt to outrun the hand. Ever seeking to narrate or to suggest rather than to portray, the artist finds that his story overpowers his material, and in the endeavor to embody a conception he loses pure artistic quality ; so that the painter struggling with a thought often fumbles with color, while the sculptor overstrains the function of marble.

Beautiful form, the rare and delicate hues of the palette, are not enough to satisfy the Anglo-Saxon, who is ever oppressed by subtle ideas, and grasps unconsciously after vital and eternal truths with an intense craving for largeness of utterance and escape from bonds. In short, the very love of liberty, which is the fusing principle of this intense and masterful race of which we form a part, renders it incapable of using brush or chisel to its full satisfaction, because it forever chafes at their material limitations. Only in controlling Nature does it find a congenial way to express its profound sense of true beauty, and to line out grandly for itself a bold and characteristic picture.

The art of landscape gardening — or landscape architecture, as it is sometimes called on this side of the Atlantic — arose in Britain in that very sixteenth century in which art culminated elsewhere ; appealing so promptly to its rich landowners, that the term “ English gardening ” is applied to what is otherwise known as the natural method of ornamenting estates, in contradistinction to the more formal methods of the Latin nations. This art consists in enhancing the charm of the natural surroundings of a spot by skillful planting of trees and shrubs, by providing smooth extended lawns and appropriate flowers in the right situations, and by opening vistas to reveal distant objects of interest, so that the whole shall form a picture of varied beauty from all points whence it may be viewed by the observer. At the same time, while Nature is really controlled and confined to prevent exuberance, nothing should obtrude that fact unduly, but the conditions should seem naturally harmonious, with only that delicate touch and suggestion of human intelligence necessary to perfection.

Here Nature herself serves as brush and canvas, chisel and stone. Her varying moods, wild and stern, or soft and soothing, appealed early to the rugged British race, with its underlying tenderness, so that all over the United Kingdom homes of ideal beauty have been cherished, enhanced by every accessory a loving interest could suggest. Even when the gardener’s part in them may have been overdone, and results fantastic rather than tasteful are seen, everywhere in England one is touched by the ardent love evident for the rocks and trees and silver waters of the precious island, forever hallowed to us as to its own people by the reverent enthusiasm of the authors of our common literature.

To the new continent to which they brought their energy, the British settlers brought also that passion for nature which is in our blood, and which the American is destined to carry far. Here, amid sylvan surroundings, separated by oceans from all that has artistically gone before, our fresh young race, if it is to achieve an artistic development, must do so on lines where there is still room for advance, with an art intelligible to the people to whom it must appeal, and in ways in which large participation is possible to produce a general result.

It is in dealing with nature that we can best, find our opportunity to gratify our need for a great art, an art the people want, an art they can love, one that will give them true joy, that will appeal to the humblest and the wisest alike ; for we crave something popular to please the masses, something large to gratify the race instinct for the colossal, something bold and far-reaching to strike an answering chord in every American heart. Ours must be an art that men are ready to pay for, to which the rich will give largely, and for which the poor will gladly submit to an extra tax, to he returned to them tenfold in health and enjoyment ; an art which will give work to those who need it, and will offer a chance for benefaction to the rich ; an art in which the simple can bear a hand, and yet which will afford scope to the highest artistic gifts; an art which will educate while it gratifies, and will uplift while it rejoices.

What shall we call this art, the wide scope of which includes mountain and cataract, forest and plain; which requires state and national governments for its support, and demands an army for its preservation, and a genius to conceive? It is not forestry, it is not park construction, it is not landscape nor ornamental gardening, yet it embraces them all, and much more beside, since through it we are to find artistic expression for our inborn love of the beautiful in nature, and our desire for its preservation and development. As a manifestation of the profound sentiment of our people, adapted above all to its especial needs, we claim that the art for America, the art in which we may hope to set an example to the world, is the Art of Public Improvement. That this art is destined to be, popular is shown by the marked and growing interest manifested all over the country in the care of grounds, in the improvement of villages and towns, in the establishment of parks and great forest reservations, and in a disposition to acquire by private or public purchase tracts of land which contain features of unusual interest, to be forever preserved for the delight of coining generations.

That a movement so widespread and so well sustained has a meaning in our national development we can hardly doubt, and it certainly stands for the best there is in us, our taste, our philanthropy, our capability of self-sacrifice for an idea. We do not claim vast achievements for it, but merely vitality, growing force, contagious enthusiasm, without which no advance can be made, and by the aid of which all things are possible, if only the right leaders arise. Nor are these lacking ; for two remarkable artists, of whom more will be said hereafter, have already illustrated our national art, and the latest of them has carried it, by his conceptions and extraordinary achievements, beyond any point yet reached in the old world. Whatever height the art may attain in the future, the names of Andrew Jackson Downing and Frederick Law Olmsted will ever be recognized as those the nation delights to honor as the distinguished pioneers of an important artistic growth on this continent, the torch-bearers, bringing the light we sought so long, and which at last lias begun to shine for us in the wilderness.

No great movement is possible without a man to concentrate and formulate floating ideas, to give expression to what is vague, and to indicate the road development is to travel if it is to be truly momentous. So wholly does the man fit the need that it is often thought that he creates it, when he is merely its exponent, ; and the philosophic study of all new departures shows the necessity of absolute touch between the people and the genius of the leader before a creation can be understood. As Diderot has said, great ideas originate with superior minds, but not till the multitude take up those ideas and push them along do they become effective. In our case, the evangelists preached to good purpose, so that we have awakened and heard, and in many instances have made the doctrine effective. In the art of public improvement the man has to be both originator and exhorter, for he must arouse the taste he is destined to gratify; therefore it was a great thing for the country that both Mr. Downing and Mr. Olmsted were not only men of executive ability, but also masters of the persuasive word ; and it is a matter of rejoicing that the latter lives to witness many results of magnitude from his teaching.

It may naturally be asked what is the characteristic quality of public improvement as practiced in America; also, how ours differs from the landscape gardening of other countries, and on what ground it is claimed that we may hope to see a more expanded development of this art here than elsewhere. The answer to this is that all our public pleasure-grounds are creations for a given end, while many of those in the old world are adaptations. Not a few of the ancient European gardens and parks were primarily adjuncts to palaces and castles, and the people were admitted to them only by favor. The formal gardens designed by Italian and French landscape artists demanded a building of importance as the central point of the scheme. The magnificent grounds of Versailles, designed by Le NÔtre, form an architectural connection, by terraces and flights of steps, between the château and the formal parterres below, which are diversified with stately staircases, fountains, sculpture, clipped yews, and floral designs, till they gradually melt into the wilder portions of the park, whose woods bound the domain. Numerous famous parks and gardens of Europe belong to the crown or government, or are the property of individuals ; and though the public is permitted to view their beauty, they were not primarily constructed solely for its enjoyment. This is the keynote of the difference. The reason why our art has a chance to become national is that every man, woman, and child has an interest in the preservation and development of the spot chosen for recreation, so that they learn to take the same interest in protecting their beauty from vandalism that any proprietor has in the care of his individual grounds.

Any national American art must partake of the democratic character of our people, and be the one result from many willing hearts and hands, which is our working secret. It must be something not outside of us, intelligible only to the chosen few, with a signification too deep for the crowd; but something at once large and simple, to which each of us can contribute after his fashion,—the workman with his spade, the farmer with the neat tilling and fencing of his broad acres, the small householder with a well-kept yard, the rich man with his stately pleasure-grounds, the village with its common and well - shaded streets, the town with its squares and greens and broad avenues. the city with its generous park systems, the nation with its vast reservations. From these well-organized components, from the humble and the magnificent scheme combined, might result a whole which should make our national art of public improvement an example to the world for breadth of conception and minute perfection of detail, while it would become a source of pride to each individual who had ministered to so great an end.

Another reason why we have an opportunity to carry our art far is that we still have room enough, so that we have a chance to secure vast areas, at a moderate expense, before the country becomes overcrowded. We have arboreta on a much larger scale than those of Europe ; our great public reservations, many of them of remarkable natural beauty, are of enormous extent. The national government owns, and ought to protect, thousands of miles of the primeval forest of the continent, which is far more important and beautiful than the planted forests of France and Germany, Belgium and Holland. Near our rapidly growing cities land enough can still be retained by municipalities to accommodate their greatest future need. Everywhere there is a recognition of the tremendous expansion to be prepared for even within one generation, and our tax-payers can, therefore, be brought to submit to charges for extensive plans of improvement.

It seems as if the movement towards this result, which has within the last score of years assumed such consequence, must be significant of a national awakening to an interest in this beautiful and comprehensive art; for the spirit shows itself in many ways, the most important being the desire for the protection of our public reservations and the most vital Village Improvement. The subject demands consideration under several heads, each requiring special attention. These are, first, the park systems, which led the way; second, the better care of our villages and small towns, and municipal improvements ; third, the great national reservations; and fourth, the economic question of our forests, with the pressing need of congressional action to protect and utilize this valuable source of revenue to the country.

Historically, the movement in the United States cannot date much further back than the early fifties, when, roused by Mr. Downing’s writing in The Horticulturist, a few far-seeing minds recognized the necessity of providing for the health and recreation of urban populations by furnishing open and beautiful places of resort for them. This now seems so simple and obvious a duty that it is hard to remember that only persistent and unremitting effort on the part of a few determined souls was able to overcome the sluggish indifference of municipal councilors and state legislatures; while even intelligent citizens resisted the effort to provide large parks, on the ground that they would probably become merely lurking-places for the lawless and depraved, and unfit resorts for the respectable.

Eloquence, tact, and pertinacity at last prevailed to wring meagre appropriations from city fathers for those pleasuregrounds which are now recognized by all citizens as their most cherished possessions. Little by little, after the fashion of all great reforms, at first suggested by the few, finally demanded by the many, the park question forced itself into prominence, and began to take hold of the public.

Contemporaneously with this urban movement, there was shown a desire for neatness and finish here and there in many a small town and village, where some enlightened man or woman, thirsting for organized loveliness, labored to improve the muddy roads and straggling dooryards which disfigured the locality. As in the matter of parks, a few active minds were able to move a whole community. One carefully kept grass-plot induced another; the removal of a few tumbled-down fences showed how unnecessary they were ; a few streets planted with trees inspired a neighborhood to emulation, and the example spread. The formation of a Village Improvement Society composed of public-spirited people, who oversaw, and helped with money, produced such results in one town that another was moved to go and do likewise ; and from one nucleus in New England, and others in the South and West, the idea is traveling far and wide, the present increased facility of communication helping to spread it.

Better roads are a modern demand emphasized by the ubiquitous bicycle, and the States are furnishing smooth and well-kept highways linking town to town. Under the stimulus of the wheel the country inn is reviving, the outdoor restaurant appears, opening a new industry to the farmer, and affording a field for picturesque improvement.

Growing tastefulness is apparent at railway stations, with buildings designed by competent architects, and surrounded by shrubberies and flowers cared for by the station masters in their spare moments. Litter is forbidden ; trees overhang the waiting - places for carriages, refinement of approach indicates the character of the neighborhood, and the traveler is soothed by gentle sights and refreshed by pleasing outlooks.

The need of shading our glaring dusty roadways is more and more recognized, and the example of older towns, now beautiful with avenues of stately elms and maples, inspires the younger ones to furnish with trees their newly opened boulevards and roads. Though the science of tree-planting is but poorly understood, and still less the proper care of trees after they are once rooted, Improvement Societies will in time give instruction in these matters, and the results will be more satisfactory. If at the same time shady footpaths, wholly apart from the highway, could be provided, it might make walking the pleasure which it is along the quiet lanes of the Old World, so sadly lacking here. Meantime we have tree clubs, and an effort is being made to arouse the interest of children by encouraging them to plant trees, and, still better, to cherish them. The ceremonies of Arbor Day, instituted by the present Secretary of Agriculture, the Hon.J. Sterling Morton of Nebraska, emphasize for them the value of trees and shrubs in ornamenting the village. The exercises will be still more valuable when they include instruction in the proper care of what has been already planted.

The improvement of schoolhouses and libraries lends an added dignity to country towns, and makes these buildings, with their grounds, of importance in village ornamentation ; while religious societies rival each other in tasteful arrangement of the open spaces about their respective churches, with excellent effect.

The planting and ornamenting of rural cemeteries originated in the United States, and in many little towns these afford almost the only opportunity for a Sunday stroll. Though the lack of unity of design and a tendency to florid decoration too often spoil the effect, as a whole, the sentiment which cares so tenderly for the resting-places of the dead is another evidence of the promising material to work upon in this country. When taste shall have been educated, more simplicity will he shown, and many touchingly beautiful spots will be prepared for the last home. Those who remember Mount Auburn, Cambridge, Mass., half a century ago, as a valued resort, realize well how its natural loveliness has been marred by the intrusion of inappropriate marble; but other burial-grounds, of more recent date, are showing how the memorials of the dead can be kept in harmony with the quiet beauty of sylvan surroundings ; and in time a more sensitive taste will prevail, of whose stirrings we begin to be conscious, which may gradually influence all our surroundings.

Another evidence of the progress of taste is to be found in the growing interest in horticulture, and the disposition to study it scientifically. This has resulted in the founding of ten botanical gardens in the United States, and also in the purchase, by the city of Philadelphia, of the first park ever planted in America, on the farm of John Bartram on the Schuylkill, where, with only enthusiasm to begin with in 1728, but with constantly expanding knowledge, he established his collections. The æsthetic planting of botanical gardens, far removed from the oldfashioned straight lines and stiff alleys, the natural treatment of trees and shrubs in them in appropriate localities, so far as is possible, show that beauty and scientific arrangement are not incompatible, and that, while adding largely to the knowledge of the world, these gardens can also serve as object-lessons in pleasing arrangement. This is notably the case in the Arnold Arboretum at Jamaica Plain, near Boston, which twenty years ago was founded with the proceeds of a fund of a hundred thousand dollars left to Harvard College by Mr. James Arnold, a public-spirited citizen of New Bedford, Mass., as a garden to be devoted to forestry and dendrology. There are about two hundred acres in the inclosure, and the treatment of the grounds, which form a part of the park system of Boston, is an evidence that accurate scientific arrangement can be combined with picturesque charm.

The growth of interest in horticulture and floriculture in the last century is a subject capable of elaborate treatment. The tasteful management of different flowers with regard to color and mode of growth, their proper disposition in grounds, and the way to plant them to the best æsthetic advantage, has only recently received proper attention with us, but it must be recognized that floriculture is an important branch of artistic growth in public improvement.

A simple but. lively agent in the movement we chronicle has been the general introduction of the lawn-mower, which has made a rough dooryard as old-fashioned in many a village as the unsightly fences of former days, while the supply of water by aqueducts helps to preserve a uniform greenness in the little smooth lawns graded to the edge of the highway. Thus we see how one advance leads imperceptibly to another, till the whole great scheme is evolved.

The beginnings of all the arts are very crude and formless, but the true Renascence begins when men want to know, and that is the age of progress. The secret strength of our civilization is that it wants to know; it is not self-satisfied, passive; it stirs; it is discontented; it recognizes its deficiencies, is aware of a great body of learning to which it has not access, and which it would fain master. These are the little blades, from seed scattered broadcast, which indicate a coming harvest. In a huge, straggling, half-settled country like ours, one cannot look for instant perfection or universal rapid progress. We have no autocratic municipal governments like those which accomplish wonders in European cities ; such order as we develop will not be enforced by anything mightier than popular conviction. The will and desire must come from within ; from that spirit of emulation and wish for the best there is going which is such a strong characteristic of Americans; from that readiness to assimilate which makes our women keen for the last mode and our men eager for the newest bicycle, stimulated by the newspapers, which keep each section of the United States informed of what the others are doing.

The main thing seems to be to so present the right treatment of grounds, towns, parks, and forests that it may become the fashion. Fashion is not a lofty factor in civilization, it must be admitted, yet it is omnipotent with us. Now, to direct the movement rightly, so as to establish canons of good taste, and make this art a high expression, — that is, to have our people assimilate the best rather than the second-best, — necessitates the growth and education of the individual, the only source of progress for the race. Whatever proceeds merely from a ruler’s decree dies with the passing of the master mind ; but that idea which the community grasps is the really valuable working one, and in a sort indicates both the understanding and the social status of a people by the readiness with which it is adopted. Certainly artistic planting ought to be as contagious as the changes of attire.

What we require next is a school of forestry and landscape gardening, and for this we have suggestions in the schools of European nations for horticulture, agriculture, forestry, and kindred subjects which we greatly need to study here. At present there is no place outside of an office where the art we hope for can be taught. Engineering can be learned in institutions, and there are some agricultural schools and experiment stations which have their value, but if a young man seeks knowledge to fit himself for the career of landscape architect we have no such thing as a school of public improvement.

The advantage of a school of art of any kind is, that though no school can create a great artist, it can at least show him the shortest road to his end, teach him how to prepare and use his tools, give him the history of what has been done before, and inspire emulation. An American school might furnish scholarships to the more promising pupils, to enable them to travel, to study the methods of other lands, with a view to grappling more successfully with the problems of our virgin continent. The varied branches of the comprehensive study of public improvement might be dealt with by competent teachers and illustrated by suggestive examples. It could accumulate a library such as no private student could afford to purchase, with pictures and plans to be wisely studied, and from it the genius of the future might draw his inspiration.

However true it may be that no difficulty ever seems to check the growth of any supreme artistic genius, which has its own ways of bursting the shell, and of finding nutriment in everything, great artists are rare, and many valuable talents are lost to the world for the lack of an opportunity to train them, and to make the most of what the French call a “ disposition ” for art. We look for the time when some enthusiast for public improvement shall found an institution to impart instruction in it, or at least leave money for a chair in one of our universities, for a course of which many youths may avail themselves. We believe that the day of this institution is not far off, for we observe that the movement for public improvement is sporadic, it is confined to no locality, it springs up in all parts of the republic, and this sign is full of encouragement. Its advocates burn with zeal, and labor without repose for the benefit of posterity. Even when some of their plans are misguided, their aim is high, their motives are unselfish, the value of their services is incalculable.

The more one studies this great subject, the more one is struck with the lofty public spirit of individuals, their almost poetic fire. They display that enthusiastic sense of duty to the community and the state, that high civic virtue, which is the proudest attribute of man. Their self-sacrifice, their industry, their heroic efforts for a cause that may be called purely one of sentiment, though based on the great economic principle of benefit to the race, arouse a respect which becomes veneration when we realize what large, farseeing patriotism is the mainspring of their untiring labor.

As an instance of this we quote the following paragraph from a letter recently received from Mr. J. B. Harrison, formerly secretary of the American Forestry Congress, the man to whose personal effort the nation largely owes the Niagara Falls Reservation : —

“The chief thing in my relation to the Niagara work was the going, twice, to nearly every town and hamlet in the State of New York, to see the leading citizens, editors, lawyers, clergymen, and merchants, to ‘ work up ’ sentiment, first for the appointment of a commission to examine and report, and then for the appropriation of the money to buy the land at the Falls. Everybody helped, and at last the brakemen in the cars used to come in and sit by me, and ask, ‘ Do you think the State will buy Niagara ? ’ and the boys who carried my bag to the train would ask about it, too. Then I felt sure we should succeed. We got the subject into the mind of every man, woman, and child, apparently.”

Here we have the true spirit of the apostle ; and such apostles are alive among us to-day, influencing their generation, sowing the good seed, and preaching the new gospel. To show what their work is, we have but to remark how, in town after town, individuals have labored with the authorities to persuade them to receive parks and lands which they stood ready to give to their fellow-citizens, though it took years and years to induce selectmen and town councilors to accept the gift. These personal efforts, often ungratefully met, show us the force, the patience, the far-reaching benevolence, which exist among us, the little leaven which has to raise the whole lump of ignorance and inertia.

The eloquence, the artistic feeling, the large wisdom, displayed in the park reports of Mr. Olmsted — often destined either to be read by unappreciative municipal officers, or, as he pathetically remarks, never to be read at all, — would have made the fame of a purely literary man, yet we can find them only in pamphlets almost out of print which to-day are very difficult of access. These reports abound from beginning to end in important suggestions. Thus have men cast bread upon the waters, to be found again by the nation only after many weary years.

Schemes which it takes decades to bring about, and a half century to entirely develop, require master minds for their conception and the “ long patience ” of genius to foster. Ordinary inventors look for large returns from their expenditure of thought and time and treasure, but the architect of public grounds gains little more than a modest livelihood from his labor, which is to confer a perpetual benefit upon his native land. As to the man who gives acres to beautify his town, he is a philanthropist, who sometimes hardly receives thanks. This is why we claim that our country abounds, as does no other, in evidences of purely unselfish zeal, and the study of our present theme indicates in this regard the claims of some individuals, now unknown beyond their immediate neighborhoods, to the gratitude of the nation. The difficulty has been to start the people on the right road, but once started, their progress promises to be steady and rapid. We see not only that individuals have learned to arrange their homes and surroundings picturesquely, but that communities are gaining in civic pride and interest in the ornamentation of villages.

Parks have become a necessity of our cities and towns, and even the unenlightened resistance of municipal governments is overborne by the popular demand. Private and public reservations of beautiful lands, game preserves established by clubs and individuals, have taught the value of wild woods and flowing streams. The government is slowly awakening to the needs of its forests, and public sentiment is being educated by the press to the importance of an enlightened management of that source of revenue which in other lands is so carefully administered.

To these educative influences must be added the quite recent foundation in Massachusetts of a Society for the Preservation of Beautiful and Historic Places,¹ whose function is to receive and hold lands containing objects of interest, which may not be willingly taken by the town or State, and to protect them from neglect and ruin. The example of this valuable society has been followed, so that many historic sites will be retained, fine trees rescued, and striking natural objects preserved for the enjoyment of future generations. In imitation of this society a similar one has been formed in England, which is acquiring such localities, famous in song and story, as may from time to time be offered for sale.

Our reservations, long neglected, are becoming of importance to the American people. The need of outdoor life, so well understood in Europe, is beginning to be recognized by them, and the demand comes for more breathing-space. As soon as a park is opened the crowds gladly avail themselves of it, and with such decorum that the fear of depredation and lawlessness, which so long resisted the opening of parks to the public, has proved groundless. Their sanitary value is felt, for during the prolonged heated term of last August some of the parks in Brooklyn, N. Y., were thrown open to the people at night, and the refreshment to tired mothers, imprisoned all day in crowded tenements, was obvious from the many baby carriages drawn thither, with their little occupants quietly sleeping under mosquito nettings, instead of tossing restlessly in narrow, unwholesome rooms.

The preservation of the battlefields of the civil war, as solemn mementoes of the most tragic period of our history ; the acquisition, by the government, of Gettysburg, Antietam, and Shiloh, and the field of Chickamauga with parts of Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain, are a striking instance of the deep sentiment of our people, and their reverent regard for the honored dead who died that we might live. Never will these suggestive fields be pleasure-grounds, but from the summits of the surrounding hills watch-towers will look down upon the mountain ranges and rivers, and reveal to the eye of imagination the strategy of those terrific encounters. The forests, watered with the blood of suffering soldiers, will remain undestroyed, and monuments will record the gallant deeds of those who fell in the sad struggle. At Chickamauga alone there are more than three thousand acres of forest, and these woods and the construction of appropriate memorials demand careful and artistic treatment.

On certain private estates, such as Biltmore in North Carolina, the property of Mr. George W. Vanderbilt, experiments in forestry are being carried on which the public is freely admitted to study ; and here, too, landscape gardening affords an object-lesson of great value. The large private hunting-parks in the Adirondacks are also accessible to whoever wishes to visit them, and are a notable part of the scheme for public improvement to which belong the magnificent state and government reservations. The extraordinary natural features of America are nowhere more surprising than in the neighborhood of Colorado Springs, where the private reservation of the Garden of the Gods, a singularly beautiful natural park, is thrown open to the public. Reservations in Massachusetts, along Charles River, Beaver Brook, and other streams of quiet or picturesque charm, are another evidence of the growing sentiment among us for secluded haunts for recreation. Of the reservations of Niagara Falls, the Yellowstone Park, the Yosemite Valley, and the great forests of the Adirondacks there is no room to speak fully in this paper, which is, as has been said already, merely a brief summary of the national enthusiasm for the art of public improvement.

Generations may be requisite to perfect this art, but its pioneers have broken ground. We have object-lessons destined to influence many youthful minds, and fit them insensibly for a higher revelation. The greatest of these was the Columbian Exposition, and from that spectacle what ideals must have rooted themselves in many a soul until then starved for beauty ! There first the majesty of a great architectural conception was seen on our own soil, marred doubtless in detail, as must be even a poet’s glimpses of heavenly glory, by the obtrusion of things unspiritual, incident to mortal weakness ; but yet an enchanting whole, an inspiring dream briefly realized for awestruck millions, in whose minds it must forever remain as an indication of what the landscape artist of some future day may make permanent and real. Though the remembrance of the white vision may have faded like its substance, its impress must remain on every mind qualified to receive its stamp. It, too, was a part of that lift of the nation toward higher things, which is a compensation for all its vain and idle pursuit of false theories, false gods, false heroes. As a people we cry for light; our intense materialism goes hand in hand with that characteristic imagination which leads us to see things in large, — to magnify many a will-o’-thewisp into a planet.

If this imagination be our bane, it is likewise our glory, and, like the vital principle itself, it works for both destruction and salvation. If at times it brings us to the verge of political ruin, it again wafts us to the solemn heights of national triumph. In its fierce flame only the indestructible survives, for lesser men and meaner motives shrivel to ashes as it burns heavenward. Thus in our artistic development it may be trusted to lead us to something broader and more human than the older world has achieved, something which shall have in it a touch spontaneous and strong. We must have an art, spacious, because we have room for it; far reaching, because it will be an exponent of popular fancy; imposing, because in it will be embodied the genius of a nation compounded of many elements,barbaric and enlightened, from the fusion of which must proceed a fresh and powerful combination.

If this presentation seem fanciful, remember what has been done in a score of crowded years : how swiftly thoughts travel along the electric cord which now binds us together ; how the middle West fires at a thought, and is ready, as was shown at Chicago, to pour out its easily gained millions for an idea; how rich and lavish is the rarely endowed Pacific coast. There is everything in the United States to nourish a great art, —wealth, enthusiasm, generosity, a sense of boundless capacity, the verve and spring of youth, unlimited aspiration. In the Art of Public Improvement the dreamer and the utilitarian can combine, the nation’s beauty and the nation’s wealth can in it be united, and our achievements may be such as to satisfy even American ambition.

Mary Caroline Robbins.