The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1895-04-08
THE BEAUTIES OF PARKS.
Frank ID. Alleys Recent Paper Be-
fore the Local Florists Club.

AT a recent meeting of the Indianapolis
FLORISTS Club Frank B. Alley, well known
IN TINS city as an ardent grower of flowers,
delivered a highly entertaining paper on
the subject of Parks" Mr.. Alley says
that it is an evidence of culture and re-
Fnement that common people are clans
oring for parks. BY the common people
ne referred to the majority. Mr.. Alley
thought that a city that can boast of num-
erous small parks-smal as compared with
Central Park. in New York-fs the more
considerable of the health and happiness
of the population. Monument Place. Uni
versity Square and Military Park are not
parks in any proper sense. The commits
sioners, who some three-quarters of a cen-
fury ago laid out the town of indianapolis,
had no idea that within the lifetime of
children then born the town would become
a city of two hundred thousand. They are
not to blame, for they lived in the stage
coach and farm wagon age. They saw no
necessity of making the area of the capital
city of Indiana more than a mile square.
These old commissioners said Mr.. AL
ley, have long since laid their burdens
down and if we believe the most authentic
free play, they are in a city where those
who planned 1T did not overlook the im>
RIortaniee of Of |Ps q i5bs grounds Tb for rt the de-
bility for lack of parks does not rest
wholly upon municipal g~randees. We have
local self-government and If We have no
parks worthy of the name the people are
justly responsible. The voice of the peo>
pie is the divinity that shapes the sides
and ends of cities, locates parks and de-
termines their numbers and areas. If the
people are without culture-art culture, and
have no regard for the beautiful and true,
then they will elect officers to govern them
like themselves. To talk to such men OF
landscapes, of vistaS, of fountains and
lowers, of brooks and lakes, and all the
ten. thousand pleasures to be derived from
parks becomes a useless eApen 10 OF
~ within the realm of the possible, being
nothing more nor less than the education
of the masses, until by their votes the
park era is inaugurated.
In surveying the surroundings of Indian
apolis we are confronted with the fact that
far more attention has been paid to the
ground adornments. This is manifest the
moment one enters the sacred precincts of
Crown Hill. A cemetery should be adorned
with flowers symbolizing the beautiful
home of immortals, but the proprietors of
Crown Hill deem it wise by repeated edicts
to prohibit a flower to bloom within the
boundaries of the city of the dead. Rome
had its wooded resorts in the days of the
Caesars and now, as eighteen hundred
years ago, the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem
is a place where the inhabitants retire from
in Indianapolis is an intelligent park spirit.
Fresh air is a physician who always inn
proves the health of his patients If he does
not cure them of all their ills"
Mr.. Alley gave an imaginary picture of a
pretty park with its trees and shade and
flowers; with it's laughing nature and the
voice Of childhood, He felt that such parks
were sermons in themselves. He urged the
society to cultivate a taste for the beautiful
in the establishment of private and public
grounds. He was glad to know that the
establishment of the indianapolis parks in
the last few years was the result of the
efforts of the Florist Club.