The morning journal-courier., 1908-02-06

beautiful; but they have this differ enee, that they are essentially express s'Ne of mans distinction from the rest | Of nature, of his power, of his leisure to do something besides earn living, | always of man, and man in the most highly civilized state They are the perfect expression of the civil ideal, of the progressive ideal of man triumph ant over the rest of nature, and direct ing it as master for his own ends. in stead of appearing as an lnconsplcu- ous agent among the innumeraple forces by which the face of the earth is modified
 Human power and development are the keynote of the greatest and noblest harmonies we know, and even though it does contain some discords. nothing in the world can equal the great hu- man chorus in which our cities slng the loudest song: but it has no end or intermssion and sfrom it we must es- cape at times for rest. Here, then, lies the peculiar value of certain types ot natural" or rural park; not merely that they are in a general way pleas ant to look upon, which is true of many formal scenes attainable in more moderate compass; not merely that within them provision may often be made for agreeable meeting places and promenades not merely that they provide admirable places for neigh borly intercourse and for the family picnic, noe merely that they offer means and inducement for much iEci- dental exercise under pleasant sur roundings; for all those ends could be met without them: their essential val ue lies in tho contrast which they af- 1 ford to urban conditions. It is in this contrast and in the peculiar quality of suhordinating the evidence of mans control that lies the greatest import ance in city park system of areas
 of so-called natural scenery" We
 need an occasional rest from the too continuous reiteration of all the phases
 of human activity in city.
 To afford the maximum of pleasant
 contrast with urban conditions it is
 not enough that the landscape of a park should be without conspicuous
 signs of mans dominant control, all
 though, as we have seen, that is of
 fundamental importance.
 An element only second in import
 ance is d sense of spaciousness, the ex-
 pansive opposite of crampng city
 streets and walls. Taken with the need
 of seclusion this limits the complete
 attainment of our aim If 1t is ap-
 parent that this end can be secured
 only in a few large parks, while near
 ly all the other parks objects can be
 provided for in areas of moderate
 size, then large parks ought to be set
 apart aud maintained almost eXclu-
 sively for this end; since a given area
 devoted to other park uses would be
 almost as effective if distributed in
 several separate blocks as if concen-
 trated in one large piece, while it
 would certainly be more conVeEiently
 accessible and interrupt fewer streets ; Indeed, the only justification for ob-
 structing the natural development of a
 city street system by rcserving and
 unhroken blocks of land for park pur-
 poses is to meet this need of retire. mcnt from the city into q quiet rural scene, and q city cannot afford to pay
 this price for anything that can be ob- } tained without this drawback. From : this follows the important principle , paradoXical as it may sound that il } is far more pernicious and wasteful il park value to introduce public build ings or other alien features into g ! large than into a small park.
 } Parkways have been referred tt [ several times. and while the type is { ) variable one, ranging from q dec. 2 orated street to long and marrow |, rural park used mainly as line o l contamination, A few words of eX l planation are perhaps needful. Ex I cept when consisting of mere broad street arbitrarily selected for decor l ative treatment sort of elongated Q city square. the parkway is ordinaril, e designed to serve either as means O n approach to a large park or as con c nection between large parks. As al Q elongated city square it is convenient 0 ly accessible to large numbers. is pc e culiarly well fitted as promenade u and the presumption is in favor of O formal and even a rectilinear treat n ment. When 1t serves also as a parl IL connection, the same consideration
 apply. but they may In some cases b IS overrued by others which call fo = something else. Since for reason 7, feconomy and to avoid too great d, q interference with the normal city de IN velopment a single park can .sel1n, v be so large that one could not in lad l. a day get increased enjoyment out c II a larger area, people want to visl E two or more in the course of one ou. z