The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-12-12
HILLS INSPIRES A
 ''CITY BEAUTIFUL"
Noted Plymouth Church Divine Lauds Worlds Fair Results and Tells Of Progress
 of Universe

of MT. and Mrs. John G. Howland, 285 | Park avenue. Rev. Newell Dwight i HilIis of Plymouth church, Brooklyn, who is widely known as an author and : lecturer, addressed the club on '"The i City Building Movement Tn Europe and i America.''
 | Judge John H. Perry of Southport : who introduced the speaker, remarked | that while Dr. Hills is often spoken ] of the successor of Henry Ward i Beecher, he is not his successor, but rather his modern equivalent i Dr. Hills said that he was always : glad to speak of the city building and i city beautifying movement and to tell 1 Of the new Paris, the new Berlin, the new London and the new New York. i Little by little Berlin and London rec l ognized the causes of the decline of l the English physique and are now do | ing what they can to thwart this ter | rible fate.
 It is necessary for the cities of the l old world to do this, and it will be nee l eesary for the cities of this world to i do the same, as we are growing so l rapidly in this country that our small ! towns and cities are becoming large cities.
 In seven years New York will pass
 London. England is losing thousands i Of people every year by imrni grafton i while we are gaining them, therefore, i the question becomes more serious for
 us.
 In 1900, only one out of every 13 lived l in the city; in 1850, thirty out or every i 50, and now there are probably 55 in i the city to every 45 or 46 in the coun-
 try.
 The Chicago Worlds Fair was the | greatest educational influence in terms i of city life ever given to a people. It 1 taught America, the value of the beau
 tiful, and to this we owe the present | movement for the beautiful l It set ten thousand young people to
 studying art, its influence upon a peo-
 pie and it's ommerciaI value.
 Today we have beautiful magazines 1 parlor cars, architectural structures and in the Middle West there's not a ! farm but has new barn, or a new ! house directly due to the Chicago Fair. l While its influence may not have been | felt much in the East, the effect upon 1 the Middle West was marvellous. l The second force in the city plan l ming movement was the recognition Of 1 beauty as commercial investment
 The Paris of today was due to the i suggestion of pr. Evans, the American l friend and physician of the Emperor 1 Napoleon. The Emperor one day when | he had a toothache, was complaining | about the dirty streets and general 1 uglinesS of Paris, and the doctor told l him of a way to make Paris the most 1 beautiful city in the world without l 1 time put plenty of money into FrencN i pockets. Strange to say, this wild i sounding plan was followed and the 1 wonderful Paris Of. today is the result ! The idea was that by making it the 1 most beautiful and interesting city in l the world, all the rest of the world i would come to it to spend their money. 1 Chicago realized that she was losing l much money because the people of her | section were going to New York to l spend their savings. Therefore, she l drew up plans for beautifying her | streets and parks, and for building | new park as large as Central Park | which will contain great play-grounds ! baseball grounds, gymnasiums and ev- cry form of recreation necessary for
 her people. She plans to spend $2O,- | 100000 every year for the next ten ! parks cover as much ground as do the 1 homes of her people.
 In this she is following the plans of
 ancient Athens which was laid out
 one block containing homes or business
 houses and the next gymnasium, or l Q, great bath.
 | Providing such means for recreation
 is nnan-building, woman building, body I building and n1ind-bui1dfng. The Frenchman realizes the value Of 1 the beautiful, he puts the utmost edu- | cation into the raw material and real | izes 100 per cent, 200 per cent, and 1 even 800 per cent. The American makes i a useful tool and realizes 5 per cent on it. Wealth is found not in the raw ma l terial, but in the amount of educa ton you put into raw material. | England has reached a crisis-her | physique is going to the wall-this is | not a. dream, but the most terrible fact
 in the world. One hundred years ago l the standard height for a man entering 1 the army was six feet Today they
 are accepting those of five feet in
 height.
 At the time of the Boer war they l found that only one out or every twen- | ty of the thousands Of working men l and boys could be accepted by the
 my. The other nineteen were physi- | cal1y defective.
 | The commission appointed to study | this terrible decline found that it was
 que to the crowded tenement condi- | tions the fact that the fathers and
 mothers drank a great deal Of gin,
 and that there was absolutely no
 means of exercise for themselves or ] children.
 i Children were found wto had been | born without rudimenrary teeth, with | out hair, and one even had no pores in
 his skin and always had to be kept in l a. cool place.
 Germany is the Kingdom of the fu- i ture because it can produce the most
 nearly physically perfect children. What has happened to, England will l happen to us if we do not take meas
 ures against it.
 Today the largest and finest build | ings from here to the Rio Grande are l our lunatfc 'asylunns and our peniten--
 tiaries. We are overworking the peo-'
 Ple and not providing means of recre- 1 atiOn for them.
 Dr. Hills said that when he looks | at the filthy, overcrowded tenement l houses in our large cities he some | times wonders why God lets so many l good tornadoes loose and wastes them l down in Texas.
 1 What New York needs is an inventor