I have to go South today to meet a series of professional engagements. I may not be back before the Spring opens here. I am greatly concerned about the boating arrangements that will have to be determined during my absence, and in my perplexity conclude to say something to you which may serve to put the subject in a little different light than that in which it might be otherwise regarded.

You may, for example, think that this is a business in which, as landscape architects, we are not specially qualified to give advice, and, also, in which we are not specially interested. I want to say something to remove any such impression, at least with reference to myself.

As a youngster, I was much given to boating. Later, I went to sea, and once rowed seventy miles in a day and night on the Huang-Ho, getting a {dinner} of {stewed cat} on a mandarin’s yacht. I have spent a week in a small boat on the Thames, and have visited numerous public boating establishments. I have done a good deal of boating {while} on the Mediterranean, on the Pacific Coast, in Canada, and in Central America. I originally organized the boat service of the Park Commissioners of New York, modeling the first boat used [903]on it with my own hands. With my partners I organized and drew the contract specifications and regulations {of} all the boating service of the World’s Fair at Chicago, including the electric launches and gondolas; getting the gondolas, by correspondence and negotiations which we conducted, from Venice, and having all the other boats made to order.

I tell you all this that you may better realize that it is not solely from the point of view of landscape architects, nor yet from that of mere amateurs that we have been concerned about the boating arrangements of the Boston Park Department. Months before I was employed by the Department I urged the view which I now hold upon the first Park Commission. We advised afterwards the treatment of the Fens which has since been carried out, and suggested the opening of Muddy River and the whole system of waters up to Jamaica Park, getting the Commissioners to abandon the very different scheme which they before had had in view, and had published. In all these schemes the landscape architects had the boating questions distinctly and constantly in view. We originated the plan of getting Castle Island from the government and of forming a bay at City Point, with a pier, etc., all with special regard to boating arrangements, as our reports on this will show.

Altogether you will see, without any further statements, that, from the

[904]first, we have had certain boating arrangements steadily in mind as a peculiarly important element of the Boston Park system. You will also see we have had large fund of special experience and the result of a great deal of study to base our plans upon, and in a considerable degree, we may be considered as experts in the matter.

I think it best to remind you that such is the case, because a very different impression may easily prevail. I have an extreme dread of the permanent demoralizing effect that may result from temporizing make-shift arrangements.

I confess that in the present conditions of the finances of the Department I can only advise that great caution should be used to avoid making arrangements which, contrived with a view to present conditions, will impose obstacles to an ultimate adoption of a system such as would be permanently satisfactory.

I am very truly Yours