Our opinion has been asked by the Board as to the expediency of a proposition that the charge of the older part of Commonwealth Avenue should be transferred to your Department.

Your Department was not formed to supersede the office under which the older public grounds of the City had been laid out and superintended, but since it was formed, propositions have from time to time been advanced [760]for transferring to it from that office the care of one or another of these older grounds.

In the discussion of these propositions, which, in the end, have been invariably decided against, it has appeared that those by whom they were urged have recognized no good reason why certain of the City grounds should be in charge of one office and certain others in charge of another. They have looked upon the division as an arbitrary one and have been apt to assume that at the bottom of it there has been a purpose of dividing political patronage.

The real ground for a division lies in the fact that there should be in every large city two classes of public grounds to be distinguished one from the other accordingly as one or another class of motives has ruled in the selection of sites and in the devising of plans for them. The leading purpose of one of these classes of grounds is to add to the beauty of a city as a city. The leading motive of the other is to provide means of escape from the city as a city.

The distinction thus indicated between two classes of public grounds we believe to be a radical one. Yet it is not generally understood, and, when understood, is difficult to be kept clearly in mind. Hence where the two classes of public grounds are placed under one management, evidence is very apt to appear of confusion of purpose and consequent wastefulness of resources.

In considering whether any particular public ground will be more suitably managed by an organization formed with a view to the one or the other of the two objects, the question must be whether the practical value of that ground is to be found in the enjoyment of scenery, or in the enjoyment of particular objects and of limited local compositions of these objects.

It is to be recognized that the line of division between the two classes of public grounds thus defined cannot be sharply drawn; one class may merge into the other. Yet we believe that the difference is sufficiently plain for practical purposes and that it justifies such a division of the control of the public grounds of Boston as actually exists. We believe that grounds of both classes are better managed than they would be if the attempt were made to bring them under one headship.

Your Commission has willingly taken charge of several public grounds which in themselves are of limited extent and which might at first thought seem to be improperly regarded as places for the enjoyment of natural scenery. Among such grounds, for example, may be named the Charlesbank; the proposed North End Public Ground and the new Public Ground in Charles-town. It will be seen that from each of these a broad and extensive distant rural prospect is commanded, and in the design for the laying out of each of them it has been a ruling motive to make the most of the outlook from it, and to avoid, as far as practicable, inharmonious and ineffective foregrounds to this outlook.

It may be further explained that while grounds of one of these classes are adapted to the healthful recreation of citizens through their observation of objects, as, for example, trees and bushes as they may be presented individually, or in compositions of a defined and limited local scope, the other is [761]adapted to serve the same purpose by bringing under observation similar objects chosen and disposed with a view to their merging and combining together in a manner adapted to have the effect of more or less extended passages of rural scenery, enjoyment of which is largely dependent on intricate variations of light and shade, on the result of reflected tints and of the blending of such tints, and generally on such conditions as are better brought to mind by the term beauty of scenery than by the term garden beauty.

While the difference between these two classes of public pleasure grounds is of a radical character, nevertheless the line which separates them may be vague so that it cannot invariably be said at a glance: Here is one; here the other. Here is a tree that has been selected to grow where it is with regard to one of the two ends in question; here is a tree selected with regard to the other of these two ends. Hence, the difference between the two classes of grounds is not usually had in mind by those not specially trained to be discriminating in this respect, and much comment on the management of public grounds is misleading because the same standard is applied to one class as to the other. This is no more reasonable than that a sail-maker’s work should be judged by the standard of a woman’s dressmaker, or a jeweler’s work by the standard of a stone-cutter. Criteria of good work in the one case are very different from those applicable in the other. It follows that men accustomed to work with reference to one standard are not likely to work with equal efficiency or economy with reference to the other. An organization adapted to serve one is not likely to equally well serve the other.

We have thus tried to explain theoretically a conviction which is not the result of a pre-formed theory, but to which we have been led by large experience and by the study of practical results in numerous cities.

In our judgment, Commonwealth Avenue is now well managed. We do not believe that it would be better managed under your Board.

We think it much better that the responsibility of your Board should be limited as clearly as practicable to grounds for the selection, acquisition and the laying out of which it has been distinctly responsible.

Respectfully,