Address to {the} Prospect Park Scientific Association

[May 1868]

You have asked me to talk to you upon the subject of the treatment of natural woods with reference to park purposes. There is a difficulty which always stands in the way of useful debate of any of the elements by which our work here is distinguished from the great body of works in which the principles of engineering science and architectural art are more especially applied. A difficulty which arises from the insufficiency and chiefly from the looseness & vagueness of the nomenclature of the class of works in question we are prevented from comparing ideas, prevented from elaborating ideas by mutual efforts, prevented from giving & recvg instruction, by the want of words which are certain to call up in the minds of all of us or of any two of us, the same images or ideas. This arises from the fact that hitherto, there has been little occasion for exact discussion; that so far as works of this kind have been carried on at all they have been carried on without much careful thought, or at least without the benefit of exact thought in many minds. There has been but little criticism; little debate consequently little explanation or occasion for explanation of the principles of science & art upon which they are designed. In fact, public works of this class are new in the world. There have been public parks before now certainly, but till quite lately the construction of those parks has not been pursued fully & fairly as a public work, open to general, thorough & searching criticism, to anything like professional scientific criticism. Responsibility for these works has not been felt to be a responsibility to the public. Accountability has been felt only to some individual or to some few individuals and provided their intentions were realized, provided they were gratified, criticism of them has been regarded as nobody else’s business. There has been no interest therefore demanding & leading to anything like precise, exact & searching debate & consequently precision of thought & clear means of expressing precise & thorough thought has not been developed.

Thus a necessity exists in the discussion of such a topic for instance as this we have in hand, to use a great deal of circumlocution or to dwell a great deal upon elementary ideas & to define elementary terms. I must do so or I shall be liable to convey impressions to you very different from those I wish you to recve. To reach good results our process must be studious, elaborate, slow, perhaps tedious.

Take this term, park purposes. What are we to understand by it. It is your business to plan and superintend constructions in which the materials [148] of the earth’s surface, clay, sand & stone, are to be largely & scientifically dealt with. You are called upon in your professional capacity to provide a certain town with a park as you might be to provide it with water-works, bridges, docks or canals. What is the idea your clients have when they demand of you a park? To begin let us say, they want a place of recreation? But that is a very insufficient definition. A theatre is a place of recreation, so is a flower garden, so is a conservatory. The vacant lots between X & XI av. & 3d & 9th St have been a place of recreation; of out of door recreation, for a long time, both the wooded parts & the open. But now we are asked to take this land & more & make a park of it. How shall we get at what it is they want? Where did they get the word? It is an English word and we must go to England if we would know to what it has been formerly applied. There are several thousand pieces of ground which for many centuries have been called parks — some of which were called parks at the period when more especially the English language was consolidated. The term park was not used to distinguish them as places set apart or fitted especially for recreation, certainly not for any kind of recreation that your modern townspeople want ground to be set apart & prepared for. What then is their common characteristic? In what did the park differ from other divisions of ground?

What was the common quality they possessed which made it necessary that they should have a common designation? They were not public properties but when the state of society was yet essentially barbarous were selected and taken possession of, prized, fought for & held solely by the rich and powerful — and when society became better organized and less rude, these same pieces of ground still remained a peculiar possession of the more fortunate and arrogant, who had residencies in the midst of them. It continued the same through all the changes of manners and customs, the increase of luxury and the progress of refinement to the present day when at length we find people who cannot have a park for a private possession uniting with others to obtain one which can be used in common. Why should the particular pieces of land to which the term park was first applied have been regarded as choice & peculiarly desireable possessions for so long a time & by men of such very different wants & habits? Pretty certainly, it appears to me, because of some topographical conditions in which they originally differed from other pieces of land, which topographical conditions have all the time been found peculiarly convenient for the indulgence of certain propensities which are a part of human nature and which the progress of civilization does not affect, as it does mere manners & customs.

To illustrate and more fully fix in your minds this hypothesis, I shall narrate to you a personal experience. When I was a young man I made a long journey through England on foot, in company with my brother, in the course of which we became very familiar with the finest & most characteristic park scenery. A few years afterwards my brother & I started to go ’overland by the Southern or Gila route to the Pacific. On account of the outbreak of an Indian [149] war and the refusal of parties which we had expected to join to take the risk without military escort which could not be spared us, we were compelled to wait on the frontier during a period of several months. We undertook therefore, for our amusement and information an exploration of so much of the country beyond settlements as it was at all safe for us to cruise in, as well as some of the border land a little beyond the line of safety and of the other border a little within the line of outermost settlement.

Travelling with a pack-mule and for the most part living on the country, being in no haste, we usually broke camp about 9 o’ck, and soon after noon began to look out for a new camping ground. That is to say if at any time after noon we saw a promise anywhere to the right or left or right ahead of certain topographical conditions, we moved in that direction, and whenever we came upon a site which was particularly satisfactory to us as a place for camping, though it was but just after noon, there we would end our day’s march. If we found nothing satisfactory we would keep on till dusk, and then do the best we could. If we were fortunate in this respect on Saturday we generally rested on Sunday, and sometimes at a camp that particularly pleased us laid up for several days, it being our object to keep our stock in good condition. Thus I may say that it was our chief business for some months to study the topography of the country more especially with reference to the selection of satisfactory camping places. Now with fresh recollections of the old country parks we found that the topographical conditions which we were accustomed to look for were such that we sometimes questioned whether if an Englishman had been brought blindfolded to our tent, and the scene disclosed to him he would be readily persuaded that he was not in some one of those old parks. Yet I need not say the conditions were perfectly natural, that no Engineer or gardener had had a hand in fashioning them — nay I suppose that sometimes no white man ever had before been on the ground.

What then were the governing circumstances of our selection?

First, we wanted good, clear water close at hand, both for bathing and for drinking.

2d good pasturage in which with little labor or care to us we could keep our cattle in good condition.

3d wood at convenient distance, both small wood to readily kindle up, and logs to keep the fire through the night.

4th We preferred seclusion, partly because in seclusion there was greater safety for though we did not fear the Indians or Border ruffians by day light, the chance of an attempt to steal our horses at night was just enough to make us feel a little more comfortable if our situation was a somewhat cosy one. When at the greatest distance from settlements the danger was sufficient to induce us to shift camp after cooking our supper lest the fire should have advertised us too closely. Partly for this reason we preferred seclusion, and partly because we were frequently visited after nightfall by the sudden blast of a norther, in which case an elevated or exposed position was far from comfortable [150]

[151] fortable either for us or our horses, which whatever the range we gave them during daylight were always staked within close pistol shot of our bed at nightfall.

5th We liked to have game near at hand, and

6th We made it a point to secure if possible as much beauty as possible in the view from our tent door.

This last brings us to the question: What is the beautiful? but it is a question which we {will} not here discuss. I only wish you to observe that the beauty which we enjoyed in this case depended on elements of topography of a very simple character. I assume that such beauty of scenery gives pleasure even to savages.

Now, if you think of it, you will see that all these conditions of a pleasant camp would also be the conditions of a pleasant family residence of a more permanent character, provided that the wants of the family were very simple or rude, provided, i.e. it was not greatly dependent for its comfort on the labor of others; provided it was prepared to live mainly within itself as the phrase is.

In fact we found that wherever the pioneers were settling in this country, they were selecting just such places & plainly because the less artificial wants of men were in such situations more conveniently provided for, provided for with less exertion, effort and anxiety of mind, than in any other. For example, in such a situation it would be easy to get water when wanted, easy to get wood when wanted, easy to find shelter from wind, easy to find shelter from sun, easy to make shelter from rain, easy to spy game at a distance, easy to enclose stock, easy to keep watch of stock, when turned out, easy to follow stock when strayed, easy for stock when turned out to find good grazing, water & shelter, easy, if desired, to enclose land, to cultivate it, &, to house the crops from it.

In one word the topography of such a situation is of a character which suggests to an observer an easy gratification of a great variety of the elementary human impulses and thus, leaving out of consideration entirely the impulse to associate or marry with that quality of natural objects whatever it is which we describe as the beautiful.

And this topography as I have shown is also the characteristic topography of the old parks; this is what a park was, this & nothing more when certain pieces of land were first enclosed & called parks. This gives us, therefore, the original, radical & constant definition of the topography which is wanted to be selected or constructed when a park is called for. I do not mean that this is all of a park, but that an idea of a park centres & grows upon this. If it is an insufficient definition, it is because the condition of ease is merely a negative condition. The absence of obstruction is the condition of ease of movement, and a park as a work of design should be more than this; it should be a ground which invites, encourages & facilitates movement, its topographical conditions such as make movement a pleasure; such as offer inducements [152] in variety, on one side and the other, for easy movement, first by one promise of pleasure then by another, yet all of a simple character & such as appeal to the common & elementary impulses of all classes of mankind. But this quality of ease, must underlie the whole. You must first secure this, and if this is not all, it is at least the framework of all. But is a park, you may ask, a mere study of topography, the work merely of an engineer? I answer that that depends on what limit the engineer chooses to put upon the field of his professional study. My own opinion is that the science of the engineer is never more worthily employed than when it is made to administer to man’s want of beauty. When it is carried into works not merely of art but of fine art.

Now Herbert Spencer in an Essay on Gracefulness says:

grace as applied to motion, describes motion that is effected with an economy of muscular power, grace as applied to animal forms describes forms capable of this economy. Grace as applied to postures, describes postures which may be maintained with this economy, & grace as applied to inanimate objects, describes such as exhibit certain analogies to these attitudes & forms.

That this generalization, if not the whole truth, contains at least a large part of it, will I think become obvious on considering how habitually we couple the words easy & graceful.

Whether the philosophy here is perfect & the analysis final & complete or not, we must admit that the association of ideas pointed out is inevitable; and you will see that by simply substituting the word grace for the word ease in the statement of the conclusions to which we have arrived in our study of the engineering question which we have hitherto had before us, we raise our aim at once into the region of esthetic art. Let us call grace the idealization of ease, and then let us take the final step, and add a positive quality to the negative one of ease or grace, and we shall find ourselves prepared to form what I consider to be the true conception or ideal of a park, in distinction from any other ground, or any other place of recreation.

That is to say we must study to secure a combination of elements which shall invite and stimulate the simplest, purest and most primeval action of the poetic element of human nature, and thus tend to remove those who are affected by it to the greatest possible distance from the highly elaborate, sophistical and artificial conditions of their ordinary civilized life.

Thus it must be that parks are beyond anything else recreative, recreative of that which is most apt to be lost or to become diseased and debilitated among the dwellers in towns.

With reference to construction, or the artificial formation of topography then, we may say that park-purposes means a purpose to make gracefully beautiful in combination with a purpose to make interesting and inviting, or hospitable by the offer of a succession of simple, natural pleasures as a result of easy movements.

These, I mean, are park-purposes, primarily, in distinction from all [153] other pleasure-ground purposes. So far as we are to do anything at the {. . .} Ground for instance, it is with these purposes we are to do it. If we cannot make it more graceful, more interesting, more inviting, more convenient, then we are to do nothing.

It does not follow that all parts of our enclosure should be of this simple easy flowing topography which I have indicated. Grace like any other quality which acts upon us through our sense of vision is enhanced by contrast, and if we can employ accessories which will have this effect & at the same time serve a direct purpose of any value they will be proper and desirable within our enclosure, but they will not be the characteristic features of the park. It is chiefly important that they do not become of so much relative importance as to lose their character as accessories.

Rocks for instance may be such accessories so may thick wood, so may shrubbery. So may buildings, monuments &c but these are not what make a park; they are not characteristic of it.

The word park as a common noun, as a descriptive word, should indicate such graceful topography, such open pastoral, inviting hospitable scenery as I have indicated.

When I speak of the treatment of wood with reference to park purposes, I mean first of all with reference to the production or improvement of such scenery, & secondly with reference to the production of improvement of such accessories.

There may be another class of park purposes, of a quite different character, & to discriminate between the two, you must recollect that the word park is used as a proper as well as a common noun.

Phoenix Park, for instance is the park of Dublin and includes, a vice-regal palace, with orchards & kitchen gardens; Barracks, a magazine, an arsenal; parks of artillery, & other features which are far from being graceful and equally far from presenting inducements for an indulgence in simple natural enjoyments. Yet all of which are a part of what is called the Park when the word is used as a proper noun, as much as that which, using the word again as a common noun, is the park itself, which consists of few other elements than turf and trees.

When we know that such things as barracks, arsenals and buildings intended solely for domestic or public business purposes, which are wholly incongruous with the purposes of a park, are referred to under the same general head with turf & trees, we are in no danger of confusing the common & the proper noun. But there may be accessories of a park, which contribute to its main purpose by predisposing the mind or removing impediments of the mind to the kind of recreation which it is adapted to stimulate, as by means of relief from thirst or hunger or excessive fatigue or shelter from rain and these may be included under the term park-purposes, even with reference to topographical construction and artistic design, though in themselves they are the reverse of graceful or suggestive of easy movement.

[154]

And it is possible to add these & many other auxiliaries to the means of accomplishing our primary purposes not only without lessening, but in such a manner as to positively increase the special value of the latter. For the influence of grace of topography like any other quality which influences our minds through the senses is enhanced by contrast.

Elements designed to increase park effects by contrast must however be used with caution, lest instead of heightening the impression sought to be primarily produced by certain elements of topography we obscure or confuse them. To this end it is chiefly important that the contrasting circumstances should be un mistake ably auxiliary, subordinate, and accessory in every respect to the general design. This principle & this caution in the application of the principle, applies to the use of woods or trees as well as to more purely constructional objects.

What then is the part; what are the duties, of trees?

Christopher North asks:

But the more important qualities of trees in landscape are those of termination and obscuration of the view of an observer, though the two may be considered as one, for the termination of landscape by trees is effected by a high degree of obscuration.

You will recollect that I used the term hospitable as descriptive of the essential characteristic of park topography, and that while I hinted at a more recondite significance, in the possible appeal of a hospitable landscape to the simplest instincts of our race, I also described this quality of hospitality to consist in conditions which make the ground appear pleasant to wander over. Among such conditions, one will be the absence of anything which should cause severe exertion to the wanderer and another the presence of opportunities for agreeable rest at convenient intervals. Together these conditions imply general openness & simplicity with occasional shelter and shade, which latter will result both from trees and from graceful undulations of the surface.

Bearing in mind this deduced significance of the term hospitable as descriptive of the general character of a park topography, you will see that the more unlimited the degree of hospitality of landscape, the more unmeasured the welcome which the broad face of your park can be made to express, the better will your purpose be fulfilled, and that it follows that all absolute limits should be so screened from view by trees that the imagination will be likely to assume no limit, but only acknowledge obscurity in whatever direction the eye may rove. As, however, to comply with the conditions previously established, the range of clear vision must be constantly limited in most directions, it is desireable that there should be an occasional opportunity of looking upon a view over turf and between trees so extended that even obscurity, that is to say uncertainty of extent, to the hospitable elements of the topography, shall be impossible.

I trust you recognize the paramount importance of these purposes of [155] trees, because ignorance of them or forgetfulness of them or the subordination of them to other purposes of trees is a besetting sin of most planters.

In subordination to them, strictly, strenuously, always & every where within a park, in subordination to them, trees are to be regarded as individuals, and as component parts of groups, which groups are again to be regarded both individually, and in relation one to another as components of landscapes as seen from special points of view.

I hope that you will see that I am not studying a mere word all this time. I want you to see that when people ask for a park, it may be perfectly possible to please them very much with something which is not a park or which is a very poor and much adulterated kind of park and that it would nevertheless be dishonest, quackish, to do so. A park is a work of art, designed to produce certain effects upon the mind of men. There should be nothing in it absolutely nothing — not a foot of surface nor a spear of grass — which does not represent study, design, a sagacious consideration & application of known laws of cause & effect with reference to that end.