The Results of a Park Board's Foresight T By Will O. Doolittle HE park system of the city of Minot, N. Dak., has been only six years in the making, but the practical results achieved speak well for the foresight and efficiency of its Board of Park Commissioners, especially of those members who, from the first, have had a clear vision of the needs of the people and a determination to provide every possible facility for their comfort, pleasure and recreation. The slogan has been "an acre of parks for every hundred people"-not merely so much ground purchased and set aside in neglect, but ample room for everyone, where may be found the playgrounds and athletic fields, the picnic grounds, the beautiful landscapes, the educational features, the bathing and boating, the natural woods and beautiful drives, the tourists' camps and other features of a modern and competently maintained park system. This vision has become a reality; for Minot, altho a city of less than 15,000 people, is well in the lead in the state on account of the size and beauty of the park system and the service which it renders. ect. The Park Commissioners are working in harmony with the Association of Commerce and such organizations as the Rotary Club, Town Criers, Women's Clubs and City Beautifying League, in the preparation of a comprehensive city planning projThe parks are already well established and equipped and will continue to grow in size and features. There is need, however, for better street and housing conditions, boulevards and roads, public building planning, improved river conditions, and many other things that will work for the beautifying of the city. The Park Board is taking up this general plan with the same far-seeing vision it had in the park building. Minot's largest park contains 66 acres. There are several smaller parks ranging up to fifteen acres. In Riverside Park (the largest) are most of the features to be found in a large city park. It has baseball and football fields, tennis courts, skating ponds, picnic groves, beautiful lawns and shrubbery, good auto roads following the banks of the Mouse River, band and rest THE BEARS' DEN, MINOT, N. DAK., SHOWING THE PROTECTING MOAT WHICH DOES AWAY pavilions, a tourists' camp, and one of the best zoological exhibitions in the Northwest, exclusive of the coast cities. Steps are being taken to make the tourists' camp of the greatest service to the traveling public. The proposed coast-tocoast highway-the Roosevelt Memorial Highway-passes thru Minot and is at present known both as the Wonderland and the Glacier Park Highway. Provision has been made for a direct route into Minot, passing by Riverside Park. Here, if the traveler desires to stop, can be found many of the conveniences of home with the added enchantment of camp life. Next season the tourists' camp will be located in a delightful grove in the park; fuel, water, good fireplaces and free attendance will be furnished, and all the park attractions will be close at hand. Probably the greatest of these attractions is the Minot park's zoo of North American animals and birds. The zoo was begun four years ago, and the plan for moderate increase and the maintenance of healthful conditions is bearing fruit in an educational exhibition that is a credit to the city and a source of pleasurable surprise to visitors. We are looking to the future, and our plan is for a habitat zoo where the occupants excite admiration instead of pity because of close, unsanitary confinement; where visitors may learn to know the habits of the animals and birds in their wild state; where condition and upkeep are accented instead of numbers. We believe the city too small to attempt to have represented species of many foreign animals and birds, but we are strong in th. Delief that, under our conditions and with our opportunities, it is a duty to give a fair representation of American fauna, as an educational and pleasuregiving exhibition. Aside from smaller rustic enclosures, our first attempt at the habitat plan was in the construction this season of the "open-face" bear dens. These dens are constructed of The our native boulders and concrete. yards are ample for playgrounds for a large number of bears. No iron bars obstruct the view of the public, but encroachment by the bears is prevented by a moat, 60 feet long and 15 feet wide. In this moat the bears can bathe and swim. On the public side there is a depth of 5 feet of water and a 4-foot sheer rise of wall above the waterline. This is sufficient to confine the bears in safety. Since being placed in the yards the animals are healthier, happier and furnish much more amusement and pleasure to the people. The habitat idea is further carried out by an artificial waterfall, emptying thru a series of small pools and stream into the moat. The exterior or "rear" of dens is viewed from the more formal part of the park and not from the zoo grounds, and represents an ancient stone castle. What has been done for the bears we hope to do, in time, for all other occupants of the zoo-to approach as nearly as possible the natural conditions and freedom. The raccoons should have their trees; the game birds their thickets and hiding places; the hoofed animals their groves, grazing and wading places; the birds of prey their freedom of wing; the members of the dog, cat and mink families their rocky dens, trees and running water; the otter, beaver and wild fowl their ponds and pools. The confinement of the zoo occupants should never intrude itself upon the visitor. Situated as it will be upon the great Roosevelt Highway, and offering as it does so many of the features that were dear to the heart of the great American, the park and zoological gardens will be dedicated in the near future to his memory, renamed the "Roosevelt Park and Zoological Gardens," and will contain suitable memorials of permanent character. Not only for our own people but for the visitor from without our state, the park management hopes to provide pleasure, recreation and service. In the list of 1919-1920 lectures announced for Sunday afternoons at 4 o'clock at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the following are of especial interest to the readers of THE AMERICAN CITY: on December 21, "War Memorials," by Charles Moore, of the National Commission of Fine Arts; and on February 29, "The Architectural Growth of New York," by Richard F. Bach, Associate in Industrial Arts, of the Metropolitan Museum. Has Your Zoo a Buffalo? Agricultural Bill Passed by Congress Provides for Disposal of Surplus to Cities and Public Institutions P ROVISION is made in the current agricultural appropriation act for the Secretary of Agriculture to give buffalo to municipalities and public institutions from any surplus which may exist in the herds now under the control of the Department of Agriculture. In order to aid in the propagation of the species, the bill provides that animals may be lent to or exchanged with other owners of American bison. No provision is made to give them to individuals, and only one may be given to each municipality or public institution. This provision is made because of the surplus of bulls in some of the Department of Agriculture's buffalo herds, particularly the one in the Wichita National Forest and Game Preserve, in Oklahoma, and because the department is nearing the realization of the first stage in the preservation of the species-the acquisition of at least 1,000 head of buffalo by the Government. The number to be distributed will be small. There are approximately 7,000 buffalo in North America. Canada has something over 3,500, and the total number in the United States is more than 3,000. This is about seven times the number in the United States in 1889, when the first buffalo cen tional Zoological Park, Washington, D. C. Two herds have been established in the past year, one in Sullys Hill Park, North Dakota, the other in the Pisgah National Game Preserve, North Carolina. The other herds supervised by the Department of Agriculture are located in the Montana "BLACK DOG," OF THE WICHITA HERD, THE LARGEST BUFFALO IN THE WORLD sus was taken. There are eight Government herds, six of which are under the control of the Department of Agriculture. The largest herd in this country is in charge of the Interior Department and is located in the Yellowstone National Park, where there are about 450 bison. The Smithsonian Institution now has a herd of 18 at the Na National Bison Range; the Niobrara Reservation, Nebraska; and the Wind Cave Game Preserve, South Dakota. The plan of the department is to establish at least ten herds, widely distributed, in order to prevent the spread of any contagious disease. should it become uncontrollable in any of the herds. A visitor to a city should be well impressed by its parks. Why not The Rural Viewpoint in State Constitutions a Bar to Municipal Progress P By A. G. Ewing, Jr. OPULATION has become so congested in our cities that the problem of municipal government has been rendered more complex than the government of the states and possibly of the nation itself. Before the automobile and the railroad we were a rural people. The constitution of the United States and the constitutions of the older states were written by men who knew nothing of city life and its complex social. and governmental conditions. The city is recognized but scantily in the constitutions of the nation and of the state. This has led to much confusion in municipal law. The development of modern life has resulted in a great increase in the demands upon municipal finances and for the equitable levying and distribution of taxes. The Supreme Court of Tennessee up to 1907 rejected the doctrine of assessment for local benefits, but the needs of municipal life were so great that the courts of this state fell into line with the trend of the country. The time has arrived when municipalities will be compelled to abandon the old theory of municipal support from taxes alone, levied thruout the entire corporate limits upon all the property therein. It has become well recognized that it is unjust to assess for sewer improvements property that does not drain thru such improvements or is served by another sewerage system. It has also been recognized that it is equally unjust to pay out of general taxes for permanent hard-surface streets which cost hundreds of thousands of dollars when hundreds of miles of streets in other sections of the city are in a wretchedly paved condition because the property in these districts is called on for general taxes to make improvements elsewhere. It is equally unjust that long, shady avenues with wide parked borders with flowers, trees and fountains should be constructed out of general taxes. The time has From a paper read at a meeting of the Municipal League of Tennessee, come when these inequalities must be leveled. Improvements made from public funds should be paid for out of the funds derived from the property benefited. It must be kept in mind, however, that the general public all receive part of the benefits and should pay an equitable proportion of both the original cost and the upkeep. There should be two systems of assessment for the maintenance of municipalities -local benefit improvements and general municipal operation. In the first classification fall more or less clearly the following: trunk and lateral sewers, water-works, streets, parkways, shade trees, neighborhood playgrounds, school districts, domestic and sanitary cleaning, street sprinkling and street maintenance, possibly fire equipment and street lighting. In the second class fall the official and clerical salaries, the equipment of standard machinery for street construction, the initial cost of the pumping station exclusive of the mains, the initial cost of the lighting plant exclusive of the circuits, police headquarters, the city hall, the main markethouse, the central building and organization equipment and all houses of correction and detention. All general benefits, such as high schools, where the service is rendered to the entire community, should be supported by general taxes. I find that there is a drift thruout the cities of the nation toward this general theory of municipal support. The serious difficulty that the modern municipal official has is to keep taxation within such limits and improvements up to such standards of efficiency as to increase municipal growth. Constitutions should be so amended as to preserve sufficient opportunity for legislation that is general in its nature, and to prevent the local affairs of cities. from being made pawns in the hands of local or state politicians. There should be no unwarranted interference by irresponsible. persons with the officers of the municipality, who are well acquainted with the needs and the possibilities of financing a city. T Teaching Health in the Schools Live Methods Will Arouse Pupils to Action and Produce Results By Dr. L. Emmett Holt Professor of Children's Diseases, Columbia University HE greatest mistake made in public health teaching in the past has been that the instruction has been directed almost entirely to the adults of the community. But adults are proverbially poor pupils in any school. It is hard for them to unlearn what they were taught in childhood, whether in this country or abroad, and any modern health instruction given to them must be given by removing many of the bad health habits which they have practiced all their lives. It is becoming increasingly evident that we have begun too late with our health instruction. The child is the fittest subject in which to instill proper health knowledge. He has no prejudice to overcome; his mind is virgin soil to receive any seed of truth in health or other matters; he delights in the knowledge of the simple things which relate to his daily experience. The Great Opportunity of the School It is particularly in the schools that the opportunities for teaching health are the greatest, and this opportunity is as yet scarcely recognized. The long period of school life perrmits a great variety of health teaching, from the simplest things taught the youngest, with graded instruction for those who are older, to the wider knowledge which can be given the oldest. Much more can be done in school than even in the most enlightened homes. In fact, the home itself is often best reached thru the child. It is easy, if the right methods are employed, to interest the child in health matters, and it is not very difficult to influence him in the formation of good habits. The twig is so easily bent. In most matters havits are not yet formed, and it is just as easy to form good habits as to form bad ones. All these things combine to make childhood the golden period of life in which to teach health. What to Teach Exactly what do we include under health teaching, and how much health can be taught to children? There are clearly two distinct kinds of health instruction. One relates to matters of public or social health and is largely concerned with the prevention of diseases which may be spread thru the community. The relation of these scourges to faulty hygiene and sanitation, the fact that they may be spread by unhealthy persons who handle food, or thru milk or water-supply. or by mosquitoes, flies, rats, lice or other vermin, and that many of these diseases can be communicated from one person to another-all these things can easily be understood by older children. They then come to recognize the importance of sanitary laws for a city, and will generally be found to be the most conscientious observers of these laws. They can easily appreciate what it means to have their milk and water-supply closely watched by experts, the value of clean streets, the necessity for proper disposal of sewage, garbage, etc. They can understand also why quarantine is necessary in communicable diseases, and they easily accept this curtailment of individual liberty for the sake of the rest of the community. The results of the compaigns against tuberculosis, malaria, typhoid, yellow fever and smallpox should be familiar to all, and there is no reason why much of this should not be given in the schools. These stories, when properly presented by one who knows how to write for children, can be made quite as interesting as the campaigns of Napoleon or Alexander, and their study vastly more profitable. The economic value of health is something even a child can appreciate; what it has meant to the prosperity of some parts of the world to get rid of malaria; how this made possible the building of the Panama Canal; what it meant during the war to keep soldiers fit for duty when serving in a malarial country. Castellani, an Italian physician who was stationed at Salonika. tells us that in the Greek army, which took no precautions, 100 per cent of officers and men were attacked with malaria, while in |