To teach and induce habits of orderly, tranquil, contemplative, or
social amusement, moderate exercises and recreation, soothing to the
nerves, has been the most needed "mission" for New York. We think we
see daily evidence that the Park accomplishes not a little in this way.
Unfortunately, the evidence is not of a character to be expressed in
Federal currency, else the Commissioners would not be hesitating about
taking the ground from One-Hundred-and-Sixth to One-Hundred-and-Tenth
Street, because it is to cost half a million more than was anticipated.
What the Park is worth to us to-day is, we trust, but a trifle to what
it will be worth when the bulk of our hard-working people, of our
over-anxious Marthas, and our gutter-skating children shall live nearer
to it, and more generally understand what it offers them,--when its
play-grounds are ready, its walks more shaded,--when cheap and wholesome
meals, to the saving, occasionally, of the dreary housewife's daily
pottering, are to be had upon it,--when its system of cheap cabs shall
have been successfully inaugurated,--and when a daily discourse of sweet
sounds shall have been made an essential part of its functions in the
body-politic.
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