hold in perpetuity
lands which are intended to serve the public for pleasure and
instruction. The recent rapid extension of the park systems
appertaining to the cities of this country and Europe is a further
illustration of the same motive which makes for the object which we
desire. It therefore seems not unreasonable to hope that very soon
we may find the governments of the greater nations willing to go
forward on the line of advance in which our own has so well led the
way. At the right time the United States could probably do much to
further the matter by asking for international action in this
admirable work. There is hardly any undertaking which would afford a
fairer chance for friendly cooperation among the great states than
this which looks forward to the good of the time to come.

While looking forward to the establishment of a system of sanctuaries
which may serve to protect examples of the present life of all the
lands, it is also well to consider what can be done by local
authorities and by individuals in the same direction. The numerous
zoological and botanical gardens which have been established in
different parts of the world have in part the same motive that is to be
embodied in the larger institutions which we would see founded; they
seek to preserve the interesting and instructive animals and plants,
and in some cases contrive to perpetuate the kinds. The trouble is that
their main purpose is to make a striking show, one that will attract
the eye and lead to profit of an immediate kind. If these institutions
could be persuaded to add to their former exhibitions grounds designed
for the maintenance of the natural order, true wildernesses, where the
native life would find a fit place of abode and where it would be
protected from the ravages of man or from accident, a certain gain
would be made; at least the masses of our city people, who have now
come to control legislation in the great states, would be brought to
see the beauties of the primitive conditions which they now rarely
have a chance to behold. Yet more might be accomplished if men of
wealth could be induced to turn their generous spirit towards this
object. There are many parts of this country where reservations are
most desirable and where the price of land is so low that an area of
thirty thousand acres could be acquired for that number of dollars. A
capital of one hundred thousand dollars would, at the present rates of
interest, afford the