omparatively inexpensive, therefore it is
indecorous.

Of the same general bearing is another feature of public grounds. There
is a studious exhibition of expensiveness coupled with a make-believe of
simplicity and crude serviceability. Private grounds also show the same
physiognomy wherever they are in the management or ownership of persons
whose tastes have been formed under middle-class habits of life or under
the upper-class traditions of no later a date than the childhood of the
generation that is now passing. Grounds which conform to the instructed
tastes of the latter-day upper class do not show these features in so
marked a degree. The reason for this difference in tastes between the
past and the incoming generation of the well-bred lies in the changing
economic situation. A similar difference is perceptible in other
respects, as well as in the accepted ideals of pleasure grounds. In this
country as in most others, until the last half century but a very small
proportion of the population were possessed of such wealth as would
exempt them from thrift. Owing to imperfect means of communication,
this small fraction were scattered and out of effective touch with one
another. There was therefore no basis for a growth of taste in disregard
of expensiveness. The revolt of the well-bred taste against vulgar
thrift was unchecked. Wherever the unsophisticated sense of beauty
might show itself sporadically in an approval of inexpensive or thrifty
surroundings, it would lack the "social confirmation" which nothing
but a considerable body of like-minded people can give. There was,
therefore, no effective upper-class opinion that would overlook
evidences of possible inexpensiveness in the management of grounds;
and there was consequently no appreciable divergence between the
leisure-class and the lower middle-class ideal in the physiognomy of
pleasure grounds. Both classes equally constructed their ideals with the
fear of pecuniary disrepute before their eyes.

Today a divergence in ideals is beginning to be apparent. The portion of
the leisure class that has been consistently exempt from work and from
pecuniary cares for a generation or more is now large enough to form and
sustain opinion in matters of taste. Increased mobility of the members
has also added to the facility with which a "social confirmation" can be
attained within the class. Within this select class the exemption from
thrift is a matter so commonplace as to