human beings who have been congregated through the exigencies of 
commerce, of manufacture, and of wealth, cannot migrate at their will. 
They are bound to remain cooped up, year in, year out, within the walls and 
streets of the crowded city. They have been driven by hard fortune from 
sheir country homes, and like wild flowers torn by some careless hand 
from the meadow bank, are left to fade and die on the hard and pitiless 
pavement. If artificial social necessities have demanded the permanent 
banishment of the masses from the country, and from all that the country 
means to man, it is but just that society should endeavor to minimize the 
ss to them by bringing back to the city as much of the beauty and 
pleasures of nature as money and circumstances will permit. 
With this view, the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association and the 
Kyrle Society have labored with marked success to increase the number 
of public open spaces, gardens, and playgrounds in the metropolis, and 
have lost no opportunity of fostering a public opinion within Great Britain 
tavorable to the acquisition and maintenance by municipalities of numer- 
ous public open spaces easily accessible to the masses of the people. So 
successful has this propaganda been that London alone has, since the for- 
mation of the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association in 1882, increased 
1er open spaces by one hundred and fifty-seven, containing 4,998 acres, 
whilst the entire number of public parks and gardens within easy reach 
of the inhabitants of the metropolis is two hundred and seventy-one, con- 
taining 17,876 acres, which include 6,280 acres acquired and maintained 
hy the Corporation of the City of London. 
During the same period the provincial municipalities have added largely 
so the open spaces under their control, but it is difficult to give an accu- 
rate statement as to their number. In the vear 1883, in answer to a 
circular letter issued by the writer to the authorities of forty-two provin- 
cial cities and towns, it was found that they possessed an aggregate of one 
aundred and thirty-one open spaces, containing 12,843 acres. Since then 
it is probable that at least one hundred more have been added, so that we 
may roughly say that the cities and towns of the United Kingdom, includ- 
ing the metropolis, possess some five hundred open spaces, over 40,000 
acres in extent. These public grounds are of course in addition to the 
innumerable private gardens and squares which are to be met with in 
almost all British towns, and which, though not open to the public, still 
gladden the eyes of all by the sight of nature, materially increase the num- 
oer of cubic feet of pure air which each citizen may breathe, assist in the 
production of oxygen and the consumption of carbonic acid gas, and give 
pleasure and health to a large majority of the inhabitants of the towns in 
which they are situated. It is calculated that there are some five hun- 
dred private squares (and frontages) in London, as well as one hundred 
and seventy three closed burial grounds, containing an aggregate area of 
about 1,500 acres. 
542 INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF EDUCATION.