heart, we shall value the city, and strive so to build, and adorn, and
purify, that it may achieve its ultimate endeavor.

Civic betterment has long been in progress among the more civilized
communities through the influence of cultured people capable of
appreciating the commercial as well as the aesthetical value of art.
Vast sums have been spent and great results accomplished, but they are
nothing as compared with the work yet to be done-work which will
continue through the ages and be finished only with the end of time.

And not only will larger wealth be yet more freely poured out on
artistic adornment, but such use of money will be regarded as the best
to which it can be applied. For though gold is not beautiful it can make
beauty, even that beauty which elevates and ennobles, which purifies the
mind and inspires the soul. Progress is rapid in this direction as in
many others. A breach of good taste in public works will ere long be
adjudged a crime. For already mediaeval mud has ceased to be
fashionable, and the picturesque in urban ugliness is picturesque no
longer. All the capitals of Europe have had to be made over,
Haussmannized, once or several times. Our own national capital we should
scarcely be satisfied with as its illustrious founder left it.

It is a hopeful sign amidst some discouraging ones that wealth as a
social factor and measure of merit is losing something of its prestige;
that it is no longer regarded by the average citizen as the supreme
good, or the pursuit of it the supreme aim in life; there are so many
things worth more than money, so many human aspirations and acquirements
worthy of higher considerations than the inordinate cravings of graft
and greed. Hoarded wealth especially is not so worshipful to-day as it
was yesterday, while the beautiful still grows in grace-the beautiful