Martius and Cadillac Square, and bisecting Grand Circus Park as it gains dignity for five straight miles to the northern city line. The speeding automobile under which flowed this splendid highway as I saw it soon ran "off the map," past Palmer Park and Woodlawn Cemetery, at some eight miles from the river, and with yet other miles to the north as the extending backbone of the future Detroit.

At a right angle near the river Jefferson Avenue intersects Woodward Avenue, westward following the course of the Detroit somewhat closely, while eastward it takes one through what was once the fine residence district but is now being absorbed by commerce, in a straight line until the widening waterway opposite Belle Isle bends it slightly northward. Leaving the city proper at six miles from the City Hall, it brings one to Grosse Pointe Parkwhich is, alas! not a public park-in view of lovely Lake St. Clair. Truly a grand avenue, this of Jefferson fitly matches with Woodward. It ought to have along its borders more public grounds than the fine little green area surrounding the city waterworks, for there are great opportunities for needed recreation and playground developments between it and that blueflowing river dotted with the commerce of an empire. Sometime—and soon, for her own sake, I hope-Detroit will make life for many of her toiling thousands better worth living by taking into the public use these now possible park and playground locations, ideally situated, which otherwise will pass into factory sites. Sometime, too-also soon, I trust-Detroit will see to it that the approaches to a better Belle Isle Park bridge are as appropriate and dignified as they are now trifling and belittling.

For beautiful Belle Isle is approached at the place where the green sweep of Grand Boulevard crosses Jefferson Avenue, and where access to it is over a wide arm of that same blue-flowing river, crossed by an ugly bridge. And that approach to a gem of a park, with everything near it and in it needing to be lovely, is desecrated by the close proximity of a mass of claptrap amusement schemes! When will we Americans learn anything, something, of the inequity under which an incidental property-owner of low or no

ideals is legally right in using and abusing, for private benefit, his proximity to vast public expenditures in such fashion as to defeat the dignity and beauty of public possessions?

But enough of streets and of criticism of conditions not at all peculiar to Detroit. We are close to Belle Isle, which is certainly a large item in the bill of particulars as to why life in Detroit is worth living. Let us cross the bridge, and enter upon the seven hundred odd acres of loveliness, set in the midst of this ever blue-flowing river, skirted and articulated by roads and canals, and made in every square foot useful and accessible to the whole people. Nearly thirty years ago it was bought at a price that illustrates the value of foresight -for but $200,000 was needed to obtain this island of beneficence which has been of such vast value to Detroit, and which, at present property prices, would be hardly attainable. To see how the people, coming here either by the bridge or by the charming and inexpensive ferry route from the heart of the business water-front, enjoy the varied delights and the ever-changing views here, is to begin having a conception of a value to humanity in public areas such as cannot be expressed in terms of dollars.

Other green spots, as I have indicated, make Detroit more than simply habitable. Clark Park, of some thirty acres west of the city's center, is useful, and its wadingpool for the little ones is a summer delight. Palmer Park, beyond the northern city line, is of great attractiveness, and will be doubly useful when the city grows up to and around it. There are a few—very few little squares of green dotted about the city, but as yet Detroit has not, seemingly, taken up with serious attention her present and future park needs. There are yet, as I have said, some available park possibilities close enough to the population which most needs the parks, of which her water-front opportunities are the most important by far. Park righteousness requires an acre of God's green in public ownership for every hundred of population, according to the modern ideal of promoting the health and happiness, and consequently the efficiency, of the individual; but Detroit has hardly an acre for each three hundred of present population

and no immediate plan for taking park care of the greater population she is rapidly acquiring. So she needs, and needs soon and vitally, to treble-dot the green upon her city map, if in this wise she is to maintain her claim as to the worth whileness of living here.

Commerce has always a large claim for consideration in relation to the desirable community. From this angle, Detroit's advantages bulk large. Many railways and trolley lines extend the nerves and muscles of steel and electricity in all directions, while that great outpouring of the waters of Lakes Superior, Michigan, and Huron, flowing bluely past Detroit, carries upon its steady stream a vaster commerce than any other waterway in the world. To this commerce the city adds materially, and her favorable situation has drawn to her increasingly manufacturers of many commodities. Cars and clothing, paints and chemicals, stoves and furniture-these are but items in the stupendous total which, with an appreciation of how the casual reader hates statistics, I will avoid mentioning. But I must mention a manufacture that is literally carrying the fame of Detroit to all the world, and carrying it

upon the wings, not of the wind, but of gasoline; for Detroit claims the honor of being the "automobiliary" center of America at least. Something like a score of thousands of acute workmen here construct enough automobiles to tie up the world's circumference in a knot of miles I do not know how many times every day; but I do know that they actually measure the new concrete and steel "auto" factory structures in fractions of miles, not in plain feet!

Wondering why there was so great a gathering of automobile factories here, I asked questions. One man whose tremendous plant for making more computing machines daily than one would believe would be used by the whole business world in a year, voiced the general statement of others in insisting that the place, the people, the factories, the materials, and the markets met more comfortably here than anywhere else. He had, therefore, moved his shop here from a Western city, and had seen it grow and grow under the conditions and the demand.

In one respect manufacturing in Detroit is desirably unique. There are here scores of great shops and factories, suc

cessful, busy, growing, the managers of which have thought it worth while to provide dignified and sightly surroundings. I have not seen anywhere else conditions so pleasing, in this respect, as in Detroit. From great chemical works, grass-bordered, to vast machine-shops housed in really noble structures, it was the rule and not the exception-to see factories that were really beautiful. Here, at least, ugliness and prosperity are not claimed to be essentially the same! The effect upon the army of mechanics employed is said to be most excellent, and the manufacturers insist that it actually pays to have good-looking, clean, and even luxurious shops.

In candor I must, however, record the impression that while the Detroiter believes that here life is particularly worth living, he is not apparently anxious to prolong that life by breathing pure air. Soft coal is the prevailing fuel, burned as smokefully, wastefully, and shamefully as in most other cities of this land in which oxygen is seemingly begrudged to the coal in the blazing furnace, with the result that the carbon thereby wasted into the air is blown and breathed into the homes and the lungs of the populace. Coming to

Detroit on a glorious autumn day, when the foliage of a thousand oaks gleamed redly in the brilliant sun, I saw both leafglory and sunshine alike disappear into a cloud of sooty gloom as the city succeeded the country. Necessary to commerce? Not at all; for I saw two fine and extensive steam plants in Detroit using the very same coal, but burning it all, rather than partially, and therefore offending not the atmosphere.

Our examination of Detroit's claims may properly include a consideration of her public buildings and their placing; for as we come to know the value of coordinated city architecture to a city, we must look to see advantage taken of opportunities for such co-ordination. Here the pleasant city of our inquiry is woefully deficient, for there is no grouping of the City Hall, the Federal Building, and other public and quasi-public structures that accomplishes more than the making of what Frederick Law Olmsted's report calls an "ineffective jumble." But with such notably good citizens as Detroit has, and under the civic awakening which she is feeling, these conditions cannot continue. The splendid opportunity to

so treat, under the plans of such a master city-builder as Olmsted, the surroundings and the approaches to Cadillac Square, the Campus Martius, and the Grand Circus Park, will surely be seized. And a future great water-front, alike doubly effective for a growing commerce and a beauty-needing populace, will as surely come. I can but hope that the day may soon dawn when Detroit will obtain, consider, and irrevocably adopt as proper a city plan as that of Washington for all her development to come.

It will be because of these good citizens that are making the Detroit in which life is worth living that the greater Detroit will stand, splendidly efficient and nobly beautiful, between the lakes. These men are here and now doing things things relating not only to the commercial advance of the city of their pride, but things in the highest degree humanitarian. There is in Detroit a clear recognition of the value of good citizenship, and as well a recognition of the necessity for the helping hand.

Wheeling through the busy streets toward sunset, I saw a great building, not quite completed, the use of which as either store or factory or apartment-house did not seem apparent. Inquiry of the lively business man who was showing me about located this as the new Young Men's Christian Association building, and, in an aside, my conductor said, "The happiest twenty-three days of my life so far were those taken up in raising $423,000 for the completion of that building." Of course I wanted to know more of that sort of a search for happiness; but it took a number of questions at various times and of various people to dig out the noble facts from these modest givers and workers. Briefly stated, January of 1909 marked the dedication of this great institutional building, which is not merely a readingroom and dormitory, as are some similar buildings within my knowledge, but really a people's institute. Costing in all some $700,000, it seems that the last $400,000 was raised through an interesting competitive effort, by which the round-up showed actually $23,000 more than was asked!

But the use of such a structure is the important thing. It appears that under the broadly able handling of the Young Men's Christian Association in Detroit,

there was begun some seventeen years ago an evening school, which has developed into the "Detroit Technical Institute," in which now eight hundred young men yearly fit themselves for something better, through day or evening studies. The new building will permit the number to increase to two thousand young men, all of whom will have opportunity for acquiring, at little cost, practical education along varied lines. To complete engineering and commercial courses there have been added trade schools, from which a stream of better plumbers, bricklayers, sign-painters, and artisans flows. Think of the benefit thus given to the industrial life of Detroit, and it will be agreed that for the young man to whom some doors of opportunity have previously been closed, life here is well worth living.

This great institution will also be ready to give physical culture to 2,500 young men, while it will serve as well as a social center of the greatest value. Moreover, so writes the Secretary, "The Association also plans to take a larger interest in civic affairs"—an interest which will be, rightly guided, of inestimable value to the future controlling citizens of Detroit.

On the whole, it seems evident that there was good business, as well as good Christianity and good citizenship, in the rapid raising of that great sum of money.

Along Jefferson Avenue another building caused me to inquire, and then to request a visit. It was the Detroit Museum of Art, an institution for which I soon conceived high admiration. Here are replicas of great works in sculpture, and some paintings of much merit; here a fine hall for exhibitions, and ten thousand lantern-slides, bringing to Detroit the art of the world. Here, too, is the Scripps collection, presented to the institution for which he did heroic work, by the late notable editor, who was truly a good citizen. The splendidly educative influence of this accessible good art is felt strongly, I am told, and the attendance in the Museum— which includes also some purely museum features-is large and constant.

Compassing thus the facilities in Detroit. for instruction for young workers who want to become better workers, and the uplifting opportunities for an education in the fine arts through contact, I was curious