^^^^'^' ■-k- -'■ " -■ \ 1 ■ ' • ' ,- «'Jrv.. *,v ,, ■ ',- ^»*:!?!^ ^^^'.^ .-.■.^'' . ■ .%v"- ,' »■'' ■ ■■■■.■ .y>V'''-;' :■;■ t..i*^'. /'y,::. ■;■-,:,; ^■, ' T>' ?f.i^< -»'■*' 'V',- .-uii..., t ,, . , S'iCWVVl**'* • ■>' ■■•■■ " '■ £^4: *v . V.'-. i A i- ■ -^ ' -■• . ■TKr-r-.- i..:^- .-■. • - ,LS«Cn vV^ ^ ^^'%. ■' ^VA, :i :. ^-^d« Ay "^ ♦•.!•' -**■ «;^ -... -w « -.,1- ^' v;^ '^^y 0^ ^'-'^^^V* %'*'T^-*^o'3^ \!^'^^"\J^ \/ ; ^..*" - v^\!i;^*>. .>!^.» .* \/^^*\'/ '*V'^^**ao'>^ \'*'^^*V'^ '*'V'^^* • .»°%. --: .-^^^ ^ c. ;^HS^^ V-^^?!!f»\/ %*i^%o'5 \*^^^*V %* 4.* "^ • * .*^' '%. •: ^^^^\^^^\/' ^%^W'\o'>^ '\^^^\^^^^ '*'%'^?^\o^^ \/^^ upont Circle THE LURE OF WASHINGTON The 'President's Sheep Were kept on the famous lawn prin- cipally to restore its pristine fertility fountain Fronds ot elms on Rhode Island Avenue; rosy fingers ot pin-oaks around the Plaza; pale gold of willows in Potomac Park; fluttering fans of gingkos on Thir- teenth Street; honeyed lindens on Massachusetts Avenue; exquisite cones oi cream and crimson chestnut about Iowa Circle; these are only a few. From March until November, in parks and squares and circles, flowering shrubs charm the senses. Travelers need not seek Mukojima and Kabata when they can admire more easily royal wistaria on the house of Anson Mills, or that which the quaint pillared dwelling at Eleventh and Massachusetts Avenue bears as a veteran his service colors; or view the glorious iris open before Lincoln's church on New York Avenue; or the many-petaled cherry-trees in Potomac Drive, sent by Japan to Mrs. Taft. On Highland Terrace, the forsythia binds a cincture of clear golden bloom from street to street, and, further west, oriental magnolias drop rose and cream petals before green boughs come. Avenue and circle lead one to another with flowery attraction, and season to season; and you must not miss the crocuses on the White House slope in waiting for the great waxen magnolia grandiflora June brings to Lafayette and Franklin Squares. Every tiny strip of lawn before miles of brick- housing is green as Ireland, and May roses blossom over the old iron fences and up the pillars of the meanest jerry-builder's row. Crimson Rambler and Dorothy Per- kins! What beauty you entwine about Washington! You pour from the cornucopia of spring until Oregon cannot make a rosier festival. George Bancroft, who lived many decades in the square house, 162J H Street, was here as famous for his pet roses as for his history of the United States; and the garden of Twin Oaks, the sub- [11] ^ 1 1 L^ i N THE LURE OF WASHINGTON urban estate of the Graham-Bell family, shows the queen of flowers holding court. During six months of the year, if you drive by the Potomac, you will find the west- ern river-wall a wide border of things blossoming; jessamine, iris, Scotch broom, rose- mallow, and phlox rise in season against the wide, picturesque river-vista like the illuminated border of a far-away Japanese kakemono, big-winged hawks in flight above, or the hydroplane from Boiling Field in clever emulation, making one puzzle which is the machine, which the bird. It is commissioners of parks and grounds that have planted Washington with loveliness and given the nation one of "the purest of human pleasure"; but it is to the Federal Fathers that we owe this capital "advantageously situated in respect to natural charms." The first Congress, moved here and there nine times, discussed various permanent sites. Finally Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson com- promised conflicting political interests and accepted the joint offer of Maryland and Virginia to locate a national capital somewhere on the Maryland side ot the Poto- mac. George Washington took charge of the matter as a paternal responsibility for generations unborn, and chose a site that is admirable, ample, charming, a wide rising amphitheater, between beautifully wooded hills, where granite ledges crop out and springs abound, bordered by a river that changes its character upon reaching the city as a girl becomes a woman at marriage. Above, it is a wild rushing current in a deep defile, with a splendid cataract at Great Falls deserving national reservation; below, it widens from Georgetown into calm, noble, lakelike waters: Potomac, the Indian word for "the river of the meeting of the tribes." From the new residence heights north of the city are lovely silver gleams of it; from Anacostia and Arlington, its fair arms embrace the newly made river parks; from the hill on which the Lee mansion is built, Lafayette in 1824 looked across and declared he had never beheld a finer view, although he could not see, as we do, glorious domes, monuments, and columned edifices "bosomed high in tufted trees." Now the tomb of Peter Charles I'Enfant is where Lafayette stood, the dust of the designer of Washington having been brought for the centenary of the city from the obscure The 'Plunge of the 'Potomac at great Falls Maryland farm where he had died penniless, [12] 13 Cr, O c -I 6. ^ THE LURE OF WASHINGTON Washington A view of Washington across the Potomac from the Virginia hills and the house in Georgetown in which he had his office while drawing his plans, is marked with a memorial tablet. Washington's appointment of I'Enfant, a trained army engineer, to lay out the Federal City, was a lucky and wise choice. The "high luxury of our old friendship with France" is thus not only commemorated in the Lafayette and Rochambeau groups opposite the White House and the Bartholdi fountain hidden at the foot of the Capitol, but is engraved, ever green, in that plan for a great city which I'Enfant drew up, perhaps studying Christopher W^ren's plans for an ideal London, perhaps remembering Versailles and other well-laid-out European towns. Mr. Taft has demonstrated that I'Enfant's plan, like the Federal Constitution itself, was simple, flexible, comprehensive, and far-sighted. The Fine .Arts Commission can discover no better plan for the Washington of the twentieth century than that of the French engineer of 1800, and what has to be demolished to make a Washington Beautiful is onlv what has been erected in opposition to I'Enfant's genius and to the French reasonableness and sense for well-ordered vista. The visitor used to a checker-board town thinks Washington has a puzzling topography, but Henry James found part of the very lure of Washington in the "complexity of the plan of the place, the perpetual perspectives, the converging, radiating avenues, the frequent circles and cross-ways." This, with the sylvan foli- age, gave him the illusion of a royal park, where all the "bronze generals and ad- mirals on their named pedestals should have been great garden gods, mossy myth- ological marble." So would a mind richly endowed with association transform the forty-three public statues with which the city is made memorial of heroes of the nation. Unfortunately it is often crudely memorial, although now under the control of the Fine Arts Commission, which must pass upon the artistic quality and fitness of any new statuary to be set up and endeavor to prevent further barbarism. ['5] ■X3 j; c 5 -."S 11^ E oo IS > S g o " "J- -a o i> aj ^ 3 QJ O 2 o E^ ,S-5 a ^ 2 THE LURE OF WASHINGTON O the lover of Washington there is a veritable lure in a city carefully planned by our forefathers. We have a capital imagined, then realized, unique in this. No other nation has ordained and established a capital citv as well as a constitution. Australia is now making the attempt. Bur our capital is the dearer as being contemporaneous with our constitution, and the French strain in her heredity is not unprecious. Traditions of social and political Washing- ton can lead us along the whole history of our nation. A student in the cupola of the Capitol may trace a national evolution as easily as he can the radiating streets of the city. There, southeast, on Anacostia heights, lived the tribes of the Powhatan; northwest, to Little Falls, in 1608, Captain John Smith journeyed; north of the marble towers of Sokiiers' Home is Saint Paul's Church, the glebe of which was recorded in 17 19; all about are lands that were part and parcel of royal patents of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the old family names linger in Washington directories, even though urban progress has distributed their properties and pulled down brick and plaster dwellings that were older than the Declaration of Independence. In Georgetown, however, is the house where young Washington stopped on his way from Alexandria after receiving his com- mission under Braddock, and the Braddock Trail, now a good motor road, leads out of Georgetown north into the Blue Ridge. A trifle east of it, near the District of Columbia line, is Clean Drinking Manor, a patent from Lord Baltimore in 1650, where Judge Coates entertained Washington returning from Fort Duquesne. Clay, Webster, and Calhoun were later guests at Clean Drinking. Many Washington houses, however, are rich in association with this later national period. Georgetown, the Avenue, and the streets from C to K are associated with historic figures and scenes and the story of the first seventy-five years of the young republic can be read there. When Lafayette was the Nation's guest he visited Tudor Place on Thirty-first Street, and that elegant house stands as a well-preserved ex- ample of late Georgian architecture. It was designed by Latrobe, one of the archi- tects of the Capitol, who loved the classic line. The Octagon House on New York Avenue, designed in 1799 '^y ^^^ versatile English architect, Dr. William Thornton, has been another scene of social and historic romance. The home of a distinguished Virginian family, the Tayloes, it entertained the elite of Washington during her first half-century. After the burning of the President's House in 1814, the Madisons accepted the Octagon as an executive mansion, and here the Treaty of Ghent was signed "in the circular room on a circular table," and peace between the two great English-speaking nations ratified forever. To preserve the house as a specimen of Thornton's domestic architecture, the Washington Chapter of the American Insti- [17] THE LURE OF WASHINGTON tute of Architects bought it. The bell-ring- ing ghosts are laid, but it is easy in its spa- cious rooms to evoke courtly groups of brocaded ladies and gentlemen around the Tayloe mahogany and silver. It is lamentable that more of the houses of historic association have not been pre- served. Yearly another falls in the demand for space for government or commercial business. A notable recent example is Cor- coran House and its fine garden, on the site of which rises the National Chamber of Con- gress. Corcoran House, originally Swann House, was a gilt to Daniel Webster by admirers of the orator in the height of his majestic power, and figures in all the mem- oirs of the period when he was Secretary of State. Mr. William Corcoran, the wealthy banker, bought and enlarged it and again it furnished hospitality to distinguished Amer- icans and diplomats. Here Mr. Corcoran gathered the nucleus of the picture gallery now housed on Seventeenth Street, here he died in national fame, a generous patron of fine arts. After his death it was the successive Washington home of the witty and wealthy Calvin Brice of Ohio and Chauncey Depew of New York, both famous hosts. W' hat sallies of after-dinner humor the walls have heard ! What political moves have been eased into action there! The house ought to have been preserved for a museum of social history like the Cluny, even though itself without especial archi- tectural merit; but an attempt once made to raise a fund to buv the fine old Key house on M Street, overlooking the canal and the Potomac, where the author of the national anthem long resided, miserably failed and discouraged similar attempts. The Burns cottage, associated with President Washington and the allotment of Maryland farms for the Federal capital, was razed twenty-five years ago. So was the Van Ness mansion. For the legends of the latter no romance can be romantic enough, uniting as the house did the ancestry and politics of New York with the social worlcH of the South. It was in the wine cellars of the Van Ness house that an unsuccessful conspiracy aimed to imprison Lincoln. The story of Marcia Burns Van Ness herself has not yet been celebrated in drama, nor have we personal diary or copious letters in which to read her reflections upon the stately events in which she was gracious belle or hostess; but her beauty brought her a distinguished husband The Hermitage — Clean -Drinking iManor [.8] 5 to ^ THE LURE OF WASHINGTON The ^an-Amerkan Union A building devoted to the official relations of the American Republics — our own and twenty in South America. The structure is considered one of the most beautiful in the world / t\ '? i ■/ / i ^ w and the "grandest mansion in the country," and her good works, a public funeral and the gratitude of little children, as the founder of the first city orphan asylum in the United States. Her much-inscribed mausoleum, a copy of the temple ot \'esta, has been safely removed to the terrace of Oak Hill, near the dust of John Howard Payne, brought from Africa to a sweet home by generous Mr. Corcoran. The lover ot the past may rejoice, however, that the site of the Van Ness mansion is now magnificently marked by the home of the Pan-American Union, called by someone the "Capital of the New World." This Union is an international organiza- tion ot twenty-one American republics, and devoted to the development and ad- vancement ot commerce and a friendly intercourse and good understanding among the countries it represents. The governing board is composed of the Latin-American diplomatic representatives in Washington and our Secretary of State, with a Direc- tor-General, who, it is said, has a bigger job than the President of the United States, since the second manages the affairs of one nation; the first, those of twenty-one. Certainly the Director-General has the most beautitid executive mansion in the world. The structure and ground represent an investment to which the American Republics contributed 1250,000 and Andrew Carnegie |8';o,ooo. The building is of white marble, and architecturally is a combination of the classical and the Spanish Renaissance. The motives tor ornamentation were derived from the aboriginal art of pre-Columbian America and that of the Spanish colonies. Facing the lofty vesti- ^>1 / • ^f ■/f0m J _i'""'| ftf? TO Zrr—- "^^ SL't^^ Sii? THE LURE OF WASHINGTON I ^4 Corner of the 'Pan-American Union Showing a part of the lornial gardens and the Washington Monument in the distance bule is a Spanish patio in which are collected rare plants and flowers of tropical America. In the center is a marble fountain modelled by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. The figures on the shaft symbolize the continuity of Americans on their own soil. The tiled pavement reproduces designs from Aztec and Indian temples. In the rear of the patio is a corridor used for exhibits of Latin-American countries. The reading-room contains a relief map of Latin-America to illustrate the area and physical character of the various republics and the magnitude of the work and ob- jects of the Union, which aims to be a vital factor for international peace by ena- bling the settlement of international disputes by international understanding. The dedication of the Pan-American building, April 26, 1910, occasioned one of the most magnificent social gatherings in Washington history. Subsequently the elegance of the building, its ample spaces, and its exquisite garden architecture have made it an ideal successor to the famous hospitality of the Van Ness mansion. "Men come to build stately before they garden finely," Bacon decided, but in the Pan- American these two fine arts are supremely blended. The Aztec sunken garden, with its triple-arched loggia finished in ancient tiles from Mexico and Peru, is a horti- cultural gem. Although a modern structure, designed for practical purposes, the whole building is so beautiful, especially in moonlight or under the opal rays of elec- tric globes, that it would inspire the pen of the essayist of the Alhambra, to whom, by the way. Colonel Van Ness was host in Irving's early career. [ 22 ] THE LURE OF WASHINGTON V in the Pan-American the best motives and characteristics of Hispanic architecture can be delightfully discovered, the student of architecture can endlessly thus illustrate his text by passing from public building to building. Not many "cities have borrowed so extensively as Washington from the architectural achievements of the past. The employ- ment of the column in its public architecture is notable." The Treasury is not set properly, either for the vista from the Capitol to the White House, or for its own dignity, but "few architectural features in the New World surpass in majesty" its seventy-two Ionic columns, stately monoliths, like those of the temple of Pallas at Athens. Each of these is cut from a solid stone, and weighs about thirty-five tons. The replacing of the original columns, which had begun to crumble, with the present single blocks was begun before the Civil War and not completed until 1909. If not superb like the Treasury, the colonnaded portico of the south front of the White House is gracious, and overlooks a lovely fountain where the President may quote II Penseroso, " Retired leisure That in trim gardens takes his pleasure," although the court of the famous Roosevelt tennis-cabinet has been efl'aced, and a grazing flock is now the "cynosure of neighboring eyes." The White House porticos are rivalled in modern classic proportion by the neigh- boring south portico of Continental Hall, the thirteen Corinthian columns o\ which commemorate the original states. The City of Washington was not created until after the Revolution, but, as the capital city, it was chosen by the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution for the location of their hall, built to "perpetuate the memory of the spirit of the men and women who achieved American independence. ... by the encouragement of historic research in relation to the Revolution and the publication of its results, and by the preservation ot documents and relics." This is said to be the only building in the world erected and owned by the financial efforts of women only. It cost $350,000, and in design is classic Geor- gian. Here, on the annual anniversary of the Battle ol Lexington and Concord, gather representatives of the seven hundred thousand members of this American organization. In the convention hall the presiding officer's table is a replica of that on which the Declaration of Independence was signed, and many other reproduc- tions and originals have been presented to make the building typical ot the Colonial period. A most remarkable memorial is the committee room of the New Jersey Chapter. When the British frigate Jugnj/a was sunk during the Battle of Red [--3] THE LURE OF WASHINGTON Bank, New Jersey, October 23, 1777, it was allowed to remain in the waters of the Delaware River for many years. Miss Ellen Mecum, a great-granddaughter of the owner of the property adjoining the water in which the vessel was sunk, originated the idea of using the timbers of the ship for the furniture to be placed in a room for the New Jersey Chapter. The color of the Augusta oak grew lighter toward the center of the timbers, owing to the length of time they had been sub- merged, but the different shades of silver-gray in the chairs and table are most attractive. Iron wrought from the anchor of the .iugnsta was used in making the chandelier of the room. Five cases in another section of Continental Hall contain personal belongings of men and women prominent in early history, although the tourist supplements these by the cases in the National Museum and, of course, the visit to Mount Vernon. The precious Declaration of Independence itself is in the safe of the Library of the State Department, put away from the obliterating light of day. In that library are also bound papers of Washington, Madison, Jefferson, Monroe, Hamilton, and Franklin, purchased bv the Government at different periods; Washington's sword; Jefferson's writing desk; Franklin's cane and buttons; and Lafayette's lorgnette given him by the devoted W'ashington. While the past cannot create itself in the State Department as actually as at Mount Vernon, an American feels a transport of reverence before these human relics of the Federal fathers which cannot be stirred by the museinn mementoes of Europe. It is this "close-up" to history, to use the phrase of the film, that makes Wash- ington a fascinating study. Here are many local associations with pre-Federal his- tory; here, or nearby, are the most important personal associations with Washington, Jefferson, and Madison; here are constantly increasing collections of mementoes of these early Fathers; here can be found traces of the fire set by British troops in 18 14 when thev marched into the unprotected city from Bladensburg and burned the unfinished Capitol and the White House. Here are reminders of our various wars in the captured cannon preserved at the Navy Yard, at the War Department, and at the National Soldiers' Home, founded by General Winfield Scott in 1851 out of funds from Mexico. The mast of the Maine is at Arlington, ht Arlington, too, are the graves of the bluff Indian-fighting generals who kept extending the frontier for our nation until it meant the Philippines. Lawton, who fell in battle in Mindanao, is buried there, and Dewey lies on a bluff overlooking the city where he loved and was beloved. Perhaps .Ariington includes more nearly than any other single place historical association with the whole period of the making of the United States. John Parke Custis bought Ariington as a tract of 1,160 acres for $55,000. It was part of a patent from Royal Governor Berkley to Robert Howsen, by him conveyed to John Alex- [24] Continental Hall Official home of the Dauehters of the American Revolution Home of general ^bert 6. Lee Portico of the famous Cus- tis-Lee Mansion at Arlington THE LURE OF WASHINGTON ander, of Alexandria, for six hogsheads of tobacco. Custis's son, Daniel, married Martha Dandridge, the prettiest and most attractive girl in Williamsburg, the old Virginia capital, inherited Arlington, had two children, John Parke and Eleanor, and died young, entailing the estate to his son, but leaving his widow rich for those days on 1 100,000. It was this Mrs. Martha Custis whom Washington married, in- ducing her to bring her children to live at Mount Vernon, fifteen miles below on the same bank of the Potomac. Colonel Washington had inherited his estate from his half-brother, Lawrence, although the house, as we see it, was not built until 1786. Mount Vernon at that time was certainly more accessible to other great estates and the lively society of Alexandria and Mrs. Custis probably left Arlington hill with no reluctance, although one may guess that Washington, when supervising his stepson's property interests, dreamed of the city that was to arise out ot the beautiful cam- pagna across from Arlington. Eleanor Custis died early, and her brother, having married one of his cousins in the famous Maryland Calvert family, died in 1781, leaving two children to the Washingtons' care, Nellie and George Washington Parke Custis. It is the latter who in 1803 completed the present Arlington mansion, and who made it until his death in 1857 the scene of boundless hospitality and social dis- tinction. Born at Mount Airy, the Calvert manor northeast of Washington, he allied himself to another famous family by marrying a Fitzhugh of Virginia. His only surviving child, Mary, in time married a West Pointer, Robert E. Lee, son of "Light Horse Harry," of Revolutionary distinction. When secession became a cause. Colonel Lee, an army favorite, was informally consulted at Arlington as to his assuming command of the Union forces. Mr. Francis P. Blair, editor of The Globe, carried the message at the suggestion of General Scott and Lincoln. But Lee went with Virginia, and Union troops soon possessed Arlington and the priceless relics of Washington. Arlington could not be confiscated because entailed, but the non- pavment of taxes gave the United States a pretext to buy it for $23,000, and the military cemetery, at the suggestion of General Meigs, was established in 1864. After the death of General Lee, George Washington Custis Lee, the heir, success- fully disputed the legality of the tax sale. In 1884 1150,000 was paid him by the Government for his rights in the estate, and it then became the Valhalla of mili- tary and naval heroes. If the government radio towers erected on John Custis's fields can report the speech of Paris, Panama, and Guam, this height of Arlington registers correspond- ingly far in history. From here one might have seen the first oaks and poplars fall under white hands; the building up of Georgetown, a prosperous port; the chain- ferry working boats laden with elegant folk and their slaves and horses to Analostan Island, whence they journeyed across the Causeway to Virginia; one almost might have seen the procession, September 18, 1793, when W'ashington, on his favorite [26] THE LURE OF WASHINGTON The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court administering the oath to President Wilson "muslin charger," wearing the Masonic apron made by Madame Lafayette, and heading three lodges and the Alexandria artillery, laid the southeast cornerstone of the original Capitol; one might surely have seen on July 4, 1848, the laying of the cornerstone of a monument to Washington in the place chosen before his death, the wives of two of his contemporaries being present, Mrs. Hamilton and Mrs. Madison, and his foster grandson, George Washington Parke Custis; one might also have seen the shaft standing desolately incomplete for thirty years until a national shame pre- vailed and the bright capstone of aluminum, bearing the words Laus Deo, was put in place in 1884. From Arlington might have been discovered Madison's ridiculous flight from the White House to Rokeby, near Chain Bridge. "Washington's picture and a cartload of goods from the President's house in Company"; from here, too, might have been watched with awe the great copper wind-clouds and the continuous stream of elec- tricity that swept over the British troops in Washington, August 25, 1814, upset three-pounder guns, lifted men out of the saddle and disturbed morale to such an extent that the British withdrew. Nearly half a century later it was on the steps of Arlington that General Irwin McDowell was photographed with his staff, official defender of Washington on the Virginia side, and from Arlington the old Long Bridge was clearly visible when across it poured, July 22, 1861, in a drenching rain, a routed army fleeing from Bull Run, "confusion increased and multiplied by the [27] THE LURE OF WASHINGTON presence among the fugitives ot a multitude ot panic-stricken picnickers, Congress- men, civilians of every sort, and lavishly dressed women who had gone out in car- riages and carryalls to see the spectacle ot a Federal army walking over the Con- federates." The view henceforth constantly had new features, as Washington be- came a wartime citv, full of hastily erected hospitals and barracks, and ringed about with earthwork defences of the Federal capital. A boulevard is already planned to connect the sites of these old forts and pre- serve in beauty historic associations with Washington in the sixties. It will run across the new Memorial Bridge from Arlington to the Lincoln Memorial, around Potomac Park, up Rock Creek \'allev between Old Georgetown and New NN'ashing- ton into the glens of Rock Creek Park and on to the heights of Fort de Russy, where it will turn eastward along Military Road to Fort Stevens, across into the park of Soldiers' Home, that five hundred-acre sylvan retreat for veterans, swans and Hol- steins, southeast to the superb heights above the Anacostia River, where the water- front park is already reclaimed, and then follow the shore back to the point where the smaller river joins the Potomac. There the War College stands, an impressive edifice. The site was that of the Civil War arsenal, where the conspirators against President Lincoln's life were justly executed in 1865. Just above on the Anacostia River is the former Navy Yard, established as far back as 1804, with its gateway designed by Latrobe and thus contemporary with the Capitol. Once a shipbuilding plant, the yard is now a naval gun factory and the station for the President's yacht and despatch boat. Neighboring to the Navy Yard, are the Marine Barracks, the Washington home of the heroes of Belleau Wood, and also of the celebrated band, once led by John Philip Sousa, whose marches penetrated remote Africa and Siberia. This band, however, had the place of honor at the White House and government ceremonies for a century, and is even mentioned in Mrs. Madison's letters. After the laying out of the original city, the first domestic construction was done in what is now the Navy Yard section. The Capitol was planned to face east, but the city gradually grew toward Georgetown. It was not until after the Civil War and the renovation of Washington streets by the Governor of the District, Alexander Shepherd, that Washington Beautiful be- came possible. Shepherd "took from the walls the dusty map of I'Enfant and Elli- cott, impressed its outlines on marsh, on hill, on woodland, and under the cloudless sky, out of the fresh earth, the new Washington rose as from the stroke of the en- chanter's wand," declaimed a Maryland senator at the Centennial of the Federal City in 1900. It was no cloudless sky, because Shepherd's improvements aroused a storm of protest from District taxpayers, but the new pavements were laid, streets cut through, and Washington prospered materially under the Grant regime. By 1900 national pride and a better educated attitude toward the influence of beauty 28 & § to -5 N THE LURE OF WASHINGTON in a national city brought about the formation ot the Park and the Fine Arts Commissions. The recommendations of the Park Commission, when executed, will create a city of vistas as planned by I'Enfant, and build it about groups of noble public buildings situated on the axis of the Mall. The park system will be developed and amplified until it becomes a magnificent perimeter tor the city and lungs for her citizens. "The educational effect of the architectural development ot Washington," wrote Mr. Taft, "will be most elevating. It will show itself in the plans tor the improvement of other cities, and it will cultivate a love of the beau- tiful that will make for the happiness of all." Moreover, the growing importance ot the United States among nations emphasizes the aspect ot her capital with tremendous importance. A shabby or ugly barbaric city is no longer excusable. The mecca, not only of her own citizens, but of the choicest ot the world, Washing- ton must be irreproachable, an example of municipal beauty and government, and ot national pride. Some municipal promoters would increase the industrial and manufacturing business of Washington. Although they can quote the founder of the city in plan- ning for a great "commercial emporium," may their tribe decrease! No private industry should be allowed to mar the beauty of the city or its value as a neutral zone for convention and conference. As the center for government business, Washington will have auxiliary commerce enough. The Federal Government already maintains one of the finest manufacturing plants in the world, the Bureau ot Engraving and Printing. This must not be contounded with the huge Govern- ment Printing Office, northwest of Union Station, which also claims that its descriptive adjectives should be in the superlative. The Printing Otfice prints, wraps and distributes all government publications. Its output is enormous, and includes the CongressioJial Record, published daily during the sitting ot Congress. At trequent intervals campaigns are waged against the Printing Office and the waste ot public money in printed words, but the plant and the output of the Public Printer increases as public business increases. The Bureau of Elngraving and Printing is a division ot the Treasury Department. Here are designed and printed from the plates skilfully engraved in the Bureau all United States notes, bonds and certificates, all national bank notes, all postage stamps, all revenue stamps, all Treasury drafts and checks, all disbursing checks, all federal licenses and commissions, all patent and pension certificates, and all authorized portraits of public officers. The business ot the Bureau is normally gigantic and during the war increased incredibly. It has the reputation of being an ideal workshop as far as industrial conditions can be mitigated tor the worker, but the strictest accounting of each worker and his work is kept because of the pecuniary value of the paper and products involved. This strict supervision seems .^i The Capitol © E. L. Crandall At 2. JO a.m., April 6, 191 7, the moment when war was declared against Ger- many. The reflection of the dome in the wet sidewalk makes it an unusual picture THE LURE OF WASHINGTON '•Bureau of Engraving and '■Printing Night view ot Bureau of Engraving and Print- ing, witli the Monument in the background to the visitor, also strictly guarded, like that ot a penal institution, and while he appreciates the worth of a two-cent stamp more than before he saw and snielled the red ink in the making, he is relieved to be tree again to wander among the trees of the Mall. At night, however, the Bureau is a picturesque sight seen trom Poto- mac Drive. The long reflections of electric and mercury lights peacefully spill themselves into the depths of the Tidal Basin in great flakes ot white and violet and green. No sound issues, and the tremendous building looks like a Temple of Light erected for a gav exposition rather than an industrious manufactory of paper moneys. If much of the fascination of Washington has been shown to lie in the history of its development and in allusions to its makers and the making of the nation, the Capital has a unique attraction for the American in being not a mercantile or commercial city, but a city the activities ot which depend upon industrial leisure. Henry James pointed out what a tremendous difference is made by this, and how Washington is the only "large human assemblage on the continent" where the social life counts for men. Elsewhere, he finds the business man must leave society to the woman. Here both are in the social picture, with a "male presence supremely presiding" in the White House. It is Mr. James who distinguishes Washington from other American cities as the City of Conversation. It is a city dedicated to politics and government and society, and the talk that crystallizes these ideas. The circles of conversation spread out from the Capitol and the Committee rooms in the great Office Buildings north and south ot the Senate and House wings: they are around the White House itself, circles to which the newspaper man keeps tangent; they are circles of the newspaper men themselves, the Fourth Estate, here all experts and all raconteurs. [33] THE LURE OF WASHINGTON The diplomatic circles, moreover, distinguish Washington and lift her beyond other cities that boast a census that is cosmopolitan, but made up of industrial workers. One afternoon's drive in Washington can show the visitor a delegation from Abyssinia in crimson mantles and silk turbans, carrying into the White House gifts of ivory and gold; a party of big Oklahoma chiefs come to interview the Secretary ot the Interior about oil lands; dapper South American attaches emerging from the Pan-American Building; a group of earnest Middle-Europeans going into the State Department with their despatch bags; the children of the Chinese minister being sunned by their nurses; some British secretaries keen for tennis at Chevy Chase. One never knows whom to expect, or what, although international manners have progressed since the days of Meley Meley of the Turkish Legation, who is said to have embraced a portly negress employed at an entertainment given in his honor, because she reminded him of his favorite and most costly wife; or of the early lavish Chinese balls in Stewart Castle on Dupont Circle, when the American guests crowded so madly for refreshments that Paris toilettes were irreparably ruined and servants even injured. Washington diplomats, however, do lend to the city not only the festivity of various uniforms and complexions and liveried motors, but also etiquette. There are still manners and social usages expected in a capital, and conventions for prece- dence and the making and returning of calls that disgust a bolshevist and need memory and tact for observance. The gentle art of dinner-giving is also extant in Washington, and is practiced in private houses and not in hotels. Hostesses survive who respect gastronomy and to whom a Peacock Alley and cafe suppers are tawdry things. There are many homes whose social gatherings are salons, open to the privileged, although unadvertised to press reporters. Enormous formal teas and receptions passed away a decade ago, and the technique of the visiting card is not so elaborate as formerly, when everybody's card and her husband's had to be left for every female member of a household visited. Social tradition, however, guarded by the "cave-dwellers," as the older resident families are called, obtains even over the floating political population and the plutocrats who flock to Washington to build palaces, copied from Italy and France. Foreign governments have housed their diplomatic representatives indifferently well, though there are some notable exceptions. In 1914, there were eleven embassies and twenty-nine legations. The oldest of these is the British, a Victorian brick pile on Connecticut Avenue and N Streets, where the crowns on the gatepost announce that England still tolerates a king; but it is not nearly so dignified in style as the former home of the embassy on Lafayette Square, where young Owen Meredith drafted "Lucille" when his uncle, Lord Lytton, was minister. It is said that Lord Ashburton planned to move the legation from that house to Grant Row, on Capitol Hill, but the churlishness of [34] *77»e Connecticut oAt enue 'bridge Sometimes called the "Million Dollar Bridge," spans Rock Creek at a very picturesque spot THE LURE OF WASHINGTON the builder offended him, and he chose the northern site, to the social decadence of the eastern. The handsomest of the new embassies are on Sixteenth Street, the Avenue oi thePresidents, with a superb vista from the French Embassy on Meridian Hill to the White House, a mile away. Anyone may daily see the modest carriage oi M. Jusserand waiting to take the Ambassador for his daily drive in the park. While social rank is recognized in Washington as in no other city, republican equality crowds her, if not unpolitely. Marquises and coimtesses and lords are shopping, going to the theater, walking the same pavement with the humblest native of Kansas, Vermont or North Dakota. If you watch the pictorial press and the news films, you discover the distinguished are your neighbors anywhere. The Secret Service men who accompany the President are the onlv outriders who announce rank, and even the White House eagle does not scream. Your rusty little car may get first into one of the charming crossings of Rock Creek, and the Presi- dent waits on the other side, with courteous salute, it you recognize your chief magistrate. Congressmen, who loom large in their home districts, are as plentiful in the capital as blackberries in the field. Unless they are veterans or notably advertised, they are not observed of all observers, although their wives and daugh- ters are the only eligibles to the Congressional Club to which Mrs. John Henderson gave the clubhouse at 2001 New Hampshire Avenue. In proportion to its size, W'ashington is not a city of many clubs, hardly three dozen all told that have abiding place. Perhaps the Capitol itself is a sort of club and usurps the function of others. The House of Representatives according to its own record is a kaleidoscopic picture of the boasted fact that a man may climb to Capitol Hill from any walk in life. Some of the callings hitherto pursued by the Sixty-sixth Congress are "iron-moulder, miner, farmer, banker, stock raiser, horti- culturist, tree surgeon, cotton-planter, sugar producer, superintendent of public education, physician, journeyman hatter, cheese manafucturer, locomotive engineer, professor of history, dean of college and baggage master." A few Washington clubs other than Congress have more than local reputation. A University Club main- tains academic standards on McPherson Square. The Army and Navy have com- modious and dignified quarters overlooking Vinnie Ream Hoxie's statue of the Old Salamander, Admiral Farragut. The Metropolitan is wealthy, fastidious, and non-commercial. There are several outdoor clubs, all inviting Presidential golf. The most prominent and exclusive is that at Chevy Chase, the name of which con- jures up the ballad of Percy and Northumberland and "A woefull hunting once there did In Chevv-Chace befall." The property of the club was a country estate belonging to an old family, who lent [36] The Scottish %Ue Temple Representing one hundred and forty sets of Masonic bodies and modelled after the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus in Asia Minor, was erected at a cost of ^1,500,000 THE LURE OF WASHINGTON m> " ' •*« 9c. '^C'>r'V»??:^''- qA '^sidential oAvenue An avenue looking toward the Washington Monument it to the late Honorable Joseph Chamberlain, the English statesman, for his honey- moon when he married Miss Endicott of Salem. The Club was originally a fox- hunting organization, but with the growth of Washington has developed into an aristocratic suburban group, with an admirable golf course and a new house built of Maryland stone in the style of the venerable Nourse homestead on Wisconsin Avenue, the "Highlands." Probably the Cosmos Club embraces features more unusual than does Chevy Chase. Its quarters include the elegant house of Benjamin Ogle-Tayloe, one of the most accomplished Americans of his time, heir to the governors of Maryland, and collector of rare art treasures now in the Corcoran Gallery. The house was later lived in by the Pauldings, Vice-President Hobart, Senator Hanna, and the Militant SuffVagettes, a motley array of ancestral denizens for the thinkers who make up the Cosmos Club. The main part of the club dwelling was the home of Dolly Madison from her husband's death until her own funeral from neighboring Saint John's. That quaint church, erected in 1816, was the first building on the square, and became a President's Church, attended by every incumbent of the White House from Madison to Lincoln, and also by President Arthur, Mrs. Roose- velt and Mrs. Taft. Mrs. Madison was confirmed there in 1845. ^^e had returned to Washington in 1837 and taken up her residence in the Lafayette Square house [39] THE LURE OF WASHINGTON her husband had left her, then a small two-story and attic structure, having a gable roof and dormer windows and a garden to H Street and to the Tayloe house. It was here the pretty and energetic widow held a sort of court, and her name overshadows that of the politicians and soldiers who later occupied the house. As the abode of the Cosmos Club, it is considered the intellectual center of non-polit- ical life in Washington. Mr. Wells was terribly disappointed that Washington did not think, even at the Cosmos Club. He found no traffic in modern ideas, only several thousand scientific men busily engaged with investigation on social lines of science, and no philosophy to synthesize their research. He decided that Wash- ington "converses well without awkwardness, without chatterings, kindly, watch- ful, agreeably witty," but that she is incurious and indifferent to modern social perplexities. He confessed, however, that it was the most agreeable social atmos- phere in all America. The governmental departments and bureaus utilizing these scientific experts and collecting them in the capital, are increasing tremendously. The Smithsonian Institution used to mean the science of Washington, but the Departments of Agri- culture and Commerce take up investigations and publish monographs that make them successful rivals, and the various surveys of the enormous Department ot the Interior even infringe upon the ethnographical work of the Smithsonian. The latter establishment is the gift of an eccentric Englishman who in 1826 left his fortune to the United States for furthering the "increase and diffusion of knowl- edge among men," believing that in the new republic he had never visited, the Book of Knowledge would be opened to the Human Understanding as it is repre- sented in Mr. Blashfield's painting in the canopy of the Congressional Library. The Smithsonian Institution is governed by a board of United States officials who administer this fund, devoting it to the needs of original investigation and the international exchange of scientific publications. It also has under its charge vari- ous government bureaus furthering education, among them are the National Zoo- logical Park and the National Museum. The National Museum is the depository of national collections. These are housed in the original Smithsonian edifice; in the older Museum, including collec- tions relating to American history and the development of the arts and crafts of man; and in the splendid new building, which shows exhibits illustrating ethnology, archaeology, paleontology, zoology and geology. Catlin's Indian portraits are there; the Roosevelt African animals; mastodons, meteorites, totem poles, cliff dwellings, and the birds of the District of Columbia. These collections are indeed illustrations for the whole book of knowledge. Housed at present in the new Musuem is also the nucleus of a National Gallery of Art. It comprises the Marsh collection of prints, the Johnston collection of British painters, and the Evans collection of 40, ^ d. THE LURE OF WASHINGTON The 'Rational ^Museum Contains in preservation the bodies of iic.ul) laliv known animal from the smallest insect up to the giant dinosaur sv '^ contemporary American art. The Freer collection of Chinese and Japanese art, and the famous Whistler etchings and paintings are displayed in a neighboring new building on the Mall where the Peacock Room from the Leyland house is set up to exemplify Whistler's genius in decoration, and impress the fact that he was a native of the United States. This is a gift to the nation bv the late Mr. Freer, of Detroit, Michigan. The Corcoran Art Gallery does not belong to the Government. It also was a philanthropy of a wealthy citizen of Georgetown who died in 1893 and who be- lieved with Carnegie "that at least one-half of his money accumulations should be held for the welfare of men." The original public gallery at the corner of the Avenue and Seventeenth Street was used as a hospital during the Civil War, but later restored. When outgrown, it was superseded by the marble gallery facing the Mall. Mr Corcoran also founded the Louise home on Massachusetts Avenue, a retreat for gentlewomen of Southern birth who have become impoverished. This Elysium of gentility is in memory of Mr. Corcoran's wife, Louise Morris, and his daughter Louise, who married the Honorable George Eustis, of Louisiana. In contrast, the John Dickson Home, also founded by another benevolent George- town citizen, is for the benefit in their old age of unsuccessful merchants of the District of Columbia. [43I 'Washington ts a City of Columns^* "Few cities have borrowed so extensively as Washington from the architectural achieve- ments of the past. The employment of the col- umn in its public architecture is notable. " This is a view taken looking out from the Treasury THE LURE OF WASHINGTON lERHAPS Washington, in spite of its Corcoran, Freer and Evans galleries, will never become a great art-student center like Paris or New York, but its exhibitions are increasingly notable, and the influence of the Fine Arts Commission in eliminating bad art in memorial statues, fountains, bridges and public buildings, attracts artists to the city, both to study and exhibit their work. The American Federation of IIIM '^^^^ edits its monthly magazine in Washington and holds its annual meeting here. St. Gaudens's greatest accom- plishment, the Adams memorial, is in old St. Paul's Churchyard. One must grant that the vistas of the city, its columns and cornices, its sylvan charm throughout the seasons, its beauty of waters, and its atmospheric moods make it paintable. Jules Guerin has caught its characteristics and it has produced one or two native interpreters of its woods and marshes, but there should be others before it loses all its antebellum cabins and its Georgian mansions, and becomes better-ordered, less shiftless, more national, and less Southern. Although the city has not yet produced a man of letters, it has attracted writers of all sorts. Journalists abound, reporters, correspondents, and newspaper princes. Joel Barlow was living at Kalorama, on Rock Creek, when he published his American epic. George Bancroft, Henry Adams, John Hay, Roosevelt, and Jusserand have published historical studies from Washington. Walt Whitman, John Burroughs and Joaquin Miller wrote here. The log cabin of the poet of the Sierras was on Meridian Hill where Mr. Henry White's house stands, and was removed by the California society to one of the glens of Rock Creek Park. Mrs. Southworth's vineclad cottage still overlooks the Potomac. Several novels have hrd their scenes laid in W^ashington, notably "Senator North," and "Through One Administration." The drama has constantly sought its scene in the capital, both in broad comedy and political intrigue. Julia Ward Howe wrote the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" in the old Willard Hotel, after returning from an inspec- tion of the defenses at Brightwood in 1861. During the Great W'ar the gigantic services ot the American Red Cross bound the world to Washington as the home of the "Greatest Mother." One of the most beautiful tributes paid to the women of the North and South who rendered service to their armies during the war between the States has been the erection in Washing- ton of this white marble building for the National Headquarters of the American Red Cross. It is situated on a terraced lawn, opposite the Mall where it touches the White House grounds. The building thus belongs to the most celebrated group of single buildings in the United States. The right side faces the Corcoran Art Gallery, the left the Memorial Continental Hall. W'est are temporary buildings «xH?ffi32/ [45] THE LURE OF WASHINGTON erected for war service needs. The origin of the building is simply told by the inscription on the entablature over the main entrance — "A Memorial to the Heroic Women of the Civil War." The suggestion for this memorial came from Captain James Scrymser, of New York. The building was erected through the subscriptions of Captain Scrymser, Mrs. Russell Sage, Mrs. E. H. Harriman, the Rockefeller Foundation and Congress. The building is not merely a monument, but contains the offices of the headquarters' stafF. A most interesting feature is the magnificent window, the gift of the women of the North and South, the former giving the left panel, the latter the right, the center being a contribution by both. The window depicts the spirit of the Red Cross in times of war and peace, the right panel por- traying Red Cross workers on their way to the battlefields, one of them stopping to offer a drink of water to a child found on the roadside. The memorial thus interprets the Red Cross as the world's international ideal of mercy, lending unsel- fish aid whenever and wherever war, pestilence, storm or disaster has wrought dis- tress, and knowing no bounds of racial or religious or political separation. The value of Washington as a factor in all general education is testified to by the custom of annually sending graduating classes of high schools and academies to make the capital a vacation visit. From New England alone at each Easter the rail- roads bring in from three to five thousand pupils and teachers. Five hundred teach- ers from Canada have come in a single party. The Army sends its officers for gradu- ate study to the W^ar College and Camp Humphreys, and the vicinity of Annapolis gives an interesting sprinkling of midshipmen and naval officers to capital society. The National Educational Association has recently established its permanent head- quarters in Washington. There is as yet no true national university, as planned by George Washington, but it will be realized. Lord Bryce has suggested that it need not be of the same type as the great state universities, but that it should be dedi- cated to three kinds of study, to theoretic science, to the arts and the artistic side of life and to what are called the human studies of a philological, historical, and polit- ical order. Although this national university is yet to be founded, the number and character of educational institutions and the general opportunities for study, re- search, and culture give feature to the city's life. The Smithsonian and its museum and libraries, the Carnegie Institution, the Naval Observatory, the bureaus of standards, hygiene, and weather observation, the bureaus of the Department of Labor, the Library of Congress, and the Capitol, a very laboratory for politics, make an educational environment that is a true university. Add the annual meetings and conventions that are held in Washington, collecting in discussion distinguished men and women of every type, and we have possible that system of education Macaulay demonstrated as characteristic of Athens: "Almost all the education of a Greek," he says, "consisted in talking and [46] © Harris & Ewing l^tional Headquarters of the American ^^d Cross This beautiful white marble building is the home ol "The Greatest Mother in theWorld"and"A Memorial to the Women of the Civil War** Towers of the Smithsonian Institution The Institution was founded by an Englishman, James Smithson, whose will bequeathed a half million dollars for the founding of this institution for "the increase and diffusion of knowledge** THE LURE OF WASHINGTON listening. His opinions on government were picked up in the debates of the assem- bly. If he wished to study metaphysics, instead of shutting himself up with a book, he walked down to the market-place to look for a sophist." From the architecture ot the Parthenon and the play of Sophocles, from debate, oratory, and association with the superior society the lively Greek capital afforded, the Athenian gathered his education, stirred by national enthusiasm to his fullest development as an individual. If it was an education to live in Athens, it ought to be such to live in Washington. The very sight of historical tablets and government buildings fosters the idea of nationality, and in so vast a country, of so complex a make-up, the production of national consciousness is an important phase of education. It is wise and good to realize our capital, to know our nation as a living organism. The first daughter born to white parents in Washington after it became the seat of government in 1800 was Elizabeth Hooten Stelle. When she was old enough to go to school, she had to be sent to Philadelphia, as there were no schools for girls in the capital. Attended by a negro maid, the young girl went back and forth by stage, the trip taking the best part of a week, and accompanied with discomforts, if not actual dangers. Elizabeth probably learned to "sew, floure, write and dance." Perhaps she studied Noah Webster's blue-backed speller and Bingham's "Young Lady's Accidence, or a Short and Easy Introduction to English Grammar, design'd principally for the use of Young Learners, more especially for those of the Fair Sex, though proper for Either." The curriculum of the schools of her time was very limited. A history of later female education in the capital has not been written, but would include many famous institutions, and be interesting reading. There are now more than twenty well-established private boarding-schools for girls in Washington, one of them with an enrollment of three hundred and fifty pupils. This latter school. National Park Seminary, is situated in the beautiful Rock Creek valley, about nine miles north of the White House. It obtained its name from being bounded on the west by Rock Creek, the valley of which, as far as the Maryland line, had, when the school was opening, been recently made a national park and the topic of much discussion and description. The bill for the national reservation of Rock Creek valley was passed by Con- gress in 1890, but the actual purchase not completed until 1894. This park, distinct from, though adjoining the Zoological Park, which is also part of the Rock Creek valley but a museum protege of the Smithsonian Institution, includes 1,632 acres, under the supervision and control of the Chief of Engineers of the United States. More than a quarter of a century before its reservation, Frederick Lay Olmstead, the distinguished landscape architect, serving in Washington as the general secre- tary of the Sanitary Commission, had made frequent excursions into the region and been deeply impressed with its natural beauty and suitability for park purposes. [48] 1 ^^H IfTM 'W l» ■■'■ li^ ^M0l^^^^^*^^pf^^mr-mr-t "ft'*' • " The Treasury Statue ot General Sherman on the lett ' jh 11 11. 11 lUJ ii ii Ji ;,/''>i\^ ^^1 »T»)frE murr State, War and Nary Building This great columnar pile is one of the largest buildings in the National Capital Y M I > ■ / m B THE LURE OF WASHINGTON In 1866, Major Michler, an engineer officer, appointed to find a site for a "Public Park and Presidential Mansion" had recommended the Rock. Creek valley as a park worthy of a great people. "All the elements which constitute a public resort of the kind can be found in this wild and romantic tract of country. With its charming drives and walks, its hills and dales, its pleasant valleys and deep ravines, its primeval forests and culti- vated fields, its running waters, its rocks clothed with rich fern and mosses, its repose and tranquillity, its light and shade, its ever-varying shrubbery, its beautiful and extensive views, the locality is already possessed of all the features necessary for the object in view. Major Michler made further suggestion that the natural beauty of the region should be preserved, and that nothing be done by the artist and engineer except pruning and removing of what was distasteful, together with improving of roads and paths and the construction of new ones as needed. Although it took a genera- tion to persuade Congress to the project, when the park was at last secured. Major Michler's wise recommendations as to its development were followed. The park is remarkable tor its closeness to nature and its lack of artifice, even after a quarter of a century of federal control and constantly increasing use by tourists and the citizens of the capital. If the object of a national park is to protect beauties of nature, give a refuge for wild life and prevent private ownership of land valuable for health and recrea- tion, that object is attained in Rock Creek Park. The flora of the whole valley is varied and charming, and national biological surveys have shown that during the spring migrations of birds the greatest number of species have been noted in the Rock Creek valley, between Forest Glen and Chevy Chase. It is a bird and tree sanctuary, where the wayfarer, like the Greek, finds a presence in every thicket, a god in the stream. Emerson has said that in the woods one returns to reason and faith and to a conscious relationship between man and nature that brings good to the soul. Proximity to such scenes as Rock Creek Park furnishes, means not only first-hand knowledge of birds, trees, flowers and stones, but ethical impulses invalu- able to the processes of education. In 1894, the year Rock Creek Park was opened. National Park Seminary was founded, by the genius of a man and a woman who through strict experience had learned to value opportunity. It has eventually become an "institution really great in its power to touch and mould and transform girl life." It has utilized the advan- tages of the capital for the study of civics and science and the arts; the inspiration of history and biography while making; the urbane influences of a cosmopolitan city. It has utilized these with the thought of the process of character rather than mere intellectuality or social polish. And it has stimulated the imagination and [50] The ''Gothic Arch of American Elms' Beheld as one looks up New Hampshire Avenue — one of many such treed avenues in the Nation's Capital The Inviting Shaae along ^^l^rth Capitol Street James Bryce, when he was here as Ambassador from Great Britain, said. "I know of no city in which the trees seem to be so much a part of the city as Wash- ington. Nothing can be more delightful. . . ." THE LURE OF WASHINGTON furnished the memory by being set in the midst of "woods and templed hills," where song birds and wild flowers abound, where its sponsor stream sings over grey rocks and curves along meadows purpled with April violets; where the white- oaks have lifted their green crowns for a century and a half, and nature and the poet cry "With me The girl, in rock and plain, In earth and heaven, in glade and bower Shall feel an overseeing power To kindle or restrain. She shall be sportive as the fawn That wild with glee across the lawn Or up the mountain springs; And hers shall be the breathing balm, And hers the silence and the calm Of mute insensate things. The floating clouds their estate shall lend To her; for her the willow bend; Nor shall she fail to see Even in the motions of the storm Grace that shall mould the maiden's torm By silent sympathy. The stars ot midnight shall be dear To her; and she shall lend her ear In many a secret place Where rivulets dance their wayward round. And beauty born ot murmuring sound Shall fall into her face, And vital feelings of delight Shall rear her form to stately height. Her virgin bosom swell." This influence of nature as the wholesome and vital factor in education deter- mined the choice of the site of the National Park Seminary. The type of educational life that has grown up there seems to have flowered out of the Glen, as naturally as the native anemones, the dogwood and laurel, the violets, the golden-rod and holly. Outdoor life prevails; informal, devoted to long walks in jolly groups over the macadam Maryland roads, or scrambling through the blossoming woods, kodak in hand: and organized, in the Student Athletic Association, which governs the sports and events of the gymnasium and the field. The fresh morning air invigorates swift passage from building to building, when between classes come glimpses of birds and trees and even airplanes, hunting Langley Field. The mellow spring twi- lights after dinner mean garlands of girls winding, arm-entwined, around Hebe Circle, breathing the fragrant spring, their pale dresses making them look like white moths among the glimmering fireflies. And the myriads of open windows bring in sweet healthy dreams to eyes whose last sleepy gaze is upon the clear stars that glow "now red, now blue" between rocking tree tops. Within call of the Main [5^] cA "^ght Uiew of The Washington Monument The oApex is Lighted by a Searchlight "Taken by itself the Washington Monument stands not only as one of the most stupendous works of man, but also as one ot the most beautiful of all human cre- ations. Dominating the entire District of Columbia, it has taken its place with the Capitol and the White House as the three foremost national structures" THE LURE OF WASHINGTON Building are secluded retreats embowered in tern and ivy and honeysuckle, where a stone bench invites chums to mutual confidence, while they watch a red-bird bathe in the splashing stream, or listen to the thrush's melody between the lustier, synco- pated harmonies that are coming from some neighboring club-house. Those darling club-houses! There are eight of them, a miniature World's Exposition in national styles, Dutch windmill, Swiss chalet, Mediaeval tower, Spanish mission, American bungalow, Japanese temple. They are the educational recreation centers of this girl community, founded long before any of the charming Blue Triangle huts, but doing similar service on a more intensive scale. Ask why these clubs are fostered by their Alma Mater, why they are so intimate a part of the life of every pupil, so fascinating a lure to new girls and old. They will tell you that they love the club- house because it is theirs, a little house, a fireside nook, to get them away from the crowd when they are solitary, and to give them jolly friends and games when they are sociable. They will say that the club-house is home, with a benign maternal presence to comfort or command, a kitchen to cook in, an electric iron, a piano, light magazines to drop into wicker chairs with, and Walt Whitman's "institution of the dear love of comrades." They will confess, dimpling, that they would like to keep house here — for two — and will show you the kitchen aluminum, the silver cofFee-urn, the monogrammed dish towels, the gas-oven and the Rules for the House Committee, "that you must keep, or lose your house privileges." One dam- sel may add that here she learned to dust, having always before lived in a hotel; and another show you her club recipe for hot chocolate fudge that an elder club- sister of hers made for hundreds of thousands of soldiers at Camp Dix; while an- other tells you gravely that she is an only child and never knew how sweet or how hard it is to live with girls. "But I have learned to do it, and to value it." You will be reminded that a woman architect designed all these houses, and that each club furnishes its own house according to its own idea, thereby educating its deco- rative taste, and also learning how to expend its income wisely, for club accounts must be carefully kept and audited and there are always overhead expenses to be remembered, and no deficit to be allowed at the end of the year. And then the friendships formed in the clubs! Youth is the fertile season for sowing friendship; soil and seed are both ready for sprouting, and no other friendships are apt to be so influential, so disinterested. They last, in memory always, in correspondence often. There is a prettv story of Abigail Fillmore and her schoolmate, Julia Miller, at Miss Sedwick's School in Lenox, Mass., who were one day discussing their future: "Abbie said that when she was grown she meant to teach school. 'Oh, no, you won't,' said I, 'my father says your father will be President some day and you won't be allowed to teach school. You'll be the President's daughter and live in the White House.' [54] ^ SO «- THE LURE OF WASHINGTON '"What nonsense" she said, 'I am going to be a teacher and earn my own living.' "'Well, I don't believe any such thing. But if you teach school, I'll come to your school as a pupil, even if I'm an old woman and married.' "'All right,' said Abbie, laughing. 'You'll look well doing it. And if my father ever gets to be President, you shall visit me in the W'hite House.'" Abigail Fillmore did teach as a pupil in the State Normal at Albany and Julia Miller was in her class. Later when Mr. Fillmore became President, the invitation to the White House came to Julia for the opening of Congress, 1852, and the two friends were united in the gayeties of a Washington winter. Julia Miller's descrip- tions of the parties, celebrities, and costumes of the season are naive and enthusi- astic, just such letters as an appreciative girl would write home today. She tells of a New Year's reception, where Abigail wore a silk of changeable green and red, with three flounces and fine French muslin embroideries in waist and sleeves, while she wore a Napoleon blue silk with black velvet trimming and embroidered muslin sleeves. She describes Mrs. Alexander Hamilton, then ninety-two years old, lively with fascinating memories; a visit to Mount Vernon with Washington Irving, "a placid, sweet, lovable old gentleman," when the Washington family were still the owners of the estate; and the unveiling of the statue of General Jackson in Lafayette Square on the thirty-eighth anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans. The statue had been cast by the sculptor, Clark Mills, at his Bladensburg studio, east of the city, and the dedication was a great patriotic and artistic event, although the square was still a ragged, unkempt enclosure, not at all the honorable park Wash- ington intended when he named it for Lafayette. But Julia Miller enjoyed every day of her sight-seeing. The lure of Washington is amazingly strong in girls. The romance and beauty of the city, its relations to the past, its modern history in the making, its varied types of society and the important role of social intercourse itself, are attractive to the young girl who looks out on a new womanhood in which she must relate herself to civics and social justice. Washington, moreover, is a border city, with many of the sweet vestiges of the Southland lingering about it, seductive especially to the North and the West, indeed to every human heart. Wise parents, looking for educa- tion beyond the high school, education that shall have all the inspiration of Wash- ington — an inspiration which the environment of no other city in the Union can give — and yet be free of the shackles and distractions of town life, seek Forest Glen. The porters on the Baltimore and Ohio express trains point it out as they approach Washington: "Yes, suh, dat's de Semernary, suh. All dem lights, suh. No, 'taint no city, suh, leastways, no onerary city, suh, jus' a young ladies' city. You jes' orter see 'em, suh, when dey stops disher train for em ter go or come at vacation, suh, jes' like er buhds en de spring, er chatterin' and er singin'." n) ■ I I Mil [57] T3 ES THE LURE OF WASHINGTON ^HE speeding express gives only a glimpse of the Odeon, with its Greek portico, summoning poetry and music, or the Villa set in charming winter gardens of box-hedge and cypress; but it is only twenty minutes back by railway, or better, a half hour by motor. Out the Avenue of the Presidents to Brightwood and Georgia Avenue, the old Pike of '64; past Fort Stevens, once "a strong piece of War's geometry" where Lincoln stood tear- essly under fire; past the site of the toll-gate where the Sixth Corps drove General Early away from the Capital; past Walter Reed Hospital with all its hopes of human reconstruction; past the Maryland boundary line and Silver Spring, the estate of those Blairs who have figured in Washington history since the days of The Globe, into a Maryland lane, picturesque with honeysuckle, sassafras and periwinkle, and here are the beautiful grounds of the Seminary! If time to linger amid tempting scenes is adequate, another approach would have taken the visitor from the city over the million-dollar Connecticut Avenue Bridge, through the interesting roads of the Zoological Park, and into the enchanting ravines of Rock Creek Park itself. Following the stream northward, exclaiming over the golden sylvan-shadowed pools, or the foaming rush over the great boulders with which its bed is so frequently laden, the visitor may overtake a bevy of Forest Glen girls in their car, returning from a sightseeing trip to Arlington or Great Falls, or on horseback, trailing happily along the bridle-path that follows the bank of the Creek, now one side, now the other. To a Forest Glen girl the splashing joy of crossing the frequent concreted fords of Rock Creek is inexhaustible. Indeed, Rock Creek, with its thirty or forty miles of meandering about Montgomery County before it sloughs its final clay banks into the Potomac at Georgetown, is her stream, wherever it is. It encircles her glen, it bears her violets to the sea; it nurtures the roots of her oaks. It is along the meadows or on the laurelled brows of Rock Creek that she has gathered memories and dreamed dreams more precious than schoolroom texts. Do not class our Seminary girl tor a moment among abnormal nature-wor- shippers. Being female and young, the Monday privilege of F Street shops, tempt- ing with finery, gay with the business of women, is a precious excitement, and, as one girl wit remarked, "She could shop on F Street forever, if the Treasury did not block her progress." Pennsylvania Avenue means another sort of street exhil- aration to her, that of great crowds and processions, where her glance can scan a mile of wide cleared thoroughfare, bordered by surging human beings and tossing flags. She has heard grandfather tell of the Grand Review on the Avenue in May, 1865, of the funeral pomps of martyred presidents, of famous inaugurations in storm and in fair weather, of historic festivals and pageants; she has heard of the 14 V ^ ^. V S ^B [59 THE LURE OF WASHINGTON 'Peace 'T'arade A section of the "Peace Parade" coming up Pennsylvania Avenue Suffragette Parade when Fort Myer troops were ordered out; of the morning when Papa Joffre rode in cheering triumph; of the Preparedness Parade, headed by Wilson, with his flag and straw hat. The Avenue means all these to her, but it means most when it is the marching way for the cadets from West Point or the mid- shipmen from Annapolis. Her heart then beats wildly, and she finds them nonpareil, these unrivalled warriors, the masculine form divine. Blue or grav, it matters not which he is, provided he is! As the level steady lines wheel into Fifteenth Street, the Avenue has a radiance that makes it the most glorious street in the world and the Seminary girl turns regretfully from it to seek her trolley for Forest Glen. But the clean woodsy odors of the Glen revive her spirits, the lights are twinkling welcome, and savory preparations increase the appetite of which she even ordinarily boasts as hearty. Then she dreamily realizes that the Glen School spells Home, and that its education, expert as that ot any vocational institution, is intended to develop in her a love of domestic ideals, as well as a knowledge of national history. The lure of Washington has fascinated her with its hints of public grandeur, of political intrigue, ot international pomps, but experience shows that the greatest men are the simplest, those born to the highest rank, the most democratic. A newly arrived mistress of the White House, Mrs. Tyler, wrote to a friend: "Instead of talking dresses and bonnets, I know you will think I ought to give my impressions 60 ■ cA Lone '■Pine On the Upper Potomac, standing out in poster effect aix.r.! A BIRD'S-EYE VII Showing location ot National Pai indicated by the arrow in the up] after the plans of the commission grounds is Lafayette Square, trc north. Those driving to the Se obliqiieU' to the right on Alaska after which the way is clear. 1 nary; one via Chew Chase am latter is the most beautiful of tl' scenes in the Park as are pictu OF WASHINGTON inary to the northward of the cit\', -hand corner. The city is pictured n . Just north of the White House center of which i6th Street runs ' follow this street till thev turn e; then north on Georgia Avenue, re two other routes to the Semi- through Rock Creek Park. The ; ways and leads past many such re on the left and on the right. THE LURE OF WASHINGTON Congress on an Opening l^ay It is here the heart of the nation beats and the future of our country is mapped out of these intellectual giants, but when you meet them in real life, you forget they are great men at all, and just find them the most charming companions in the world, talking the most delightful nonsense." Washington is a democratic city, and, if not the center of the nation geographically, it is the gravitating center of the home life of Uncle Sam's big family, where a national democracy is maintained by the mingling of all kinds of people from all the counties of all the states in the Union. A residence in Washington certainly makes one less provincial. Residence in any big city makes one urban, more or less, usually with a certain snobbishness. In Wash- ington, however, the dependence of the national capital upon the whole nation keeps alive a sense of democracy, and nourishes a wide human sympathy that looks toward a possible brotherhood, with the Capital as paternal adviser to every man. Democracy radiating from home centers is therefore the ideal at National Park Seminary. The extent of patronage represented, the number of states, the varied communities and industries pupils know and talk ot; the salmon-canning of Astoria, the shoe factories of Lvnn, mines in Butte, farm land of Illinois, ranches in the Pan Handle, tobacco factories in Tampa, intimate talk of these widens any girl's vision. Towns scattered over the whole map become vital spots because school friends live there. Sympathy grows through such acquaintance. .Adaptation must result also, for standards of living differ in communities, and for the girl from Cali- fornia to room with the girl from Connecticut is often an ennobling test of demo- [65] 4 V. A \^ Q THE LURE OF WASHINGTON cratic patience and understanding on both sides. And the experiment poHshes both. In the Seminary chib Hte also, to which all are admitted and in which no exclusive clique grouping is permitted by the secret committee of students, de- mocracy is supreme. Here, too, the ideals of the home community are the ultimate aim. Each club is a hive of domestic impulses, with the club mother as the queen bee, and the Neighbor's Law written over each threshold. The Seminary govern- ment recognizes these club families as a national government recognizes states. Certain prerogatives are theirs, affairs not to be interfered with, but inter-club matters are regulated by the school. Representation by clubs is granted in student government, athletics, house management, class organization and festivals, and the club indeed makes the school unique. No acquaintance with National Park Seminary is adequate that does not include her festivals. They are part of her educational system, planned to keep alive myths, legends, and facts of history and literature, to encourage library and art research, to give outlet to the natural dramatic instinct of the voung, to teach various individualities to work together for a harmonious common purpose, and to applaud the art of joyous, healthy, community play as one of the essentials men live by. Centenaries, famous men, and unusual events are celebrated, but the usual festivals begin in October with the harvest home of Maryland fields, followed by the mediteval witchery of Hallowe'en, when hundreds of sheet-clad ghosts move in procession up and down the Glen, from every hollow of which mock horrors emerge like miasma from a swamp. Thanksgiving preserves the memory of colonial settle- ments, with the President's proclamation to be read, basket-ball games, and a marvellous Aladdin feast before the great crackling fire, the whole school dining at eight family tables, those of the eight clubs, and surrounded by lavish decorative gifts from field, garden and orchard. December brings a holier festival, that of the lighting of the candles in the wreath for Advent, and the singing ot old Christmas carols proclaiming Emmanuel and good-will to all men. Many a new resolve and illuminated heart goes out from the pine-fragrant ciusk of the carol service. This is the nobler celebration, but the next night all are dressed are merry children, to hail old Father Christmas amid a forest of gloriously lighted trees in the gymnasium where old and young, black and white, gather in the old Southern family fashion to cry "Christmas gift," and make merry with toys and games dear to real little children. After the holidays the great festival is the procession on Twelfth Night, which combines the legends and songs of the Orient, mediaeval England, and the Christian Church, and becomes a brilliant pageant of color and grouping. Candle- mas is another impressive procession, where a church ritual has been transferred to a reminder of the essential purity of womanhood and her power to illuminate the liome. There is a white dinner, white dresses, a chapel service, and memorable [66 it C 'g'i T3 rt oz _2 Home from a ^de in '^ck Creek ^ark Unc oJ tlic many healthful recre- ations at National Park Seminary cAlong ^Upck Creek At the western boundary of the National Park Seminary campus THE LURE OF WASHINGTON cAlpha House For recreation and idling at National Park Seminary curves of flame that flash from the Hghting candles. The rosy hearts and favors of St. Valentine, the green and white decorations for St. Patrick, when Irish songs resound to the harp, the egg-nests and rabbits and lilies of Easter after the Seniors waken the houses with their hallelujahs, pass too quickly, and soon the spring brings Mav Day, the out-of-door day, when she who most nearly approaches the ideal as a member of the school familv, is voted for and crowned with the flowers of the Glen, and honored with lovelv dances and traditional songs. " Under the greenwood tree" means a vision of Mav Day to any National Park girl. The phrase is a torch to memory to remind her afresh of her own youthful ideals, and how far she has transmuted them into action or adjusted them to broader fields of living. These festivals then not onlv educate in literature and art and train tor health by pleasant, wholesome play, but they give a community and sequence ot mem- ories that form tender bonds among all National Park girls, increasing their sympathies and making them fellow-citizens of their sylvan democracy, "eager, active, enthusiastic," wherever they are, whatever their age. The emotions are important as a foundation to ethics, and these happy memories of community song and play can be for nothing but good. The singing of the national anthem put over the sale of many a war bond, and festivals induce a better citizenship for the school and for the nation. [69] 7T~vr THE LURE OF WASHINGTON The close of the twenty-fifth year of the school was celebrated by an outdoor pageant called "The Spirit of the Glen," in which over a hundred and twenty-five girls took part and which the neighborhood witnessed. It was given in a prologue and five episodes, representing the history of the lovely spot from the time when the tree spirits and native birds were the sole denizens of the glen, until 1894, when the school was founded, and Truth, with the torch of knowledge and the printed book, came to dwell in the glen with Beauty and be crowned by her. The episodes were all based on actual history and were an education to the participants and the audience in the customs of the Algonquins, the settlement of Maryland, the develop- ment of the Maryland manor, stories of Revolutionary heroes, and of the Confed- erate advance upon Washington in 1864. The Congressional Library experts in the National Museum and local tradition furnished authorities. The result, as the work of tradition, history and imagination, was a piece of lovely living art, that stirred national feeling by discovering to many what interest lies in the history of the little place we live in, together with a new recognition of development and growth toward ideal. It is the province and the duty of any school to do this. In a firm desire to suc- ceed in doing it, as well as in many other phases of a young woman's education. The Glen School deserves her often-bestowed epithets of National and American, and thus has been the lure to Washington of hundreds of girls of ambition and character. 'Our llji' cscnpt Jtoni ptthlu huuiil^ Finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks'* [70] 98 ^"ic '^. ^''^-'a^"^ *v ./ \. '?.?• A <» ♦^7!^V-6* ^ '••»* A <» ♦'TV?* ,6* "^ -?.T« A , V** iPvV •y^^/>^ "^ %'«aB?»* 4l^' ''^^ •y^^)'/>^ ^ '.JOB?** '«* -e^^ ^* ^^ %.*^^»V "-'-' .4^^ X/' o -^v^ ^*'°'^*-K --^K^*^ ^ c^'^ • ^^ \ '} ^oV 'bt?' 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