of experience we have had in the use of the Park, under circumstances far less favorable than any that can ever again arise.  As a test of the ability of the people to know their own higher wants, of the power of their artistic instincts, their docility to the counsels of their most judicious representatives, their superiority to petty economies, their strength to resist the natural opposition of heavy tax-payers to expensive public works, their gentleness and amenableness to just authority in the pursuit of their pleasures, of their susceptibility to the softening influences of elegance and beauty, of their honest pride and rejoicing in their own splendor, of their superior fondness for what is innocent and elevating over what is base and degrading, when brought within equal reach, the Central Park has already afforded most encouraging, nay, most decisive proof.

The Central Park is an anomaly to those who have not deeply studied the tendencies of popular governments.  It is a royal work, undertaken and achieved by the Democracy,—­surprising equally themselves and their skeptical friends at home and abroad,—­and developing, both in its creation and growth, in its use and application, new and almost incredible tastes, aptitudes, capacities, and powers in the people themselves.  That the people should be capable of the magnanimity of laying down their authority, when necessary to concentrate it in the hands of energetic and responsible trustees requiring large powers,—­that they should be willing to tax themselves heavily for the benefit of future generations,—­that they should be wise enough to distrust their own judgment and defer modestly to the counsels of experts,—­that they should be in favor of the most solid and substantial work,—­that they should be willing to have the better half of their money under ground and out of sight, invested in drains and foundations of roads,—­that they should acquiesce cheerfully in all the restrictions necessary to the achievement of the work, while admitted freely to the use and enjoyment of its inchoate processes,—­that their conduct and manners should prove so unexceptionable,—­their disposition to trespass upon strict rules so small,—­their use and improvement of the work so free, so easy, and so immediately justificatory of all the cost of so generous and grand an enterprise:  these things throw light and cheer upon the prospects of popular institutions, at a period when they are seriously clouded from other quarters.

We do not propose to enter into any description of the Central Park.  Those who have not already visited it will find a description, accompanying a study for the plan submitted for competition in 1858, by Messrs. Olmsted and Vaux, and published among the Documents of the New York Senate, which will satisfy their utmost expectations.  We wish merely to throw out some replies to the leading objections we have met in the papers and other quarters to the plan itself.  We need hardly say that the Central Park