Anecdotes of public men; by John W. Forney.

2 IS ANECDOTES OF PUBLIC IEN.
G. Stebbins for its president, and Mr. Green as his most efficient
auxiliary; and now both are to go back to the Central Park
Commission, as if to complete their own vindication and the
retribution of the spoilers. Let us take care to maintain the
Philadelphia Park Commission, soon to enter upon a wider field
of action, and to act in conjunction with the preparations for
the grandest national event of the country, so that, with commensurate dignity and energy, it may fulfill the mission assigned
to it.
One suggestion is made in connection with the Centenary of
Independence which deserves the consideration of the Fairmount Park Commission. There is not a county in Pennsylvania that can not point to names of national and even worldwide renown. I need not recount a catalogue brilliant with the
services of Benjamin Franklin. Robert Morris, Anthony Wayne,
Robert Fulton, Lindley Murray, David Rittenhouse, Peter Muhlenberg, and their contemporaries and successors in war and
peace, in science and in statesmanship, in art, in law, in medicine,
in religion, in manufactures, and in skilled labor. The suggestion
is that every county should select one of these departed worthies, and have a colossal statue to represent him, in bronze,
marble, or iron, ready for Fairmount Park in season for the
Centenary, there to remain during all time. The tribute would
be graceful, and the cost comparatively small. There is not a
county in Pennsylvania that could not easily afford to perpetuate the features of one of its illustrious sons. The condition
precedent, however, should be that the work itself should be
done by an accomplished artist. Save us, O Park Commission!
from the effigies and caricatures that have so often disfigured
and disgraced our lovely cities, and that still dishonor our nation's capital. "Art is long," says the poet. Art is not the
growth of the hour, but of the ages. As it. is created to endure,
it can not graduate at once. If years of toil, study, and patience
are essential to ripen a statesman, a scholar, a philosopher, a