And as Girard College and the University of Pennsylvania stand among the colleges of America, so stands Fairmount Park among the public pleasure grounds of the country. It was probably the first public park in the whole land, and a lady who knows her Philadelphia thoroughly has found many first things in Philadelphia—the first newspaper, the first magazine, the first circulating library, the first medical college, the first corporate bank, the first American warship, the unfurling of the first American flag, not least of these the first real world's fair ever held upon this side of the Atlantic. For it was the Centennial which not only made Fairmount Park a resort of nation-wide reputation, not only opened new possibilities of amusement to a land which had always taken itself rather seriously, but marked the turning of an era in the artistic and the social, as well as the political life of the United States. The Centennial was, judged by the standard of the greatest expositions that followed it, a rather crude affair. Its exhibits were simple, the buildings that housed them fantastic and barnlike. And the weather-man assisted in the general enjoyment by sending the mercury to unprecedented heights that entire summer. Philadelphia is never very chilly in the summer; the northern folk who went to it in that not-to-be-forgotten summer of 1876 felt that they had penetrated the tropics. And yet when it was all over America had the pleased feeling of a boy who finds that he can do something new. And even sober folk felt that a beginning had been made toward a wider view of life across the United States.
It is nearly forty years since the Centennial sent the tongues of a whole land buzzing and the two huge structures that it left in Fairmount Park have begun to grow old, but the park itself is as fresh and as new as in the days of its beginning, and there are parts of it that were half a century old before the Centennial opened its doors. There are many provisions for recreation within its great boundaries, boating upon the Schuylkill, the drives that border that river, the further drive that leaves it and sweeps through the lovely glen of the Wissahickon.
The Wissahickon Drive is a joy that does not come to every Philadelphian. That winding road is barred to sight-seeing cars and automobiles of indiscriminate sort because the quality of the town prefers to keep it to itself. So runs Philadelphia; a town which is in many ways sordid, which has probably the full share of suffering that must come to every large city, but which bars its fine drive to the proletariat while Rittenhouse square blandly wonders why Socialism makes progress across the land. Philadelphia does not progress—in any broad social sense. She plays cricket—splendidly—is one of the few American towns in which that fine English game flourishes—and she dispenses her splendid charity in the same senseless fashion as sixty years ago. But she does not understand the trend of things today—and so she bars her Wissahickon Drive except to those who drive in private carriages or their own motor car, and delivers the finest of the old Colonial houses within her Fairmount Park area to clubs—of quality.
Personally we much prefer John Bartram's house to any of those splendid old country-seats within Fairmount. To find Bartram's Gardens you need a guide—or a really intelligent street-car conductor. For there is not even a marking sign upon its entrance, although Philadelphia professes to maintain it as a public park. Little has been done, however, to the property, and for that he who comes to it almost as a shrine has reason to be profoundly thankful. For the old house stands, with its barns, almost exactly as it stood in the days of the great naturalist. One may see where his hands placed the great stone inscribed "John-Ann Bartram 1731" within its gable; on the side wall another tablet chiseled there forty years later, and reading:
"Tis God alone, almighty Lord,
The holy one by me adored."
Neglect may have come upon the gardens but even John Bartram could not deny the wild beauty of these untrammeled things. The gentle river is still at the foot of the garden, within it, most of the shrubs and trees he planted are still growing into green old age. And next to his fine old simple house one sees the tangled yew-tree and the Jerusalem "Christ's-thorn" that his own hands placed within the ground.
*****
Philadelphia prides herself upon her dominant Americanism—and with no small reason. She insists that by keeping the doorways to her houses sharply barred she maintains her native stock, her trained and responsible stock, if you please, dominant. She avers that she protects American institutions. New York may become truly cosmopolitan, may ape foreign manners and foreign customs. Philadelphia in her quiet, gentle way prefers to preserve those of her fathers.
One instance will suffice. She has preserved the American Sabbath—almost exactly as it existed half a century ago. As to the merits and demerits of that very thing, they have no place here. But the fact remains that Philadelphia has accomplished it. From Saturday night to Monday morning a great desolation comes upon the town. There are no theaters not even masquerading grotesquely as "sacred concerts," no open saloons, no baseball games, no moving pictures—nothing exhibiting for admission under a tight statute of Pennsylvania, in effect now for more than a century. And it is only a few years ago that the churches were permitted to stretch chains across the streets during the hours of their services. A few bad fires, however, with the fire-engines becoming entangled with the chains and this custom was abandoned. But the churches are still open, and they are well attended. It is an old-fashioned Sabbath and it seems very good indeed to old-fashioned Americans.
But upon the other six days of the week she offers a plenitude of comfort and of amusement. She is accustomed to good living—her oysters, her red-snappers, and her scrapple are justly famous. She is accustomed to good playing. In the summer she has far more than Fairmount Park. Atlantic City—our American Brighton—is just fifty-six miles distant both in crow-flight and in the even path of the railroads, and because of their wonderful high-speed service many Philadelphians commute back and forth there all summer long.