Kansas Children's Home Finder from Topeka, Kansas • 3

WHOSE MEMORIAL Shall It Bell A Memorial riore Endur-, ing than Marble, Sweeter than Fame and A World of Blessings To Thousands of Lives Rescued, Our $30,000 Memorial Building Once The Case Plainly Stated-The Unanswerable Argument. cost is not questioned. But we have often thought that both the sentiment and the motive have, been misdirected. Undoubtedly the end sought to be accomplished by the erection of such a monument in such a place and at such a cost could have been ac. complished a great deal better in some other way.

If we are not mistaken, the erection of the monument described above had two distinct ends in view. The advertising to the world that such a person had actually lived, so related to others, and that the life began and ended as inscribed on the monument. Simply a perpetuation of the memory of the life before the eyes of the world. The other end to be accomplished by the erection of this monument was the exhibition of a substantial and prominent expression of the measure of love, esteem and appreciation of the life whose memory is thus commemorated. The monument is great, beautiful, costly, but iU no other way could the friends perpetually tell the world the greatness of their love, the height of their esteem and the measure of their appreciation of the life that has departed.

Monuments, that are erected in cemeteries, over the graves of our loved ones in order to perpetuate their memories before the world and also to tell the world something of the measure of love, esteem and appreciation with which we loved them while they were with us. Now in our judgment, this sentiment, so expressed is misdirected in two particulars. First, as to the place where the monument is erected. Bear in mind that one of the objects of such a monument is to perpetuate the memory of our dear ones before the world. But we have erected our monnment in a cemetery, where it is the farthest removed from the worlds thoroughfares.

If our object in building it was that the world should see it, then we should have built where the world would pass by it constantly in its busy avocations. I venture that not one in a thousand of the people who visit Topeka ever go near our city cemetery. The monuments erected there are almost as completely shut off from the sight of the world as are the dead bodies buried beneath them. And what is true of Topeka cemetery is true of all. They are shut off from the world, designedly and properly so, and for this reason the cemetery is no place in which to erect a monument by and through which to perpetuate before the world the memories of our dear ones.

This monumeut should have been erected where everybody would see it and without going out of the way to do so. There is nothing wrong about asking the world to remember those whom we love, nor is there anything wrong in building a monument to assist the world in doing so but we must build our monuments where the world will see them while passing up and down the thoroughfares of life or busy about lifes daily vocations. Monuments will best perpetuate the memories of those whose names they bear if built within the great centers of our population, on the streets or in the parks of our large cities or beside our great thoroughfares where the thousands will see them and read our loving inscriptions and cherish the memory of the one we loved because we thus ask them to do so. But this sentiment was not only misdirected when it placed its monument in a cemetery, it was also misdirected when it made its monument a cold insensitive, expensive, useless mass of stone. Such a monument means nothing, does nothing, represents nothing, and is nothing, beyond an expensive, useless pile of stone.

Surely there is a more practical and expressive way of telling the world what our dear ones have beeu to than what the world cah read Continued on Thb Proposition to name our new $30,000 building after the person who contributes one-half or more of the estimated cost raises the above question, whose memorial shall it be Here is a question worthy of serious thought. Most people, and especially those of means, will doubtless have a memorial erected to their memory when they are gone. Such memorial is usually a marble shaft or pillar inscribed with name, date of birth and death with an appropriate sentiment, set up over the grave where the body has been laid away to rest. A visit to our beautiful cemetery just east of Topeka will present to the observer a fairly accurate city directory of our prominent families whose names are thus inscribed upon monuments over the graves of dear ones gone before. Some of these monuments are beautiful, stately, grand and represent the outlay of thousands of dollars.

The sentiment back of such outlay, and the motive that prompted their erection at such.