By Frederick Law Olmsted. This is a paper read by Mr. Olmsted at the meeting of the American Social Science Association at Saratoga in 1880. Mr. Olmsted proposes for discussion in this paper the question whether the contemplation of beauty in natural scenery - the object so often sought for in park arrangement-is practically of much value in counteracting the evils by which, to so many in large cities, life is rendered hardly worth the living; and whether it is possible, at reasonable cost to make such beauty available to the daily use of great numbers of towns-people?