But in just this way Rochester has grown apace and quite ahead of the facilities which her earlier generations thought would be abundant for all time. The high civic standard that forced the great railroad improvement in the earlier days when most American towns, like Topsy, were "jus' growin'" and giving little thought for the morrow, made Rochester different. It made her seek to better her water supply and in this she succeeded, tapping a spring pure lake forty miles back in the high hills and bringing its contents to her by a far-reaching aqueduct. It was a large undertaking for a small city of the earlier days, but the small city was plucky and it today possesses a water supply that is second to none. That same early placed high civic standard made fireproof buildings an actuality in Rochester, years in advance of other towns of the same size. That civic standard has worked wonders for the town by the falls of the Genesee. For one thing it has made her prolific in propaganda of one sort or another. Strange religious sects have come to light within her boundaries. Spiritualism was one of these, for it was in Rochester that the famed Fox sisters heard the mysterious rappings, and it was only a little way outside the town where Joseph Smith asserted that he found the Book of Mormon and so brought a new church into existence. And the ladies who are conducting the "Votes for Women" campaign with such ardor should not forget that it was in Rochester that Susan B. Anthony lived for long years of her life, working not alone for the cause that was close to her heart, but in every way for the good of the town that meant so much to her. Perhaps the most interesting phases of the Rochester civic standard are those that have worked inwardly. She has a new city plan--of course. What modern city has not dreamed these glowing things, of transforming ugly squares into plazas of European magnificence, of making dingy Main and State streets into boulevards? And who shall say that such dreams are idly dreamed? Rochester is not dreaming idly. She has already conceived a wonderful new City Hall, to spring upwards from her Main street, but what is perhaps more interesting to her casual visitors in her new plan is the architectural recognition that it gives to the Genesee. The Genesee is a splendid river--in many ways not unlike the more famous Niagara. You have already known the part it has played in the making of Rochester. Yet the city has seen fit, apparently, to all but ignore it. Main street--for Rochester is a famous one-street town--crosses it on a solid stone bridge but that bridge is lined with buildings, like the prints you used to see of old London bridge. None of the folk who walk that famous thoroughfare ever see the river. In the new scheme the old rookeries that hang upon the edge of Main street bridge are to be torn away and the river is to come into its own. And Rochester folk feel that that day can come none too soon.