The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1897-07-29
PUBLIC GROUNDS
Children Must Have Provisions
for Recreation.
EFFORTS in OTHER CITIES
How BoSton'S Play
Grounds Were Started.
Value of Sand as Developing
InfIuenCe-SChe BeCom-
ing Widely Adopted.

| The subject of turning the made
land beyond the river at Palama into
| a public playground has been agitated
| frequently in Honolulu Many of the
| Eastern cities have seen the necessity
of furnishing legitimate recreation for
| it's children, especially the children of
tenement-house districts, where the
back yards or the pavement are the
| only places for play. There are hun
dreds of children whose only knowl7
edge of sand has been gained by run
ming through the heap near the mortar
trough, placed in the street in front of
some building.
Almost all the large cities now have
one or more Fairgrounds. Some are
owned and conducted by the munich
palities themselves, others are hired
and controlled by charitable institu-
tions or church organizations. In the
city of Providence, r. l., the movement
was inaugurated by the ladies of one
of the churches. Permission was OBJ
tanned from the city for the use of
vacant lot. The land was fenced in,
swings and teeter-boards galore were
built and every variety of game was
donated. In the lot was an immense
sand heap. Pals and shovels were fur
nished, and several young men, one
Of them a member of the College Ath-
letic Association, were hired to amuse
the children, provided, of course, that
they would come. They came The lot
wasn't big enough, and more lots were
secured. The play grounds are now
established institutions, and no diff
Guilty was experienced in raising such
funds as were necessary.
The COngregationalist describes the
movement in Boston. Ten years ago
few women who remembered the dirt
pies of their youth, at a suggestion
from DR.. Marie e. Zakrzewska, de-
termined that Boston babies should
have fun in digging in clean sand, even
though the veterans Of philanthropy
doubted it's civic virtues.
The use of three mission chapel
yards was obtained, with the result
been less sickness and more order
among the children living near those
yards than for many a summer. The
next year 10 sand heaps f1Ourished
some in the courts of tenement houses,
the tenants themselves acting as over
seers from their windows. Then the
sand was given, as it has been ever
since, by the generosity of a single
firm, that of Waldo Brothers. The
third year the ladies humbly petitioned
for the use of a few school yards,
guaranteeing that such use should be
neither expense nor injury to the city,
and the School Committee granted the
request, until in 1896 there was an
average daily attendance of 1902 chill
dren for 10 weeks in 10 yards, at a
cost of $1,688.
Some of the school yards are open
in the morning, others in the after
noon, according to the sun. The sand
is inclosed in a pen four or five inches
high Games of many kinds-march
ing, singing, drawing on transparent
states (the favorite amusement of the
crippled children), as we'll as knitting,
crocheting, stitching on pricked cards
with bright worsteds, reading and
storytelling are always going on.
Each yard has two or three paid kim
dergartners or young matrons and
lady visitor or sub-chairman
The success of Boston sand heaps
led the Park Commissioners of that
city TO place the women's division of
Charlesbank under the control of the
Massachusetts Emergency and Hy-
giene Association.
The Women's division includes a
lodge with play rooms and baths, three
sand heaps or pens, each accommodate
ing so children with room to spare, and
a grassy playground, 260 by 12O feet,
set around with shrubbery. There is