The times dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1903-1914, 1908-03-21
by FREDERIC j. MAsK1N.

During the month of November, 1907,
the people of the United States spent
s1,000,000 for Fairgrounds for the chill
dren of various cities. and this was
not drop In the bucket when COM
pared with the amount spent in other
ways for the outdoor life of the nation.
This general opening of homes and
rushing out into tho fresh air through
signs of the growing common sense
of American people. 1t has passed
beyond the stage of the fad; Is no
longer habit characteristic of few,
but is custom belonging to the ma
ton. Where Il quarter of century
ago those who suffered with certain
diseases, such as tuberculosis. were
carefully guarded in close rooms, away
from draugnts and breezes, they are
to-day turned outdoors to live, eat and
sleep. and steam heated houses with
walls can claim them only when the
diseases have disappeared.
The outdoor sleeping rooms of the
Californian have begun an eastward
the Atlantic. Last summer 10 per
cent of the people of Kansas City
We're said to be sleeping in their back
yards or on their back porches: all
the arid region OF Arizona and New
Mexico was dotted with tent cities Of
outdoor folk: through the Rockies.
across the plains and in the Appa-
lachians there We're like Sleeping ar
over the return of her children TO
tho simple life. Such reversion 10
type has called for new standard of
literature new kinds of outdoor games
outdoor Eports and theatricals under
the trees with the green sward for the
stage. It has brought new art. and.
above all. new education. for where
even simple and ladylike calisthencs
We're once barred from schools. each
institution of learning has physical
culture in its curriculum, and the gym
nasium and playground are part and
parcel OF the modern city school
spiration in nature. Possibly she was
too omnipresent in those days, for
she offered so many obstacles to the
hone-builder in his agricultural and
ilization. For over 100 years rich
men of the city have had their coun-
try homes, to which they went as
a matter of ceremony, but the mid
Gently, had not even park to which
they might go. These We're children
who. like the little girl of Jean Val
jeans adoption, did not know how to
play. Thinking people saw it, and be-
San making Fairgrounds. In 1898 the
Outdoor Recreation League of New
York opened the first city playground
and gymnasium at West Fifty-third
Street and the river, and now era
dawned in the child-world. Jacob
of men, believer In good, wrote and
talked until a block in the East Side.
reeking with foul disease. was leveled
and a playground and park made for
children. The evidence OF the Police
Department on this is, THE whole
neighborhood took change for the
better"
What first turned the people to this
outdoor living is q question unanswer-
ed. It could hardly have been the
literature for books and magazines
followed rather than pioneered the
movement. N. p. Willis went down
and wrote Letters From Under u
Bridge" but it had little vogue Emer-
sons Essays on Nature" was not so
popular as his other studies. In 1S49
outdoor living in "a Week on the
Concord and Merrlmac Rivers" but
published the book at his own ex-
pcnse, and only a few copies We're
the, masses knew him none too init
mately. Books on familiar flowers,
trees, rocks apd birds have only heen
in the reach of the purse and under-
5 the Of wd the dseaGss ns
have been Just the homing instinct OF
man, going back to nature and ma
lures things after century or so
Of Of, artitclalty ready for the simpler Pee
but because they are sensible and nat
ural and answer need.
Country jewellers can hardly appre,-
ciate the fact that in New YORK Or,
school there We're last year l,5oo emil
dren and twenty-odd teachers who
had never seen little fluffy, newly
Matched chicken, n fact that Developed
when one teacher had brought in a
hen and her brood for q lesson one
day. While this in itself is no great
ignorance, it only goes 70 snow now now
fh he s eomatr s. a on" rs Simple p s
There are daily excursions out from
New York City for the children of
the poor. All up and down the Jersey
coast and Long Island are MONIES Tor
crippled and incurabe, for the aged
cursions lof children to Sea Breeze alone
is 500, a dozen or so charity organi-
cations gather UP the children Of the
tenements ell summer long, and send
them In relays to country homes and
farms, whore more than once these
grass in their shabby little bags, In
order to take back a bit of nature.
Prominent workers among boys have
discovered that there il little good
in preaching OF health and cleanli-
ing but mischief in the way for ldle
hands to do. So clubs With country
branches are springing up MS fast as
means can be had and from such
good reform measures us the George
Junior Republic and Industrial schools
country influence is notable. The Co
lumbia Park Boys Club of San Fran
cisco Is an excellent example OF what
company OF boys may achieve for
themselves in outdoor living. With
their director. forN-one OF these hoNs