The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-12-02


 lea.
 Every year New York sets aside 4300.000 for playgrounds and ti.oOO.- 900 for small parks. Without count ing parks of less than one acre, New Yorks parks and piaygrounds are valued at figures beyond s500,000, ooo. the last valuation of Central Park be- ing nearly half of this. In old New York the park and playground acre age is 1.444. an acre for every group of 1,463 people. The recreation piers on the New York docks cost s50.0o0 for music alone last year There is q plan now on foot to place a herd of Jersey cattle in Central Park, and give the milk to the children who play there.
 In Boston where the more courage ous children played on the Common years ago, an addition of 200 acres was recently made to the children's play grounds. The first recorded Eand gar den fon American children was start ed there in 1885. In Boston harbor there is an island to which municipal boats furnished free transportation to 14.000 children under 13 last summer. At the last session of the Massachu- setts Legislature a law was passed requiring a referendum on the ques- ton of providing playgrounds in all cities or towns of 10000 population, hfty-one places in all, and the School Committee of Boston has voted $SS,- 900 on It's playgrounds, and to this the Park Department has added S25.000 more. So much for progress in New England. where two centuries ago playing was deemed a sin.
 Newark's municipal camp is one of the biggest lessons in juvenile help fulness. The city owns a tract of elev- en acres at Avon-by-the-Sea, and over 1000 children were given outings there last summer. Trenton began the first work of the kind last spring with a modest S1, 200. The old city reservoir, long neglected and in ruins, was trans formed Into a stadium. making one of the most unique and picturesque play grounds in the country. That 1t was needed is proved by the summers att tendance. 73.ooo.
 When playgrounds for the City of Washington were first proposed. a clever Congressman Is said to have suggested that such a useless waste of money could be prevented by buy ing lot of cheap balloons and re- leasing them on the White House grounds every Saturday afternoon that this would really do the children more good. Others who had not for gotten the days when they had played. made other plans. There are now ten
 
 grounds in that city. with an attend ance for last summer of over SIS. 900. Each playground was ct first the charge of some private philanthropy. and later was adopted as a municipal enterprise. Playground promoters there have an eye on reclaimed and made lands for future parks. the land made from ashes having superior drainage.
 The State of Washington has eNcelled all twenty-nine of the States that at- tended the second Congress of the Playground Association of America fin New York last September. The Legis- lature passed a bill there at It's last session-though 1t was vetoed--reauir- ing that every new city when laid out should set aside 10 per cent. of it's land for parks and playgrounds The bill will come up again. In California the enthusiasm over playgrounds Is at It's height. Nearly a million and a half dollars has been set aside in that State for playground uses. San Fran cisco. with the great burden of re- building set aside S741.000 of this Oakland s500,O00. Berkeley $500 0oO and Alameda s125.000, while Los AnReles has one of the finest systems in all the country.
 In 1899 the will of the Smiles os FhlIaoeIpnla gave house and A play- ground in Fairmount Park to the chil- dren of the city. It was the first pub- iic playground in this country, and u mas never been closed for 8 single day. over 100000 children have played there. and complete hospital eouip- ment, a trained nurse Indoor play rooms and outdoor athletic courts make of this one of the most bened- cent bequests in the history of philan- thropy. Next year the school children VIII nave ffty-one new playgrounds. The Department of Physical Education of the University of Missouri has or ganized summer plays in thirty-one towns and villages. and offers special training for play teachers.
 The little Chicago child of the sIums who asked the lot owner: Please, mister. may I put my feet on your grass? has been heard, and synpa- thetic cities are making grass plots as fast as they can for the tired little feet. They are turning back to the older days and reviving old times and folk dances. one time a part of the history of the various peoples. The story tellers fin the parks are repeo- pleing the world of fancy with below ed figures of Robin Hood, from the old Morse sages, from the German and Greek mythologies, and many a sin befogged little brain Is already grow ing clear and clean. At Chicago's play
 
 ttcipants, and at New Yorks this year nearly as many. At the University of Tennessee summer school there was a play festival this year. and Pittsburg closed the years play season with one of the most successful festivals of the time.
 As a preventive of disease and crime the playground Is the city's biggest helper. It costs less than an epidemic or than the maintenance of hospitals. and vastly less than juvenile courts, parental schools and reformatories. Knowing this. Birmingham, Knoxville, Lowell, Roanoke. San An tonic and Syracuse are among this years recruits with the inspiring ex- ample of Cleveland and it's $60,000 ex- penditures before them. With the play. the study and the outdoor life of the pIaygrounds they mean to make healthful, wholesome citizens for the future good of the nation.
 Copyright. 1908. by Frederic J. Has
 kin.)