The morning journal-courier., 1908-01-29

provided as systematically as schools. |
 But there are playgrounds and play grounds. What meets the needs of the children under six is no more suitable for what he calls the Big Injun'' age, the age of self-assertion, from about six to about eleven, that regulation baseball diamond, suited to boys In their teens, is of use to the infants. For the littlest children need sand courts. and sheltered lawns where round-games can be played on the grass. For older children ground that will stand their wear and tear without getting shabby. For both apparatus to climb on ladders. swings, and the like, and objects to play with. trees ana posts and branches that will serve for goals and bases And also someone who understands children, to guide them and control them in their use Of the playground. For still larger boys and men, ball fields and runing tracks, and gymnastic apparatus, swimming places and the like, are needed.
 All this can be done, and should be done, in orderly. ship-shape fashion, made pleasant and attractive with shade trees and with some other yer dure here and there in the corners.
 This serious need of healthful out door exercise and recreation sooner or later must be squarely met by New Haven as it is beginning to be met by some larger cities where the evils of ignoring it have become more crylngly manifest. The pictures of such recre- alton centers in Chicago, in Boston, and elsewhere show how these several distinct needs are being met by special arrangements There ought to be well equipped and well run play grounds within easy reach of every home in the city.
 We have seen that educational and social ends are inextricably mingled with those of body exercise in play grounds. I want to call your attention for moment to another kind of social pleasure to be reckoned with in plan
 ming parks.
 The gregarious tendency of many people when out for recreation, and the pleasure which they take In joining a throng of strangers. and walking up and down in company with them. Is too obvious to need more than mention. In every city there are some places which people frequent merely for the sake of seeing and being seen by the crowd.
 To meet this want some places are needed where people can stroll com fortably in large numbers. where others can drive near at hand and some can sit and watch the passersby. Shade is a requisite and broad and nearly level paths and roads; but beyond these requirements nothing definite is needed but that the general aspect of the place shall be cheerful attractive and
 well kept If pleasant park land
 scape can be seen, or a view over the water. so much the peter, but the places in which people have formed the habit of gathering are so often with out these attractions that they can be considered only incidental advantages.
 It Is because of the immense varia- ton in ideals of outdoor beauty be- tween different individuals and in the same person at different times that there is the utmost difficulty In pursu- ing a business-like and economical method in securing such beauty
 There is. for example, the enjoyment
 of formal decorative design, so to call
 1t, in which we take pleasure in noting
 that some one has deliberately and ap- oto ha ala tn of the scene so as to produce certain ; compositions certain definite effects. Compact trees in orderly rows and avenues, garden-like beds of flowers, hedges and helge-like masses of shrubs, fountains, monuments, and sculptural decorations, all forming, with turf and paths and roads and gathering places, designs well organ ized and obvious these are particu- larly appropriate to the smaller and narrower park areas scattered through a city.
 If we now inquire into the motives which have more or less effectively controlled the choice and treatment of most of the larger city parks in this country, we shall find them variously stated, but generally involving some reference to the beauty of nature" or : to natural scenery" or to sylvan or
 rural landscape"
 That which under the name of mat , ural scenery" or some similar vague
 term, is often sought for in parks, is , then. such choice arrangement of the l land and all the vegetation and con
 structions which it bears, as not only l shall be agreeable in it's clements and } details and pleasing in the, compost , tlons which it presents to the eye, but at the same time shall have as little
 as possible which obtrudes upon the l attention human effort in shaping it as , distinguished from other natural
 forces. We need an occasional rest l from the too continuous reiteration oI , all the phases of human activity. in a l city.
 { To afford the maximum of pleasan
 contrast with urban conditions it is no, l enough that the landscape of a park 2 should be without conspicuous signs of ? mans dominant control, although. as we have seen, that is of fundamenta
 importance.
 : An element only second in impor. tance Is a sense of spaciousness, the $ expansive opposite of cramping city : streets and walls. Taken with the neet l of seelusion this limits the complete at
 tainment of our aim to parks of con : siderable size Indeed, the only iusti B fication for obstructing the natural de. f velopnent of city street system by b reserving Unbroken blocks of land
 for park purposes is to meet this need f of retirement from the city into a ouie - rural scene. and a city cannot afford
 to pay this price for anything that car e be obtained without his drawback.