The morning journal-courier., 1908-02-06

tdlnlng, repairing and altering a play | ground or park, and of guiding or con | trolling the use and abuse of it, should i be carried on with the idea constantly in mind that the sole justifying pur- pose of it all is the improvement of the physical, mental and moral condi- ton of those for whose use it is made, | | It is a problem in education first and to that end landscape architecture and administrative convenience are tribu- tary.
 In city playgrounds for the larger | boys bare earth or some kind of pave ment is the only surface which will stand the concentrated use to which the ground should be put, but that is no reason for making the play grounds absolute Saharas of desola- tion. Trees will grow in such an area if adequate pains are taken to supply them with a body of good soil under the fcot-worn surface and to give their roots artificially the water which that surfaces cuts off, and trees arc not only valuable as giving shade md con- tributing to the attractiveness of the place but are useful as goals and bases. If, as is most desirabls, the playgrounds be iE conjunction with schoolhouses or such ot'.er buildings as gymnasa, baths or local assembly halls and reading rooms. ycrdurc may
 be added by vines upon the buildings, and a hedge or narrow border of at attractive Towering shrubs, reducing the playing area by a very small per centage, will often make the place more attractive to children and give them some of the recrsative value of
 beauty, which is chearly purchased
 even at the cost of few square feet of additional land and which cannot infrequently be secured by the inger-
 iols use of corners and strips that
 would be otherwise unavailable.
 The devotion of much detailed in-
 genuity to getting the highest possible
 use out of the eity's investment in
 playground land is a corollary to the
 importance of providing adequate
 playgrounds: but whatever mecns be
 devised for getting along well with the
 least possible space, the area should
 not be less ultimately than can be
 made by such devices to serve every
 single child in the city who needs the
 play. The child's most passionate
 search for the reality during the Big
 Injun age and after is for reality in
 himself. He wants to be something and prove it, and the games of contest arc , nis proving ground
 Because of inherited instincts, and
 of the stage of growth reached by the
 muscles and nerve ccnters, the ele-
 ments of the games of contest that characterize this period will be chas- ing, hunting, wrestling, throwing at an
 object. hitting things with stick. and climbing, For these activities the play , ground must provide. The great games are these situated where several streams of vital interest intersect In such games the Big lnjun age
 merges into that which MT. Lee calls the age of loyalty. the age of the Gang
 and of the great group games. of D which football is the greatest and the . type. Running parallel to almost the : whole series, is our great national
 game, suiting itself to every age from
 the scrub game, at which the Big ln-
 
 while the other boys hunt balls for : him, up through games of temporari-
 ly chosen sides to the regularly form . ed and organized teams, in which each : boy has his special part assigned, by q the performance of which he renders his service to the whole
 r think Mir. Lee Is right in saying
 
 d school of citizenship that exists. In r playing these games the boy IS not go- :, ing through the forms of citizenship !. learning parliamentary law, raising <, points of order and moving the pre-
 vious question--he is being initiated Y into It's essense. actually and in a very r. vivid way participating in the thing if itself. He Is undergoing the actual and "a habitual experience of losing the sense 70 of his own individuality in that of a Il larger whole; experiencing citizenship
 not learning about it.
 l That is what the gang impulse d means, We read every day something ,- of the terrors and evil doings of tho 10 gang; but the impulse that makes tho If gang is not lawless impulse, but tht P most lawful thing there is. That | D. should lead the boy to lawlessness 1, ,e not because of the perversity of tht D. boy or of the evil nature of the spirit if 1t is because of our own perversity il ic denying to this most lawful impuls' s. some lawful method of expression ,r Therefore, there must he on tn,
 playground provision. if possible. fo is those great national games of The question of space, however. her to confronts us. It is a national misfor 10 tune that our great game is one re v- quiring prairie for its accommoda ne ton,
 1y When it comes 10 match games ol u- regulation size ballfelds betwee, C. teams of large boys or men, when l ed individuals ncnopolize more than tw 1t acres for the better part of an after ss non it would seem eXtravarant fo he cities to provide for such play upo
 costly land within the crowded dis cv tricts. It seems necessary. however { he make provision for some strch game ee on certain afternoons at least, for re the games that big boys and youn s- men take real interest in are not al IT, tached to the neighborhood pla, of ground the interest of the little ho, is cannot be held securely. For the lars ial CT boys and young men, however. g
 far as possible. more concentrate it. forms of exercise and contest must | in depended on, running, jumping tll of athletic sports of track and field an in the use of glmnastic apparatus an lin gymnasium classes: out of doors whe Ter possible under shelter if need h nd This means the running track and tf lat full gymnasium equipment.
 ge So much for pl4yerounds aS such ng We have seen that educational an ce. social ends are inextricably mingle