Los Angeles herald., 1908-03-24


United States spent $1000,0oo
lM HI for Fairgrounds for the chill
HI WI dren of various cities, and this
A1szzl was not drop in the bucket
when compared with the
amount spent in other ways For the OUT
door life of the nation. This general
opening of homes and rushing out into
the fresh air throughout all seasons Is
one of the leading signs of the growing
common sense of American people. 1t
has passed beyond the stage of the fad.
is no longer habit characteristic of a
few. but Is a custom belonging to the
nation. Where a quarter of q century
ago those who Suffered with certain dis
eases, such as tuberculosis, We're care
fully guarded in close rooms away
from draughts and breezes, they are
today turned out doors 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
spread that has known no limit but the
Atlantic. Last summer 10 per cent OF
the people of Kansas City were 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 Appalachians there were like Sleep
ing arrangements, and Mother Nature
smiles over the return of her children
to the simple life. Such reversion to
type has called for a new standard of
literature, new kinds of outdoor games,
outdoor sports and theatricals under
the trees with the greensward for the
stage. 1t has brought a new art, and
above all a new education, for where
even simple and ladylike 'calisthenics
We're once barred from schools. each In
stitution of learning has physical cul-
ture In its curriculum and the GYM
nasium and playground are part and
parcel of the modern city school.
The early settlers found little inspir-
alton in nature. Possibly she was too
omnipresent in those days, for she of
fered so many obstacles to the home
builder in his agricultural and indus
trial conquest iii the cause of civiliza-
ton. For over a hundred years rich
men of the city have had their country
homes to which they went as a matter
of ceremony. but the middle class and
the poor folk. until recently, had not
even a park to which they might go.
There were children who, like the little
girl of Jean Valjean's adoption, did not
know how to play. Thinking people
saw it and began making Fairgrounds.
In 1898 the Outdoor Recreation league
of New York opened the first city play
ground and gymnasium at West Firth
third street and the river, and a new
era dawned in the child world. Jacob
Riis, reformer philosopher, student 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 chill
dren.. The evidence of the police de-
partment on this is, "the whole neigh
borhood took a change for the better
What first turned the people to this
outdoor living Is question unan-
swered. 1t could hardly have been the
literature, for books and magazines fol-
lowed rather than pioneered the move
ment. N. p. Willis went down i'll the
Susquehanna valley years ago ana
wrote Letters from Under Bridge,
but il had little vogue. Emerson
Essay on Nature" was not SO popular
as his other studies. In 1S49 Thoreau
trumpeted the first call for outdoor NV,
ing in "A Week on the Concord ana
Merrimac Rivers" but published the
book at his own expense, and only q
few copies were sold. Audubon wrote
and painted, but the masses knew ninl
none too intimately. Books on lamiiiar
flowers, trees, rocks ana blrus nave
only been in the reach of the purse ana
understanding of the average person u
within the last two decades. so IL
must have been just the homing m
stinct of man. going back to nature anu
natures things after aAcentury or SO
of artificiality, ready for the simpler
things, not because they are a Iau, pu.
because they are sensible and natural
and answer need.
Country dwellers can hardly appre-
Al, ha In "a
school there were last year l50O cnli-
dren and twenty y-odd teachers VINO nad
never seen a little fluffy, newly natcheu
chicken, a fact that developed wnen
one teacher had brought In q men anu
her brood for lesson one day. Whlie
this in itself is no great ignorance, II
only goes to show how far some OF our
poople vet are from the country and It's
simple pleasures. There are daily ex-
cui sions out from New York city TOT
the children of the poor. All up anu
down the Jersey coast and Long lsiano
are homes for crippled ana lncurapie'
for the aged and infirm, and the aver
age daily excursions of children TO sea
Breeze alone is 500. A dozen or SO
charity organizations gather up me
children of the tenements all summer
long and send them in relays to country
homes and farms, where more tnal
once these children of the streets nave
been found packing away udiSiSS ohu
green grass in their shabby little bags
in order to take back bit OF nature.
Prominent workers among boys nave
discovered that there is little good IN
preaching of health and cleanliness ana
morality when there is nothing Dut
mischief in the way for idle hands TO
DO. So clubs with country branches
are springing up as fast as means can
be had, and from such good REFORM
measures as the George Junior Repuphc
and industrial schools on farms, the
general uplift through country influence
is notable. The Columbia Park BOYS
club of San Francisco is an excellent
example of what a company OF boys
may achieve for themselves in outdoor
living. With their director forty-one
of these boys took a four hundred mile
walk in 1906, going up the valley TO
Eureka, Cal, and walking part of the
way back. On their journey they gave
in fifty-one days thirty-four perform
ances of little play at local theaters'
played twelve baseball games. and IN
cidentally netted $4,000 for the clubs
fund The custom of walking tours Tor
school boys and teachers has spreau
here from Germany and Switzerland
although in a modified form that re-
uuires central camp in some forest
or at the seaside, and the tours are
made from this as a home to Which
they return at night. There are camp