The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-12-20
Play Hunger In UncroWded Cities
BY CLARENCE A. FERRY. h. Russell Sage Foundation; Author 'Wider Use of
 The School

(Exclusive Service the Survery Press
 Bureau)
 If your boy had the run of spacious yard while broad countryside, with en- trancing woods and streams, was only a few minutes away, and somebody should suggest that you tax yourself to enlarge sons play opportunities, you would prob ably turn away wondering what new foolishness would come along next When .Eour daily difficulty is how to keep John ny in the house long enough to fetch coal and water and get his lessons, you are not raclSing your brains over the prob lem of teaching him new games When you and the family next door, and the family next to them-people you have, al- ways known--have each an individual parlor and the Sunday school gives an entertainment every month, your con- cern regarding Susy's social life does not ftxtend much beyond the dressmaker's ac- counts and the hour her beau departs.
 Experts Study Typical City
 This Is a perfectly natural state of mind for persons who have never seen a play-starved tenement child Also unless you have studied the subject of recrea- tion, it is entirely natural to assume that boys and girls who have adequate room
 
 to their play activities. Indeed, most people. on going to a healthy uncrowded city with ample home and school yards, expect, as a matter of course, to find an elaborate, vigorous and wholesome play life. Where the opportunities for right recreation are thick surely wrong recre- ation will be scare. So thought the peo- pie of Springfield, H., before they ascer- tained the facts.
 fiA When vo11 are conscious Of vague ills, but are not flat on your back it takes courage to ask the doctor to give you q thorough overhaulding. There is always the possibility of hidden disease. Large cities always know that they are infected but in the smaller municipalities corrup- tion often keeps beneath the surface for 4 a long time. So it was really an act of civic bravery when, last spring, the citi- zens of Springfield voluntarily arranged to expose their community life to that searching X-ray machine, the social sur yey. The task of making the diag- nosis was entrusted to the department of surveys and exhibits of the Rus sell Sage foundation. For the actual probings several other departments of the foundation and three national agencies were brought together. The staff of 20 experts thus marshalled thoroughly examined Springfield as to it's schools, recreation, charities, public N Nhealth work housing and industrial con- ditions, care of insane, and it's correc- tienal and financial systems
 Play Space Without Play
 The report upon it's play-life, which was made by the foundation's depart ment of recreation, Lee F. Hammer, direc- tor, has just been issued and the sur prising fact Is revealed that in this un- congested city of not quite 6O,O0O inhabi- tants, with it's extraordinary wealth of play spaces, the recreation movement in it's modern form had hardly appeared.
 Springfields generosity in school yards is almost unparalleled. They av- craze 233 acres per school for the city and furnish 231 square feet of Free space for each pupil. But the play at recess time is rough, half-hearted and unorganized and the yards are little eused after dismissal. During the num- erous rainy periods the mud is so un- fSconquerable that the pupils are con fined to the walks and small paved