St. Paul recorder. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1937-05-28
Halle Q. Brown
Talks About
Organized Play
By I. Myrtle Garden

Wings w Sely VII II1C SuUJSSI VI 1SCC-
reation in his book entitled $50
cial Problems of Childhood" Com
ing at the time when we are
launching a Community House
Membership drive it might be well
to take into consideration Purfey's
ideas about the value of well or
ganized recreation and it's rela-
tionship to idleness, restlessness,
delinquency, citizenship, etc. Ac-
cording to Mr.. Furfey:
ga generation ago the express
sion 'Child's Play was used as a
synonym for something trivial.
Now, however, enormous sums of
money are being spent both by pri-
vate organizations and by public
authorities for the systematic pro-
motion of recreation. This changed
attitude, has come about through
the realization that play has an
important effect upon character,
that the child who does not play
is to that extent handicapped, and
that lack of sufficient opportunity
for recreation is an important
cause of delinquency.
1t used to be assumed that the
school was an adequate solution
for all the problems of childhood;
but when the Juvenile Court Move
ment began to focus public opinion
on the socially unadjusted child, it
was gradually realized that the
school actually plays only small
part in the child's life"
Average 131 School Days
The average school child in st.
Paul actually attends school only
about 131 days per year. Assum-
ing a five hour school day, this
means that the average time the
child spends in school is only about
one hour and three-fourths per
day. The time spent in school then
does not loom large in the child's
life. But the time spent at play
does. 1t is extremely conservative
to say that the average child of
school age has about 8 hours day
of relatively unoccupied spare
time. This fact has caused many
social-minded people to pay con-
tinually more and more attention
to the recreational problems of the
child. A number of careful surveys
have attempted to determine what
the child does in these hours of
leisure. In one city it was found
that the street was by far the most
common recreational agency. Two
out of every three eight year old
boys use the street or vacant lot
as their usual playground. The
same is true of older and younger
children.
Children Doing Nothing
About one-half of the children
who have been observed in these
recreational surveys were found to
be doing nothing. They were
simply sitting about idling, wait
ing for something to turn up. There
is an interesting relationship be-
tween idleness and delinquency.
Some rather pathetic instances are
furnished by the children whose
delinquencies were an attempt to
escape from dull monotonous life
which did not have sufficient
recreation. Delinquents very often
are delinquents on account of their
poor play habits, while on the other
hand wholesome citizens are whole
some citizens largely because of
their constructive recreation.
The new concept of the commu-
nity's responsibility for wholesome
and desirable recreation for all the
people is evidenced by the increas-
ing growth of Community Centers
in our country. America is awak-
ening to the Importance of recrea-
ton as a Child Welfare Problem
and will not rest content until that
problem is satisfactorily solved.
Halle @. Developing Leaders
How can we down our end of the
responsibility for recreation in our
community. Halle @. Brown Com