THE PRACTICAi CONDUCT OF PL; CURTIS Class Qu n Book C h CopightN" fOFVRIGHT deposit: THE PRACTICAL CONDUCT OF PLAY IHome ant) Scbool Setter Edited by PAUL MONROE Curtis : Education through Play. Curtis : The Practical Conduct of Play. HowERTH : The Art of Education. GooDSELL : A History of the Family as a Social and Educational Institution. {Preparing.) THE PRACTICAL CONDUCT OF PLAY BY HENRY S. CURTIS 'I FORMER SECRETARY OF THE PLAYGROUND ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA AND SUPERVISOR OF THE PLAYGROUNDS OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA AUTHOR OF "PLAY AND RECREATION IN THE OPEN COUNTRY" AND "EDUCATION THROUGH PLAY" THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1915 All rights reserved Copyright, igis. By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published June, 1915. J. S. Gushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. JUL I 1915 ©CI,A406525 > ^ DeMcation TO THE PLAY-LEADERS WHO BRING TO THEIR WORK THE LOVE OF CHILDREN, THE JOY OF COMRADE- SHIP, AND THE SPIRIT OF PLAY PREFACE This volume is intended as a textbook for those who are preparing themselves for playground positions and as a prac- tical manual for all who have to do with the organization of play, whether as parents, as teachers, as playground direc- tors, or as supervisors. To this end the aim has everywhere been to give definite detailed information and suggestions such as can be easily followed and will be helpful in the daily work of the director. It is not, however, a manual in the ordinary sense, as it contains matter theoretical as well as practical and seeks to show general principles as well as specific ways in which playgrounds may be improved. The book has grown out of the experience of the author during the last sixteen years. During this time he has been a general director of playgrounds in New York City, Supervi- sor of the playgrounds of Washington, D.C., and Secretary of the Playground Association of America. Moreover, dur- ing the recent years he has visited the principal play systems both in this country and abroad, has given courses at many normal schools and universities, and has organized the move- ment in some sixteen different cities. The author wishes to express his gratitude to the following individuals and organizations for the pictures used in illus- trating this volume : the Playground and Recreation Asso- ciation of America; the Recreation Commission of Los Angeles and of the District of Columbia ; Mr. William Lee of viii Preface New York ; the Board of Education of New York ; the Park Department of New York; the Bath Department of New York ; Supt. William Wirt of Gary, Indiana ; Mr. W. Francis Hyde, the Department of Child Hygiene, Russell Sage Founda- tion ; Miss Charlotte Rumbold of St. Louis ; Dr. Peabody of Groton; Dr. Lory Prentise of Lawrenceville ; Mrs. Henry Parsons of New York ; and The South Park Commissioners of Chicago. His thanks for permission to reprint portions of certain chapters in this book are due also to: The American City; The Survey; The New England Journal of Education; Mind and Body; and The Playground. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. The Play Movement i II. Getting Started . . 8 III. The Construction of the Playgrounds ... 19 IV. Playgrounds according to Ages and Sexes . . 42 V. The Play Equipment 66 VI. Swimming Pools 97 VII. The Field House no VIII. The Organizer of Play 120 IX. The Training of Play Directors 151 X. Playground Programs 163 XI. The Playground Attendance 176 XII. A Curriculum of Play 197 XIII. Team Games 207 XIV. Miscellaneous Activities 217 XV. The Play Festival 241 XVI. Discipline 264 Bibliography 283 Appendix I . • 287 Appendix II 303 Index 327 ILLUSTRATIONS The Tenement Playground ...... Mothers' and Babies' Playground, New York City . Drinking Fountain, South Park System, Chicago Echo Park Playground, Los Angeles, Calif. Wading Pool, Children's Section, Echo Park Playground, Los Angeles. Calif. Children's Wading Pool, Armour Square, Chicago . Playing with Blocks, Mothers' and Babies' Playground, New York A Combination Frame in Providence, R.L The Slide at Emerson School, Gary, Indiana .... Giant stride, Jefferson School, Gary, Indiana .... Receiving Bathing Suits, Davis Square, Chicago Swimming Pool, Armour Square, Chicago .... Girls' Day at the Emerson School, Gary, Indiana Athletic Recreation Center, 26th and Jefferson Streets, Philadelphia Indoor Baseball at Gary, Indiana A Dutch Dance at Gary, Indiana ...... 80-yard Dash, Athletic Meet, East Park, Worcester, Mass. Dodge Ball at Gary, Indiana ....... Three Deep, Girls' Playground, New York City Volley Ball. Delegates to the Fifth Annual Meeting of the Play ground Association of America at Play, Washington, D.C. Chelsea Park Playground, New York City Camp Stecher. Boys' Camp, Smithtown, Pa. . Maypole Dances, Hartford Boy Scouts Making Fire ....... Camp Fire Girls in Camp at Fort Pickens, Fla. Boston Evening Centers Orchestra, East Boston, 1912-1913 Play Festival at Worcester Play Festival, Hazard Playground, Los Angeles, Calif. Slausen Playground, showing Field House and Boys' Section beyond Los Angeles, Calif. • • PAGE 37 '- 46- 57^ 721-^ 82 ^^ 88 «^ 100 v^ 104^ 108'^ 117^ 125 ♦^ 165 1^ 165^ 198'^ 202>/ 204/^ 204V 225^ 225^ 227/ 228/ 239 U- 242 ^ 25s I/- 255 ^ PRACTICAL CONDUCT OF PLAY CHAPTER I THE PLAY MOVEMENT At the time the Playground Association of America was or- ganized in Washington in 1906, there were less than twenty cities in the United States that were maintaining playgrounds, and in some of these the play was unsupervised. In the Playground Year Book for 1913, it is stated that there were during that year three hundred forty- two cities with play- grounds under regular paid workers, but by including the cities which are carrying on their playgrounds through vol- unteer workers or caretakers, the total number is raised to six hundred forty- two. There are thus from twenty to thirty times as many cities that are maintaining playgrounds now as there were eight years ago. When we consider that this is indicative of what is taking place throughout the civil- ized world, it becomes evident that the organization of play is one of the new public functions that are coming in, and that every city and probably every country section must soon join the movement or be classed among the backward or decadent communities. Many of the cities are now main- taining their systems only during the summer, but the number of all-the-year-round playgrounds is increasing at the rate of about twelve per cent each season, and appar- ently these will soon be the rule. 2 Practical Conduct of Play This rapid increase in the number of cities, however, by no means fully represents the actual development of the movement, for there has been a widening in the significance of the playground itself that has been no less marked than the increase in numbers. Whereas the first playgrounds were maintained during ^^^ or six weeks of the summer time only, and were meagerly equipped with heaps of sand, swings, and seesaws for the play of the little children, nearly all playgrounds now are maintained for eight or ten weeks at least, and the term is being constantly lengthened even in systems that have not yet adopted an all- the-y ear-round policy. To the equipment of the original playground have been added the giant stride, the wading pool, the swimming pool, the outdoor gymnasium, facilities for athletics, and in several systems field houses on a very magnificent scale. The city of New York has spent seventeen millions of dollars on its play systems during the last fifteen years. Chicago has spent thirteen millions in the last ten years, and the amount which the country as a whole is spending is increasing at the rate of nearly fifty per cent per year. PLAY IN CONNECTION WITH THE SCHOOLS As the result of this new interest in the organization of play, the schools throughout the country are probably now getting playgrounds nearly ^ twice as large as they were fifteen or twenty years ago. In a large number of systems these are kept open under paid supervisors during the summer and during the fall and spring while the weather is pleasant, and more and more play is getting into the regular program of the schools. It is impossible to say at present just how many of our systems already have regular play periods during the The Play Movement 3 school time, but there are probably at least a hundred cities with one or more periods during the week, and there may be two or three hundred. In Gary, there are two or three periods each day during the first six years and one period a day during the next five. There is a very strong sentiment in educa- tional circles looking toward such a development in connection with our school systems everywhere. Nearly all of our larger summer schools are now giving regular courses of training in playground activities, and these always prove to be among the most popular courses for teachers. Play courses are also finding their way into the regular normal schools ; indeed, nearly all the larger normals of the North are now giving one or more courses in play, and everything seems to indicate that such training will soon become a part of the required preparation of all normal students. Most of these courses are thus far very inadequate, but they are improving from year to year a^d better facilities for practice are being provided, so that we may hope within a reasonable length of time to have fairly satisfactory training courses in connection with many of our normal schools and universities. This rapid development has not affected the playgrounds alone, but similar progress has taken place along a number of parallel lines, as the Boy Scouts and the Camp Fire Girls, siunmer camps, and various other activities which are develop- ing a love of nature, the open air, and a vigorous life. The Public School Athletic League was organized in New York City in 1905, and there are now probably more than a hundred cities in which athletics are organized under the Board of Education. As a result, not only are a vastly larger number of children taking part in contests, but the contests are of a 4 Practical Conduct of Play higher order than those of ten or fifteen years ago. The school nearly everywhere is becoming a social center and is organizing music, dancing, gymnastics, civic discussions, and other similar activities which are furnishing recreation to the adults in the evening and an opportunity for carrying on the work during the winter when conditions are not suitable for outdoor play. PLAY AT HOME AND IN INSTITUTIONS This same general interest is manifesting itself in a larger development of play facilities in the home and the yard, and the equipment is also improving in quality as well as in quantity. Nearly all orphan asylums and similar institutions for children are now being equipped with fairly satisfactory apparatus, and there is everywhere a growing appreciation of the need of play for these dependent children. But thus far the organization has been very inadequate, and perhaps the greatest need that exists among any single group of children lies just here. PUBLIC RECREATION More and more we are coming to see that we all need to play whether we are old or young, that we cannot keep our mental sanity and poise without it ; and the recreation move- ment is coming to make provision for the play of adults as well as children. One hundred fifty-two school systems re- ported that during the year 19 13 their schools were open in the evening, as social centers. The participants are largely adults or working boys and girls. The gymnasiums in the high schools, the municipal gymnasiums and swimming pools, and the field houses in the parks are nearly ever)rwhere being opened at night and are being used in the main by young people in the teens or the twenties. A number of cities The Play Movement 5 have been experimenting during the last four or five years with the municipal dance hall, and there is a general feeling, apparently, that the cities must at least regulate if not furnish these facilities for the social recreation of adolescents. Mov- ing pictures were shown as one feature in forty-eight play systems during 1913, and there is likely to be very rapid in- crease in the use of the moving picture in connection with social centers and field houses and more or less with the out- door playgrounds themselves. The pageant also is becoming increasingly popular throughout the country and is being used on many more occasions and on a very much larger scale than had ever been conceived of until the last few years. There is now a strong movement for a public celebration of our national holidays which will do away with the firecrackers of the Fourth and the heavy drinking of New Year's Day. The city of Boston has created a Department of Celebrations with a paid director in charge. RURAL RECREATION Interest in rural recreation is increasing also. The Y.M.C.A. now has about ninety county secretaries, and in all these counties organized atjiletics form a larger or smaller part of the activities of the associations. In probably from fifty to a hundred counties athletics are organized under the direction of the county superintendent, often with a play festival at some time during the year, and a considerable number of counties have the work organized through a local normal school. At Amenia, New York, there has been developed a great field day in which the whole county participates and which brings out many thousands. This has been so success- ful and has taken such a hold on the imagination of the 6 Practical Conduct of Play country that it seems likely that similar celebrations will be developed in many other localities during the next few years. More and more the rural school is becoming a social center. OUR PRESENT STATUS It must not be thought, however, from anything that has just been said that we have anywhere at the present time an adequate play system, or that there is any city, except perhaps Gary, Indiana, which has really provided play for all its children. When we say that the city of Chicago has a school system, we mean that there is somewhere in Chicago a seat for every child of school age in the city, but the play system of Chicago is not reaching more than from ten to twenty per cent of the children who are old enough to use it, and there is probably no system in the country that is reaching more than thirty to forty per cent, except where play is put into the curriculum of the school. SOURCES OF THE PLAY MOVEMENT If we ask ourselves whence this movement and why it has developed as it has, the sources and reasons are fairly evident. The play movement in this country apparently owes its be- ginnings to an inspiration from Germany. Its ultimate sources, however, lie in the constitution of our civilization, and it must have come from the very nature of things, whether we received any stimulus from the outside or not. There are three main causes of the play movement : they are, the increasing congestion of our cities, which has made unor- ganized play more and more difficult; the new psychology, which has shown us that play is the fundamental attitude of the child's mind toward the world, and that out of his play The Play Movement 7 issues most of his early training ; and the new sense of social responsibility of the strong for the weak, which is developing apace all over the world. The play movement in Germany is primarily a physical movement looking to the strengthen- ing of the race. In this country it has been primarily social, and its chief aim, apparently, has been to keep the children away from temptations and to give them right motives and habits. CHAPTER II GETTING STARTED Boston was the first city in this country, apparently, to begin the organization of play, but, so far as we are able to judge, the movement in Boston had very little influence upon the rest of the country, and the beginnings in New York and Philadelphia cannot be directly traced to anything that Boston had done. Probably ninety-five per cent or more of all the play sys- tems in the United States have been started by private organi- zations. During the first years it was nearly always a com- mittee of a mothers' club, a woman's club, or some sort of civic organization which took the initiative, but during the last few years the tendency has been more and more toward the organization of a playground or recreation association. Where the movement has been one for a school playground, the mothers' club or the parents' association has often been able to undertake it and carry it on until the school board was ready to take it over. A PLAYGROUND AND RECREATION ASSOCIATION A playground and recreation association is nearly always more effective than a committee of a woman's club, because an association organized for this purpose can devote sufficient time to it, while a woman's club probably has a number of other purposes. It is also desirable that an organization that 8 Getting Started 9 is semi-public in the beginning, and always becomes public sooner or later, should consist of men as well as women and should be representative of all of the interests of the city. Organization has been the secret of much of the social prog- ress of the last decade, and if twenty-five or thirty influential people will stand together to promote the play movement in any city, its future is assured. In getting started, it is oft- times possible to have one of the field secretaries of the Play- ground and Recreation Association of America come to the city and help to organize the first meeting and get people together. Playground associations are usually organized with the same officers as other associations, and in addition a board of directors of from fifteen to twenty members. These direc- tors carry on all the business of the association, and, to all intents and purposes, are the association, since they usually have monthly meetings, while the association meets only once a year. This board should be made to represent all the im- portant organizations of the city, as, the school board, the park board, the common council, prominent women's clubs, labor unions, the chamber of commerce, and other influential bodies. The president is apt to be the determining factor in the success of the association and should be selected on the basis of his personal and political influence and his willingness to give time and effort to the enterprise. It is a mistake to select a person for this position merely because he is prominent or wealthy if he is not manifesting a genuine interest in the enterprise or a willingness to give a part of his time to its promotion. The treasurer should usually be an officer in one of the well-known banks, and one of the vice presidents should be a good second choice for president. All of the lo Practical Conduct of Play members of the Board of Directors should be placed on com- mittees so far as possible and given some definite work to do, as otherwise their interest is not likely to be maintained. Very often the promoters have felt that the Playground Association is a purely temporary organization and that its work should be over as soon as the city begins to make appropriations for the movement. Experience has proved, however, that it is no less needed after the work comes under public control than it is in the beginning. It should see that the work is not mismanaged by the city, that the proper people are placed in charge, and that adequate appropriations are made. No city starts out with a complete system and constant stimulation is needed to secure expansion so that it may serve the whole city and new features may be introduced as they are needed. The main purpose of the association, however, should always be to educate public opinion so as to secure as general a support of the movement as possible. There were during the year 19 13 one hundred twenty-one cities in the United States whose playgrounds were main- tained under a playground or recreation association. In a considerable number of these cities the funds administered were public funds, although the association was a private one. There is always prejudice against this procedure, but ofttimes it is the best that can be done in the beginning. The Survey. — When it has been decided to organize a play movement, one of the first things that should be done is to find out as fully as possible the actual needs ; or, in other words, to make a survey or study of the situation, in order that the system that is planned may be built upon an inti- mate knowledge of conditions. There are two kinds of knowledge which should be secured Getting Started ii through the survey. First, it should be determined what are the actual play facilities in connection with the schools, the parks, or any other available places on public or private property. It is usually wise to begin by securing a plan, drawn to a scale, of all of the school yards in the city with a statement of their conditions of surface and other pertinent facts. Then all the other public property in the city that might be used and any vacant ground that might be pur- chased should be plotted in the same way. It is wise to put these areas on a school or outline map, so that one may see at a glance the school population and at the same time the available play space. These drawings may often be made by the children in the upper grades as a regular lesson. Next, it is very important to find out just what the children are doing in the time after school, in the evenings, and during the summer, for this shows the actual need. This information having been secured, a definite plan should be made for a play system which will cover the city. This should usually mean the enlargement of certain school grounds and the securing of one or more larger grounds, in connection with either the schools or the parks, for general athletics and recreation for adolescents and adults. The Educational Campaign. — Having found out the need of the city and made a plan for a system that would meet this need, the next step should be an educational campaign to secure popular support for it. Public speakers of promi- nence are often brought on to discuss the subject before in- fluential groups of people, articles are written for the papers, and accounts of the work, especially in neighboring or rival cities, are published. It is always an advantage for the Playground Association to start one or more playgrounds, so 12 Practical Conduct of Play that people may see a playground in operation. One of the most effective methods is the play festival, as this makes an attractive spectacle and often calls out large numbers who realize for the first time what play means and become en- thusiastic about it. If a city is undertaking a campaign for the inauguration of a playground system, it should always open a correspondence with the Playground and Recreation Association of America at I Madison Avenue, New York City. Mr. H. S. Braucher is Secretary, and the Association has at its command literature which can be used in campaigns of this kind. Moreover, it may be possible for the Association to send one of its Field Secretaries to the city to assist in getting the movement under way. Securing the Funds. — It is usually possible to secure the funds for a school playground in the beginning by holding an entertainment or a series of entertainments for this purpose, and ofttimes this is the very best way to begin. In the case of a rural school, it will nearly always be necessary to get started in this way. It involves very little trouble. The entertainment is worth while in itself, as any social occasion in a country community nearly always is, and the children feel a greater interest in the playground if they have helped to earn the money by which it is provided. For the play- ground of a city school, money may be raised either by enter- tainments or by securing contributions from the patrons. Both of these methods are comparatively easy. If two or three of the patrons will themselves make a liberal contribu- tion to begin with and will see the others, there will rarely be any trouble to secure enough money for a beginning. I have seen $250 subscribed in this way in a single evening from Getting Started 13 the patrons of a colored school in the South. Very often the Mothers' Club or the Parents' Association takes the entire responsibility for securing the necessary funds. A financial campaign is often one of the most important steps in promoting a play system, because, if contributions are to be secured, prospective contributors must be convinced of the value of the movement in the beginning, and the persons who secure the contributions must convince first themselves and then the others. The person who has given to a move- ment feels an increased interest in it, and he is all the more willing that the city should support it in the future. Very often play associations have undertaken to raise much too small a sum through their campaigns. It is essential to the success of such a campaign that there should be some definite purpose in view, and that the people who have it in charge shall be of such a sort that their very names are an assurance to the public that the money will not be misspent. It is quite as easy in most cities to raise ten thousand dollars on a ten thousand dollar plan, as it is to raise one thousand on a thou- sand dollar plan, and the city cannot be stirred or made enthusiastic by a small project. The play movement is no longer an experiment and it is not necessary to raise the money for a single playground as a demonstration. It is difficult to secure the cooperation of influential people or the newspapers if the purpose is merely to provide a playground in one sec- tion ; but the idea of providing playgrounds for all the children of the city appeals to the imagination in a much stronger way and secures a far wider support. The steps that are necessary if the money is to be secured from the city are almost the same as when it is to be raised by private subscriptions. In each case, there must be a 14 Practical Conduct of Play definite plan, there must be a realization of needs, and there must be a general assurance that the people who are making the request are competent to spend the money properly and secure results. The School Board should always be asked to support the school playgrounds, and usually the Common Council should be asked to make a separate appropriation. It is best to make the request even if there is very little likeli- hood of its being granted. The presentation of the subject is good advertising, and the refusal of the city is the best ground for an appeal for private contributions. The presen- tation itself will help to convince the city officials of the need, and will probably set other people to talking to them about it. A RECREATION COMMISSION The Playground Association grows very naturally into a public commission as time goes on and regular appropriations are given for the work. Probably the best recreation com- mission that can be appointed in most cases is the executive committee of the playground association. There have been a great many recreation commissions which accomplished little, largely because the members were appointed without having any special interest in the playgrounds or information about them; but where the men who have already been active are thus recognized and given a public position, a recreation commission is ofttimes a very good way to admin- ister the movement. The chief reason for choosing a commission for administer- ing a play system is to unite in this way all the playgrounds — school, municipal, and park — under the same head, thus saving duplication of effort and enabling one supervisor to oversee the entire movement. This, however, is apt not to Getting Started 15 work out in practice, because public departments are very jealous of having their activities administered through an out3ide commission. It is almost impossible for anybody except the school board to maintain adequately the play activities on the school grounds, for the reason that these activities are more and more becoming a part of the regular school work and are in general under tjie director of physical training of the school system. Moreover, the park depart- ment is oft times jealous of having activities within the parks administered by other departments, and there are inherent elements of friction in almost any sort of commission that may be organized to administer play in different departments. In order to avoid this friction the recreation commission has often been organized with a member from the school board, a member of the park board, and some other interested public person in charge ; but it is believed not to have been altogether successful in most cases. PARK AND SCHOOL BOARDS When the city takes over the movement, it usually takes it over through the recreation commission, the park board, or the school board. The park board is inevitably interested in the organization of play, because the parks are playgrounds for adults, and nearly everywhere they are furnishing facilities for athletics, swimming, and the common games. Municipal playgrounds are usually small parks devoted to play. The school board is interested because it has, or ought to have, playgrounds in connection with all of its schools, it is coming everywhere to organize play at recesses, and more and more play is finding its way into the curriculum. There is no very general agreement thus far as to which 1 6 Practical Conduct of Play department should administer the play, but it seems inevitable that more and more it will fall to the share of the Board of Education. But the really determining factor in the efficiency of the playgrounds is not usually the method of organization, but the supervisor of the system. THE RECREATION SUPERVISOR OR SECRETARY As Joseph Lee has said, if a city can get a capable supervisor, he will secrete the system ; and it is certain that no city that has not had a capable supervisor has ever had a notable system. Any amount of money spent without such a person is sure to produce inadequate and perhaps undesirable results. There is at the present time a large demand for supervisors, and there are very few people available who are at all ade- quately trained. Ofttimes Boards of Trade insist that local men shall be employed, but in most cases there is no local man who has had sufficient preparation. Their insistence is usually due to the fact that they do not realize the nature of the work demanded of a supervisor or his significance to the city. In general, it has been felt that the person in charge of a play system should be a physical trainer, but this is plainly open to discussion. As the person in charge will have to organize and plan a system, as well as to administer athletics, plays, games, folk dancing, swimming pools, industrial work, gardens, story telling, kindergartens, excursions, camps, and laborers, it is absolutely essential that he should be a capable organizer and administrator. He should be a sociologist, a psychologist, a pedagogue, a physical trainer, a kindergartner, a specialist in manual arts, a musician, a mechanic, and several other things. In actual fact, the supervisors of the country have been selected from all of these fields ; some of them are Getting Started 17 physical trainers, some are social workers, some are manual training men, some are mechanics, and many have been teachers. The person in charge must know enough about physical training to know whether the athletics and games are properly conducted and the folk dances properly given, but it is not necessary that he should himself be a physical trainer, though it is desirable that he should be skillful in all the things which the playground administers. The playground supervisor who has charge of a system which is at all adequate, and which conducts not only play- grounds but also social centers during the school year, may do more than any other person in the city to determine the social spirit and the morals of the next generation. One who is to take this responsible position must be a capable person and should receive a salary not less than that of the principal of the high school and but little less than the superintendent of schools himself. The most important work of the supervisor is in the direct oversight of the play leaders themselves, and in the securing of competent people in the beginning. If the supervisor inherits the system, he will find the majority of the workers inadequately prepared, and, if he is initiating a system, he will also find it difficult to secure a body of trained play direc- tors, with the funds at his disposal, so that it will probably be necessary for him to train the workers himself. For this purpose it will be best for him to hold play institutes or to conduct courses during the year, but the finishing touches must always come through the personal suggestions and criti- cism of the supervisor on the spot ; for this reason he needs those same qualities of insight and skillful suggestion which are required in a capable school principal or superintendent. 1 8 Practical Conduct of Play Ofttimes the play supervisor comes to a city and assumes his duties before there are any playgrounds, and the great work before him is, as has been suggested, to secrete the system. He has to create such an interest and enthusiasm in the city as will demand the provision of play and appropria- tions sufficient to maintain it. This means that he must also be a promoter, that he must be able to speak in public, to organize meetings, banquets, and other means of publicity, to secure the cooperation of the press in keeping the matter before the public, and in manifold ways to enlist the coopera- tion of the people of the city. He will have to deal with many other public departments of the city, and he must have the saving grace of tact in order to prevent the frictions which so easily arise. In general, the supervisor must see that all of tjie activities are carried on successfully. He must formulate the general plan of things to be done, and carry it through to success. He must be able to maintain a state of discipline among the laborers and directors who are under his charge, and to in- spire directors, children, and parents with a desire to cooperate. The ultimate test of his work is that the playgrounds are well attended and that the activities carried on therein are giving the right sort of physical, social, and moral training. This is no small responsibility for any man to assume, and may not lightly be committed to the corner politician or to some pensionary of the system. CHAPTER III THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE PLAYGROUNDS Before a play system can be inaugurated in any city, sites must be selected, the ground must be put in condition, the equipment erected, and everything placed in readiness. Probably the greatest weakness of our systems thus far has been that the preliminary work has not been carefully done, and that no detailed plan has been made by an expert who understood the nature of the activities to be provided for and the arrangement necessary in order to secure efficiency. THE SELECTION OF A SITE The Nature of the Ground. — Very often park boards have selected pieces of ground for playground purposes without realizing the difference between playgrounds and parks, purchasing hillsides or ravines with trees and perhaps an abundance of shade, but no suitable places for games. For if ground is to be used for athletics and general play, it should be nearly level, and the terracing of hillsides and filling in of ravines is usually a much more expensive proposition than is the purchasing of ground which is level to begin with. Not infrequently, also, pieces of ground have been bought which are cut ofE from the residence part of the city by railroads or congested street car lines. It can be taken for granted that any such playgrounds will have but a small attendance. Often, too, a site has been selected which has the open coun- 19 20 Practical Conduct of Play try or a business section on one or two sides. Naturally if people are living on only one side of the playground, there will not be more than half the attendance that is possible if there are residences on both sides. The ideal location for a play- ground is always in a section with residences on all sides, where the population is homogeneous, and where there are no street cars or railroads to prevent easy access to the grounds. The Dimensions. — While minimum standards have been more or less common abroad, thus far we have had no criteria in this country as to the size of playgrounds for either schools or cities. Such standards, however, are coming to be recog- nized, and we are now saying that every city school should have at least one full block of ground, and more than that if it is a large school and the ground can be secured ; that the one- room rural school should have at least two acres ; and that the consolidated school should have from five to ten acres. In regard to the municipal playgrounds in the cities, there has been no standard, and the size is generally determined practically by the amount of vacant space available. The smallest of the playgrounds of the South Park system is seven acres in area and the largest is sixty acres. For the future, Chicago has adopted as its standard a ground twenty acres in area, but it must be remembered that these playgrounds are parks as well. In the ordinary logic of events it would seem that the playgrounds of little children should be the yards of their homes ; those of school children should be the schoolyards ; and those of adults should be either parks or enlarged school grounds. These grounds for the older people will normally have a wide range of influence and should be large enough for all kinds of athletics, furnishing especially facihties for base- ball, football, tennis, swimming, and similar activities. The Construction of the Playgrounds 21 PLANNING THE PLAYGROUND Probably less than one per cent of the playgrounds of the country thus far have been planned. In fact, I have never seen one that seemed to show evidence of that sort of care in arrangement that an architect would bestow upon the design for a building. Yet it is scarcely possible that we should have a really efficient playground unless such a plan has been made for it, and the efficiency of a large proportion of the grounds might be doubled by merely rearranging the equipment. Space for Equipment. — In general, the plan should place the apparatus and fixed equipment around the edges or in the corners, leaving the central space open for games. A small amount of apparatus may be made to monopolize a large space by placing it in the center, and a still more wasteful arrangement is to place it at the side but leave a wide alley between it and the fence. In general, especially when swings are so placed, this alley cannot be used for anything. It is necessary to place the equipment at the side, not only in order to economize space, but because there is much less danger of injury to bystanders than if it is placed in the center of the ground. Swings and giant strides should always be placed where there is little passing, so that children who are playing games or running about may not be struck. All apparatus should be so arranged that it can be easily observed by the director. The field house and swimming pool belong to all sections of the playground alike, and should be located in some position where they will be easily accessible from all quarters. Space for Games and Athletics. — Each game which is to be much played, such as indoor baseball, volley ball, basket 22 Practical Conduct of Play ball, tennis, and the like, should be fitted with great care into the playground plan, so as not to take up more room than the game itself actually requires. It is usually best to fit the tether ball into some corner of the playground, if possible ; at any rate, into some small space not more than fifteen or twenty feet in diameter where it will fit snugly. The ring about the pole and the line which bisects it should be put in with either brick or concrete, in order that it may not need to be marked out constantly. If the playground is of any considerable size, there should be room for two or three tennis courts at least. The tennis court is thirty-six by seventy-eight feet in size, but where back stops are furnished, there should be about loo feet between the two back stops. If the playground has been surfaced in the manner described on page 8, all that will be necessary in laying out the ground is to cover the space chosen for tennis with a fine stone dust or sandy loam. In Germany, the common practice is to mark out the tennis courts with two-by-four's which are set plumb with the sur- face and painted white on the upper edge. This gives a permanent court which does not need to be marked out from day to day and is always in condition. In the North, these will have to be reset in the spring in all probability, unless they are spiked to deep posts, because the frost tends to heave them out of the ground ; but they make a very good serviceable court. The more common practice in this country has been to mark out tennis courts with strips of canvas or with line. Either of these methods is satisfactory, though the limed court requires constant remarking. At present many of the best courts are being made of asphalt or concrete with the lines in white paint. The Construction of the Playgrounds 23 Volley ball requires little more space than the actual playing area, which is usually twenty-five by fifty feet, but which may well be thirty-five by fifty, or thirty-five by seventy. It is well to mark this court out, also, with two-by-four^s, or concrete so that the boundaries may be permanent. Posts, made of two-by-three Georgia pine or cypress, should be three feet in the ground and about eight feet out of it, with hooks for holding the net near the top. The same court may be used for both volley ball and basket ball by putting the basket ball standards at the ends. The basket ball court is thirty-five by seventy feet and may well be marked out in the same way, if there is much enthusiasm for the game. It also requires little more room than the actual playing space, and may be fitted snugly into any comer of proper size. During the last two or three years, a number of hand ball courts have been erected in the playgrounds of the different cities. These usually consist of a cement wall about twelve or fifteen feet high by twenty feet wide, with a floor or plat- form of cement about twenty feet square. This is a compar- atively expensive game thus furnished, but it is sure to be appreciated by the young men. Squash, of course, is similar, but has a much larger wooden ball and platform and is cor- respondingly more expensive. It is popular in England, but is not played much in this country. There should be a regular place for indoor baseball on both the girls' and the boys' playgrounds with the positions per- manently marked, as a rule. Bases stuffed with sand are very serviceable and may well be furnished. Indoor baseball is usually played by the older boys and men outdoors on a thirty-five-foot diamond, by the girls on a twenty-seven-foot 24 Practical Conduct of Play diamond. If the large ball is used, the twenty-seven- and thirty-five-foot diamonds are best; but if the twelve-inch ball, or even the fourteen-inch ball is used, with older fellows, it may be well to make the diamond a little larger. Along the side of the playground where there will be no danger of striking any one, there should be a place for quoits, as this is a game which is appreciated by the older people and helps to bring in the fathers in the evening. In both the girls' and the community playground it is well to have croquet. In the shade of the trees, if there are any, there should be a sixty-yard track with a jumping pit at the end about four feet wide and twenty feet along. This may be placed at the end of the regular running track, or beside it, or in any other convenient place at the side of the ground. The jumping pit should be filled with six or eight inches of sand, and it is best to mark off the distances of the Standard Test on the side of it. A circular running track surrounding an outdoor gymnasium occupies most of the space in the playgrounds both of New York and of Chicago. The circular track allows the young fellows to get exercise without supervision. It is useful in long-distance runs, such as do not usually take place in the playgrounds. I have been in the Chicago playgrounds dozens of times, but I do not remember ever to have seen any one running on these tracks. They have certainly not been much used in New York. In a playground system where athletics are systematically encouraged there is constant use of the straightaway track, but very little use for the circular track. Where a circular track is provided, it should be laid out around the ball diamond and made without a curb, so that it may interfere with play as little as possible. The circular The Construction of the Playgrounds 25 track certainly is not worthy of the practical monopoly of the playground space which it often holds. It is expensive, space-consuming, and relatively idle as compared with the straightaway. Young children should not be encouraged to run long distances at speed, and the circular track is generally used only in long-distance running. Whatever we may think about the circular track, there can be Uttle dispute as to the value of the straightaway. The hundred-yard is used constantly in every playground where there is much encouragement of athletics. If there is room, it is well to have a two hundred and twenty yard track on which shall be located by fixed markers the twenty-j&ve, fifty, sixty, seventy-five, and one hundred yard dashes. SURFACING Surfacing is one of the most vexed problems of the play- ground builder, and there are few grounds at the present time where it is satisfactorily solved. The conditions require a surface which shall be reasonably smooth, which shall be springy under foot, which shall not contain large pebbles or cobblestones that may sprain the ankle or wear out the play- ground apparatus, and which shall not be muddy after a rain or dusty during the dry seasons. These are conditions which it is hard to meet. Many school playgrounds are surfaced with brick or cement or cinders or coarse gravel or macadam, all of which are very unsatisfactory. If the playground is large enough, probably grass is the best surface that can be provided, but in the more congested grounds, in the North at least, it is impossible to maintain a grass surface. The two most satisfactory surfaces that I know are those used in Chicago and in Philadelphia. In Chicago, the ground is lightly spread 26 Practical Conduct of Play with torpedo gravel, which is a round fine gravel about the size of a double B shot. This, however, does not entirely prevent either mud or dust, and is far from being ideal. The most successful surface on the whole is the one that has been used in Philadelphia. There they excavate the soil to a depth of ten inches, and roll with a five-ton roller so as to give a smooth grade draining into catch basins at the side. This depression is then filled in with seven inches of coarse cinders, copiously sprinkled, and rolled with a five-ton roller. After this has been well leveled and compacted, three inches of fine broken stone are filled in and the top is covered with the very finest of stone grits. This surface is then sprinkled with a mixture of glutrin (about one gallon of glutrin to three of water), using about one half gallon to the square yard. The glutrin serves to compact and hold the material together, and makes it almost entirely dust proof. The cinders and broken stone, with the catch basins at the side, furnish adequate drainage, so that this surface is dry enough to use fifteen minutes after a heavy downfall of rain. FLOODING IN WINTER In the northern part of the country there should be some arrangement by which the drains can be stopped in the winter and the ground flooded for skating. This will require either a curb or a banking up of earth or snow around the outer edge of the ground. It is not necessary to have much water, as a skating pond is much more satisfactory where the water is not more than an inch or two deep ; there is no danger from the shallow pond, and since it freezes much more quickly it will often give two or three times as much skating as would be possible if the water were deeper. Much the largest attend- The Construction of the Playgrounds 27 ance that I have ever seen in the Chicago playgrounds was on the skating ponds. LIGHTING AT NIGHT The principle of efficiency says that if we are to get ade- quate returns from our money we should use our equipment as fully as possible, and it seems almost sinful that any piece of ground that is available for play should lie idle during any waking hours in a city such as New York, or Chicago, or Boston. Merely by lighting a playground at night, its attend- ance is ofttimes doubled, and to all intents and purposes the city gets another playground of the same size as the former one, at only a small increase of cost. It can be said as a general principle that whenever a playground can be lighted for less than five per cent of its original cost, the city will be making a better investment by lighting the ground and main- taining it at night, than it has in its original daytime play- ground. Most playgrounds can probably be lighted for less than one per cent of the original cost, so that play facilities in the evening are actually furnished very much more cheaply than was the original playground. It must be remembered, also, that the evening play is a problem by itself, that the leisure time of the working people is in the evening, that it is then that temptation walks abroad in its most alluring form, and that most delinquency is begun. If the city is to furnish recreation for its working boys and girls, its men and women, it can be done only in the evenings and on Sundays. Wherever playgrounds have been ade- quately lighted, the pubHc has always responded, and the attendance has been as good during the evening as at any other time. With our new type of electric lighting it is now 28 Practical Conduct of Play possible to play nearly all the games, including even tennis, in the evening. The Emerson School in Gary lights the boys' playground, which is about two acres in extent, at a cost of from $i.oo to $1.50 an evening. The wires should be brought in under ground if possible. DRINKING FOUNTAINS Ordinary bubble fountains should be furnished plentifully in playgrounds. THE FENCE There has been a considerable division of opinion as to whether or not the playground should be fenced. The chief arguments advanced against fencing are economy of space and of money and also the analogy of the park, where the pres- ent usage is against it. These arguments do not seem very convincing. If the playground is not fenced, the children do play on the adjoining sidewalk and in the street, but it was largely to avoid this that playgrounds were first created. The park analogy is not at all convincing, because park and playground have different uses. On the other hand, the reasons for fencing are very definite and, to me, entirely suf- ficient. They may be divided into three groups. The first is the protection of the children and the apparatus, the second discipline, and the third the spirit of the work — the mob psychology, if you will, of the fenced and the unfenced ground. A playground usually contains a good deal of apparatus that may be damaged by vandals. Older boys will sometimes get a grudge against a teacher for some reason and take it out on the apparatus; swing ropes will be cut, broken glass scattered about the ground, or the leather of the horse slashed with a knife. The greatest difficulty for every playground is Drinking Fountain, South Park System, Chicago. The Construction of the Playgrounds 29 with the rowdies and others who come over to make use of it after hours. They often sit on the apparatus and whoop and yell and make themselves a nuisance generally. Some- times the girls and the boys make the playground a meeting place and it gets the credit of their disorder, bad language, and bad conduct. Where the playgrounds are fenced, the gates can be closed at the proper hour and every one excluded thereafter. Thus the fence serves to protect the apparatus and the neighborhood at night. It also serves to protect the children. Children who are playing are always Hkely to rush out heedlessly upon the street, perhaps in front of an auto or street car. Dogs from the street or runaway teams may dash up on the playground at any time. But, more serious than this, many pieces of apparatus are dangerous unless there is something to prevent the children from running through where other children are using them. The landscaping and flowers should be at the edge of the ground and cannot be protected without a fence. If a playground is unf enced, it is like a vacant lot to the child. It has no individuality, and is scarcely a thing by itself. In all of our conduct, we are subject to the constant suggestion of our surroundings. We would not use quite the same language, perhaps, in the church that we would in the hotel; in the school that we would in the barn. On the vacant lot we can do as we please ; any kind of language or conduct is appro- priate. When we have a fenced playground it becomes an institution, and our language and conduct must correspond with our conception of it. The only punishment that can well be inflicted on the playground is exclusion, and it is difficult to exclude the boy from a playground which is unfenced, and enforce the exclusion. However, the most important 30 Practical Conduct of Play reason lies in the mob psychology of the place. If it is fenced, it becomes a place by itself, a unity, a real institution. Its spirit is retained and concentrated as by an outer epidermis, and it is easier to cultivate all the loyalties and friendships that play should develop. PLAYGROUND DIVISIONS It is generally agreed, also, not only that the playground should be fenced as a whole, but that the girls should be separated from the boys and the big children from the Httle children. In the Chicago playgrounds there is one section for children under ten, another for the older boys, and a third for the older girls. I doubt if the correct division according to ages has been made in Chicago, but whether the fences are there or not, some similar division of the children has to be maintained for the efficient conduct of the grounds. The large boys wish to play different games from the large girls and to play by themselves, but the little girls and boys play much the same games. If they are in the playground with the larger children and there is no way to separate them from the others, they are constantly getting in the way and being run over. The older boys should naturally have a man director over them. The girls play different games from the boys, or at any rate play them in a different way. The older girls do not like to play games when the boys are around, and they have the folk dancing, the sewing, raffia, and such activi- ties, which the boys do not usually care for. They should normally be under a woman director. The little children, again, have their own specific games and stories and indus- trial work and should have a kindergarten teacher. All of these facts indicate that there should in actual practice be at The Construction of the Playgrounds 31 least three different sections and play leaders for the play- ground. On the other hand, the arguments on the other side are much the same as those against fencing at all. The fencing takes up room. Balls go over the fence, and one must go after them ; this interrupts the games. The real pressure often comes from the older boys and girls who like to get together. Of course this desire is normal and proper and should not be denied, but playgrounds were not intended for courting, and the more cbmpletely the sentimentaHty which it begets can be excluded, the better it will be for every one concerned. It is also a sad fact that there are loose girls and many loose boys coming to all playgrounds. These always gravitate together, and may start an evil contagion. It is impossible for the director to hear every word or to see every action, and the society of such girls and boys will be a menace to the morals of other children. It is often true that the directors see nothing and hear nothing objectionable, and yet there may be much going on that will have a bad influence. It is best to prevent the possibility of this by separating the children. It must not be inferred from this that I believe that girls and boys should never play together. There is no danger from the playing together of boys and girls ; it is the loafing together that is dangerous. It may be a very good thing for the boys' baseball team or volley ball team to play the girls occasionally. It is often wise to have exhibitions and the like which will be attended by both girls and boys. I do not think any evil results are likely to come from such contests, and they are sure to lead to greater excellence in play on the part of the girls and to be a wholesome stimulus to both. What Divisions Should There Be ? — It must not be in- ferred from what I have said that I believe the Chicago 32 Practical Conduct of Play division of the playgrounds is satisfactory. If children are to be divided on the basis of their play activities, why have one playground for children under ten, and others for those over ten? Common usage has come everywhere to divide childhood into three divisions: the period before entrance to the regular school, which includes the kindergarten and runs up, perhaps, to six or seven years of age ; the " Big Injun Age," as it is called by Joseph Lee, which corresponds in general to the elementary school ; and youth or adolescence, which begins with puberty. If the playground is divided on this basis, there must be five or six divisions : one for the little children, who may well be together ; one for boys from seven or eight to thirteen ; one for girls of the same age ; one for adolescent boys ; one for adolescent girls ; and I should be inclined to have a section, also, for parents and adults. Such a division, I believe, can be defended on physio- logical, sociological, and educational grounds. It may not be feasible to divide a playground into six parts, but four divisions are quite possible. Probably the most practical division in most cases would be a playground for children under seven or eight, a playground for older boys, a playground for older girls, and a community playground where the boys and the girls, the fathers and the mothers, might meet together and take part in common games and social occasions. Are the Division Fences Necessary ? — I am unable to see that any considerable advantage is secured by the Chicago division fences. As they are picket fences, they do not give much seclusion to the girls' playground, or prevent boys or men from seeing in. As girls and boys can meet as much as they choose in the much more dangerous places which sur- The Construction of the Playgrounds 33 round these special playground divisions, the fences do not serve as a moral safeguard. In actual fact, the chief service which they perform is that of marking off places where the children of different ages and sexes may play by themselves. For this purpose expensive picket fences are not necessary, as a low hedge of barberry, perhaps, not more than two or three feet high, would serve just as well and would be much more convenient when balls went out of bounds. If the playground is to be a loafing place, full of equipment and in charge of caretakers, it is essential that the girls should be absolutely separated from the boys, and perhaps that they should have entirely separate playgrounds. There are five determining factors in the kind and number of the playground divisions. The first of these is the number of directors who are to be on the playground. There should be no more divisions than there are directors, for a division fence that has to be passed constantly in order to supervise another section is sure to be an impediment to efficiency. A second consideration which is rather decisive is the size of the play- ground, for in a small playground, even if there are many children, the division fences often take up more room than can be afforded, and it is better to get along without them. A third factor is always the effectiveness of the supervision, — the capacity of the supervisors and the hold which they have over the children. A fourth is the presence of parents on the playground and the extent to which the ground has be- come a community gathering place. A fifth consideration is the nature of the neighborhood itself, as there is likely to be more trouble in some quarters than in others from the meet- ing of the sexes. However, whether substantial fences sep- arate the playground divisions or not, it is absolutely essen- 34 Practical Conduct of Play tial that there be a separate place for the play of the little children, of the older girls, and of the older boys, though the dividing lines be merely imaginary. It is doubtful whether the play movement in any of our cities is well enough organized as yet to make the municipal playgrounds satisfactory without separating the girls from the boys. But it is quite certain that there are at the present time no places where the separation is satisfactorily accom- plished. I am inclined to think that without separation there may be more danger from vicious adults than from the boys, and an undivided playground may be one of the best places for a woman policeman. Divisions on the School Playground. — On the school play- ground, it is usually better not to have the division fences, pro- vided the play is supervised. The school ground is not large enough to afford the space, and after school and during the summer it is often sufficient to have only one play director on the ground, if the ground is not divided ; but, if the girls and the boys are separated, two directors will be necessary. At the school ground there ought to be no difficulty in securing the attendance of enough parents in the afternoon and evening to avoid any social dangers from the mixing of the boys and the girls. BEAUTIFYING THE PLAYGROUND There are always people living near playgrounds who ob- ject to them as ugly and noisy. There is no doubt that an unfenced ground, where all the grass has been worn off by abun- dant use and where no adequate supervision has been fur- nished, will cause all the property in the immediate neighbor- hood to depreciate in value. The natural answer to the objectors lies in fencing and beautifying the playground and The Construction of the Playgrounds 35 providing adequate supervision. If this is not done, the play movement cannot get that enthusiastic support which it needs. Even when all these provisions are made, there will still be those who object to the playground as they do to the school, because they do not like to have children around, and because they would rather sit on their front porches in the evening and gossip or dream in quiet, even though the children languish in the alleys, than to have a playground in their immediate neighborhood. But these provisions will answer the legitimate objectors and the movement owes as much as this to the locality in which the playgrounds are placed. The early years of the race were spent in an environment of nature. The nervous system became adapted to such an environment during the countless ages before history, when man was a part of nature rather than its lord. All forms of play issue from these earlier forms of activity. They derive their pleasure from their association with these activities in the distant past, and it may be said, in general, that nearly or quite all forms of rest and play consist in a return to nature. We all get out of the cities for our vaca- tions if we can. For the old activities that the race pursued in its infancy, we have ready-made coordinations and an in- stinctive interest. We not only do the task with less effort, but we are able to command more energy for the task. As every one knows, we do not tire so easily in play as in work. Nature is a restful element of our original environment that ought to come in with our play. Our ideal pictures of play are always of children by the brook or in the meadow or under a spreading tree, and if there are squirrels, birds, and butterflies, these also seem to belong to the picture and to be a part of the concept. 36 Practical Conduct of Play Most or at least many of our playgrounds at the present time are utterly ugly or nearly so. There are no trees or flowers or grass. The ground is muddy in wet weather and dusty in dry. Of course there are natural Hmitations to the beautifying of a playground. It cannot be turned into an ornamental park or a series of flower beds without destroying it for play purposes, but it is not at all necessary that play- grounds should be ugly. The proper beautifying will both remove the objections of the neighbors and make the ground more appropriate as a place for play. The Fence. — The thing to begin with in beautifying a playground is the fence, and it may well be the most important element in the landscaping when it is finished. The fence serves a double purpose. It shuts off the view of the bare ground within, and it may itself be a thing of beauty. The playground fence should be hard to climb, it should be reasonably durable, and it should add to the appearance of the place rather than detract from it. In the Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia playgrounds the steel picket fence is used. This is about six feet high with steel posts set in concrete. It is a pretty expensive fence, costing, even in the large quantities purchased in Chicago and Philadelphia, from $1.25 to $1.75 a running foot. It an- swers all purposes, can be rapidly installed, and lasts for- ever. For a municipal playground in a congested section, it is probably the most serviceable kind of fence. It may be beautified by covering it with flowering vines. There are not many playgrounds surrounded by hedge fences, but I am inclined to think that an evergreen hedge is a very good type of playground fence. It is cheap, it is much handsomer than the picket fence, and when well grown it is The Construction of the Playgrounds 37 almost impossible to climb. It serves to shut off the blasts of winter and offers at least a border of shade in summer. If it is allowed to grow to the height of six feet or more, it gives se- clusion to the girls' playground. For such a fence some evergreen such as cedar, box, or privet should be chosen. Privet will probably be the most satisfactory wherever it will grow. It is a handsome green the year round, but it will not grow in the more northern parts of the country. In order to protect the hedge at first, it will be necessary to erect a wire fence beside it, that it may not be trampled upon. This should be about five or six inches outside the hedge. The young shoots should usually be planted in two rows, not more than six inches apart. As the hedge grows, it will spread through the wires and soon conceal the fence en- tirely. The most beautiful and also the cheapest fence that I know of is of woven wire made tight at the bottom to prevent balls from going through and then covered with vines. There is a great variety of vines that may be used, and almost any of them will add to the appearance of the ground. The fence of the Jamestown Exposition was about eight feet high and covered with honeysuckle and clematis. It was a mass of blossoms during the most of the season and the fragrance filled the air for a block. Honeysuckle and clematis are hardy and will be excellent in the southern section of the country, but morning glory, moon vine, or kudsu will be better in the northern sections. The prettiest fence that I have ever seen, however, is the picket fence around Echo Park, Los Angeles. This is covered with rambler roses, which are in blossom much of the year there. There are many sections of the country where the fences might be beautified in this way. 38 Practical Conduct of Play Trees. — Every playground should be surrounded by a double row of trees, one row just outside the sidewalk and the other just inside the fence. This double row should also be carried around all the subdivisions of the playground. It is needed for shade as well as for beauty. The trees should be selected with both of these ends in view. Probably the hard maple meets these requirements in most sections of the country better than any other tree, as it has a beautiful top and gives a dense shade. It is, however, a slow-growing tree, and many years must pass after planting before it will furnish adequate shade. Trees are usually planted from twenty-five to forty feet apart by landscape architects and foresters, so as to give the top full room to mature ; but it is often well to plant between these fine slow-growing trees such rapid growers as soft maples or cotton woods or gingkoes, which may be cut out after the other trees are well grown. The Lombardy poplar has certain advantages as a playground tree, because it will grow tall, even in the open, and thus casts its shade a long way. If Lombardies are used, they should be planted not more than eight or ten feet apart. The Lombardy is used very effectively all over Utah. It is a rapid-growing tree, but is apt to be somewhat scraggly in appearance. In using a double row of trees, it may be worth while at times to use a smaller and more beautiful tree like the horse chestnut, or perhaps the magnoKa in the South, for the inner row. The tree that is planted in a playground has difficult condi- tions to meet, and good-sized trees should be used whenever possible. A large part of them die because they are not really planted, but are literally torn up by the roots from some neighboring forest or nursery and stuck into a small hole in the hard ground. The earth is thrown back and tramped The Construction of the Playgrounds 39 down like the earth on a coffin, and the tree is left to die. In planting a tree, a space not less than five feet square should be excavated and filled with good soil. The earth should be put back carefully about the roots, and the tree should be boxed to protect it from injury during its first years. The estimate of the cost of planting a tree in the school yards of Washington was four dollars. This was not allowing anything for the cost of the tree, but paid only for making the excavation, filling in good earth, removing the subsoil, and boxing the tree. Trees should never be planted promiscuously in a play- ground, but they may properly be planted around special features, such as the tennis or basket ball or volley ball court, if there is ample room. It will be a generation before we can get a playground shaded with great elms or oaks or maples, where the birds will sing in the branches and the squirrels and owls will find their home, but it is necessary for us to make a beginning, if our children or grandchildren are to have these advantages. Shrubbery. — In regard to the general use of shrubbery in playgrounds, there is only one thing to say, and that is " Don't." Shrubbery has small benefits to confer, and it brings dangers that are not to be minimized. The play- ground should have no place of concealment where boys and girls are likely to come together. In the Chicago grounds the shrubbery is banked about the fences, where it adds con- siderably to the appearance, but this surely does not justify the moral dangers which are involved. About the only ways in which shrubbery may be used with safety are as low hedges to protect a grass plot or flower bed or to maintain a path, and as a narrow border against the front or sides of a recreation building. 40 Practical Conduct of Play Vines. — Perhaps enough has been said about vines in connection with the fences, but it may be added that vines on a trellis will make an excellent cover for a sandbin, much cooler and more satisfactory than an awning. They will serve to conceal outbuildings and may well be used to cover buildings of any sort. Grass. — It is difficult to raise grass on a small playground, but it is possible to have a border around the edge. This adds greatly to the appearance and serves as a place for story telling and for rest when weary from hard play. It may be necessary to protect this grass by a low wire fence or hedge so that the children may not use it as a part of their play field. Such a border should be maintained wherever it is possible. Flowers. — Flowers and playgrounds do not go well to- gether, and any extensive decoration with flower beds is sure to be an intrusion and a nuisance. Many of our school play- grounds in Washington had flower beds next to the fences. Most of these were practically uninjured by the play, and the playgrounds were certainly the prettier for having the flowers, but the simple fact is that playgrounds were intended to raise children and not flowers, and where the teachers value flowers above children, as has been done in many school yards, the children always suffer. If there is an outside organization which will promote the flower side of the program, it may be worth while to have flower beds around the edge of the ground, but it must be remembered that these flowers are always in a precarious position. There was once a row of flower beds around the Columbus Avenue Playground of Boston, but these have disappeared. If there is a flagpole on the grounds, as there should be, it is well worth while to have a mass of banked flowers, such as salvia or cannas, or geraniums around the The Construction of the Playgrounds 41 pole, and it may be advisable to have one or two simple beds of flowers at the entrance to the ground, on each side of the gate, and have them kept by the attendant, but I doubt if much more than this is wise as a rule. On the other hand, perhaps few of us realize how restful a flower bed may be. The lover of beauty basks in the richness of color much as our forebears did in the sunshine of the primeval mud flat or sand bar. Whenever the mind drops back from conscious thought into the realm of sensation, as it does when it dwells on objects of beauty or listens to music, all the higher faculties of the mind are rested. But the playground is not the place for this kind of dreaming, and a flower bed can never be more than a decoration there. CHAPTER IV PLAYGROUNDS ACCORDING TO AGES AND SEXES The playground as described in the last chapter is not found in fact in any American city, but is a composite built up from elements taken from playgrounds and social gather- ing places all over the world. It is believed to be superior in certain ways to any playgrounds thus far constructed. The entire area should be surrounded by a high, strong fence, and should have at least four divisions, though the dividing lines may be imaginary. So far as possible, however, the children's playgrounds should be set off from each other by solid hedges, while the community playground may be placed in the center and separated from the other play- grounds by a low hedge, which will serve as a boundary but will not be a real barrier if balls go out of bounds. Thus from the community playground, where the parents are supposed to come, all the other playgrounds will be in view. All of the entrances to the individual playgrounds should be from this central space, so that the children can come into it for exhibitions and entertainments. This arrangement will also lessen the problem of discipline, for it will be much easier to keep account of what is going on if the children cannot rush in from the outside and rush out again as they choose, but must enter and leave their own ground through the central space. Moreover, the rowdies who sometimes make themselves a nuisance can be more easily excluded under this arrangement. 42 Playgrounds according to Ages and Sexes 43 THE PLAYGROUND FOR THE LITTLE CHILDREN Perhaps a better name for this section would be " the Mothers' and Babies' Playground," as they call it in New York. At any rate, there should be every effort to get the mothers to attend as well as the children, so that it may be a family affair as much as possible. There is no playground in this country which is ideally adapted to little children and their mothers. It would be best to have this section set off from the rest of the playground by a hedge fence to give it retirement as well as a fringe of green and some shade. It should have an abundance of trees and grass, for the little children are always sitting down, or lying down, or falling down. Various living things are almost as essential to it as play equipment, and there should by all means be flowers in abundance. There should be a house for pigeons, and both bird and squirrel houses in the trees, a fountain with goldfish and turtles, and perhaps a duck or two, a corner for chickens and guinea pigs and prairie dogs ; and a lamb or two and puppies should run loose about the playground. All children are fond of animals. It is the children who keep up the zoological gardens in all of our cities, for it is they and the parents they bring with them who are the chief visitors. The first play- ground menagerie that I know of was the one which Mr. Stover installed in what is now Seward Park, New York City. There were rabbits and guinea pigs and doves. There was always a group of children around watching them. I do not feel sure how far it is safe to trust children to feed animals things that will not kill them, but it certainly adds greatly to their pleasure if they may feed as well as watch them. In 44 Practical Conduct of Play the zoological gardens of Germany there is food for sale. I doubt if the children would do much harm in any case, as there is nothing to compel the rabbit to eat the sausage or pickles that are thrust through the bars of its cage. In the yard of the Emerson School in Gary, Indiana, there is a coon house and tree. In the yard of the Froebel School there is a large fountain that is to be filled with fish. The Francis Parker School of Chicago has a yard of chickens which are cared for by the children of the second grade. Many kindergartens have rabbits and guinea pigs and goldfish. So a menagerie would not be altogether an innovation. During the last decade the squirrels have moved into the cities and taken possession. They have found apparently that the country is too dangerous ; not only is the city safer, but the high cost of living is greatly reduced by the peanuts that are dispensed on the park bench, and the lunches that are thrown away. Most of the playgrounds are now practically without trees of any considerable size, but we hope they will have them sometime. Children have not been very kind to birds and animals in the past, but they are gaining a new love through their nature study, and perhaps sometime we can call the birds and squirrels to make their home in the play- ground trees. What could be more beautiful and expressive of the spirit of youth than to have the birds singing in the tree tops, while the children and rabbits and squirrels were playing happily below ? A Day Nursery. — Probably the best place possible for a day nursery during the pleasant weather is in some open-air playground that is provided with hammock swings, sand, and blocks for the little people. Such nurseries have been started in the playgrounds of Pittsburgh and probably some other Playgrou7ids according to Ages a^id Sexes 45 cities, but they require a special nurse. The day nursery should not be imposed upon a kindergartner or a playground director who has the other children as well to look after. Milk Stations. — In a considerable number of playgrounds of the country, milk stations have been established for the dispensing of certified milk which has usually been sold at a penny a glass. The playground in a poor section of the city is an excellent place for such a station. In most cases the milk has been furnished by Nathan Strauss, and without any attempt, of course, to make a profit or even to cover expenses. If there can be an arrangement whereby the milk and an attend- ant to dispense it may be furnished, it is a good thing to have such a station on any ground where little children stay for a considerable part of the day. The Wading Pool. — Wading is a natural sport of children which has never needed encouragement, where there was any opportunity to indulge in it. The sensations of the feet were very valuable to our primitive ancestors in their forest lives, whether in keeping paths, or in avoiding noise when stealing upon game, or in escaping from a pursuer. Most of our pres- ent foot sensations come from corns and chilblains, which have no great economic value. Still the old conditions live in our nervous systems, and foot sensations have an emotional appeal which is hard to understand. I can remember yet those days when we went barefooted for the first time each spring. We often went out on the sunny side of the house, where the grass was warm, before the snow had entirely gone from the north side. The first day when we might go bare- footed till bedtime was like the Fourth of July, — a day which made such vivid impressions that memory still retains them. No less vividly stand out the days at the seashore or along 46 Practical Conduct of Play the creek when one could walk about in the warm sand or in the mud and water. These sensations seem to mean nothing to the intellect. It is hard to understand the sense of well- being that accompanies them. It is probably something like the feeling that an alligator has, when he is sunning himself on a warm sand bar in the river. My first experience with a wading pool was during my first summer in the New York playgrounds, back in 1898. It was in the yard of one of the great public schools. The yard was of concrete with a drain in the center and a sand bin at one end. There were three yards and two directors with about a thousand children to look after. At that time we were furnish- ing the children with small wheelbarrows and shovels. Very naturally one of the most delightful kinds of busy work for the small children was to fill these wheelbarrows with sand and dump it down the drain. One day we had a hard rain and the drain went on strike, with the result that we soon had nearly a foot of water in the yard. The rain continued to fall in tor- rents, and the directors tried to keep their charges under cover, but it was no small task. The children liked the yard flooded much better than dry, took their shoes and stockings off in a jiffy, and were out in the water. The directors would go around on one side and forbid the children to go out in the rain, but throngs came in meanwhile from the other sides until they had to give it up as a bad job and let the chil- dren have their way about it. It has never been necessary since that time to prove to me that a wading pool would be popular. In the Chicago playgrounds, all of the later wading pools are cemented. They are of different sizes, but probably average fifty or sixty feet across. The water is often supplied Wading Pool, Children's Section, Echo Park Playground, Los Angeles, Calif. Children's Wading Pool, Armour Square, Chicago. Playgrounds according to Ages arid Sexes 47 by a fountain arrangement in the center, from which point also the water drains away when the pool is to be emptied. The common practice now is to make a circular pool about forty or fifty feet across with the water three or four inches deep at the edge and fifteen or sixteen inches in the center. This leaves the larger area shallow, which is what is usually desired. The two chief costs of the wading pool are the cementing and the connection with the sewer, though there may be a charge for the water also. A circular pool forty feet across should not cost over three hundred dollars and might cost much less. Where a pool is made with a mud or sand bottom and the water is allowed to filter away through the soil or to evaporate, practically the only cost is that of the excavation and the ex- pense of supplying the water. Such pools are often supplied by park superintendents and are as well liked by the children as the other pools, if not better liked. The water is not changed frequently in most wading pools. It is not necessary that it should be changed so frequently as in the swimming pools, because mucous membranes are not exposed to it. The children are too young to be afHicted with venereal diseases. Eye diseases are not catching from the feet, and the only diseases from which there seems to be any considerable danger are those of the skin. It is doubtful if there is much danger even from these, unless the children have running sores on their feet and legs. However, dust and soot settle on the water, and various kinds of litter get into it, so it is well to change the water occasionally and clean up the pools. They are scrubbed down every day in Chicago. The cement pool is much more attractive to look at, and the water can be let out to clean the pool whenever it is desired, 48 Practical Conduct of Play but it is doubtful whether it is ever as well liked by the chil- dren, or whether its advantages are really considerable. It is always pleasanter to put your bare feet down in the sand or the mud than on cement. It is most pleasant of all where you can squeeze the mud up between your toes. Since the chief value of the wading pool is in rousing old racial memories and creating an emotional state, it seems to follow that the nearer the wading pool is to a state of nature, such as our amphibian ancestors enjoyed, the more valuable it will be in arousing the proper emotional state in the child ; so, if the sanitary in- spector has nothing to say to the contrary, I shall vote for the pool with a bottom of sand or even of a mild variety of mud. We must remember of course that there is clean dirt and dirty dirt and that there is nothing unsanitary in coming in contact with the soil. The wading pool in any case should be so constructed that it can be drained off occasionally. The children in the wading pools are apt to get their clothes more or less wet and to splash each other. Of ttimes the small children want to lie down or sit down in it when the water is warm. For this reason bathing booths are furnished in some places, so that the children can put on old clothes before going in. On the whole, the modern wading pool is scarcely the equal, for pleasure or for profit, of the old-time mud puddle. Country children do not need wading pools, but for the benighted city youngsters, who are denied so many of the wholesome sources of recreation that the country affords, they are well worth while. The Sand Bin. — Probably there should be a sand bin in every playground, for this furnishes one of the most univer- sal forms of play, loved by all children ahke. Still it is Playgrounds according to Ages and Sexes 49 not a communal type of play, such as the playground is supposed to represent. The child does not much care for companions when he is playing in the sand, — certainly not for many companions. Children will sometimes combine in building a sand heap, but most of the things they mold they do alone, and a single child is likely to be as contented as though he had a dozen others with him. As the children grow older and use the sand more as a means of expression in drawing and molding definite objects, a number of chil- dren may work in cooperation, but the small children do this very little. The sand bin belongs properly in the back yard where the children can play by themselves. There are various reasons for this which will be taken up later. Nevertheless, it is not being furnished in the back yard, in most cases, and the playground must furnish it if the children are to have it now. There is no one in charge of the sand gardens of Germany, but they are always surrounded by benches, and, on almost any afternoon, one may see there a half a dozen nurse girls or mothers, sewing or reading or knitting, while the children are digging in the sand. Parents should always be lured to the playground with the little children if it is possible, and there should be benches where they can sit. It must be said that this device has not been altogether successful in Chicago, for the great concrete benches which surround the sand bins are comparatively little used. But each of these would prob- ably hold from a hundred to two hundred mothers, — many more than can be expected to come. But benches for eight or ten mothers in a congested section are well worth while. Appeal of the Sand. — It is difficult to understand the ap- peal which sand has for children, but there is no doubt about 50 Practical Conduct of Play the fact. The sand is probably a greater attraction to them at the seashore than is the bathing, in most cases, and there are a great many who positively disHke the water. Wherever a house is being built in the city, and a heap of sand is de- posited, there will the children be found, digging away indus- triously usually quite unconscious of the passer-by. As Joseph Lee says: "Sand seems to have been made for the human hand. It is so plastic and obedient to the will of the planner. It furnishes excellent opportunities for drawing and molding, yet the child's love for the sand is undoubtedly older than any intellectual interest. Its appeal is to the emotions and to nerve cells associated with a very distant racial history, so far back that their intellectual content is lost and only their emotional content remains. Doubtless the brain is always less emotional and has that much less energy at its command, if the child has not roused these particular cells to action through his sand activities. The sand appeal may even hark back to the amphibious days of the saurians, when the first progenitors of man crawled out of the sea to bask on the beaches of a pristine world. However that may be, or from whatever source, the love of the sand is there, and nearly or quite universal among children." Nature furnishes the sand at the shore. There is a decided pleasure which comes from the contrast of the cold waters and the warm sand. The sea keeps its beach constantly sterile and disinfected. The ideal place to dig in the sand is at the water side. It is difficult to meet this requirement in the city playground, but not at all impossible. Some of the swimming pools of the South Park System have a sand beach around them made of several carloads of imported sand. Nearly all of the wading pools in Chicago are near immense Playgrounds according to Ages and Sexes 51 sand bins. It would have been quite as easy to make the sand courts the real beaches of the wading pools, but doubt- less in that case the sand would constantly be getting into the pool. Shade. — In the great majority of playgrounds, however, there are neither wading pools nor swimming pools, and the sand bin cannot be so located. It is almost absolutely essential that the sand bin should have both shade and the sun, because, if there is no shade, the sand gets so hot and dry that the chil- dren do not care to play in it, and, if there is no sun, it soon becomes unsanitary. In all of the first school playgrounds in New York the sand bins were installed in the basements of the schools. It was a delight to go in at first and see two or even three hundred cliildren digging away there. They were usually quite unconscious of observation and utterly absorbed in their play, but after two weeks had gone by and the children had come in from the streets with their feet covered with the gutter slime, which is more than 95 per cent horse manure, and they had dropped in the bin their bread crusts and melon rinds, the sand bin was not so delightful. One could smell it as soon as he came inside the playground. In the municipal play- grounds of New York, frame pavilions with permanent roofs were erected. These are better than the basements, be- cause the sand does at least come in contact with the outdoor air. They are nevertheless very unsatisfactory, as they do not sufficiently expose the sand to the sun and the rain. In Chicago and in many other places they stretch a tarpaulin of some kind over the sand bin. This gives a certain amount of shade, though it is never very cool shade, and the tarpaulin can be rolled up in cool and rainy weather, so that the sand may have the benefit of the sun and the rain. However, a 52 Practical Conduct of Play tarpaulin is rather costly. The children are apt to climb on it and tear it, and it is apt to be torn by the wind unless it is very securely fastened. In some cases the sand bin can be put on the north side of a school or other building in such a way as to furnish the needed shade and give the sand the sunshine mornings and evenings, but on the whole the most satisfactory placing of a sand bin is under or around a tree. The sand will there get the sun in the morning and evening and be protected during the middle of the day when it is hot. The shade of a tree is much cooler than the shade of canvas, and the tree does not exclude the rain. A second good cover for a sand bin is an arbor with a vine of some sort over it. This has the great advantage that the arbor or framework can be cheaply erected, and the vine will grow in a few months if the right one is selected, and it can be pro- tected until it gets a start. Kudsu is probably the most rapidly growing vine that is available, though Virginia creeper also grows very rapidly, and is hardy nearly every- where. It looks so much like poison ivy that the children will refrain from handling or breaking it. The Bin. — Of course the size of the sand bin should be determined by the number of children who are likely to use it. About twelve feet by twenty will be right for most play- grounds. This bin may be made either of cement or of planks. If it is made of cement and has a cement bottom, there should be some outlet so it will not fill up with water after rains. It is better, however, for the sand bin not to have a bottom if the ground underneath is hard and will not mix in too much, because this keeps the sand in contact with the moisture below. For the same reason it is better to excavate the earth and put the sand in nearly level with the surrounding surface, Playgrounds according to Ages and Sexes 53 as the sand will not dry out so fast as it will if the bin is on the top of the ground. The sides may be made of brick or planks or cement. If the bin is made on top of the ground, the cement bin has no great advantage over the one made of ordinary planks about twelve inches in height. There should be a plank or board running around the top, to mold the sand on and to serve as a seat. The sand bin should be painted about the color of the surrounding surface, green for grass, brown for earth. Its cost is trifling. If the bin be installed along with many other things that are of cement, harmony will require that the bin also shall be of cement. The Sand. — In cities that have easy access to the sea or lake shore, it should always be the practice to secure the pure white sand that is found there. This sand is very fine, and pleasant to mold, and it does not soil the clothing. There is similar sand in many river beds and in some sand banks, but almost any plastering sand will do. Keeping the Sand Clean, — This is a considerable prob- lem, — so much of a problem that I never feel entirely sure that the sand bin should not be purely a family affair in the back yard. The sources of defilement are many, a few of which are as follows. In many quarters the wind bears large quantities of dust which settles down on everything. It is soon blown off from most things, but it is held by the sand. This dust in the city is largely horse manure, though, of course, it is the same that we are breathing on the street, and that settles upon the upholstery in the parlor. Even if it is only pulverized clay, it will make mud when it is rained upon. There are always cats that find the sand bin the most convenient toilet in the neighborhood. In many quarters the sand is sure to get full of fleas. If the playground 54 Practical Conduct of Play is unfenced, the sand bin is likely, in certain quarters, to be a place for carousal at night. After the children have gone home young rowdies come in to drink beer and have lunches, throw- ing the litter in the sand. But the greatest source of de- filement is the children themselves. They come barefooted with all sorts of filth on their feet. They bring in bits of luncheon and drop them in the sand. The little babies fre- quently urinate there. It is impossible to prevent this de- filement. The only thing that can be done is to change the sand frequently, and it should be gone over with a rake every day. Changing the Sand. — In Germany they change the sand about once a week, and many of the sand bins are mounted on low tables, so that the children stand up around them. This certainly must be a great help in keeping the sand clean and fit to use. In the majority of the playgrounds of this country, the sand is not changed at all. In others it is changed only once a season. The sand usually drifts out of the sand bin on to the playground more or less, and has to be replenished about once a season unless the bin is very large and deep. This old sand can generally be used to advantage in filling in the jumping pit and the worn places under the apparatus, so there is no considerable loss in replacing it. In a great many playgrounds the sand that works out from the bin greatly improves the surface of the surrounding playground. Utensils for Sand Play. — As to supplying utensils for playing in the sand, there is a difference of usage. Some play- grounds furnish the pails and iron spoons or shovels, and some do not. The child at the seashore is nearly always armed with a bucket and shovel. The children mold the sand in Playgrounds according to Ages and Sexes 55 the pail for many initial attempts at building. The only trouble with furnishing this equipment is that it is hard to keep track of where the director has many other duties, and the little children have very little conception of property rights. Consequently, they are very likely to walk off with the im- plements furnished. The cost of these things is trifling, and they can easily be replaced, but it is not well to teach the children to steal. Perhaps the children are too young to be injured in this way, however, and if the fact that these things are not to be taken away is impressed upon the older children, they will largely prevent the younger ones from carrying them home. In some of the European sand gardens, a quantity of round pebbles are furnished, with which the children out- Une their drawings. In some places they furnish clam shells instead of shovels, so there is not so much temptation. Of course the utensils need to be collected and put away every night in any case. This means some trouble. Where there is a section for the little children, with a kindergartner in charge, there should be no trouble about the children's steal- ing the equipment, and the care of it should not be burden- some. In any ground it might be well to make the experi- ment, impressing upon the children at the beginning that the shovels and pails are not to be taken home. Sprinkling the Sand. — Unless there are frequent rains, the sand that is in the sun a part of the time each day will soon get so dry that the children cannot do anything with it. Some arrangement should be made, so that it can be wet down each evening or so by the janitor after the children leave for the night. Activities of the Sand Bin. — Children of different ages use the sand for different purposes. The little children love 56 Practical Conduct of Play to dig and pile up the sand merely for the sake of doing it. They find pleasure in the feeling of the sand on their hands. They like to see it grow into different forms and feel themselves the cause of the change. As they grow older, the sand play takes on more and more of the artistic and expressive nature. Any one who has been at Atlantic City must have found the activities of the sand artists along the Boardwalk one of the most interesting sights of that great resort. They mold wonderful angels and horses and knights and castles, and not a few nickels and dimes are thrown to the artists every day by the appre- ciative onlookers. Sand is excellent material to draw in. In the Century Magazine, in 1889, G. Stanley Hall told the Story of a Sand Pile in a rural village of Massachusetts. The boys who were the artists in this case were about twelve years of age, and came to the village each summer for their summer vacation. They made in the sand a complete model of the village with its streets, schools, public buildings, and other points of interest. This is a form of expression that is quite as educative as the sand and papier-mache maps that are made in the schools. The sand bin is very often used for the story period, and the children are invited to illustrate the story in the sand bin afterwards. The Ages of the Children. — Children will use a sand bin with pleasure from the time they are one year old until they are twelve or thirteen, but the bin is always placed in the yard of the little children, and is used primarily by them. The sand gardens of Boston were the first supervised playgrounds in this country, and the sand bin has been called the " Mother of the Playground." On the whole, the sand bin is doubtless much better adapted to the back yard than it is to the playground. It is difficult Playgrounds according to Ages and Sexes 57 to keep a public sand bin sanitary, and for the artistic and expressive uses of the sand there is little opportunity on account of the great number of children who make use of it. Swings. — Swings will not be discussed in this chapter, because they are taken up in detail in the chapter which follows, but there should be the hammock swings for the babies, the chair swings for the three-year-olds, the low board swings for the children of six and seven, and garden or lawn swings where they can have parties, take excursions, and other- wise '' make believe." Building Blocks. — One of the most popular indoor activi- ties of little children everywhere is the use of blocks. The blocks which are furnished are not usually well adapted to the child's purposes, as they are much too small, and do not enable him to erect easily different kinds of structures. The blocks should be about the size of ordinary bricks, with flat boards and longer pieces interspersed. If these are stored in some box and there is a platform for building, the occupation is sure to be popular. Although keeping the blocks in order, and preventing their being scattered about the playground, is likely to cause trouble, it is probably worth the effort if the Kttle children have a section to themselves with a kinder- gartner or an attendant in charge. Mud Pies. — I once saw a playground in Berlin where a large section seemed to be devoted to the making of mud pies ; at any rate, that was all the children were doing. I doubt somewhat whether the parents would approve of a playground of this kind, but I suspect it would be quite as popular with the children as anything that could be offered. Hills for Coasting. — Another very interesting development in some of the playgrounds for little children in Germany is an 58 Practical Conduct of Play artificial hill, perhaps eight or ten feet high, which is well rounded and which serves as a sort of toboggan sHde. The children coast down it in their express wagons in the summer, and doubtless ride down on sleds during the winter. The hill is so low that there is no danger to the children, and it is a source of endless delight. Near by was a small building where express wagons could be stored. A Balancing Mast. — As every one knows who has ever observed children at all, little children are always delighted to walk on the edge of a wall or bank or fence or even on the railroad rail. This is a step in the process of gaining control and equilibrium which is a very valuable one in motor training. Most of the playgrounds of Germany have a balanc- ing mast, which is a beam perhaps 4 by 4 or 4 by 6, supported about eight or ten inches from the ground. It is a good thing to have two or three of these, some broader and some nar- rower, for the bigger and smaller children. They are always popular. A Framework to Climb On. — From the time the child is a year and a half old till he is eight or nine, there are few things that are more interesting than climbing. Children love to climb up the porch, into trees, up ladders, over anything that gives them an opportunity to hold on by their hands and raise themselves to a higher position. Some kind of low framework that the children could climb over, passing from one position to another by hanging on, perhaps, by their hands, would be one of the most popular things that could be put into the play- ground for small children. If there were underneath an abundance of soft sand, there would be no great danger of their being injured, and the development of courage would be worth the risk involved. Joseph Lee speaks of his Playgrounds according to Ages and Sexes 59 children playing tag over a framework of similar nature, and observation of our children convinces me of the popularity of such a piece of apparatus. The Rings, Trapezium, and Horizontal Ladder. — This is also the place for a good deal of apparatus which is not or- dinarily put in the kindergarten section, but which belongs there more than anywhere else. The little child is like a monkey, as we all know. He loves to hang by his hands, and almost any apparatus which furnishes this opportunity will be appreciated. The parallel rings, the trapezium, and the horizontal ladder will be more used by the children in the kindergarten than by the older children. When the horizontal ladders were first placed in the school playgrounds in New York City and steps were made so that the little children could get up to them, there was an almost continuous pro- cession of children five or six years old walking across these ladders on their hands. I can remember, too, as a child on a Michigan farm, how at a very early age we used to walk the great beams of the barn, sometimes thirty or forty feet from the floor, holding on by our fingers. An Out-door Kindergarten. — The original kindergartens of Froebel were out of doors. It was his intention that they always should be there. Every one realizes that it is best for the little children to be in the house as little as possible, and that, so far as conditions permit, they should be in the open air in their play. Whenever a playground of the type suggested can be provided, it would be best that all the kinder- garten work of the school should be done there . It would be probably necessary that there should be a pavilion with some shelter, but it would be no great loss, perhaps, if some of the gifts and industrial work were slighted for the more vigorous 6o Practical Conduct of Play games of the playground. This might mean that the kinder- garten would have to take its vacation during the winter and be in operation from April or May till November or December, but this would not be any great matter. There should be a kindergartner, in any case, in charge of this playground for the little children. It was not Froebel's intention that there should be a separate class of teachers to have charge of the play of the little children, but that the mothers should do it. But, as every one knows, the mothers, even those with kindergarten training, largely fail to play with their children. A playground of this type would furnish an opportunity for the instruction and en- couragement of the mothers in this play. There should be shade, and abundant benches, and places for baby carriages, and any other inducements that might be thought of. During the first years in New York City, there were kindergartens on all the recreation piers, and the mothers used to gather around by dozens, and sometimes by hundreds, to watch the play. Not infrequently a mother was heard to say, " I don't see how she makes him mind without hitting him." Surely this object lesson in the guidance of children must have had a beneficial influence on the home discipline and the personal relationships between the mothers and their children. THE PLAYGROUND FOR THE OLDER GIRLS It is best that the playground for the older girls be shut off from the street and also from the boys' playground by a high, solid hedge, though it is very desirable that it should be separated from the central space only by a low hedge, so that it may be entirely open to observation from within. Es- pecially the section where the swings and teeter ladders are Playgrounds according to Ages and Sexes 6i located should be as completely secluded from direct observa- tion from the street as possible. This playground should provide a place for ring games for the younger girls and for general games such as captain ball, pullaway, dodge ball, and the like, and it should have definitely located grounds for volley ball, indoor baseball, basket ball, tennis, and croquet. At one side of the ground there should be a running track not more than loo yards in length and a place for the broad and the high jump. This ground should contain, also, a considerable number of swings not more than twelve or fourteen feet high, seesaws, giant strides, and a slide. Either in the field house or the school building or, if there is no such building, in a special pavilion, there should be a place on this ground for dancing and for industrial work. It is in every way desirable that there also be dishes and some opportunity for serving very simple spreads, which should be available both for the boys and the girls. The girls love to have tea parties, and an occasional party with the boys is a great promoter of friendship. There are few things that would do more to promote courtesy towards visiting teams than the custom of giving them some very simple entertainment such as ice cream or lemonade after the game is over. In most of the field houses of Chicago there is provision for such hos- pitality. In school playgrounds, it ought to be possible to make such arrangements, wherever there is a department of domestic economy. If the dress of girls is to be reformed, probably the best place to set the standards is on the playgrounds themselves, and nothing would be more salutary than some more or less understood rule as to what this dress should be. Certainly 62 Practical Conduct of Play girls who are to take active exercise should not wear corsets or high-heeled shoes or hobble skirts or white underwear, but tennis shoes and a middy blouse with bloomers under a short skirt, or some similar comfortable attire, should be standard- ized for playground use so far as possible. THE PLAYGROUND FOR THE OLDER BOYS This division may well contain very nearly the same things as the playground for the girls, but it should be somewhat larger, as the games of boys require more space than those of girls, and the attendance of the boys is also likely to be better. The space devoted to athletics should be more ample, to pro- vide for longer races and for hurdling. Just as the girls should be provided with some facilities for cooking, sewing, and similar activities, so there ought to be some sort of shop available in connection with the playground where tools may be kept and repairs made, and where the children may go to make kites or other things which they wish to use. A school playground which is already provided with a manual training room has in this way an advantage over the municipal playground. THE COMMUNITY PLAYGROUND - There are too many forces at the present time that tend to disrupt the home and the family. If the activities of the children are passing from the home and the yard to the playground, then the parents ought to go with them, for the sake of the home and for the sake of the wholesomeness of the play. Adults need recreation and exercise as well as children, and so far as possible the playground ought to be a community Playgrounds according to Ages and Sexes 63 melting pot. During a large part of the year such a common meeting ground is almost the only possible condition of a real community life, and of wholesome relationships between parents and children and classes in the community. This meeting ground of the community should be in the central part of the playground itself, so that it shall have all the other separate grounds under observation. It should be also the place for all the exhibitions and entertainments given by the children. It should contain the general baseball diamond and the grand stand for the observation of all special contests and exhibitions in folk dancing and the like. If possible, there should also be facilities for all of those games which are adapted to adults, such as volley ball, indoor baseball, tennis, croquet, long ball, and quoits. This should be, too, the common meeting ground for the boys and the girls where they may play all of these games together if they wish, for, as has been said, it is not their playing together but their loafing together which is dangerous. Here, also, there should be a pavilion for general dances, and there should be a stand for band concerts which might serve also as a sort of grand stand for general observation of the playground at other times. Moving pictures might be shown in the evening, and concerts given either by the city bands or by Victrolas or the new Edison disc phonographs. In front of the grand stand, it should be possible to set tables for the serving of ice cream and coffee and other light refreshments. These phases which I have mentioned will not really be so great an innovation on the playground as they might seem at first. A number of the municipal grounds in New York have a large rostrum or elevated pavilion for the observation of the playground, and most of our amusement parks serve refresh- 64 Practical Conduct of Play ments in front of the band stand. In many ways the German concert garden is the most delightful community playground in the world. There is excellent music, there is shade, and good refreshments are sold at reasonable rates. There is a delight- ful social atmosphere throughout it all, and at the edges are abundant playgrounds for the children. The experience of Superintendent Parker in Hartford in making the park self- supporting would seem to indicate that these new features might be furnished at a cheap rate and without any additional expense whatever to the city, provided it was done by the Recreation Department itself rather than through concessions. It is possible to furnish moving pictures at little cost in a place where no hall need be hired. Every effort should be made to make the playground a community affair in which all take an interest, and which will become the common center of the social life. To this end it would be wise for the mothers' club, or the civic club, or the social center association, or whatever organ- ization there may be which represents the neighborhood, to have a certain supervision over the playground social life and seek to have some of its members on duty there at least during the late afternoons and evenings. To this end, it would be wise for the mothers' club, perhaps, to hold after- noon teas at times in the band stand or some other available place, and there should be exhibits of industrial work, and baby shows, and other things which would call the parents in as judges or participants and which would make them feel that the playground was for them as well as the children, and that they were genuinely interested in its success. This community playground for adults and children would solve several of the toughest problems of the playground. Playgrounds according to Ages and Sexes 65 It would be a place where the family might meet together and would thus tend to unite rather than separate its members. The supervision of the mothers would be a most salutary means of preventing objectionable conduct between the boys and girls, and of checking bad language, smoking, and other actions which sometimes cause criticism of our playgrounds. There are probably no parents who would object to their children's attending a playground where they themselves go and where they can observe constantly what is going on. If the parents came often to the playgrounds, they would have a better understanding of what the children are doing and would be more willing to cooperate in all of the enterprises which the director tries to carry through. The discipline would be made much easier by this cooperation of the parents. Al- though American parents are always ready to sacrifice themselves and to spend their money lavishly on their children, they are much more ready to spend money on themselves. There is probably not a small city in the country whose people do not spend more on a golf club for a hundred adults than they do for the play of the four or five thousand children of the city, and the playground that provides for the recrea- tion of the adults as well as the children is sure to have much more ample financial support than one which is for the chil- dren alone. CHAPTER V THE PLAY EQUIPMENT The chief value of play, probably, is that it represents the old racial activities through which our progenitors climbed to civilization and modern industries. In spirit and motive it represents periods so distant and extended that the time of recorded history sinks into insignificance. It uses nervous coordinations that are hereditary and rouses those deeper layers of energy that have been developed and stored up through the whole life history of the race. It is not so much an activity as a spirit which represents an earlier time. It is nature's method whereby the child may live through the childhood of the race and develop the motor coordinations and skill, the emotions, the judgment, and the will in the same way that the racQ has done. Its education is not for information; but, as a training of the practical, emotional, and social life of a boy or girl, it is much more effective than arithmetic or geography. The same things cannot be said of play with apparatus. In the larger sense this is not play at all. In its newer forms it has no direct associations with the past. In general, play equipment is probably most valuable for little children, and its value decreases rather rapidly with advancing years until for young people of high school age such equipment as swings, giant strides, merry-go-rounds, and the like have little value. 66 The Play Equipment 67 THE COMMON PIECES OF EQUIPMENT The Swing. — The swing is usually the central feature of the equipment for small children. It is the piece of apparatus which is apt to attract the most attention. In the minds of many people, a city playground means a row of swings. Yet the swing is one of the most expensive, dangerous, and trouble- some pieces of apparatus. It causes nearly all the criticism that is made of playgrounds, is responsible for most of the accidents, and yields in return a mild emotional stimulus of no apparent value, and a very small amount of physical exer- cise. What has the swing to say for itself ? Why Bo We Like to Swing? — Joseph Lee says the pleasure of swinging is a reminiscence of our tree top home. Very likely it is. All things that are spontaneously and universally pleasurable must have secured this association with pleasure in periods far back in history. Certainly monkeys all like to swing, and it is said to be through their skill in leaping from swaying branch to swaying branch or in swinging from vines or each other's tails that they bridge the gap from tree to tree and are able to traverse the highways of the forest. Children like about as well to swing from a single hanging rope as on a regular swing with a seat, as all gymnasium experience must testify. I have no knowledge of the age of our present swing with two ropes and a board, but it seems to belong to the race. Pretty much everywhere it is to be found suspended from the limb of some convenient tree, and it seems to be the natural corollary of childhood everywhere. The sensations of swinging are of almost effortless motion, of a mild and gentle breeze, of falHng without danger. These sensations, however, can scarcely explain the universal pleasure in the 6S Practical Conduct of Play swing. Lee says that " swinging is like foreign travel/' but he fails to explain the resemblance. He thinks his children do not need to swing, because of their varied experiences. I suspect, however, that there is a specific stimulation of the brain cells that only the swing can give, and that the child who has not had this emotional awakening may be the poorer intellectually all the rest of his life. The Lawn Swing. — The lawn swing is scarcely a swing in its effect on the mind. Psychologically I doubt if it is a swing at all. It produces very different sensations. The lawn, garden, or skup swing in its ordinary form will not stand the strain of the general playground. Two were placed in each playground the first year in New York City, but they were nearly all broken during the first week, because it was hard to prevent six or eight children from getting into each of them at the same time. There is a large swing made by W. Tothill of Chicago out of heavy timbers, which is used in the Chicago playgrounds. This is a serviceable playground swing, but it is expensive as compared with the other swings. Its chief value is as a seat when you are tired, a seat also that creates its own breeze. This is well adapted to playground use, and it is a good thing to have a few of them at the side of the strenuous play fields, so that they may take the place of benches. The lawn swing, even as usually made, I believe to be well worth while in the kindergarten section. I have been much interested during the last year in observing half a dozen children, the oldest of whom is ^ve and the youngest two, in their play in a garden swing. I had always regarded this swing as of comparatively little value, but this experience has entirely changed my views in regard to it. There are at least The Play Equipment 69 a dozen different ways in which the children are able to oper- ate this swing, and nearly all of them are excellent physical exercise. They have gained considerable courage in getting on and off while it was in motion, and I have never known a child to be much hurt. They use the rungs at the top as horizontal bars for all sorts of gymnastic stunts and con- stantly climb over the framework, so that the paint has been nearly all worn off from the upper part of the frame. One of their commonest games is to take journeys to various places of which they have heard. They all get in. One child is conductor, another engineer, and the swing is started and run at full speed for a considerable length of time, while the con- ductor goes about taking up the tickets, announcing Chicago, St. Louis, and other cities, as he goes along. After every- body's ticket has been collected, the engineer stops the train, and they all get out and collect more tickets from some near-by tree, when the train is again started with a different conductor and engineer, and is run to some other city. This game has been almost endlessly repeated and varied and the interest has held. In this way they have all learned the names of all the cities that any of the children knew, and they have also learned much about the running of a train. I am not sure that such a use for a garden swing would be developed in a playground, and I fear most directors would not allow the children to climb over the top of the framework, but I believe it has been well worth while and that more has been got out of it than out of any other single piece of apparatus that I have ever seen used by very young children. The Hammock and Chair Swings. — The hammock itself is a form of swing that comes the nearest, perhaps, to the primeval. The orang-outang builds his own hammock in 70 Practical Conduct of Play the tree top, and weaves the couch in which to die when shot. The hammock is found only in the infant department of the playgrounds, where baby hammocks are sometimes furnished for the little children. A number of these were installed in Seward Park in the first years, but it was soon discovered that the mothers would come over, put their babies in the hammocks, and go off and leave them for an hour or more at a time, with the result that the directors had a day nursery on their hands. Chair swings are much liked by children from three to six years of age. In any place where they are provided, they will generally be found filled, but the older children are apt to crowd into them and break them, or they are broken in putting them up and taking them down. These swings are good for the little children, but they require considerable care, as the children usually have to be put in and taken out. When a child gets into one of these comfortable chairs also, he likes to stay, and there are apt to be complaints from other children who wish to use them. The Wooden Framework. — In the early days nearly all of the equipment was of wood. The present practice is to use steel almost altogether. This is in accordance with the general trend of development in other Hues. A swing framework, when there are two big boys or girls in each swing, with each couple trying to swing as high as they can, is subject to great strain, and steel is none too strong. It is possible to make the wooden framework as strong in the beginning as it needs to be, but it soon rots away both on the top where the rain soaks into the timber and also just at the surface of the ground or a little below. Consequently, it may be only a year or two before the timbers are unsafe, though this may not appear at The Play Equipment 71 all at the surface. However, if the swing frame is properly braced, it will not collapse, even though the uprights are rotted off ; at least, it will not do so at once and without warn- ing. This rotting of the part in the ground can be largely prevented by setting the post in concrete about three and a half feet, which should also come at least half a foot above the surface of the ground. If this concrete is mixed with a small amount of alum or oil,^ it will keep the water out and give stability to the framework at the same time. The posts may also be protected by creosoting the lower end of them or by dipping them in hot coal tar. However, these two methods do not give the rigidity to the frame which is secured by concrete. Timbers, four by six, of Georgia pine are the ones usually used. The crossbeam at the top is another weak spot in the wooden frame. If it is flat, the water soaks into it and rots it, especially at the places where the bolts go through. Sometimes this is prevented to a considerable extent by round- ing off the top beam or by covering it with tin. Perhaps the chief objection to the wooden framework, how- ever, is that it is big and awkward. It is not nearly so grace- ful and sightly as the steel frame. It should always be kept painted, of course, if used, but in the long run it will not be found to be much cheaper than the steel frame, and the steel 1 The following rule for making concrete waterproof is given by the Scientific American. This might be useful in the construction of the swimming pool as well as in setting the wooden apparatus. The United States Army Engineers have long used the following mixture in waterproofing cement : One part cement, two parts sand, three quarters pound of dry powdered alum to each cubic foot of sand. Mix dry and add water in which has been dissolved three quarters pound of soap to each gallon. This is nearly as strong as ordinary cement, and is quite impervious to water besides preventing efflorescence. For a wash, a mixture of one pound of lye and two pounds alum in two gallons of water is often used. 72 Practical Conduct of Play is to be recommended unless the whole arrangement is tem- porary. The Steel Framework. — There is nothing difficult to under- stand about the steel framework. Ordinary gas pipe will serve perfectly well, and it can be screwed together by almost any one. Three-inch medium pipe with three and a half inch horizontals should be used, or two-inch uprights and two and one half inch horizontals, if the extra heavy pipe is used. All pipe dimensions refer to interior measurements. This is amply strong for the low swings, if they are well braced, but it would be well to use a half inch larger pipe for the high swings for big children. (Spalding sizes.) There is a general feeling that galvanized pipe should always be used, but there is no great choice between well-painted black pipe and the galvanized. The iron workers who build bridges, towers, and such structures, with the exception of windmill and electric light towers, use the black iron, which is first painted red to protect it from rust and afterwards black. Galvanized pipe is pretty sure to rust where there is any wear. In the ordinary gas pipe that is screwed together, the thread of the pipe cuts it about half in two and consequently reduces its strength by that much at the last thread. Spalding avoids this by using an unthreaded pipe and fastening the fitting with set screws. Medart uses an unthreaded pipe and fastens the fitting and the horizontal together with bolts. This re- quires two holes through the pipe and fitting and must weaken it considerably, but probably not so much as the thread. The Spalding set screws tend to work out, and none of these ar- rangements are ideal. The Height of the Swing Frame. — Children like the tall swing. Of course the taller the swing, the heavier the frame- The Play Equipment 73 work will have to be and the better it will need to be braced. This is true both because greater leverage and momentum are acquired by the high swing and because the tall swing will always attract the large children, while the low swing is Hkely to be left to the Httle children. The high swing is considerably more expensive also. My own feehng is for the low swing, in the main, because it does not take so much room, is not so dan- gerous, does not cost so much money, and is not to taken from the little children who are its rightful possessors by the big children who ought to be doing something else. The swings for the Httle children in most cases ought not to be more than eight or ten feet high. It is well to put up a bent of twelve to eighteen swings in a section, as this is cheaper, and they are more easily controlled than where they are put up in separate sections. The swings for the little children will require about three and a half feet for each swing. I should be inclined to limit the height of swings for the older children to twelve or fourteen feet also. These will require about four feet to a swing. The Swing Fittings. — The ordinary tees and elbows for regu- lar pipe can be obtained at any hardware store, but where all the apparatus is secured locally, a special fitting to attach the braces to the pipe will have to be made. Spalding has special fittings that hold the braces as well as connect the horizon- tal and vertical pipes, which may be purchased of him, even though the pipe is purchased and the work done locally. These fittings are expensive, but are now much cheaper than they were a few years ago. The strategic point is the collar about the pipe, which holds the rope or chain. This is Ukely to slip and slide, and as it has to bear all the strain, it should grip like a vice. The hook also that holds the 74 Practical Conduct of Play chain or rope should be above reproach. If made of soft iron, it will wear through within less than a month in any much- used playground. It should be made of tempered steel that is both hard and tough. In the Spalding swing this friction is greatly reduced by having the swing work on ball bear- ings. I do not see any great advantage in having a swing run very easily, as the children tend to stay in too long any- way, and they do not get any exercise if the swing runs it- self, but it is an advantage not to have the fittings wear out. Spalding will furnish the designs for the framework, if the fittings are purchased of him, so that local men can put it up. The Swing Rope or Chain, — There are three mediums used to suspend the swing seat from the frame. They are bars, ropes, and chains. The bar swing has been used extensively in England and Scotland, but very little in this country until lately ; just now it seems to be coming in. The new play- grounds in Philadelphia are equipped with bar swings that are very fine. The bars are about an inch in diameter. Every- where the traditional method of supporting a swing is by a rope. It is not certain that we have yet discovered anything better. The chief danger in the playgrounds is that chil- dren may be struck with a swing. It is best to make the swing as light as possible, so as to reduce the momentum of the blow, though of course the chief factor in the momentum will be the weight of the child or children in the swing. The rope swing with the board seat is the lightest swing made. Most swings are hung with Manila rope. This is cheap, but it stretches out rapidly where it is exposed to the weather and may soon bring the board too near the ground or make one side lower than the other, so it hangs unevenly. The The Play Equipment 75 children overcome this by tying knots in the rope, but this gives the swing an untidy appearance. If Manila rope is to be used, it should first be shrunk. I understand that the cordage of sailing vessels is made of hemp which does not stretch. If this is so, such rope should be used, if it can be secured, even if it does cost more. The chief difficulty with rope is that it will rot if left out of doors for a long time in all weathers ; moreover, there are likely to be rowdies in the neighborhood who think it a good joke to come in at night and cut a swing rope partially through, so that it will break when exposed to strain. This happened repeatedly in the early days of the parks, so that the park men who leave their swings out in all weathers and under all conditions have come to use chains altogether. However, the swings in the South Park System are supported by ropes. The rope swing is especially suited to any system where, for any reason, the swings need to be taken down frequently, as is usually the case in unfenced playgrounds. A large variety of steel chains are in use, but the one that is coming to be generally chosen is the chain with links about one foot long ; each link is really a bar which connects by a looped end with the next bar in the chain. These bars flare in the middle and are about one half inch in diameter. There are several very decided advantages which these swing chains have. They are of galvanized steel and do not rust much. They will stand the weather. They do not stretch. They cannot be cut and do not need to be taken in to protect them from the elements. There are also disadvantages. The swing is too heavy, the link is not large enough to get a good grip on it, and it is too hot in summer and too cold in winter for comfort. These objections would be largely overcome if 76 Practical Conduct of Play a piece of rubber hose or some similar substance were put on the lower links. In a number of places, especially in school yards, I have seen a slender steel chain not unHke a dog chain used. This chain is not strong enough or hard enough and soon breaks or wears through. Taking in the Swings. — When an unfenced playground is adjacent to residences, it will probably be necessary to take in the swings each night and on Sunday, because they will attract undesirables who will make a disturbance at times when the neighbors have a right to be quiet. This has been the source of most of the adverse criticism of playgrounds throughout the country. Where swings with ball bearings and steel links are used, it is very difficult to take them in, and the practice is to lock them up with a short chain to the uprights. Where rope swings are used, they are usually hung from hooks and taken in at night. The bar swing also can be taken down. This, however, is a good deal of bother and requires either the assistance of a helper or a good deal of the director's time. The Swing Board. — The swing board is the catapult that bowls over so many children if the swing is improperly placed. It should be as light and soft as possible for this reason. I am inclined to think that a steel board is a mistake for a num- ber of reasons ; it is too hard, too hot in summer, too cold in winter, too rusty after rains, and always too heavy. In the early days in New York they used to nail a bit of rubber hose on each side of the swing seat, so that if a child were struck it would be by something soft. The best thing would be a pneumatic edge like a bicycle tire. The swing board should be only a little longer than the width of the child. It is tiresome to have to hold your arms The Play Equipment ']J out horizontally at right angles to grasp the ropes, as is neces- sary where a small child is seated on a swing board that is too long for him. There are three traditional methods of attach- ing the rope to the swing seat : one is to run the ropes through the board and tie knots in them ; a second is to run the rope through the board and up on the other side to the limb of the tree ; and the third is to cut a notch in the swing board and place this over the rope. None of these methods is satisfac- tory in the playground, because they are all more or less danger- ous. The knot is Hkely to come untied, the rope to slip out of the notch or to wear through where it is run under the board. The board also wabbles more or less with any of these attach- ments. The approved method is to have a clamp go around the board terminating with a stirrup strap and eyelet of steel in which the rope or chain is fastened. Height of the Swings from the Ground. — The swings should be hung just high enough to keep the feet of the children from touching the ground. However, the children will be of different sizes, and if the seat is hung high enough to clear the feet of all, it will be too high for the little people. The best that can be done will be to have swings for different ages with a medium height for each. This will probably mean, however, as has been said, that the feet of some of the children will touch and in consequence that the earth will be dug out underneath in certain places. This hollow is likely to fill with water after rains, and as the children swing back and forth, they splash themselves and others. To prevent this, a board or cement floor about three feet wide is often placed beneath the swings. The Swing Space. — The swings for the most part belong to the little children and should be in their part of the playground, 78 Practical Conduct of Play but it must always be remembered that the value of the swing to the child is trifling as compared with games, and therefore the central spaces should never be used for the apparatus. It must be remembered also that the swing is a very dangerous piece of apparatus. The uninitiated are apt to think that the children are going to be hurt by falling out of the swing. Children are often hurt by being struck by swings, seldom by falling out of them. For this reason the swings should always be at the side, and in general the swing framework should be parallel with the fence and just far enough away so that the children will not strike the fence as they swing. In some places the swing space is roped or chained off from the balance of the playground, so that there may be no danger of a child's running in front of a swing without being aware of what he is doing. Erecting the Swing Apparatus. — If there is a skillful iron- worker in the neighborhood, he can easily erect the framework for the swings. Any ingenious man who understands rope splicing can make the swings, if ropes are used. This kind of construction will greatly reduce the cost, but doubtless the project will not look quite so finished and it may not be quite so safe as though the equipment were purchased from one of the companies. Apparatus may be ordered in various ways. What is often done is to let the contract for the installation of a complete playground outfit. This means that the com- pany not only furnish the equipment, but that they must send a gang of men, perhaps from Massachusetts to Missouri, in order to erect it. If they are told to put this equipment into the playground and are not definitely shown where it is to be placed, they will probably set it up in the center of the play- ground space where it will be most conspicuous and where The Play Equipment 79 an eighth of an acre of apparatus can easily ruin three acres of playground. Even when the company is shown where to place the apparatus, this method of equipping a ground is seldom, if ever, wise. The shipping of heavy pipe and groups of workmen across the country is very expensive and entirely unnecessary. The pipe can always be purchased locally and put up by any ironworker of experience from the designs furnished by the apparatus companies. On the other hand, if there is no one in the community who has had experience in such work, it may be wise to order all the fittings from the company, or if the city is near the company's works, it may be wise to order the pipe also and perhaps to have it installed entirely by the company. In general it will be found that it takes much longer to have the equipment installed by the machine companies than by local people. How Shall the Children Swing ? — I have said that the swing is the most dangerous physically of all the apparatus in the ground. It is also the most dangerous morally. In Seward Park in the early days, one might have seen at any time a wall of men standing next to the fence and watching the big girls who were standing up in the swings, until finally Julia Rich- mond reaHzed the significance of what was going on and got the park authorities to build a soHd high fence in front of the swings. A still more dangerous custom is allowing men to swing girls who stand up. Girls should not be allowed to stand up in swings unless they wear bloomers or are in a yard into which outsiders cannot see. Sometimes a new director thinks it a part of her duty to swing the children, but of course the only considerable advantage of the swing comes from swinging yourself. When you stand and pump yourself up, a swing is a pretty complete gymnasium, exercising nearly 8o Practical Conduct of Play every muscle in the body. It is excellent for the back muscles especially and for the heart and lungs. Turns at the Swing. — In the beginning there are always many quarrels over the swings. A child gets into the swing and wants to stay there, but there are several other children who want to use it. This makes it seem all the more de- sirable to the one in possession, and the situation is likely to become acute if there is no one to adjust matters. Va- rious methods to ease the strain have been used in different places. A very common method is for the director to appoint a monitor, who sees that each child stays so long and no longer in the swing. This usually means that each child may have ten swings of five minutes or something of the kind. In some places the teacher rings a bell every five minutes, and every one is required to change. I have often seen fifteen or twenty children standing in line for a swing, and sometimes these children were playing catch or something of the kind to while the time away. However, this always indicates a very congested playground, or a poorly conducted one where there is little going on. The games and other activities are more valuable than the swing, and the most successful play- ground is the one where the swings are empty and the games are full rather than vice versa. Full swings and no games is sure proof that the whole playground needs speeding up. The swing is a piece of nearly standard attractiveness against which the teacher has to compete in organizing the play. The teacher who can make the games more attractive than the swings is a success. In Conclusion. — It would appear from what has been said that there are many physical and moral dangers connected with the swing, that nearly all of the criticisms of the playground The Play Equipment 8i come from its use at night, that it is on the whole the costliest single piece of apparatus in most playgrounds. In return for this the swing offers a mild emotional stimulus and some good physical exercise, though certain children are always made sea- sick by it. One can but ask, "Is it worth the cost?" The swing is a purely individual piece of apparatus. It does not require companions for its success. Everything indicates that it belongs in the back yard rather than in the playground. It always interferes with the play activities that are really more valuable. It makes it more difficult to get the children into the story period, into the ring game, into the folk dance, or any of the other activities. The swing creates no loyalty or friendship, no habit except selfishness. It does not belong in the playground at all. Yet it is one of the main advertise- ments of the playground to the children, and it is questionable whether the attendance of the children can be secured with- out it. The Slide. — The slide is not like the sand, a natural and universal form of child play, inasmuch as a special piece of equipment is required for it, but the interest which the slide has come to satisfy is racially old. Otters and muskrats and elephants and I know not what other animals have slides of their own. It will be found in all of our cities that, wherever there is a smooth incline that is accessible, it is kept well polished by the children, whether it be the stone coping to a terrace or the banister of the house. Our modern slide seeks to satisfy better an old love. The Rome-made Slide. — All that is strictly needed for a slide is some smooth, inclined piece of wood or metal down which one can slip. In the early days, these sHdes were usually made by supporting planks in an incHned position and having a lad- 82 Practical Conduct of Play der by which to climb to the upper end. These planks served very well, if they were free from slivers, but most of them were made of pine, and after rains the grain was apt to rise ; in consequence there was great danger that the children who were coming down might be impaled. Similarly in our early wooden gymnasia there were inclined sliding poles of pine or cedar, which were subject to the same criticism. The next advance came when we began to make our slides of oak or maple. New York has a number of such slides about three feet wide, so that two or three children can come down at once. On the whole, however, slides can be purchased so cheaply now that it is scarcely worth while to make them. The Maple Slide. — W. R. Tothill of Chicago makes a maple slide in three sizes. The small kindergarten slide is sold by Marshall Field & Co. of Chicago for $15; the ordi- nary playground slide, fifteen and one half feet long and about eight feet high, is sold for $30; F.O.B. Chicago. This is an admirable slide. The slide board can be turned over, so that it may not get wet during rains, or it may be detached and taken in, if that is desired. This slide does not splinter. It is quite as smooth as a metal slide. It does not get so hot in summer or so cold in winter, and it does not get rusty. In very dry climates, however, it will warp or crack and cannot well be used. The maple slide should be waxed occasionally. The Steel Playground Slide. — The steel slide is much more expensive than the maple slide, and thus far it has not proved altogether satisfactory. It gets very hot in summer and very cold in winter, and as soon as it is scratched by the nails in heels of the children's shoes, it is apt to rust. A rusty slide cannot well be used until it is polished again. The new slides that are being put out show improvement, and perhaps we The Play Equipment 83 may sometime have a slide that is actually rustless. However, thus far it seems to me the evidence rather favors the cheap maple slide. The Steel Gymnasium Slide. — These are of more recent origin. They are attached to the top of the gymnasium frame, are about thirty feet long, and cost $120. They are used by the older boys and girls and by the young men and women. A piece of apparatus similar to this is often used at the seashore for the bathers to sHde down into the water. A spiral slide like a winding stair reaching to the second or third story is used on many schoolhouses of the older t3^e for a fire escape. It is a very rapid method of leaving the building, and more fun than the fire. The Sliding Pole. — SKding poles are used in most gynma- siums as a means of passing from the second story to the first. They are used in all fire houses as an exit from the lodgings to the first floor where the equipment is. These poles are put on the end of the gymnasium frame and are generally enjoyed. They are steeper than the gymnasium slide and not so long. I once knew a boy to sHde down one of these poles so rapidly as to break his leg, but do not suppose this has often taken place. The Use of the Slide. — The slide, with the exception of the new gymnasium slide, is intended for the Httle children. Until recently it has been used almost entirely by them. People in general seem to have an idea that the slide was invented by the clothing merchants to wear out the children's clothes. I doubt, however, it if does much damage in this way. The slide is very smooth, and the child is not long in coming down- He wriggles around in his seat a good share of the time any. way, and the seat is not so smooth as the slide. It is also 84 Practical Conduct of Play commonly supposed that the slide is dangerous for little children, because it is eight feet or more high. I doubt this conclusion also. Experience has not demonstrated the danger. There is a small slide in the yard of one of our neighbors which a half dozen small children use constantly. The oldest child in the group is only five, and one is only two. The two- year-old will go down on his back, head first, and every other way. There has never been a child hurt to my knowledge in the year it has been there. In our experience in Washington, where we had a slide in every playground, I never knew a child to be seriously injured on one. There may be some question again whether the slide does not belong rather to the private house than to the playground. The smaller slides are not beyond private means. On the surface, it is difficult to see how the child is getting much benefit from using the slide. Perhaps there is some deep psychology here that we have not perceived, but if there is not, although the slide is much loved by children, it has little value in child development. Tobogganing and Skiing. — There is little of either of these sports in the playground, but they seem to be naturally asso- ciated with the slide as forms of sport. Toboggan slides are put up each winter in certain of the Lincoln Park playgrounds of Chicago, and the children slide down this artificial hill on to the artificial lake that has been made for skating. To- bogganing is just now very popular in Europe, and its popularity is increasing. There are hundreds of toboggan clubs in Germany. Sliding with sleds is permitted on certain streets in a num- ber of northern cities, and the sport is always well Hked by the children, though it is apt to be dangerous. Policemen are The Play Equipment 85 stationed at cross streets in some places to stop teams and pedestrians who might cause collisions. Skiing is the favorite sport of Scandinavia and is also pop- ular in the more mountainous sections of Germany. It is very popular in our own northwest. In some of our northern cities many of the children come to school on skis and spend most of their recesses sliding on them, but it would hardly do to attempt the descent from such towers as are often con- structed for the sport. The Seesaw. — The seesaw is a piece of apparatus that children have always made for themselves by placing a board across or through the fence. They always enjoy it, but it has very Httle apparent value. It is a purely individualistic amusement, which affords neither physical, intellectual, nor social training. I have always questioned whether or not the seesaw is worth while. In any case it belongs, beyond doubt, in the back yard rather than in the playground. The seesaw is one of the most dangerous pieces of apparatus. Children, naturally reckless, will often stand up on each end of it, and very soon one of them is likely to be thrown off on his head. It is great sport to slip off the end when you are down and let your companion come down with a bang, perhaps to break a leg. Then you can stand on the middle of the see- saw and work it all yourself until you fall off, — an accident which is Hkely to happen speedily. If the bought seesaws with the handles and safety devices are used, and the children can be required always to sit down, there will not be so many accidents. The short seesaw on the high standard is the one that is most dangerous, as it makes a more acute angle with the ground, or, in other words, the incline while it is in the air is greater. The longer the seesaw board and the lower the standard, the 86 Practical Conduct of Play safer it is, but for the most part, the tamer it is also. As I have said, I do not regard the seesaw as worth while, but, if it is used, it is best to use one with handles, on a standard that is not much more than two and a half feet high. The seesaw is easily made, but most of the home-made ones are unsatis- factory on the playground. The rocking boat or " merry widow " is a piece of apparatus somewhat similar to the seesaw in action. It is, however, a much more expensive and less common piece of apparatus. The Flying Dutchman. — This is the name that the chil- dren commonly apply to a plank that is fastened horizon- tally with ball bearings to the top of a post. A child lies or sits down on this plank, probably one on each end, and is whirled around by other children until he is dizzy and seasick. I look upon it as a pure invention of the devil. I cannot see any good that any child can possibly get from this sort of sport. In some places, this takes a very elaborate form. There are a number of arms out at some distance from the ground with swings fastened to them, so that the apparatus becomes a sort of combination merry-go-round. The Merry-go-round. — The merry-go-round is much in favor with park superintendents. There is no other piece of apparatus that can be used constantly by so large a number of children. It is a sort of circular grandstand on which the children sit in two tiers, while others run them round by the arms at the side. One of these merry-go-rounds will often be used almost continuously by from twenty to forty children. Several years ago, while I was Supervisor of the playgrounds of Washington, we were presented with a very fine one which cost four hundred dollars. It was set on ball bearings and ran The Play Equipment ^'] around very easily. We placed it in a play park not far from one of the public schools. In a few days a delegation of teachers came down to see us. They said the children went over and rode on the merry-go-round at noon and were so seasick all the afternoon that they could not study and that the children had often vomited in consequence. We moved it to another playground and a few days later a delegation of parents came down with the same complaint. In the merry- go-round I am unable to see that any one is benefited except the child who pushes it around, and he might as well saw wood. If the apparatus runs very easily, some of the children are sure to become dizzy, and probably nearly all are affected more or less. I myself feel somewhat dizzy and upset for an hour after riding on one of the things. The apparatus is very costly, and as it is a positive injury to many of the chil- dren, it probably should be excluded from the playground. There is also a merry-go-round which runs on small wheels on an iron track. This the children themselves operate by a lever arrangement, using a motion much the same as in rowing. This piece of apparatus certainly affords good exercise. I suspect that the working of the lever largely overcomes the tendency to dizziness, but of this I am not sure. The Giant Stride. — The giant stride comes nearest to the original hanging vine or monkey's tail to swing from. But in its modern form it is an invention that has grown out of the play movement. The main portion of the apparatus is a tall pole, usually from fourteen to eighteen feet in height. The modern ones are all made of steel pipe about five inches in diameter and set about four feet in concrete. The head is set on the top of the pipe with ball bearings, and attached to this revolving head are six ropes or chains carrying rope or 88 Practical Conduct of Play steel ladders with three or four short rungs. The ladders are intended to hold on by. The child takes hold of the ladder and paces about the pole, touching the ground every fifteen or twenty feet, hence the name. The giant stride is much appreciated by children more than ten years old. In country sections a giant stride is often made by mounting a wagon or plow wheel on the top of a pole and attaching knotted ropes to the periphery of the wheel. The first forms of the giant stride everywhere were made in some such way. The knotted rope serves very well to hold on to, though it is not quite so satisfactory as the ladder. The rope ladder with wooden rungs is more satisfactory than the steel while it lasts, because it is pleasanter to hold, and because it does not hurt so much as the steel ladder when you are hit by it. Of course, it is not so permanent and does not stand the weather so well. Location of the Giant Stride. — The giant stride belongs to the older children and should be in their section of the play- ground. It should stand in a corner of the yard whenever possible, so that it may be out of the way of the games. It is a very good piece to fill up an angle somewhere which might otherwise be wasted. The children should be taught how to get off the giant stride, as they are sometimes hurt by standing in their tracks, after dropping off, until they are struck by the next child who comes around. The child should always dodge out as soon as he drops off. Locking up the Giant Stride. — As a rule there is some diffi- culty in putting the stride out of business when it is not sup- posed to be used. Some are so made that the ladders can be taken off. In some the ropes can be detached from the wheel above. The common method is to chain the ropes or The Play Equipment 89 chains to the post ; this is not very satisfactory, as they will still slip around in spite of the chain. The Teeter Ladder. — Probably the piece of apparatus that has been most criticised in the playgrounds is the teeter ladder. It is, as the name indicates, a horizontal ladder balanced in the middle, and just high enough for the children to reach. They take hold of each end with their hands and go up and down, much as they would on a seesaw. It is pretty good exercise and tends to pull the shoulders up where they belong. The main trouble with the teeter ladder occurs while the children are learning, but it is never free from criticism. The year the playgrounds were opened in New York, I sent out a questionnaire, asking if there was any piece of apparatus that they wished to dispense with. The teeter ladder got more votes than all the other apparatus put to- gether. There are three important dangers in its use, especially for children who are just making a beginning with it. The first of these is in the method of getting off. The child who is down, whether from thoughtlessness or cussedness, lets go, allowing the child who is up to fall, and the ladder perhaps strikes him on the head or shoulders. This is apt to result in a sprained ankle or other severe injury. The second trouble that I have found with them is that the children love to sit on them, using them like a seesaw. This is all very well if they are careful, but if the ladder is brought down sharply when a child is not watch- ing, he may be thrown off on his head. What came very near being a fatal accident once happened in this way in one of our Washington playgrounds. The third objection is harder to guard against in a mixed playground. Two girls get on the teeter ladder in summer dresses. When the girl comes down she falls through her dress, or the dress blows 90 Practical Conduct of Play out like a balloon. When we get all of our playground girls in bloomers or when they have a yard entirely to themselves where no one can see in, this criticism will be pointless, but not before. We used to make the rule that the girls who went on the teeter ladder must pin their dresses or put a rubber band around them, but while the ones instructed might obey, other children might come in at any moment, and go at once upon the teeter ladder. Of course these difficulties will be- come less and less the longer the playgrounds are open. W. F. Tothill of Chicago has recently put out a teeter ladder with springs, which obviates certain of the dangers of the old type. The Outdoor Gymnasium. — The outdoor gymnasium occu- pies the central space in the playgrounds both of New York and of Chicago. I doubt if it is worthy of this prominence. Gymnasiums and playgrounds are not the same thing. It must be said, however, in its defense that the outdoor gym- nasium is not a real gymnasium. It has no pulley weights, rowing machines, stall bars, dumb-bells, Indian clubs, or wands, and often lacks the horse, the buck, and the parallel bars. It is mostly a monkey house to climb about in. It contains a trapeze, parallel rings, a horizontal ladder, usually climbing ropes or poles, sliding poles or a slide, a horizontal bar, and a set of traveling rings. The traveling rings, the slide, and the hori- zontal bar are constantly in use, but the other features are little used in most places. The parallel rings are also often used considerably, but mostly in the doing of stunts that are of doubtful advantage to the doer, because many of them are likely to result in strains. Of all of these activities the only one that is really gymnastic is the use of the horizontal bar. The outdoor gymnasium is not used for any sort of class work The Play Equipment 91 or usually for any sort of teaching. It is in fact a monkey house, as has been indicated. The traveling rings are the most popular feature. These are most popular with children between nine and fourteen years of age and especially popular with the girls. They will often go back and forth on the rings many times without seeming to weary. Where the horse and the parallel bars are furnished, they are often used a good deal, but are not a part of the framework which is usually termed the outdoor gymnasium. The horse and the buck do not stand the playground conditions very well, on account of the rain and snow, and they are sometimes cut at night by rowdies. Most of the stunts in an outdoor gymnasium involve a risk of falling. To minimize the danger the earth should be excavated to a depth of about six inches, and sand or tan bark filled in. The outdoor gymnasium is one of the chief advertisements of the play system. It is costly and looks imposing as it stands out in the open, but its looks are more imposing than its results. THE MANUFACTURE F5. THE PURCHASE OF EQUIPMENT Where the equipment is made by local people, it can usu- ally be erected for one half to one quarter of what it will cost if it is bought directly from the machine companies and in- stalled by them. However, the home-made equipment often does not look quite so well and is not quite so strong as that which is purchased from the outside. But this is not neces- sarily so, and if the supervisor has a reasonable knowledge of the subject, or is able to employ a director of construction, or has at hand a mechanic who is reasonably skillful, there is 92 Practical Conduct of Play no reason why the equipment should not be manufactured at much less cost than it can be purchased, and be just as well made. If the equipment is to be furnished and installed by outside companies, a time limit should always be introduced into the contract, to prevent delay. In the course of time it ought to be possible for the schools themselves to manufacture nearly all of their play equipment. It is believed that nearly all of this work will be the best kind of manual training for the students and that it will give them a new sense of proprietorship and a new interest which will be very helpful in all of the playground activities. The boys may well make the running track, jumping pits, and jumping standards, and they can put up the horizontal bar, and even the swings, under competent supervision. They should do just as much of this as they can, not only for economy's sake but because it will probably be the most valuable manual and social training which they can get. When the writer was Secretary of the Playground Asso- ciation of America, he sought to have the play equipment standardized, so that the fittings and pipe might be furnished directly by the steel companies, but there was so much oppo- sition from the equipment companies that he was unable to do anything about it. Most of the equipment and supplies which are now furnished to playgrounds cost more than they should, and it is to be hoped that, as a result of our new feeling for the abolition of contract labor in penitentiaries and other public institutions, and our desire that these institutions should make different kinds of public supplies, the manufacture of play equipment may be undertaken, especially the various kinds of balls, bats, and the like. What better atonement could a convict make for his offenses The Play Equipment 93 against society than by thus providing for the well-being of the children. It seems likely that such work would also elicit a better response from the criminals themselves than almost anything else that might be undertaken. Many of them have a grudge against society, but they may still be glad to have the children play. Making Repairs. — Equipment should always be kept in a state of perfect repair, as it otherwise becomes a source of danger. In a system of any considerable size, one or more repair men should be employed regularly. EQUIPMENT FOR SCHOOL GROUNDS For the Rural Schools. — It is not essential that equipment, such as swings, seesaws, giant strides, and similar apparatus, should be put into the grounds of rural schools. Most of this apparatus may be and often is furnished to the children at home, but ofttimes the only opportunity which they have to play social games is while they are at school, so it is much more important that they should have space for such games than swings. For City Schools. — Probably the place where there is most criticism of the play movement is in connection with city schools. They are apt to be built in thickly settled sections, often with very inadequate grounds closely surrounded by houses. Many of these grounds are unfenced, and if a con- siderable amount of equipment is put into them, there is always a tendency for rowdies to use it in the evening, with the result that the neighborhood is annoyed and often protests. If equipment is placed in unfenced school grounds, it should be taken down and stored away at night in order to prevent this annoyance. There is much very unsatisfactory equipment 94 Practical Conduct of Play also being erected at the schools by people who have seen swings in private yards and seesaws with one or two children on each end, but who do not at all realize the problem where there are hundreds of children. The result is that many of the swings are not strong enough for the strain they have to bear, and many of the seesaws are dangerous. THE VALUE OF EQUIPMENT If this chapter has shown anything significant in regard to equipment, it has shown that we know very little about it and that there has been very little written to show the value of different pieces of apparatus and in what this value consists. Play is often spoken of as a physical activity, but play is about equally physical, intellectual, and social. The value of ap- paratus, however, is largely confined to the physical and emo- tional side, as it has very little to offer on the intellectual or social side. We are more or less cognizant of the physical value of most pieces of apparatus, but we understand very little of the emotional appeal of the sand bin, the wading pool, the seesaw, or the swing, and it is probable that it is the emotional appeal of these pieces of apparatus which is really significant. As we do not understand the nature of the values that are to be sought through equipment, we have no standard by which to estimate these values and in accordance with which to manufacture play apparatus. The equipment which children have always used in the past has been erected almost without cost, while modern equipment seems to be unnecessarily expen- sive. The swing which is hung from the limb of a tree costs perhaps twenty-five cents, while the playground swing will cost from ten to twenty-five dollars. Undoubtedly the old-time swing was a much better swing in its general appeal than is The Play Equipment 95 the costly one of the playground. It is not to be expected that the machine companies will study equipment from this point of view, or will seek ways of making it cheaper. When we come to look at education in a large way, as covering all phases and types of mental, emotional, and physical processes, we shall see in this play equipment one of our large unsolved educational problems which the rapid play development of the present time forces upon our immediate attention. THE PLAYGROUND WITHOUT EQUIPMENT It must not be inferred from anything that has been said that I am advocating a playground without apparatus. While I regard the training given by apparatus as less important than the training given by games, it seems almost necessary under existing conditions in this country to have the apparatus in order to induce the children to attend the playground. The playgrounds of Cambridge, Mass., have been maintained with- out apparatus for the last six or seven years with fairly good attendance, and there are doubtless others of which the same has been true ; but the attendance has probably not been as large as it would have been if the equipment had been pro- vided. We have ample evidence, however, that it is possible to maintain excellent playgrounds without equipment and I myself believe the most successful playgrounds in the world contain no equipment whatever. In Germany there is a curriculum of play according to which the children go for stated periods to the playgrounds and have these games as regular exercises. These playgrounds have no equipment other than that needed for the games. Probably the most successful playgrounds in the world, however, are the play- grounds of the English Preparatory and Public Schools. At g6 Practical Conduct of Play these schools every boy plays football, cricket, and certain other games, and a goodly part of each afternoon is devoted to them. Without any question, the best playgrounds in this country are those connected with a similar class of schools, such as Lawrenceville, Groton, St. Marks, and so on, which also are entirely without equipment, except that needed for playing games. On the other hand, the municipal grounds of England have abundant apparatus and are in charge of caretakers. They would be classed by any one of experience, however, as play- grounds of an inferior order. The same is true of many grounds maintained by park boards in this country. The playground that has a great deal of apparatus, such as swings and the like, presupposes not a play director, but a caretaker, and a playground of this kind always tends to make a care- taker of the director ; it always distracts from the organized games, taking too much of the director's time and energy to leave him free to do the larger things. It is entirely possible, as experience has shown, to have a very successful playground with no permanent equipment ; but such a ground requires a well-trained director of high type, and presupposes such a degree of organization as does not thus far exist here. As the work progresses and becomes better organized, and as the directors become better trained, we may expect the equip- ment to fill a smaller and smaller place in play organization. The abundant equipment in Chicago has probably always led the directors to depend too much upon it and has distracted from the organization of games. CHAPTER VI SWIMMING POOLS Swimming is usually the most popular feature of the play- grounds in summer wherever it is provided, and thus allows of the most intensive use of a small parcel of ground that is possible. An outdoor swimming pool fifty by eighty feet in size, covering with its booths and all appurtenances less than one quarter of an acre, will frequently be used by two thou- sand swimmers a day, and sometimes two or three times that number. The swimming pool is usually the most expen- sive feature of the playground to construct and to operate, but it is the easiest means of securing an attendance. Unless they are prevented, boys will often bathe two or three times nearly every day where a good outdoor pool is accessible. This universal appeal bespeaks a real need. Nearly all if not all physiologists recommend swimming as exercise. There is Httle danger of strain. It uses most of the muscles of the body, the legs, and the arms. It is adjust- able to any one's strength, since one may swim long or short distances, fast or slow. Swimming in cold water, provided it is not too cold, is a tonic to the whole system in hot weather and makes one feel invigorated and more efhcient, if he does not stay in too long. This is especially true of the salt bathing at the ocean side. On the other hand, the hot sulphur and salt baths that are found at some interior places, while very delightful at the H 97 98 Practical Conduct of Play time, are enervating and likely to lead to colds. Swimming is often advocated for reasons of cleanliness, but this does not apply to the use of the swimming pool. Unless the person is clean before he goes in, the pool will soon become unfit to use. Swimming is to be recommended for social reasons also. Water is thicker than air and seems to unite those who occupy it together. About half of all summer vacations probably are spent at the seaside and that largely for the sake of swimming. The person who does not care for the water and has not learned any of its arts is cut off from much social recreation. The ability to swim may be the means of saving the life of the swimmer or of another and its value as life insurance for one- self and friends would seem to be a sufficient reason for learning. It sometimes offers an opportunity for heroism that must ap- peal to any young person of spirit. The consciousness of the possession of the ability is a great comfort on many occasions. THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE SWIMMING POOL The construction of a swimming pool does not necessarily involve as great an expense as people usually think. The first expense is naturally the excavation, but that often must be done in any case for the foundation of the building, if there is a building. Moreover, a site where there is a natural depression may often be chosen for an outside pool. The connection with the water supply and with the sewer often costs nearly as much as the excavation. Concreting the pool is likely to be the chief expense. The concreting needs to be heavy and will cost from five to ten dollars a cubic yard.^ Perhaps a safe estimate for the north might be a pool wall averaging one foot in thickness. This would allow one cubic 1 See note, page 71. Swimming Pools 99 yard to cover 27 square feet of surface. If the pool is 90 feet by 40 in size, the bottom would measure 3600 square feet. If one end is eight feet deep, its area will be 8 times 40, or 320 square feet. The shallow end, three feet deep, will have an area of 120 square feet. The shallow part is usually the longer, so the pool may perhaps average five feet, which would give 460 square feet for each side. The total area of 4940 square feet would be equal to 4940 cubic feet, if these surfaces average a foot in thickness. This reduces to 183 J cubic yards, costing, at $10 per cubic yard, $1835. The concrete is sometimes reenforced with steel rods and sometimes not. The architects with whom I have spoken seem to regard the reenforcing as of doubtful advantage. There will need to be booths, toilets, and showers, of course. If the swimming pool is in a building, these will not involve much extra expense, but in the open air they will add one half to the cost of the concreting, or more than this, according to the way they are constructed. It is of great advantage to have a smooth, white surface for this will reflect the light so that the bottom may be clearly seen at all times, enabling the attendant always to judge of the condition of the water and making drowning less likely. In a number of cases it has happened that a child has gone down in a swimming pool without making a sound and has been drowned or nearly so while the pool was nearly full of children. The greatest possible safeguard, perhaps, against such an accident is to have the inside of the pool and the water in such condition that the bottom can always be clearly seen. A smooth, white-tile lining is of great advantage for this pur- pose. It is, however, difhcult to protect in the winter and an outdoor pool thus hned requires to be filled with manure or some other similar substance to prevent its freezing. lOO Practical Conduct of Play THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE SWIMMING POOL At most private bathing beaches, it is the custom to charge from twenty-five to fifty cents for the use of a bathing suit. But as a charge cannot usually be made in the playground, and the furnishing and laundering of bathing suits is likely to be a considerable source of expense for any pool, the policy should be to minimize their use. If the pool is entirely sur- rounded by its booths or a soHd fence, the boys at least should go in naked. This is better in every way and more enjoyable. One-piece white suits should be furnished for the girls. It is necessary to do this, or the pool will not be much used by them. Certain hours may well be reserved for the men, either in the evening or in the late afternoon. It probably would not greatly restrict the use of the pool by adults if a charge of ten cents were made for trunks and a towel, or the men might be allowed to go in naked if they preferred. I doubt if it is best for men and boys to go in naked together. A similar charge might well be made for the adult women. In some cases the authorities require the users to bring their own suits and towels, and of course there are advan- tages in this from the hygienic standpoint, but it is Hkely to restrict the use considerably. There has been a great deal of trouble in Chicago from the stealing of the towels, especially by the women. The Force. — In the outdoor pools of Chicago, one person gives out the suits, two persons take charge of the booths, one looks after the showers ; there are two or three life-savers in the pool, and one person sees that the lines are kept while the bathers are coming in and going out, thus making six or seven people devoted to the mere management of the pool, Swimming Pools loi quite independent of the laundry work. It would seem that three people are probably about as few as an outdoor pool can get along with if bathing suits and towels are furnished. This would mean one to give out suits and towels, one assistant in the booths who might also be the laundress, and one life-saver and teacher of swimming. There is always more or less trouble with the stealing of fixtures from the showers and valuables from the bathers. There is trouble also from the filthy conduct of certain children who tend to use the baths as toilets. The booths and pool need to be carefully secured during the time when they are not in use, in order to prevent vandalism, immorality, and accidents. The Season. — The swimming season in the outdoor pools of Chicago is from the last of May until about the middle of September, but more than nine tenths of the swimming is done in the summer months. This is a short season, but during this time the pools have an intensive use. Swimming is the chief drawing card of all the park playgrounds of the city. In the greater part of the south the swimming season is eight or nine months a year instead of three, and the hotter the country the greater is the relief brought by swimming. The pools would not cost as much to construct as they do in the north, because the walls need not be so thick in a country of little frost, but public swimming pools outside of the Y.M.C.A's. are almost unknown in southern cities. The south is the ideal place for the open-air swimming pool, and it is to be hoped that its development will soon become a part of the munici- pal and school programs. Attractive public swimming pools might be among the chief allurements of many of the southern cities. I02 Practical Conduct of Play THE HYGIENE OF THE SWIMMING POOL The water in the swimming pool comes into contact with the mucous membranes all over the body, for it is drawn more or less constantly into the ears, eyes, nose, and mouth, and beginners always swallow more or less of it. Ideally, no one should ever swim in water which is not fit to drink, as more or less of it al- ways finds its way into the stomach, or at least into the mouth. There are many ways whereby the water may become un- sanitary in swimming pools. Naturally the first consideration is that it shall be sanitary in the first place. If the city water supply contains germs of typhoid fever or other contagious diseases, a warm dark pool in the basement of a school or other building furnishes an admirable place for them to mul- tiply until the water may itself became a source of danger by the mere increase of germs. It is practically impossible to see that all the bathers cleanse themselves thoroughly before going into the pool, which means that more or less of the excretions from the sweat glands, or in other words the waste of the body, will inevi- tably be thrown into the pool. The water tends to close the pores of the body and prevent perspiration, especially when the water is cold, but in any vigorous swimming races, the body perspires more or less and this waste enters the water. In any pool where there are small children, it is almost if not quite impossible to prevent some of them from urinating in the pool. The cold water always tends to produce this effect, and it is often only by a decided effort that urination can be prevented. Learners who are constantly getting their mouths full of water tend to spit it out, thus casting the bacteria contained in their mouths and throats into the pool. Swimming Pools 103 Dangers from Impurities in the Water. — Cases have been reported where several hundred children have contracted inflammation of the eyes from the pool. I was told at one of our great state normal schools that nearly all the students who made use of the pool were afflicted with a burning rash of the skin, which it was supposed that they had caught in the water. It is said that at one of the Y.M.C.A's. in the south more than one hundred young men caught gonorrhea from the swimming pool, and that more than two hundred girls con- tracted vulvo vaginitis from the swimming pool in one of our city playgrounds. All tests made at swimming pools where no precautions are taken to keep the water sterile, show a very rapid increase in bacterial content from the time the water is put in until it is changed, but there are many other defilements in the way of waste tissue, urine, and various forms of dirt that a bacteriological test does not detect. In Gary they found that the colors tended to come out of the bathing suits and cause inflammation of the eyes. As the result they now require the boys to go in naked and the girls to wear a one-piece suit of white. Preventive Measures. — Of course the first consideration must be to see that the water that is introduced into the pool is pure water in the first place. Until recently the only method of purification that was followed after that was to change the water about once a week. This has been found, however, not to be sufiicient, as the water contains a great many bacteria after one day's use. The custom in Chicago is to change the water twice a week and to let all the pools overflow slightly at night and thus carry off the impurities that may be floating on the surface. In many pools, they I04 Practical Conduct of Play arrange to have a small influx of water and slight overflow continuously. But none of these means seems to be entirely sufflcient. Moreover, it is expensive to change the water, as it often costs five to ten dollars to fill the pool. In some of the newer pools there is an arrangement for continuous filtration, so that the water is kept moving through filters of quartz sand all the time. Under this method the water is found actually to decrease in bacteriological count from day to day. It is the custom to change the water once in about five weeks. But there are other things besides bac- teria, such as urine and other body waste, that make water disagreeable to bathe in, and the bacteriological count is not an altogether satisfactory test. It is said that when the sewage of London has gone through the purifying process there in force, the guide is accustomed to draw off a glass of the water, take a drink himself, and offer it to the tour- ists. Chemical analysis has proved this water to be as pure as the drinking water of the city. If this is true of sewage, it ought to be possible to secure effective filtration of a swim- ming pool. On the other hand, it is doubtful if the methods of filtration thus far employed actually remove either the urine or the ammonia or some other of the impurities, and there is always an aesthetic objection to bathing in water that others have used. Professor Franklin of Lehigh University has invented a swimming pool with a traveling bulkhead which allows the water to be filtered every two or three hours. He describes this pool as '' completely sanitary," but in actual fact the sanitation of a pool depends at least as much on the people as the pool, and there can be no completely sanitary pool until the people who use it are completely sanitary in their habits. Swimming Pools 105 In a number of pools the water is sterilized every day with hyperchloride of lime or calcium and alum. Only very mi- nute amounts — one pound to 100,000 gallons — are used and this is said to render the pool almost absolutely sterile for twenty-four hours or more. Recently some of the Y.M.C.A. pools in New York have used the ultra violet rays from the mercury vapor lamp for sterilizing purposes. But it must be remembered that this steriHzation cannot remove urine or other impurities of like character. The dirt and hair from the body tend to accumulate and are sometimes seen, in clear water, in masses at the bottom of the pool. In Gary this accumulation of dirt, which must be stirred into the water more or less by the bathers, is re- moved daily with a vacuum cleaner, which is shoved along on the bottom of the pool. To prevent persons with gonorrhea or running sores from bathing, it is the custom in college pools and Y.M.C.A. pools to require the men to go in naked and to exclude all who show any signs of irritation, or of having running sores. Wherever it is possible, there should be sunlight on the bathing pool. The reasons for this are numerous. It fur- nishes light so that one can see the condition of the water and that no one is drowning. Sunlight is a powerful germi- cide. It makes the bathing more pleasant, and it helps materially to heat the water if the rays come directly into the pool. The sunlight can be secured either by having an open-air pool or a pool with a glass roof. It might be possible to have a pool that could be either open to the air or glassed over by a scheme similar to that employed in the Patio of the Pan-American Building in Washington, and in some greenhouses where the glass roof is run off on wheels io6 Practical Conduct of Play when it is desired to have the interior open to the sky. This need not involve much extra expense or trouble in operation. All that is required are small wheels and an adjoining framework capable of supporting the weight of the roof. SWIMMING IS COMING IN There seems to be good reason for thinking that swimming is coming in as a required physical exercise and a part of any regular education. The London school children have long been taught swimming in the public swimming pools of that city. The same is true of Glasgow though the water outside is always too cold for comfortable swimming. The boys are taught to swim in the preparatory schools of England largely by the rather drastic method of throwing them in, where they have to swim or sink. Most of the German boys in the city schools at least learn to swim in the school swimming pools. The universities of Pennsylvania, Princeton, and Columbia, and, I presume, many others require swimming as one of the conditions of graduation. Boston requires, on paper at least, that all of the boys and girls shall learn to swim before they may be graduated from the high school. In Philadelphia and Denver and a number of smaller cities there has been an attempt to teach boys of the elementary schools to swim in the Y.M.C.A. pools. In nearly all our large new city high schools swimming pools are in the plan. In many cases these are constructed with the building ; in others they are to be built later. In Brookline all the school children are given regular periods in the municipal baths. In Cincinnati there is a swimming pool as a part of the equipment of nearly all the large new elementary schools. In Gary there is one swimming pool at the Emerson School and two at the Froebel. Swimming Pools 107 It would seem as though learning to swim were a part of the mastery of oneself in relation to environment that should belong to all as much as learning to walk. It evidently is not, however, a university subject, but an elementary subject. It is then that swimming and the water are most loved and that the necessary coordinations are most easily acquired. Then there is most time, and there is a reasonable certainty of proficiency and skill, if a beginning is made at six or seven years of age. For a school with a very limited ground, swim- ming is the best possible utilization of its space. In the large city schools, the swimming pool may well occupy a glass- roofed structure in the interior court. Thus it will get the sunlight and will not interfere much with the activities of the school. The school is the best place for the swimming pool because this location makes it possible to teach every child to swim, and because the pool is the most economical possible utiliza- tion of the restricted space usually available. It can be used by the children at day and by the adults at night, thus insur- ing the success of the social center. It is one of the features that are most helpful in the socializing of both the neighbor- hood and the school. It is very important that there should be a teacher of swimming, because children who have not been taught are apt to waste nine tenths of their energy by their bad methods. The swimming pool at the school can be under the constant observation of the medical inspector, and as the children are all known, any one who might be a source of contagion can be excluded. There will be less trouble from stealing and from filthy habits at the school, because there will be an opportunity to train the pupils. The water can be heated lo8 Practical Conduct of Play largely by exhaust steam, and fewer attendants and assistants will be required, thus lessening the cost. Such a pool can be used during the entire year, and if it is placed in a large school, it may be used to nearly or quite its maximimi capacity all the time. I believe that the municipal swimming pools such as New York has lately been building should all have been a part of the school equipment. MUNICIPAL BATHS Municipal baths of one kind or another are now being oper- ated by nearly all large cities. These baths are of .three gen- eral kinds : beach baths, floating baths, and swimming pools in the interior of the city. New York had already built or under construction twenty of these swimming pools, according to the last report that I have seen, but it may have a number more now. The one at Twenty-third Street and First Avenue covers the whole end of the block and cost nearly $300,000. I believe that Philadelphia has twenty-three such swimming pools. These municipal pools are always free to use, but towels are usually not furnished without charge. Many cities that are situated on rivers where the water is swift or deep maintain floating baths. A floating bath is entirely inclosed and is a device for safety under such con- ditions. There are fourteen such baths around Manhattan Island, which are open during the summer from five o'clock in the morning until nine o'clock at night, three days a week for women, and three days for men. Boston maintains eight or ten such floating baths. On hot days in New York such crowds seek to make use of the baths that they have to make a rule that no one shall stay in more than twenty minutes. Even then the water is so full of people that there is scarcely Swimming Pools 109 room to move around. Conditions for these baths are not ideal in most cities, because the sewers usually empty into the rivers in such a way as to defile the water. Even though considerable effort is made to keep the water in the baths clean, there is always more or less oil, and the water is never quite what one would prefer to swim in. The Board of Harbor Engineers of New York has recently recommended that the floating baths be closed on account of the condition of the water. BATHING BEACHES The bathing beach is undoubtedly the most popular play- ground of the people during the summer time. Any one has only to go to Coney Island, or Asbury Park, or Atlantic City, or Revere Beach to be convinced of this. Not only does the bathing beach give coolness and exercises in the hot days of summer, but there is no other spectacle which seems quite so interesting to the public. One has only to stand on the Board- walk, or otherwise to observe the crowds at any of our great beaches who are simply looking on, to be convinced of this. The bathing beaches belong properly to the playgrounds. They are under the Playground Department in Chicago, Washington, and Boston, at least, and should be so wherever that department has come to include public recreation. CHAPTER VII THE FIELD HOUSE Since the creation of the South Park System of Chicago, the term " field house " has stood for a very pretentious neigh- borhood center building But as I wish to use the term in this chapter, it is to stand for any structure used to store supplies or give shelter in connection with the playground. In this sense it may be a mere box for the storage of balls, bats, and other paraphernalia, or it may be People's Palace, such as is found in Fuller Park, Chicago. In the playgrounds of the country there may be found a complete series, beginning with the box and ending with the elaborate and expensive field house. It is almost essential that there should be at least as much as a box. In recent years, however, the ambition of nearly all play systems has been to have one or more field houses of the elaborate type. THE FIRST FIELD HOUSES The playgrounds of many of the German schools are located at a distance from the school buildings, and the children go out to these grounds with their teachers for a two-hour period once or twice a week. Most of these playgrounds are pro- vided with water-tight boxes in which the play supplies are kept under lock and key. There are a number of playgrounds in this country, also, which are so provided. Such a box serves fairly well for the storing of such things as bats and no The Field House in balls, tennis nets, hockey sticks, and jumping standards, but it has to be made carefully so that supplies will not get wet, and it must be so strong that it cannot be easily broken into. The next stage in the development of the field house is usually the erection of a small frame building which serves for the storage of supplies, and perhaps holds a very small office for the director. In a large number of cases, this build- ing also has, on opposite sides, toilets for boys and girls, and perhaps a few shower baths. Supplies. — There is often a prejudice on the part of play authorities and others against the furnishing of supplies, such as baseballs, to the children, but in reality these are the most important parts of all the playground equipment, since with- out them it is almost impossible to have common participa- tion in games. In many sections of the city, the children are not able to buy baseballs, volley balls, basketballs, and other supplies, and in no section are they willing to furnish them for other children to use. This is natural enough, for it must be remembered that while a swing is used by an individual child, a baseball is meaningless as individual property. No boy can play baseball alone ; and if he furnishes his own ball, it is used as much by the seventeen other players in the game as it is by himself. From its very nature a baseball is com- munal property and must be furnished by the playground or the school where the play is to take place. Some of the supplies that should be furnished are the fol- lowing: reed, raffia, and worsted; baseballs, bases, and bats, indoor baseballs, tennis nets, rackets, and balls, tether balls, volley balls, basket balls, masks, mitts, protectors, jump- ing standards, tapes, stop watches, pistols, ring toss, and bean bags. 112 Practical Conduct of Play As has been said, these supplies are fundamental to the success of the playground, far more so, to my mind, than swings, the giant stride, outdoor g5minasia, or other expensive pieces of equipment. These supplies are also the easiest furnished, as there is scarcely a school which cannot secure them by holding an entertainment or by taking up a collection among the children, or through the cooperation of some mothers' club or parents' association of the neighborhood. After the movement is established, these supplies should be furnished to the school children by the school board, and each school should receive a liberal supply at the beginning of the year, though they should be given out to the children only as the previous supplies are used up. The supplies for a playground system can nearly always be bought at wholesale rates at least, and perhaps at a special reduction from them. The bids should be secured as early as possible and the supplies for the season purchased at one time. Sometimes these supplies can be ordered from local dealers who will deliver them to the different grounds as they are needed, but this makes it difhcult to keep account of them. Probably the most satisfactory way is to deliver a certain quantity to each playground so that each may have supplies for a month or two in advance, and to store the rest, if there is some suitable place, sending them around as they are needed. The care of supplies is often one of the great problems of the playground, and one which requires constant watch- fulness. The playground building should be so arranged that all supplies may easily be secured for use, and so that the director can tell at a glance whether or not they have been returned. It is expensive at best to furnish children with baseballs, volley balls, basket balls, and the like, and The Field House 113 for every reason great care should be taken of them. I have known a good many playgrounds where there were no safe places of storage, and as the playground house was open, the children could go at any time and help them- selves to baseballs, volley balls, or anything else that they might care to use. Under such circumstances it is impos- sible to keep track of the equipment, and in most neighbor- hoods the supply will soon have to be renewed. This is very objectionable, not only because of the loss of supplies, but even more because it teaches the children to steal. The playground has no right to place temptation in the way of children. Not only should tempting supplies be kept under lock and key, but experience has proved that buildings which are to hold them, if on an isolated playground, must be strongly made, else they are likely to be broken into during the night or at some other time when the playground is not in use. Toilets. — Toilets are a source of annoyance everywhere, and may be also a source of physical and moral danger. The boys' toilet should always be at some distance from the girls' toilet and on the opposite side of the building if possible. It is difficult to keep these toilets in a sanitary condition and free from objectionable writing and pictures. But this difhculty is greater in the beginning' than it is after the playground is well under way and the children begin to feel pride in it. These toilets should always be locked up at night, if they are in a playground which is not fenced. Lockers. — The playground house is in a way a sort of athletic clubhouse for the children of the playground. Ath- letic clubs for adults usually furnish members with lockers in which they can put their business clothes, and where they 114 Practical Conduct of Play may keep their athletic shoes, tennis rackets, golf sticks, or whatever other material they wish ; and the field house, if possible, should have such places of storage for the children's coats and everyday shoes, and for their tennis or ball shoes, catching mitts, or anything else that they may wish to use on the playground. The field houses in Chicago are very generously supplied with lockers of this type, and a number in Boston, also, have these conveniences for storing skates, shoes, and the like. Shower Baths. — Since the great classic study of Mosso on fatigue, it has generally been recognized that this phenomenon is chiefly due to the poisoning of the system by the by-products of exercise, and that if these by-products can be removed, fa- tigue does not ensue. It is also recognized that these products which are thrown out upon the skin through the sweat glands during exercise may be reabsorbed into the system if not washed off soon afterwards, so that a person who bathes after exercise feels much fresher than the one who does not. In all athletic clubs and gymnasiums, shower baths are furnished. This is not only necessary for the sake of health and refresh- ment, but it also removes the objectionable odor from under- clothing full of perspiration. Some bathing facilities should always be furnished in connection with every playground, if the bath house is only a canvas wall around a catch basin. An Office. — The playground director has certain reports and inventories to make out and programs to outline. There are rainy spells when little can be done in the open, and it is very desirable, for these and other reasons, that there should be an office for the director. Such an office often fur- nishes an opportunity for consummations with teams or other groups, which may be the determining factor in securing the The Field House 115 cooperation of the children and in making the spirit of the ground. The Playground Headquarters. — In order to administer a system, the supervisor also must, of course, have an office and a stenographer, and files in which to keep records of play- grounds and directors, applicants for positions, and such material. There should be on file at headquarters a plan of each playground in the city, showing its equipment ; also a plan of the system as a whole and of prospective enlarge- ments. There should be itemized accounts of all the money received and expended files of important letters, copies of all the instructions sent out to playground directors; sample programs of tournaments, entertainments, banquets ; a scrap book of newspaper clippings; a photograph album con- taining pictures of all playgrounds, buildings, and activities. If it is possible, it is a good thing to have also an office where the Playground Commission or Board, or the com- mittee of the School Board in charge, may have its meet- ings. It is not necessary that this headquarters should be in one of the field houses, but that is a good place for it if there is a field house that is properly located and equipped. A PAVILION Most playgrounds are at the present time unshaded, and •the weather is apt to be hot during a part of the summer. Many of the folk dances cannot well be given unless there is a floor upon which they can be danced, and some of the kinder- garten games are also very much better played upon a floor. Sudden showers may drive the children to shelter at almost any time, and it is desirable that there should be a suitable place at hand. This, in its simplest form, may be a mere ii6 Practical Conduct of Play pavilion with open sides, serving both as a shelter from sun and rain and as a floor for dancing. THE FIELD HOUSES OF CHICAGO Thus far I have spoken of the playground building, or field house, in its simplest terms, as one of those elements which seem to be necessary to the conduct of the municipal play- ground. In Chicago, however, they have gone very much farther, and erected buildings which are the wonder and admi- ration of nearly every one who has seen them. The first of these buildings was erected in 1905, and cost $70,000 ; the last completed is in Fuller Park and cost $3 1 8,000. They are prac- tically Y.M. and Y.W.C.A. buildings, without residence rooms, erected in the playground. The buildings in Chicago are, with a few exceptions, made of concrete with mottled-tile roofs. They were all designed by Daniel Burnham of Chicago, and are, it seems to me, the handsomest buildings in Chicago. Each of them contains two gymnasiums, one for the girls and one for the boys, abundant lockers for clothing, an auditorium that seats from four hundred to a thousand people, but which is used during a large part of the time as a dance hall, four club rooms (in the older buildings), a branch of the public library, and a small restaurant. It is evident that these field houses have gone far beyond the original idea of a building to be used in connection with the playground for the storage of supplies, and have become an end in themselves. In fact, it would be difficult to say in Chicago which is the tail and which is the dog, for the activities are indoors from the first of November to the first of May, and outdoors from May to November. The field house furnishes an opportunity to carry on the work throughout the year. The Field House 117 The gymnasiums are fairly well used in the afternoon, and there are a large number of dances in the auditorium in the evening. The libraries are nearly always full, and there has been a considerable use of the restaurants ; but, on the whole, it does not seem as though the use of the field houses in Chi- cago has justified the enormous expense which they represent. One reason for this is undoubtedly that, until two years ago, there was no one in charge and no attempt was made to organize their use. Two years ago field house directors were appointed. Their work is similar to that of Y.M.C.A. secretaries, or head workers in settlements, and their business is to see that all the facilities of the field house and play- ground are used and used properly. But the field houses are in the parks and in sections which are not crowded, for the most part, so that they are at a considerable distance from any large population. There is no natural organization of the people around them. There are eleven such field houses in the South Park System, some five or six completed in the West Park System, and four or five in the Lincoln Park System. There are field houses in the Municipal System of Chicago also, but these are of much simpler type. FIELD HOUSES IN PHILADELPHIA During the last three years five field houses similar to those in Chicago have been erected in Philadelphia. These, for the most part, are in more crowded sections than in Chicago, and their use seems to be considerably greater. I believe that one reason for this larger use is that in the Chicago field houses there are often ten or fifteen attendants and two play direc- tors, while in Philadelphia there are from five to ten play directors and only three or four attendants. Ii8 Practical Conduct of Play THE SCHOOL BUILDING AS A FIELD HOUSE As has been said, it is necessary that the playground should have connected with it a place for the storage of supplies, for toilets, for shelter from inclement weather, and for indoor exercise and entertainments during the cold weather. But any modern schoolhouse furnishes all of these facilities as well as does the field house. In Gary, each of the new schools contains two gymnasiums, one or two swimming pools, a large auditorium, a branch of the public library, and a public restaurant, and it also has all kinds of facilities for manual training and domestic economy ; so that it is more complete in play facilities furnished, than the Chicago field house. Nearly all our new high schools have fine gymnasiums and auditoriums, and many of them have swimming pools as well. There often are also rooms furnished with Multhrop or other movable desks, so that the floor may be cleared and used for dancing or any other public purpose. Many of our new elementary schools, also, have similar facilities, and the kindergarten rooms are always equipped with movable seats and available for entertainments and play. The schools are nearly all located in the densely settled parts of the city and have their own clientele. Children are accustomed to go to them, and the interest of the community is gathered around them on account of the children. It is an open question how far cities can afford to let their school buildings stand idle at night, while they build elaborate structures in their parks or elsewhere to furnish practically the same facilities that the schools already have. It is a notable fact that in Chicago, at least, the field houses, which are furnished with every facility and are beautiful in every detail, have a far smaller The Field House 119 attendance than do the evening centers in the school buildings of New York and Boston, while the expense of maintenance is several times as great. Hence we must conclude that while the simple playground building, which will furnish storage and toilets and showers, and be an adjunct to the playground itself, is absolutely essential to the open-air playground, it is a moot question in any city with a modern school system how far the elaborate field house which becomes an end in itself is worth while. CHAPTER VIII THE ORGANIZER OF PLAY There are many who think that direction and play are irreconcilable, that the fact of an activity's being directed must prevent it from being play. People who have this opinion seem to conceive of the relation of play leader to players as similar to that of a foreman over a gang of workmen. They seem to think the director stands up on a real or imagi- nary platform and says to one group of children, " You go over there and play Ring around the Rosy " ; to another group, " You boys go over there and play leap frog." If we can imagine such a playground director, we must imagine not only a playground without play, but also a playground without children, unless they are there to annoy the director, for children do not come to playgrounds to do what they do not wish to do. If the playground does not interest them, they stay away. Such play direction is absolutely impossible. For this reason, "director" is not a good name for the person in charge of a playground. Play leader and play organizer are both better terms. This is the way the " direction " of play usually works out. Suppose the teacher is accustomed to have ring games for the small children at ten o'clock in the morning; Mary Jones wants to dig in the sand instead, but the teacher compels her to play. The probabilities are that Mary will be " work- ing " at ring games for only a few minutes before she catches The Organizer of Play 1 2 1 the spirit from the others. Take the German play afternoon where attendance is compelled. I believe these play after- noons are over-mechanized in Germany, and that they do not have as much of the spirit of play as they should have ; but this seems to be due chiefly to the gymnastic ideals of the Turners, who are leading the movement, and not to any necessity of the case. If in any public school the principal should say, " Instead of having the arithmetic or geography this afternoon, we will go out into the yard and play games," the children would not enjoy the games any the less because they took the place of their school work. In actual fact, it is nearly always found that the personality of the director is the largest element in getting the attendance of the children on the playground. The great difficulty in the beginning is that the children wish to join the games in which the director is playing and will constantly forsake their own games for this purpose. In a congested playground, direction is often the only condition of freedom, because otherwise the older and stronger children monopohze the apparatus and play space. More- over, street rowdies and corner loafers are Hkely to make the playgrounds their headquarters, determining its spirit and the sort of activities that go on there. The great difficulty with the undirected playground is that it is not really undirected but is controlled by the unsocial elements of the community. Careful parents who observe this condition in any playground will not allow their children to come, and a competent person in charge is a sine qua non for the attendance of the children from the better grade of families. A playground that is un- supervised will often be the worst influence for children there is in the neighborhood, and the source of much delinquency. 122 Practical Conduct of Play THE WORK OF THE PLAYGROUND DIRECTOR There are many who think of a playground position as a sinecure. I suppose nearly every playground director has had facetious remarks made to him in regard to his easy method of earning a living. The public in general has often expected little of him, and only too frequently he has expected little of himself; but the director who sees the significance of what he is doing and undertakes conscientiously to do his best does not find that he has much time to waste during the day, or much energy left over when the day is finished. Discipline. — The general public has always conceived of the playground director as a sort of amateur policeman placed on the ground to keep order, to prevent apparatus from being broken, to stop quarrels and improper language and conduct, to prevent the stealing of equipment, and in general to be a sort of negative force repressing the unruly side of child and community life. It is entirely necessary that all of these things shall be done. The playground which is unregulated and which becomes the meeting ground of older boys and girls and the resort of corner gangs and street loafers will undoubtedly become the most vicious influence for children in any community. It also soon gets almost entirely into the hands of a few older children who use it to the exclusion of the smaller ones. But the playground does not exist for the sake of discipline any more than the school does. Teaching of Games and Activities. — The playground is primarily a place for play, and its success is largely determined by the sort of play that goes on there. Training in these natural occupations of childhood is perhaps the most funda- mental training which can be given to children ; for success The Organizer of Play 123 in these activities means that the children are passing normally through the physical motor stage which early childhood repre- sents, that they are developing physically and acquiring motor skill. If the playground is really successful, then the boys are becoming daily more skillful in baseball, basket ball, volley ball, tennis, and all the common forms of athletics, and the girls are also becoming skillful in these games and in raffia work and basketry, folk dancing, and other activities. The success of the playground director as a teacher is measured by the proficiency of his pupils in the things undertaken, in exactly the same way that the success of a teacher in the school is measured by the proficiency of her pupils in the school subjects. In order that the play leader may be a successful teacher, two things are essential ; first, that he himself shall have the spirit of play, and second, that he shall himself be a good sportsman and know how to impress his ideals upon the children. The spirit of play is the spirit of childhood and it is also essentially the vivacity and the joy of life. It is this spirit which makes much of the personal charm and the effectiveness of the individual in social relationships. I have had, in different playgrounds of which I have had charge, directors who were able to make work out of any sort of activity. If you set them to teaching a ring game, you would find all the children going around Hke blocks of wood without there being a particle of play in it for anybody. On the other hand, I have had directors who could make play out of any kind of activity. It is notable how much more playful children are, in the ring games for instance, in certain playgrounds, than they are in others. This is an almost perfect measure of the play spirit of the director in charge. 124 Practical Conduct of Play We cannot too often recall that play is an activity which represents the past of the race, and that it is no more physical than it is emotional or social. The ethics of play is the nat- ural ethics of childhood and play is probably the easiest way of initiating the child into moral conduct. One of the most necessary qualifications that any play director can have is the spirit of sportsmanship. He must know, first of all, in what sportsmanship consists, in order that he may be able to in- struct the children, and he must always be a good sportsman and set an example worthy for the children to follow. Perhaps this has been the supreme advantage which the English master has had in the organization of play in the preparatory and public schools of England. Thus far our schools in general are giving very inadequate training in sportsman- ship. The Director as an Ideal. — A director of the right kind naturally tends to become the hero or heroine of the children. He is usually more skillful than they in the activities of the playground, and if he has a social spirit, he is generally popu- lar. The reason that the street play of the children is apt to be demoralizing is that they take as their models the street loafers and leaders of gangs whose language and conduct are far from being good examples. A city could well afford to pay good salaries to playground directors of the right kind merely to set standards of conduct and language for the children to follow. The right type of play director, who is or should be champion in all of the activities in which the children are most interested, tends naturally to become their ideal. This is one reason why it is so necessary that the play director should be an expert in the activities of the playground. He should be an authority on the rules of the games, dances, The Organizer of Play 125 and athletics, and so far as possible he should be an expert in all the other activities as well. Organizing Play. — There has always been the feeling on the part of many that the director would either over-mechanize play or that he would take away all the initiative of children, and that the greatest educational value of play would thereby be lost. But those who speak in this way have not studied conditions. What actually happens in a successful playground is something like this. The play organizer sees Johnnie Smith in the morning and says to him, " Johnnie, why don't you organize a baseball team out of the boys in your block, or your class in school? We are arranging a tournament in baseball, and I should like you to get up a team that can come into the League. You get all your boys together and come over here at eleven o'clock and we will talk it over." This play is no less free because it is put into a tournament and made exciting than it would have been if it had been the list- less, quarrelsome kind of game that ordinarily takes place on the vacant lots. Perhaps, on the other hand, there is a group of boys standing around and one of them says, "What shall we play ? " The teacher suggests pullaway, and very likely falls into the game with the boys. The play is no less free on this account. A group of children always depend on some one for a suggestion as to what they are to play. Securing Cooperation. — One of the most fundamental requirements of the playground director is that he shall be a person who can get the children to work with him, who can organize them into teams and groups for various purposes, and make the playground morally self-supporting, — a place where children have no wish to get into disorder. Not only must he be able to secure this cooperation from the children, 126 Practical Conduct of Play but if he is to be highly successful he must secure it from the parents also. This requires a very high grade of ability, but some approximation to it is possible for almost any one. Promoting Friendship. — Friendship is essential to play and there can be no good play without it. We may always take the spirit of friendship among the children as an evi- dence that play has been going on, and vice versa, a spirit of enmity among them always indicates a condition where play will be very difficult. It is the mixing in this country of races and peoples with the hereditary hatreds and antagonisms which have grown out of European history that has made one of our most serious play problems. Children will go a long distance to play with children whom they like, even when there is no equipment to play with, but they will not go across the road to play with children whom they dislike, even if those children have every facility for play. At all our summer resorts, also, the people who are there are at least half of the resort, and it is the social, far more than the scenic, attractions which induce people to return year after year to the same place. This is perhaps the main reason why the municipal playgrounds have not been altogether successful in securing attendance ; the children have come from various quarters, where they have had no previous association with each other, and the activities have in general been very insufficiently organized. If a playground is to have a large and continued attendance, it is absolutely necessary that it develop a spirit of friendhness among the children, for that spirit of friendHness will have more to do with the attendance than all the equip- ment that can be put into the ground. This may seem Hke a very large requirement to place upon a playground director, The Organizer of Play 127 but it is not really so ideal and abstract and impossible as it may seem. To put it concretely, it means that there shall be an abundance of good play in which the children take part, that, so far as possible, social groupings of friendly children in games and various activities shall be effected, and that these groups shall be kept together to a considerable extent. All tournaments and contests with other grounds tend also to emphasize and strengthen the loyalty and friendliness of children on the home ground. This social requirement has not thus far been sufficiently appreciated on the part of play- ground directors and supervisors, although we are all aware of it so far as we ourselves are concerned. THE ORGANIZATION OF PLAY AS A PROFESSION Number of Positions. — Before any one should consider preparation for a playground position or seek employment in play activities, he should naturally inquire, ^^ What are the probabilities of my securing a position, and will the remunera- tion compensate me for the training which will be necessary? " This a natural and proper question. There were employed in the playgrounds of the United States during the year 1913, 6318 workers, of whom 774 were employed for the year. The numbers, both of permanent and summer workers, are in- creasing at the rate of about twenty per cent a year. Besides the playground positions there is at present so great a de- mand for physical trainers in connection with city school sys- tems, settlements, camps, institutional churches, Y.M. and Y.W.C.A.'s, and boys' and girls' clubs, that those who are adequately trained usually secure positions some time before their graduation, at salaries considerably higher than those of regular teachers. The number of schools of physical 128 Practical Conduct of Play training is increasing rapidly, but all of these schools together do not seem to be able to keep pace with the rapid develop- ment of physical training throughout the country. Still these numbers are a mere bagatelle compared with the numbers that will be required if certain pedagogical movements that now loom large on the horizon should become general. Perhaps there is no other city in the country that is attracting so much attention in pedagogical circles as Gary, Indiana, where Superintendent William Wirt has developed a system new in nearly every detail and built very closely upon the normal needs of children. It is a departmental system from bottom to top, and the children change class- rooms at the end of each period. All of the teachers are spe- cialists, and nearly one quarter of them are physical trainers. The children in the first six grades have two hours of play every day, and those from the sixth to the eleventh grade one hour. The significance of this appears in the fact that school superintendents, normal school presidents, and pro- fessors of pedagogy from all over the country have been visit- ing Gary in such large numbers during the last four or five years that it has been necessary to set aside certain weeks for visitors, during which regular lecturers and guides to the system are employed, in order to avoid the constant dis- turbance of classes and interference with the work of princi- pals and teachers. During the last year or two a considerable number of cities have introduced the Gary plan in a modified form. If this system should go into effect in all our cities, it would take at least fifty thousand playground directors, and if it were considered applicable to rural schools, it would take at least a hundred thousand more teachers with some preparation in the organization of play. The Organizer of Play 129 The number of positions which I have quoted from The Playground^ however, does not include, in general, teachers who are devoting their time to the organization of play in connection with a regular school system, and this is the field in which growth is likely to be most rapid. It will be noted, however, that in the figures given there are only 774 positions which are for the entire year. A person cannot afford to take a lengthy course of training to prepare himself for a summer position, but a brief course, perhaps, may be worth while, even for work during the summer. The Salary. — If a person prepares himself for a position in the playgrounds, what salary may he expect to receive? At the present time the people who have all-the-year-around positions are probably receiving on the average a little more than the average teacher's salary, which is true of physical trainers the country over. During the next few years, while there is still a scarcity of those who are adequately prepared, it is probable that this will be true. There can be no assurance that a person will get a position in the playgrounds, but it is almost sure that any competent physical trainer will get a position, either in the playgrounds or in some allied line of activity, such as the settlements, institutional churches, Y.M. or Y.W.C.A.'s, and in any of these institutions, his play training will be a real preparation. Residence. — In the city of Los Angeles they furnish a house on every playground for the director and his family. This is separated from the remainder of the playground by a picket fence, but is within the inclosure. In some of the field houses in Pittsburgh, also, there is a residence for the director. The playground with its social center is a sort of pubHc settlement, and it is highly desirable that the director 130 Practical Conduct of Play should live in the neighborhood, if possible, and become a part of the community. In fact, it is almost impossible that the playground should be that sort of social force, that melting pot of the races, which it ought to be unless the director becomes a part of the community. Wherever it is possible, then, he should either live on the playground or in its im- mediate vicinity. The Time of Service. — There are now nearly ten summer playground positions to one position which lasts during the entire year. The summer work usually lasts for eight or nine weeks, thus leaving a week vacant at the beginning and an- other at the end of the summer, in order that the directors, who are usually regular teachers during the school year, may have a brief vacation. The hours of service on the playgrounds vary greatly in dififerent places, but probably average six or seven per day, though in New York they are only four and a half, and in the municipal playgrounds of Chicago they are twelve. Probably six or seven hours should be the maximum playground service, because the work required, if conscientiously performed, is very strenuous. During the school year, the park playgrounds of Chicago open at three o'clock and close at ten. During the summer, the hours are from nine in the morning until ten at night. But the period of duty for any one teacher is about six hours a day in both cases. On the school grounds the time of service during the school year is usually from the close of school until dark, thus ranging from one hour to an hour and a half a day during the fall, and from two hours to two and a half during the spring, with perhaps Saturday forenoon or all day Saturday also. At the social centers, the hours are generally from half The Organizer of Play 131 past seven until ten, with occasional dances and entertain- ments which may last until eleven or twelve. Thus if the service after school and on Saturdays is combined with service in the social center, it makes a four- or five-hour day for these workers. All over the country the observance of Sunday is becoming less strict than it was a few years ago, and baseball, tennis, golf, and similar games are coming, more and more, to be played then. This, of course, is much more common on the continent of Europe than it is here ; indeed, nearly all the big athletic events and the principal games in Germany, and perhaps in most of the countries of Europe, take place on Sunday afternoon. There are probably from five to ten per cent of the playgrounds of this country that are now kept open on Sunday, and they often have their largest attendance at that time. These have been, however, until recently, exclusively the municipal playgrounds ; but during this past year the school playgrounds of Gary have been thrown open on Sunday afternoons and evenings, and it seems Hkely that this custom is destined to grow. The Massachusetts Civic League is devoting a large part of its energy to the promotion of Sunday baseball, and we must reahze that for those who are working six days a week the only opportunity for play comes in the evenings or on Sunday. It is also evident that many of our playgrounds are located in sections where they are surrounded by Jewish people whose Sabbath is on Satur- day and who wish to play on Sunday more than at any other time. Many other playgrounds are surrounded by recent immigrants, who are accustomed to the Continental Sabbath and who of course wish to have their games and athletics on Sunday. It does not seem as though the playgrounds 132 Practical Conduct of Play should be open on Sunday morning where they are likely to interfere with the church services, but it is possible that most of our playgrounds ought to be opened on Sunday afternoon. This ought not to mean seven days' service for the director, however ; there ought always to be some provision to give him at least one day off. During the early days, in Chicago, special directors were employed for Sunday. Where the directors are employed for the entire year, they usually have a two weeks' vacation on full pay at some time during the year, but those whose employment is only for the summer generally have no vacation. Health. — ^' Man shall not live by bread alone," nor must one who prepares for a playground position be moved only by the idea of financial recompense. To a person who is fond of outdoor life and activities, the playground gives an opportu- nity for this enjoyment, and in addition the probabiHty of the maintenance of as vigorous health as can be expected in connection with any line of work. Opportunity for Service. — It is often a good thing for a playground system if its funds are inadequate in the beginning, so that local workers go in at first without pay, or at least on a low salary, because this is apt to bring out those who are genuinely interested and who are wilHng to receive part of their recompense in a sense of service. This social spirit is very necessary for the success of a playground worker, and the joy of service should be his highest reward. Comradeship. — Probably the playground is the most democratic place in the world. There is no distinction of races or classes, of rich or poor, of high or low, Jew or Gen- tile, Catholic or Protestant. All mingle together on equal The Organizer of Play 133 footing, and each is known and praised for his abihty to do the things that are to be done. Organized play is an effi- cient means for the development of that social spirit and sense of comradeship, of that spirit of brotherHness, which seems to be the keynote of the age that is coming in. This sense of comradeship in play should always be one of the re- wards of the playground director. QUALIFICATIONS OF THE DIRECTOR Technical Training. — In general, it may be said that the director must be able to conduct all of the activities and manage all of the equipment and apparatus of the playground. He must know the games of the children, the folk dances, the athletics, and he should know, also, something of dramatics, story-telHng, pageantry, camping, conducting excursions, gar- dening, and industrial work ; especially does he need to be expert in the organization of teams and groups of children, and in securing the cooperation of the children and the com- munity in making the playground a success. In some of the playgrounds special teachers of folk dancing, story-telHng, dramatics, gardening, industrial work, and music are employed. These specialists usually perform two func- tions : first, the giving of special instruction to teachers along the line of their own work; and second, the supervising of this work in the several playgrounds. These specialists are re- quired because the present play directors are so inadequately trained, but as time goes on and the workers themselves are better prepared, it is likely that the specialists will be largely dispensed with, in the smaller systems at least. There are also certain problems of hygiene which are found in all playgrounds and which require the constant attention 134 Practical Conduct of Play of the director. The swimming pool, if there is one, and the sand bin must be kept in a sanitary condition. He must see that the toilets are kept clean, and that the children with contagious skin and eye diseases are sent home, as well as children who have vermin in their hair. There are often cases of injury in connection with the games and the use of the apparatus which are likely to require some knowledge of first aid. There should always be some anti- septic wash available, and court plaster for bruises, cuts, and sprains; but the director should avoid treating any serious injuries such as broken bones, and, in general, it is not best for him to attempt to make a medical examination to determine whether or not the children are in condition for the more strenuous contests. This requires much technical skill, and regular doctors of experience should be summoned for this purpose. Of ttimes young doctors will give a very low rate, or perhaps contribute their services to the playground for the sake of the cause. Physique. — I suppose every playground supervisor has had applications, during the early days at least, for positions from people who gave as their special qualification for a playground position that they were unable to do anything else, having been incapacitated by service in the army or by disease. However, no one who has ever had any experience with playground activities would regard incapacity for doing other things as a very good recommendation for a playground job. A person who goes into a playground and really plays with the children and puts his soul into it will find the exercise exceedingly strenuous. I have myself sawed wood, pitched hay, and worked on the railroad, but I have never found anything else quite so strenuous physically as was the play- The Organizer of Play 135 ground position which I held during the first year the play- grounds were opened in New York City. Age. — Teachers in the declining years of life have often come to me and said they contemplated taking a course in preparation for a playground position, saying they needed to get outdoors, and they thought that this would be just the thing for them. It does not seem likely, however, that any person who has lived a sedentary life in the school- room until he is fifty or more years of age will be able after that to take up and stand the strain of an occupation so vigorous as the direction of a playground. In general, the playground director ought at least to begin young. If he has been accustomed to a life of physical activity from early years, he probably may continue it beyond middle life, and perhaps to old age, but it will be almost impossible for him to take up such a life after having led an inactive one until the years of decline have begun. Refinement. — There are few other places where people are drawn so close to one another as they are when they play together. Perhaps there is no other person who is so largely copied by the children as the popular playground director. He or she ought, consequently, to be a person of refinement first of all, and a worthy model as a man or a woman. General Education. — In most systems the director is required to be at least a high school graduate ; in some, college graduation or graduation from a normal school of physical training is practically insisted upon. I have known play- ground directors whose ordinary conversation was so ungram- matical and lacking in culture that it did not seem appropriate that they should have charge of the activities of children. 136 Practical Conduct of Play Some standard of general education is necessary in order to keep up the grade of the work. Love for Children. — What should be the attitude main- tained by the teacher toward the children? We often hear the expression " Familiarity breeds contempt. '' Whenever I hear this expression, I always feel like completing it by its implied condition. Familiarity leads to contempt, if you are contemptible. " No king is a hero to his valet de chambre," say the French. No, not if his heroism consists in his clothes ; but surely Napoleon would have been no less a hero to his valet than to others, if the soul of his valet were large enough to conceive of heroism. We may make heroes of very un- heroic material, if we put them so far away that we never get a real sight of them, but a really great person never suffers from a nearer view, provided we have any power of vision in ourselves. Perhaps the saying was intended to mean that the permitting of disrespectful treatment leads to contempt. There can be no doubt that any one who has to do with children must demand of them respectful treatment as the fundamental condition of esteem and influence. The director cannot allow that kind of familiarity which would lead a child to steal his cap and throw it about or to trip him up, as I have seen done ; but there is no danger of the director's being too friendly. Friendliness is an absolutely essential condition of good discipline and social training in the play- ground. The relationships of the playground are much more intimate than those of the school, and the success of the director in his or her work will be largely determined by his or her attitude toward the children themselves. No person who does not love children should ever accept a playground position. The Organizer of Play 137 Interest in Children. — The laws of personal popularity are the same on the playground as elsewhere. One may have an influence over just as many people as he is able to take an interest in. If he is able to know and call by name and enter sympathetically into the lives of only fifty people, his personal influence will be practically limited to fifty people. If he can be interested in five hundred people, his personal touch will be ten times as extensive, though it may lack proportion- ally in intensity. The social leader and the politician have mastered the arts of personal influence of the extensive kind. The politician calls you by name, he asks how your son John is, and whether Mary has fully recovered from the measles. He leads you to think that he takes a great personal interest in you and your affairs. I have gone through the offices of a hundred representatives at Washington in one week to find when I went back the next week that almost every man would call me by name. It has been a part of their training. It is exactly so with the playground director. He will have a direct influence over just as many children as he is able to take an interest in. Until you know a child's name he feels irresponsible for his conduct. The mere fact that you can call a boy John or Henry is a tie which is even more powerful in childhood than later. The senior class at Yale always takes a vote as to who is the most popular professor, and during the life of Dean Wright he was always chosen. It is said that in any city where they might chance to meet he could go up to any one of the twenty- five thousand men who went through Yale while he was there and call him by name. After I had been at Yale only part of a term myself, I was obliged to return home on account of a sprained ankle. I saw Dean Wright only to get an excuse 133 Practical Conduct of Play for going home. When I returned the next year, he happened to be at the station. He came up to me and said, " How do you do, Mr. Curtis? Has your ankle recovered?" That sort of interest in people which enables a man to individualize them is the key to personal influence in society and politics, and no less in the playgrounds. It is the most fundamental thing in social and political success and in the effectiveness of one individual upon another. Respect for Children. — The playground is the most demo- cratic place on earth, and it is absolutely essential that the director should be a democrat. Many of our playgrounds are located in the midst of foreign settlements where they are surrounded by Jews or Italians or Greeks. No man can go into the playground and think of these foreign children as " Sheenies " or " Dagoes " and have any influence over them. We insist upon respect for our personality as the one condition upon which another may have a helpful influence over us. We object to being '' uplifted." Indeed I doubt whether there is any other attitude which has a greater moral value than the ability to see the good side of others and to show respect for it. This is the fundamental thing in the spirit of democ- racy which is coming in and which is so often spoken of as the keynote of the new age. This spirit discovers that people of different classes and conditions are not, after all, so different as we had supposed; that we all have many more things in common than we have points of difference ; and that we may find running through all classes and creeds a sense of comradeship which brings a new joy to life and also brings much of practical effectiveness along all lines of achievement. Perhaps there is no other person in the com- munity who needs quite so much as the play director to be a The Organizer of Play 139 good ^' mixer," — to have this spirit of democracy. This is one of the reasons why a play position gives one such good training in the spirit of the coming age. WHO MAY BECOME PLAYGROUND DIRECTORS? Physical Trainers. — Should the playground director be a physical trainer ? In general, this question has been answered in this country in the affirmative ; in Germany and England, in the negative. We have seemed to take it for granted that play is always a physical activity and that the successful conduct of a playground requires that sort of training which is given in schools of physical education. However, it must be noted that a large number of the activities of any play- ground are not physical activities. Story-telling, dramatics, gardening, pageants, and the like, are not essentially physi- cal in their nature, nor do the schools of physical education give just the type of training which is required for the other activities of the playground. Probably the most fundamental requirement of the playground director is his ability to create a spirit of friendliness, to secure the cooperation of the children and the parents, to deal with the community as a social group, and to become the organizer of its leisure time. This is not a type of ability which is trained in most schools of physical education. The more common activities, however, in the playgrounds are of course games, folk dancing, and athletics, and these are essentially physical ; so we may say, at any rate, that physical training, or training in these activities, should be part of the preparation of the playground director; but he should also have a training in practical sociology, in psychology, in manual training, story-telling, dramatics, pageantry, and a number of other things. The tendency in this country thus 140 Practical Conduct of Play far has been to put into our playgrounds, wherever we were able, competent physical directors, but in England it is the regular teacher who has charge of the play after school, and the same is true in Germany. Probably our best prepared teachers for playground positions at the present time are physical trainers, and yet in my own experience they have not always been the most successful in the actual conduct of play. The most successful director that I ever had was a kindergartner who had charge of all the children, big and little, sometimes as many as three or four hundred children at once. The next most successful was a social worker. The Regular Teachers. — Whether or not we employ physical directors to have charge of all-the-year-round play- grounds, it seems inevitable that the regular teachers in the schools are to have charge of most of the activities on the school grounds, unless it should happen that the departmental system, as followed in Gary, should be generally adopted throughout the country. Certainly there is an increasing tendency for the teachers to have charge of play during the recesses and after school. There are many, however, who question the wisdom of this. They say that the teacher who has been in the classroom during the day ought to be relieved entirely of strain after school hours, and that the taking on of any new activity is likely to cause a breakdown. This will undoubtedly be true for the teacher who does not love chil- dren and is a poor disciplinarian ; but for the child-lover who can control by the power of her personality, a play position after school may often be a life-saver. The master in the English preparatory and public schools has charge of the play of the children for about two hours a day, as a matter of The Organizer of Play 141 course. I have never heard of a breakdown attributed to this cause. There is still more hesitancy on the part of the teachers, and still more question on the part of the school authorities, when it comes to the teacher's taking charge of a playground during the summer vacation ; but, again, I have seen a number of teachers who were nearly broken down by their work during the school year go into playgrounds in Washington, where the temperature was nearly a hundred in the shade during a large part of the summer, and build up steadily in health and physique. I doubt if a course at any summer school is likely to give more valuable training to the ordinary teacher than she will derive from a summer in a playground. The teacher in the classroom is not dealing with the real child, but with a Httle caged animal. In the playground she has the genuine child before her, for the child acts and thinks in terms of play, and the teacher who has forgotten how to play cannot speak the language of childhood or understand its thoughts. Teachers are especially subject to troubles that come from living indoors. About a third of all the breakdowns are due to " nerves " and for these the natural cure is to throw off the worry each day in some kind of spontaneous activity and to get an abundance of fresh air. Teachers are about twice as susceptible to tuberculosis on an average as other persons, and here again the open-air play is the best possible cure for the conditions which are producing the disease. The teacher in the playground gets into more intimate touch with the child than she is able to do in the schoolroom, and this new relationship is apt to bring about a more intimate kind 142 Practical Conduct of Play of teaching and a pleasanter relationship with the children in the school as well as on the playground. Kindergartners. — Kindergartners already have excellent training for the work with little children, and if the kinder- garten be some day restored to the open air, as was the pur- pose of its founder, we shall have trained play directors for the little children ready for this section. The kindergarten encourages a spirit of play and physical activity and a sym- . pathetic insight into child nature which ofttimes makes the kindergartner an admirable director for the play of the older as well as the younger children. Social Workers. — Perhaps there is no place where there is a greater opportunity for personal influence than in the playgrounds. The child is himself there and his nature is open to suggestions to which it seems to be hermetically sealed while he is in the classroom. Example is more contagious there than anywhere else. The play movement in the United States has been from the beginning fundamentally a social rather than a physical movement, and it has been chiefly for social reasons that it has been promoted. The fundamental problem of the playgrounds is always a problem of social organization and of securing the cooperation of the children and parents of the community in common undertakings, such as athletics, folk dancing, games, and other activities. In many ways the social worker who already has the spirit of play and some experience with games and athletics makes an admirable organizer of play. The one pecuHar temptation to which the playground director is subject is loafing. There does not seem to be much that is definite for him to do, and the general public never expects him to be much more than a pohceman. It is always easier to sit about and talk than it is The Organizer of Play 143 to organize activities. It is difficult for a supervisor who has a number of grounds to look after and who must also be business man, promoter, and financial agent, as is often neces- sary, to give close supervision to individual grounds ; and for all these reasons it is essential that the play director be one who will run on his own steam from a genuine interest in the welfare of the children and a desire to promote it. Moreover, the playground systems all over the country are rapidly becoming all-the-year-round systems, which means that the municipal playgrounds are acquiring field houses and that the schools are becoming social centers. Wherever a system has a field house or a social center, the work required in connection with these is practically the same as that re- quired in settlements, and the social worker is probably the one person who is best prepared to have charge of at least a part of these activities. College Graduates with Leisure. — In many ways a play- ground position should appeal to young ladies who have just graduated from college and who are not compelled to make a Hving but who wish to make their lives count for something. The refinement and general education which they have gained will count for as much in the playground as they possibly can anywhere else. Moreover, if they have through their own social position, or in the course of their training, acquired a certain snobbishness or sense of superiority, the playground is the best place in the world to cure them of it and to inspire that democratic spirit which is probably the best possible preparation for success in society or in the general social movements. The playground is also a place where they may be out of doors and where they may build up physically and become strong and well. Many of the play positions 144 Practical Conduct of Play enforce long vacations which can ill be afforded by workers who are entirely dependent upon themselves, but which would probably appeal to young women whose livelihood is assured. It has seemed almost essential to efficiency in this country that the playground director should have a regular course of training, but probably the most efffcient directors of play that there are anywhere are the masters in the preparatory and public schools of England. These men have had no training but they have played games from childhood and have a real love for play. After the young people have had organized play in the playgrounds for a few years, it will be less necessary to teach games, athletics, and dances to those who are to have charge of playgrounds, and perhaps these young women re- cently out of college, who have had an abundance of play and games and dancing during their school life and a course or two in theory in college, may really be very well fitted to be- come competent leaders of the play of children. In any case, they represent the type of persons who ought to be directors of playgrounds. To employ an uncultured person who has risen from the ranks in the neighborhood in which the playground is located is to deprive the children of a great opportunity to gain refinement through the imitation of a cultured person. WHO IS TO ORGANIZE PLAY IN THE COUNTRY? The Rural Teacher. — If play is to be organized in the one- room rural school, it must in general be organized by the teacher herself, and to a certain extent this is already being done. The children themselves expect it. The Principal of the Consolidated School. — The one-room rural schools of the country are slowly giving place to township or consolidated schools, and in a considerable number of The Organizer of Play 145 states special state aid is being given to accelerate this proc- ess. The decreasing population in the country sections and the smaller size of country families is leaving once populous district schools with only five or ten pupils, and it is cheaper to transport these pupils to a central school than to provide a separate school for them. More and more we are coming to demand agriculture and domestic economy for rural children, and it is almost impossible for a single teacher to add to an overburdened daily program these new subjects and teach any of them efficiently. All of these considerations are leading to a steady extension of consolidated schools in nearly every state in the Union. Perhaps the consoHdated school is de- manded by the play needs of the children and the social needs of the community, no less than by educational needs, for it is often only at the consolidated school that there will be either enough boys to play baseball or enough girls to play basket ball, or any other of our team games. The consoHdated school usually has a playground of from four to ten acres, so there is ample room for games. In some places community picnics are held on these grounds on Saturday afternoons, and through these and through evening lectures, entertainments, and mov- ing pictures there is made possible the real organization of the community life. In all of these schools either the prin- cipal or some one else should be paid an extra salary as the organizer of recreation and social life for the children and the community. Perhaps no other one thing could do so much to make country Hfe attractive and to keep the boys and girls on the farm. The County Superintendent. — The really decisive factor in the organization of play in the county will probably be the county superintendent of schools. In connection with the 146 Practical Conduct of Play County Teachers' Institute it is possible to teach the games to the teachers of the county and to give them instruction in the organization of the activities at their own schools. The county superintendent also can send out programs of the activities to be undertaken and arrange for contests between rural schools, for county play festivals, and for pageants. There are a considerable number of counties in which some such organization is already in effect. The County Secretary of the Y.M.C.A. — There were, in April, 1 914, eighty-nine county secretaries of the Y.M.C.A. in the United States. These county secretaries are nearly all organizers of athletics and games for the boys, to a larger or smaller degree, in the counties of which they have charge, and they usually conduct an annual play festival, often in connection with the county fair. The girls, however, thus far have been largely neglected under this arrangement, and the girls in the country need organized play far more than the boys do, because they receive at home and at school so much less encouragement to play. However, the newly organized county Y.W.C.A.'s may soon be doing a similar work for the girls. The Paid Director of Play and Recreation for the County. — In the country sections of Germany and Denmark there is an ofhcial who is known as a Spiel Inspector whose business is to organize play over the country districts of which he has charge. We may hope that at some time such an official may be em- ployed in the country sections of the United States. It is certainly no easier to conduct play in the country with no one in charge than it is in the city, and it is the lack of recreation in the country which is largely responsible for the constant migration of the country people to the cities. The Organizer of Play 147 VOLUNTEER ASSISTANTS It is very difficult to furnish such a number of directors on a playground as will be always sufficient and yet never exces- sive, for the very good reason that the attendance varies so greatly from hour to hour. It frequently happens that there will be fifty children present at nine o'clock in the morning, and five hundred at six o'clock in the afternoon. If directors are furnished for this playground on the basis of the smaller number, they will be entirely inadequate for the late after- noon, and if a sufficient number is furnished for this later time, they will be excessive in the forenoon. Experience seems to show that a playground cannot be operated suc- cessfully with only volunteer assistants, but I doubt very much, also, if it can be satisfactorily operated without them. Volunteer assistants are generally unreliable, coming or stay- ing away as they please. It does not do to leave a play- ground in their hands, as everything is likely to go to wrack during the time when they fail to appear, but they are in- valuable as assistants to the regular directors at times when the attendance is greatest, and it would be a good thing if there might be eight or ten such volunteers for each of the larger playgrounds. There are three different kinds of vol- unteers who are serving in the different playgrounds : Apprentice Directors. — Very often, in lieu of taking a regular course of training, a teacher or other person who wishes to become a playground director goes into a playground and serves for a period of weeks for the sake of the experience, in the hope of getting an appointment later at a regular salary. Often, also, normal school seniors and juniors have gone into a playground in the summer in the same way and 148 Practical Conduct of Play have later been appointed to positions there. It is a good thing to have such apprentices on the playground, and the experience, if they are with a competent director, frequently proves a fairly satisfactory training. Fathers and Mothers. — Every inducement should be given to the fathers and mothers to come over to the playground during the time just before and just after supper and to get them to assist the director in the various activities. They are often glad to be starters in the races and judges in the finishes, to give certain tests to the children, and to help in the manage- ment of the playground apparatus. Being, as a rule, known to the children of the neighborhood, they serve as a moral safe- guard and at the same time help to develop the spirit of co- operation in the community. Their assistance in discipline is often very desirable. Social Workers. — The social workers of the neighborhood are apt to regard the playground as belonging to them and very often are willing to assist at such times as they have leisure. Since they usually know the children through the settlement clubs and other work, they are often very valuable helpers. This relationship with the children on the play- grounds strengthens their hold upon the community as well as upon the children themselves. Child Assistants. — As we all know, the first systems of education upon the large scale were based upon the idea that the teacher should be in general charge, but that the instruc- tion should be given largely by student assistants or appren- tice teachers who should work under him. We are all familiar with the work of Bell and Lancaster in England, and even to-day the use of student assistants is general there. Perhaps there is no place where children can be of more assistance than The Organizer of Play 149 on the playground, and every director should endeavor to get the cooperation of all the children in the undertakings which the playground wishes to carry on. It is only through this cooperation that the playground can be what it ought to be for the children of the community. There should be at least ten or a dozen of the older boys and girls who will serve as assistants on each playground. If these children are real leaders, they may often do much to make the spirit of the playground and to ease the strain of discipline and the care of supplies for the director. Such positions of trust are also a great advantage to children, for there is nothing like respon- sibiHty to develop manhness and dependability in boys and womanliness and reliability in girls. Fifty or sixty years ago, in the days of the pioneers, boys and girls of fifteen or sixteen were often married and started in life for themselves. History shows that they were capable, making homes, rearing families, and becoming worthy members of the community. These facts would seem to show that we are extending the childhood of our children unnecessarily where we keep them too long from having any normal responsibilities. Very often an irresponsible and troublesome boy, when placed in charge of the swings or the distribution of certain supplies, or made umpire or coach for a certain game, seems suddenly trans- formed from his previous self, and becomes permanently re- liable and helpful. If the leaders of three or four of the street gangs are chosen as monitors or assistants, they often solve at once the problem of discipHne and disorder, but the director must be careful how he places before the children in positions of authority boys or girls whom they ought not to imitate. It is a good thing to have a " Leader " button of some kind 150 Practical Conduct of Play (usually a celluloid button is satisfactory), perhaps with a ribbon attached, for the children who are to serve as assistants. Privileges of certain kinds should be given to these children. It is wise always to require a period of probation before these badges are conferred and to have the children understand that they will lose the distinction if they are not equal to the respon- sibilities placed upon them. Very often they seek these badges eagerly and are willing to render almost any sort of service for them. CHAPTER IX THE TRAINING OF PLAY DIRECTORS. NATURE OF COURSES i In the fall of 1909 the Playground Association of America issued a Normal Course in Play. Since that time there has been a very rapid development of normal courses throughout the country and a large number of teachers and others have taken the courses given. These are of four different kinds: (i) those given by normal schools of physical education, state normal schools, and universities ; (2) play institutes, which are usually concentrated courses of one or two weeks' duration; (3) training courses given by city systems; and (4) summer courses at universities and normal schools. The most elaborate of these courses are those given in connection with schools of physical education. The following courses are hsted in the Sources of Information on Recreation pub- Hshed by the Department of Recreation of the Russell Sage Foundation : Baltimore Training School for Playground Workers, Baltimore, Maryland. Boston School for Social Workers, Boston, Massachusetts. Chautauqua School of Physical Education, Chautauqua, New York. (Summer Session.) Chicago Training School for Playground Workers, Chicago, Illinois. Colorado State Teachers College, Greeley, Colorado. Columbia University, Teachers College, New York City. First District Normal School, Kirksville, Missouri. Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Summer Session.) 1 For a fuller treatment of this topic see the author's Education Through Play, Chapter XVI. 151 152 Practical Conduct of Play Illinois State Normal University, Normal, Illinois. International Y.M.C.A. College, Springfield, Massachusetts. Kansas State Normal, Emporia, Kansas. Leland Stanford, Jr., University, Palo Alto, California. Massachusetts Agricultural College, Amherst, Massachusetts. (Summer Session.) McGill University, Montreal, Canada. (Summer Session.) Mississippi Industrial Institute and College, Columbus, Mississippi. New Haven Normal School of Gymnastics, New Haven, Connecticut. New York Normal School of Physical Education, 308 West 59th St., New York City. New York Kindergarten Association, Department of Graduate Study, New York City. New York School of Philanthropy, 105 East 2 2d St., New York City. Normal College of the North American Gymnastic Union, Indianapolis, Indiana. Normal School of Physical Education, Battle Creek, Michigan. (Sum- mer Session.) Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio. Posse Normal School of Gymnastics, Boston, Massachusetts. Sargent School for Physical Education, Cambridge, Massachusetts. State Normal School, Bellingham, Washington. State Normal School, Cheney, Washington. State Normal School, Chico, California. State Normal and Training School, Cortland, New York. State Normal School, Hyannis, Massachusetts. State Normal School, San Diego, California. (Summer Session.) State Normal School, Superior, Wisconsin. State Normal School, Valley City, North Dakota. State Normal School, Ypsilanti, Michigan. St. Louis Y.W.C.A., St. Louis, Missouri. State Teachers College, Cedar Falls, Iowa. Thomas Normal Training School, Detroit, Michigan. University of California, Berkeley, California. University of Missouri, Columbus, Missouri. University of Montana, Missoula, Montana. (Summer Session.) The Training of Play Directors 153 University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah. University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia. University of Washington, Seattle, Washington. University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin. Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri. Western Normal School, Kalamazoo, Michigan. Winona State Normal, Winona, Minnesota. Winthrop College, Rock Hill, South Carolina. (Summer Session.) Y.M.C.A.. Institute and Training School, Chicago, Illinois. (Summer Session.) Y.W.C.A. National Training School, New York City. This is by no means a complete list of schools training play leaders, as there are a number of private normal schools and kindergarten schools which are also giving courses, and also several more in summer schools. Schools of Physical Training. — The more elaborate of these schools of physical education give, beside their regular two or three years' course in physical training, special courses in games and folk dancing. Some of them give also the kinder- garten games and the industrial work of the playgrounds, and most of them offer certain courses in the theory of playground management and activities. However, in nearly all of these schools the playground treatment is incidental to the general study of physical training, and the amount of time which is ac- tually devoted to the playground activities, over and above that required for a regular course in physical training, is not large. Play Institutes. — The Playground Association of Germany, since its foundation in 1891, has been giving each year in all of the principal cities of Germany play institutes one week in duration. These institutes have been in charge, in nearly every case, of high-grade physical trainers who have in general 154 Practical Conduct of Play devoted the forenoon to the theoretical discussion of play, and the afternoon to the actual practice of games and athletics. These courses have been taken by about sixty thousand teachers. They are much too brief to be a complete training, but as an introduction to the organization of play, and es- pecially when repeated from year to year, they furnish an excellent means for teaching common games and for the gradual mastery of the principles of organized play. In this country the Playground Association of America has also held several similar institutes during the last three or four years, in which they have brought together prominent leaders from different sections of the country, and a week of concentrated work has been given. This, however, has been of theory only. Courses by Local Authorities. — In fifty-nine cities training courses were given during 191 3 under the supervision of the playground authorities. In Philadelphia a two years' course, one hundred hours in all, has been given for several years. The class meets every Friday night from November until May for a two hour and a half session, which consists of three periods, one of which is devoted to theory. Similar courses also are being given in Baltimore and in Cleveland, and less elaborate ones in a number of other cities. The directors of the play- grounds in these cities are chosen from those who have taken these courses. Mr. Stecher in Philadelphia thinks that it is a very great advantage for his teachers to take these courses, even if they are not going into the playground, as it makes them more helpful in the organization of games in the school- room, at recess time and after school. State Normal Schools. — In all of the state normal schools of Germany, normal courses in play are now being given, and The Training of Play Directors 155 there are many normal schools in this country where longer or shorter courses have been initiated during the last two or three years. It is probable that a normal course in play will soon be a part of the regular work in all of our normal schools, in the North at least. The organization of play is becoming more and more a part of the teacher's work ; in many places certain of the teachers are now required to be present on the playgrounds during the school recesses and perhaps for a brief period before and after school, and in a considerable number of cities the teachers of the lower grades take their children into the yard for several periods of play and physical training each week. Summer Schools. — There are more courses given during the summer than at any other time, and some of these courses are very well attended. For instance, there were about twelve hundred teachers registered for this course at the University of California two years ago, and nearly everywhere it is one of the most popular courses with the teachers. This is a very hopeful sign, because it shows that the teachers themselves are appreciating the need. A play course is an admirable summer course for teachers, because it gives them the open air and is a real reHef from the conditions of the class- room. Every teacher undoubtedly should have at least as much training in the line of play and public recreation as can be secured during a summer session. At the International Meeting of Physical Education, held in Vienna in 191 1, it was unanimously resolved that a normal course in play should be a part of the training of all teachers. Inadequacy of the Courses now Given. — It may be said in general that all of the present courses given are inadequate as a full preparation for a playground position, but they give 156 Practical Conduct of Play an initial training which ought to enable the teacher at least to get started in the right direction. Playground preparation is in about the same stage to-day as training for the public schools was fifty years ago, when normal schools were just being established. Practically none of the schools have ade- quate opportunity for practice, and in most of them the time devoted to the course is altogether too short for anything more than a superficial preparation. A preparation which would really meet the need should consist, in about equal proportions, of the theoretical consideration of play, athletics, dancing, and the other activities involved, and the practice of these activities under competent supervision. At present, the schools of physical training are all weak on the social side of the work and also in failing to furnish opportunity for their students to practice the activities with the children on the playgrounds. The schools of social service are weak, usually, on the side of play activities, athletics, and dancing, as well as in opportunity for practice. The kindergarten schools, while strong in their preparation for the work with little children, give very inadequate preparation for the work with older children. Probably as time goes on, the training for play- ground positions, as a branch of the teaching profession, will be given by the public normal schools, the same as training for other teaching positions. As these schools already have departments of physical training, music, manual training, nature study, pedagogy, and sociology, with model schools where the activities may be practiced with the children, it seems certain that the preparation offered by the state normal schools will ultimately be more satisfactory than anything that is now available, and in a large way the whole move- ment is now awaiting the better development of these courses. The Training of Play Directors 157 TRAINING AFTER APPOINTMENT Under existing circumstances it is almost necessary that a considerable portion of the training of playground directors should be obtained after their appointment, and this is one reason why the supervisor of playgrounds at the present time needs to be a high-grade individual. In a number of cities it is the custom for him to have a one- or two-hour meeting with all of the play directors every week or every two weeks dur- ing the season, for the discussion of problems of the play- ground. Of course the supervisor also gives constant sug- gestions to the directors while they are at their duties on the ground. The following is a set of suggestions which I always gave out to the directors in Washington at the beginning of each season, the suggestion as to dress having been expanded later. The work of a playground director is not easy. To lead children with- out bossing them ; to control by love, yet to secure prompt obedience ; to keep a number of different activities going at the same time, requires a high order of ability. Your highest aim should be to get such a spirit in your ground that the children will all cooperate in making it a success. This means that they will be better friends to each other for belonging to the same ground, the regular attendants will instruct the new children in the games, and they will endeavor to protect the playground property. This sort of loy- alty is in part directed toward the teacher, in part toward the children, and in part toward the ground itself. It is created largely through the ring and other games in which the director and children play together. Form regular teams whenever possible. This reduces the number of units with which you have to deal, creates loyalty, and makes the children responsible. You will need substitutes. Try to give each team a regular time to play, otherwise the members will not all come at the same time. You are there to see that all the children have a good time. The attendance of the children will be a fair measure of your success. 158 Practical Conduct of Play Dress so that you will be comfortable. The costume is a large element in the comfort and efficiency of the teacher. No woman can go upon the playground in high-heeled shoes and a hobble skirt and expect to do any- thing worth while. Neither can a man come out with a high collar and patent leathers and expect to be an efficient director. It is essential that the dress worn should be simple and rather loose, and especially that the shoes should be comfortable. The men should wear outing shirts and gymnasium trousers with easy shoes. The women should wear loose blouses without corsets and short skirts over bloomers. Send in your report card every day and put on it, besides your time and attendance of children, everything this office needs to know. SUGGESTIONS 1. Have a general program for every day. 2. Make a brief special program for each coming day. 3. Always be on time. 4. Have something interesting for the children the first period, morn- ing and afternoon. Always have it. Do not wait for the children, if there is one present. Have games the last part of the morning and afternoon. 5. Have story- telling and reading and industrial work on rainy days and in the early afternoon each day. 6. When it rains, use the play rooms. 7. If it rains and then clears up, do not stay away the whole half day. The children will not. 8. Be sure you have a safe place to store the apparatus under lock and key. 9. Never send children promiscuously to this room. 10. If apparatus disappears or is destroyed, try to get the children to replace it by a collection. It wiU make them careful. 11. Always see that the apparatus is taken down at 11 and at 8. 12. If any piece of apparatus is broken, report it at once to the office. APPARATUS 1. Keep the sand bin free from paper, lunch, etc. 2. Do not let the children' sit on the teeter ladders. It is dangerous. The Training of Play Directors 159 3, Change the children in the swings by whistle, or count, or ticket. Have monitors. 4. Have regular teams of three in tether ball. Get them to choose a name. Let them have a regular time to play. Let members of your first team umpire for the beginners. Always live up to the rules. Keep the score from day to day. . 5. Have regular teams of indoor baseball and other games in the same way, if you have room. 6. Have an umpire for croquet. There are many chances to cheat. 7. Be so severe with each case of discovered cheating that cheating will not be profitable. LEADERS 1. You can best control the ground and create a good spirit by getting hold of the leaders. Learn their names and give them a "Leader" button (after a sufficient probation) . 2. Do not make a leader of a child who is conspicuously careless about cleanliness or who would not have good influence. 3. Get your leaders together occasionatty to talk over things. Give them special privileges. CONDUCT IN THE PLAYGROUND 1. Habits and character are formed more rapidly in the playground than in the school. 2. By imitation of you, the children should learn justice, courtesy, and kindness. 3. Children form friendships more rapidly and firmly in play than in study. Learn to know as many children as you can and call them by name, if possible. Encourage a spirit of friendhness among the children. 4. Be as polite to a child as you would to a respected friend. 5. Encourage the backward children and bring them into the games. 6. Check and speak to the children who always wish to lead in every- thing. 7. If you have a small playground, you have the better chance to become acquainted and create a good spirit. 8. Permit no obscenity, profanity, or smoking. i6o Practical Conduct of Play 9. Keep the children from yeUing and the apparatus from squeaking, otherwise the neighbors will complain. 10. Children may be punished by excluding them from teams or games, or for a longer or shorter period from the playground. 11. If any of these children make further trouble by destructive conduct or insulting language, report the case at once to the ofl&ce, with nature of offense and name and address of the offender. 12. Before a matched contest with another playground, speak to the children of the courtesy due to their guests. Reading. — Every director who wishes to keep up with his profession should take The Playground, of course, and it would also be greatly to his advantage if he could take The Survey, Mind and Body, Scouting, and Wahelo. The bound volumes of Proceedings of the Playground and Recreation Association oj America will be helpful additions to his playground library and should be added if they can be afforded. THE SELECTION OF PLAY DIRECTORS In a considerable number of cities a civil service examina- tion is required for all positions. One of the conditions, in connection with these examinations, often is that a person shall be a resident of the city in which it takes place. This is a bad thing because it excludes trained workers from the out- side. The civil service examination is in a way an advan- tage, because it prevents political retainers without any qualifications from being appointed, and it also prevents competent directors from being discharged without cause for the purpose of putting in the retainers of some particular party ; but where the government is honest and efficient, it is questionable whether the civil service examination is an advantage. The Training of Play Directors i6i In the Tentative Report to the Playground Association of America of its Committee on A Normal Course in Play made in 1909, it is stated that the appointment to playground positions should be made on the basis of three quahfications : the first is, passing a written examination on the theory of the various activities involved ; the second is the acceptable practice of these activities with children ; and the third is the personality of the applicant. It was suggested that these different items be considered as approximately equal in value. Certainly it would be very unwise to appoint persons to play- ground positions merely on the basis of technical knowledge of physical training, anatomy, and equivalent subjects. No person who has not the play spirit and the ability to secure the cooperation of children, along with a considerable degree of personal refinement, should ever be placed in a playground. Probably it is best that there should be an examination. But the examination having been passed, there should be no requirement that the applicants should be appointed in the order of their standing in the examination, but the play- ground authorities should be left free to select from the eligible list the candidates whom they wish. It is customary in most states to acknowledge the graduates of reputable normal schools and not to require them to pass a special examination in order to receive a teacher's certificate. So, also, it seems as though the graduates of reputable schools of physical education where playground courses are given should be exempted from examination. If the supervisor of playgrounds is to be responsible for the work committed to him, he must have considerable voice in regard to the grade of people selected for playground positions as well as to those who are to be reappointed or 1 62 Practical Conduct of Play dropped from it, and there should be no iron-bound civil service rule which will prevent this. In the cities where training courses are given, the directors are usually selected from those who have taken the courses. This practically excludes applicants from outside the city, but it serves a very useful purpose in securing a considerable number of teachers who are eligible for positions whenever vacancies occur. The Playground and Recreation Association of America keeps a Hst of places desiring play directors and of play directors desiring jobs, and it is often wise for those wishing positions, and especially those who have had training, to regis- ter with them. CHAPTER X PLAYGROUND PROGRAMS It has been said that "we should always have a program on the playground but we should never use it." If we say rather that we should always have a program, but we should never be bound by it, we shall have a workable policy. The play- ground that has no program achieves little. It becomes a mere loafing place for children. Nowhere in life does one ac- complish much without any idea of what he wants to do, and everywhere in life definite ideas tend to become actual accom- plishments. To these conditions the playground is no excep- tion. The playground director must have a clear idea of what he wishes to accomplish, but his program should be largely held in solution. For a large part of the activities a definite time need not be set, but the director must realize that these things are to be done and fit them into the day as there is opportunity. Thus a time schedule is not strictly necessary, but a program of things to be done is absolutely essential. The playground director without experience or training is apt to be at a loss as to what to do in the beginning, and he usually waits for something to happen. But the thing that happens under such circiunstances is usually the thing that should not happen, and he becomes a mere caretaker. Still, play and programs seem to be somewhat incompatible. All play is a survival from earlier forms of activity, which were 163 164 Practical Conduct of Play characterized by freedom. Birds and animals, with a few exceptions, provide for immediate needs as they arise, and take no thought for the future. Primitive men and modern children have no plan of accomplishment for the day, the week, or the year. They use no long-distance motives but depend on the stimulus of immediate necessity. A program of any kind always implies a purpose, the realization of which is more or less removed. Play has also this characteristic of freedom. The spirit follows its own guidance. Play that is compelled, that we come to unwillingly, ceases to be play. Play in its very nature is voluntary, without a purpose ; it is its own re- ward. When we read of play curriculums in Germany, we are likely to say they may require something, but it is not play. Play cannot be compelled. If you compel a bashful boy to come in and play "Drop the handkerchief" with a group of girls, it will not be play for him. If the boy wants to go fishing and you require him to play tennis, tennis will probably be drudgery. The professional baseball player is not playing any more than the lawyer or doctor is when he is at his work. Any activity that is not free may be worth while, but it is not play. However, it must be remembered that the program and the purpose are in the mind of the director not of the child; this being so, the changes should always come to the player as easy and natural transitions from one activity to another. Is the playground to be a place of amusement or a place of accomplishment ? This is the most fundamental question in regard to it. In general, the park authorities have said that the playground is a place of amusement, the school authorities that it is a place of accomplishment. If the play- ground is to be a mere place where the children come to loaf, A Dutch Dance at Gary, Indiana. 80- Yard Dash, Athletic Meet, East Park, Worcester, Mass. Playground Programs 165 shoot craps, tell stones, or play as the fancy moves them, then the idea of a program is utterly foreign to it. But if, on the other hand, the authorities think there is a certain valuable training that the playground can give the child, then some sort of program is essential. WHAT ACTIVITIES? In Persia, Sparta, Athens, Rome, and many other ancient nations, all the boys of the upper classes were trained in run- ing, wrestling, jumping, and various other athletic exercises. These are activities of great natural interest to boys. Ex- cellence in them always confers distinctions upon the possessor. Such exercises develop the heart and lungs and give a robust physique. They are worth while for boys and girls alike, up to a certain age. Every boy ought to be able to play well all of our common games. They afford good exercise and social training. They are the real accomplishments of the boy world. Nothing else confers so much distinction. Every boy and girl ought to acquire skill of the hand during the plastic period of youth, because it is very difficult to become skillful later if no beginning has been made early in life. The playground is not necessarily the place for the girls to learn sewing and rafha and basketry, but this is for most of them a form of constructive play which they usually appreciate. In vacation playgrounds which are in operation all day, it is best to have certain industries interspersed with the more vigorous activities, but during the school year, when the children have their manual occupations in the school and far too little exer- cise, these occupations and the busy work are best omitted. Folk dancing is excellent physical exercise. It is rhyth- mical and often graceful. It is a form of activity that is likely 1 66 Practical Conduct of Play to be continued until late in life. It is a good substitute for the social dances, where a substitute is needed. Story-telling is loved by all children. It is one of the main forms of recreation and social entertainment among all primitive peoples. It would seem that this training at least every child requires, and that it must be given by the play- grounds, if it is to be given at all. If this is so, then these at least must be put into the program. THE LENGTH OF PLAY PERIODS No general rule can be made as to the length of play periods except that the younger the children and the more vigorous the activity the shorter the period should be. Usually the more vigorous activities in summer should be placed late in the afternoon when it is not too hot and when the older children also attend. Any activity for the older girls will have to be placed late in the forenoon or late in the afternoon, for the reason that they have to help at home in the morning and right after dinner. It is well also to plan to have periods of low activity follow others that are vigorous, so that no one may overdo. There should be a period of story- telling, a period of busy work — paper folding, picture pasting, weaving, etc. — and a period of ring games each forenoon and afternoon for the kindergarten children. But these should leave ample time for the swings, the slide, the sand bin, and the wading pool. For the older girls, there should be a period of folk dancing, of athletics, of games, and of industrial work, though several of these may go on at the same time. The program is more for the teacher than the children. Not all of the girls will wish to weave or sew. There is no reason in principle why they should discontinue their play because the others are Playground Programs 167 having weaving or sewing. However, in practice this may sometimes be necessary, because the games may interfere with what the teacher is doing. This will depend, however, very largely on the size of the ground. In a small ground, if the teacher is telling a story, all noisy games will have to be discontinued, and the children assembled. DIFFERENT KINDS OF PROGRAMS Different play supervisors have very different ideas as to the desirability of having definite time schedules for play, but whatever their views in this respect, I suppose most of them would agree that the following programs are necessary : A general program of the things to be done, which may be little more than a selection of the activities to be pursued — the folk dances, athletics, and games that are to be the subject matter of the play curriculum ; a program for the play festival and frequent exhibitions in the local neighborhood ; a pro- gram for rainy days and inclement weather; a schedule for teams ; and finally a daily program. In most cases not all of these programs are consciously formulated, but I believe it is a great advantage to have them worked out definitely in advance. Definite ideas always lead to efficiency and dis- patch, as indefinite ideas lead to delays and inefficiency. The General Program. — The general program of the play- ground corresponds to the course of study at the school. It fits into each day the things in which the playgrounds are to give training. In general, it should correspond closely to the pro- gram of the play festival at the end of the season, because this should be an exhibition of the work of the season. The making of this general program is probably the most important work that the play supervisor has to do. The superintendent of 1 68 Practical Conduct of Play schools inherits his course of study, but the playground super- intendent must make his own. This is one reason why it is so important that cities should secure a capable superintendent in the beginning. In many cases the superintendent makes out the time schedule for each playground as well as the program of activi- ties to be pursued. It is not necessary that he should do it for the directors, though it may sometimes be wise for him to do so. In any case the schedule should be elastic as to its limits, scarcely more than a suggestion as to the times for beginning and closing any period. If there are certain playground specialists, story-tellers, teachers of folk dancing, of industrial work, and so on, who go from ground to ground, it will be necessary that their schedule, at least, be made by the supervisor of playgrounds ; for there must be a definite period at which they are to be expected at each playground, in order that the children who want to play or work with them may be there. Many children come to the playground for certain things only, as the older girls for the industrial work, or the folk dancing, or the story hour. This requires a general program into which these activities are fitted. An Exhibition Program. — About once a week it is wise to have a special program or exhibition which the parents should be invited to attend. This serves as a climax to the activities of the week, and gives the children something to look forward to. They take more interest in practicing the folk dances, games, and other activities, if they know there is to be an exhibition, when they are to show them off. Especially is this true if the papers send representatives, and an account of the events appears in print. These exhibitions are the best Playground Programs 169 advertisements the playgrounds have. They serve to bring out the parents who would not come at other times and they attract and interest many new children. Ordinarily the pro- gram of this exhibition may well correspond closely with the daily program, thus showing what the playgrounds are doing, and requiring no special preparation. But it is well also to have special features at times. As, for instance, one Saturday afternoon, there might be a baby show for the little mothers, with the parents of the neighborhood coming in to judge. A tea given by the women's club in the playground pavilion, an exhibition of the industrial work, a May Pole dance, a dramatic entertainment, a historic pageant, a hike and picnic are other possibilities. There is an almost infinite variety of such programs that may be developed, many of which will be the best kind of entertainment for the parents as well as the children and serve to secure their cooperation in making the playground a success. There are also many quarters of our greatest cities where the mothers need the play as much as the children or even more than they. Programs for the Fourth of July and Hallowe^en have been worked out with a great deal of detail and are obtainable by any one who cares to go into the details of such celebrations. These are worth while, and serve to give variety and interest to the play activities. A Program for Rainy Days. — Most playgrounds are poorly provided with facilities for rainy days, and there often is pandemonium if the children are driven into the pavilion or into the play rooms of the school by a sudden shower. The teacher who has made no provision beforehand is likely to be helpless. A few sets of dominoes, checkers, and authors will help greatly. This is a good time for industrial work, 170 Practical Conduct of Play for talking over coming playground events, and best of all for story-telling. It is well for the teacher always to have a rainy-day story on hand. The Team Program. — The success of a playground depends in no small measure on the permanency of its teams. Scrub teams never learn the rules, acquire skill, develop loyalty, or get much of the training that the game is supposed to give. Inasmuch as the children who are old enough to play team games do not live on the playground, not all of them will ever be there at the same time, in the ordinary course of events, and there will be no real team play unless there is a definite time for each team to practice. The Daily Program. — Perhaps the most important pro- gram for the playground is the one that the director makes out from day to day. It is the plan of the day's work. It is the mapping out of the daily portion of the season's accom- plishment. It means for the women director perhaps some- thing like the following : To-day I will teach the Irish Hit to the older girls. I will show them how to make a basket of raffia and reed. I will get all the captains of the volley ball teams together and talk over with them the games we are to have. I will talk with Sally Jones about washing her face and combing her hair, and I will ask Mary Smith to be more careful of her language. For the teacher of the little children, this may mean: I will tell the story of Jack and the Bean Stalk and have the children illustrate it in the sand. We will cut pictures out of old magazines and newspapers and make scrapbooks. We will practice Soldier Boy, etc. On the boys' side, this will mean a choice of athletics and games, and conferences with certain children on a variety of subjects. On the school playground at recess and after school a time Playground Programs 171 schedule may not be needed at all, but a program of things to do is always necessary. SPECIMENS OF PROGRAMS Probably Philadelphia and New York City issue the most elaborate time schedules of play activities of any of our cities. They are as follows : Philadelphia Programs. — While it is not advisable to have a "cast iron" program, it must be understood that every playground must have a program, elastic and suited to its conditions, which may be varied ac- cording to temperature, rain, or other temporary local conditions. It is to be understood that the change from one activity to another is not always to take place at the minute suggested in the programs. If the children are in the midst of an interesting game, do not make a change. As a helpful suggestion to the teacher in arranging activities, two pro- grams are outlined somewhat in detail ; one for morning, typical for a playground attended by many young children, in charge of older brothers or sisters ; the other a program for the afternoon session of a playground attended largely by older boys and girls. MORNING PROGRAM (For younger children) The yard is cleaned and opened by the janitor or caretaker at 8.30 o'clock. 8.30 to 9.00. — Free Play (janitor or caretaker in charge). 9.00 to 9.30. — Morning Exercises. Songs, Nature Talks, or Stories. For instance: Hymn — Father, We Thank Thee. Songs relating to the weather and season, i.e.. Good Morning to You, Glorious Sun; Good Morning, Pleasant Sunshine ; Wake, Says the Sunshine; or songs emphasizing the season; or songs connecting with the thought to be developed by the teacher during the story. Tell the story of Bennie's Sunshine ; or have Rhymes, Finger Plays, or Sense Games. 172 Practical Conduct of Play 9.30 to 10.00 10.00 to 10.30 Distribute Small Play Materials, such as sand buckets, bean bags, horse Hnes, ring toss, quoits ; also books, etc. Free Play (under direction of the teachers). Marching. For instance: For younger children, simple marching and rhythmic exercises — flying birds, galloping ponies, skipping, creeping, run- ning, etc. Games eor Younger Children. For instance: Little Children, Come Let us Form a Ring; Did You Ever See a Lassie? How Do You Do, My Partner? Drop the Handkerchief; Sun- beams; Spin the Platter; Quiet Game. Older children during this time, under direction of a leader, are at play on the apparatus or with quoits, ring toss, etc. Games of Higher Organization, Team Games. For instance: Fist ball, end ball, corner ball, pris- oners' base. Young children during this time play in the sand, on the swings, with bean bags, etc. Folk Dances or Directed Work on the Apparatus. For instance: Class work on the giant stride, on the ladder, or on the horizontal bar. If folk dances: The Carrousel; I See You; Come, Dear Partner, Dance with Me; Shoe- makers' Dance ; Gustaf 's Skoal, etc. Occupation Work conducted in groups of younger and older children ; having a leader in charge of each group. For instance : For younger children, paper construction work ; simple exercises in pa- per folding, making furniture, or simple winding exercises in rafha, making picture frames. Older children make baskets with rafha or reed, make hammocks, or cane chairs. 12.00 to 12.30. — Free Play and Dismissal (luncheon period). 10.30 to 11.00 11.00 to 12.00. Playground Programs 173 AFTERNOON PROGRAM (For older chUdren) 1.30 to 2.00. — Patriotic Songs. Songs and stories emphasizing ideas of service. For instance: America; Hats Off, the Flag is Passing By ; There are Many Flags of Many Lands ; Betsy Ross ; Salute the Flag, etc. Tell a hero story, such as How Cedric Became a Knight, etc. 2.00 to 2.30. — Free Play (under supervision of the teachers). 2.30 to 3.00. — Track and Field Work. Dashes, relay races in shuttle form, or obstacle relay. During this time give to the younger children games of skill like ring toss, potato race (planting and picking) , etc. 3.00 to 3.30. — Team Games of High Organization for Girls. For instance : Captain ball or volley ball. Let the boys play quoits or tether ball during this time, and give to the younger children the swings, teeter boards, etc. 3.30 to 4.00. — Team Games of High Organization for Boys. For instance: Hand baseball, battle ball, progressive dodge ball. Let the girls play ring toss or bean bag games during this time. Encourage girls to play games previously taught, under the leadership of one of their own number. 4.00 to 5.00. — Occupation Work, Team Games, or Folk Dances. For instance : Cardboard sloyd or scrapbook mak- ing, grouping the pictures with some idea of intel- lectual development, relating perhaps to the litera- ture of great men and women. For the boys, have knife work. Kites can be made; put the frame together, paste on the paper decorated with the boys* own designs. If team games are to be played: Rabbits, pris- oners' base, etc. If folk dances : Will You Dance with Me ? I See You; Come, Little Partner; The Wind; Strasak; German Clap Dance, etc. 174 Practical Conduct of Play SPECIAL PROGRAMS One afternoon of each week a series of patriotic songs, games, or some suitable review of the work should be presented. Saluting the flag, or where possible, a flag-raising exercise with suitable marching and songs is also appropriate, especially in the so-called "foreign districts." These special programs are to be arranged each week and an effort made to create through them a neighborhood interest in the playground. Invite the parents to be present. Interest civic organizations to send repre- sentatives. SONG-GAMES SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN UNDER TEN YEARS 1. Ring Games. Forming the Ring. First, Second, and Third Ring Songs by Patty Hill. 2. Imitation Games. Laddie and Lassie (Eleanor Smith, No. 2). Farmer in the Dell. Here We Go 'Round the Mulberry Bush. The Musician (Mari Hofer). 3. Pursuit OR Teasing Games. We All Stand Here in this Nice Ring. Chasing the Squirrel. Drop the Handkerchief (Stecher's Games). 4. Social Games. As I was Going Down the Street (Hofer). I Went to Visit a Friend One Day (Poulsson). 5. Partner or Courtesy Games, Emphasizing Social Relations. How Do You Do, My Partner? (Hofer). Let Your Feet Tramp (Hubbard). Come, Dear Partner, Dance with Me (Philadel- phia Handbook) . New York City Program. ' Marching 1. 00 to 1.30 Singing Assembly Salute to the Flag Talk by Principal 1.30 to 2.30 f Kindergarten Organized games 1 Gymnastic 2.30 to 3.00 Organized free play Playground Programs 175 3.00 to 4.00 Drills Folk dances Gymnastic , Military Apparatus work Raffia Occupation work Basketry Scrapbooks 4.00 to 4.45 Organized games Basket ball Gymnastic . Kindergarten 4.45 to 5.15 Athletics Good citizens' clut 5.15 to 5.30 Dismissal 1 Marching 1 Singing CHAPTER XI THE PLAYGROUND ATTENDANCE To those who have not thought much about it, it appears that the play movement has grown out of the increasing con- gestion of our cities, and that the one thing needful is to restore to the children a place where they can play. However, ex- perience and even the simplest observation of actual conditions disproves this view. The vacant lots in the city are seldom much used by the children. If any one will keep a record of the attendance on any such plot in his neighborhood, I think he will find that there are less than one per cent of the children there on an average. The older boys will play baseball there in the spring and football in the fall, but it will not be much used by the little children, and it will probably not be used at all by the girls. It will be found, also, as a rule, that the presence of vacant squares in the neighborhood makes very little difference in the attendance at the playgrounds. There was once a playground at One Hundred and Second Street in New York City which lay next to a vacant plot of equal size. While an attendance of two or three hundred children was common on the playground, there seldom were more than four or five on the vacant plot. The second year that I was supervisor in Washington, we purchased a field that lay on the extreme outer edge of the city. Five hundred acres of accessible vacant land lay around it. There were usually two or three hundred children on the playground each afternoon, 176 The Playground Attendance 177 but seldom was there a child in sight on the vacant land. The vacant lot in the city does not make the appeal of the country meadow with its brooks and trees and flowers. The play- ground that is a mere open space fails because the children do not come. THE DIRECTOR There are many also who believe that what the children want is to be left to play by themselves, and one not infre- quently hears the expression '' unbossed play " used with approval. Certainly play ought not to be bossed, but or- ganized play is always more attractive to children than play that is unorganized. The great difficulty at all playgrounds in the beginning is to get the children to carry on the games by themselves. The director will start a game, and the children will fall in and play with him. It is necessary to have a number of games going at once in order to use the space economically in a congested playground, but as soon as the director falls out of one game to organize another, the children are apt to leave the first game and join the second. During the first year that the playgrounds were maintained in Harris- burg, Pa., they were kept open without any one in charge. The authorities finally concluded that the scheme was not a success. They said, "Let us get the best young college athlete we can find and send him around to organize the games on the different grounds." It worked beautifully. He went to the first ground and taught the children several games. Then he said to them, '' Now, children, you stay here. I have to go to the next playground." He went on to the next playground, and the children went with him. Here the same process was repeated, until he had become a regular Pied Piper, with nearly all the children of the city behind him. Then the I y8 Practical Conduct of Play authorities concluded that this plan, too, was not a success, and put a director in each playground, as they ought to have done in the first place. We had this experience in a school playground in Washington. The playground was about eighty feet square and contained perhaps fifty dollars' worth of apparatus. In the beginning of the summer we put into the ground a very capable kindergartner and we had an attend- ance of four hundred children every day. This kinder- gartner went off for her vacation about the middle of the summer. A substitute was put in her place and we had two hundred children in the same yard. The substitute went away a short time before the close of the vacation. We kept the playground open in charge of the janitor, with an attend- ance of fifteen to twenty-five children. The difference between fifteen and four hundred was purely a difference in organization. The first teacher was very attractive personally and much loved by the children. She knew how to keep a whole series of things going in the yard at the same time. She gave the children what they wanted and made it interesting to them. I believe the director is nearly always the largest single element in securing the attendance of the children. From season to season in the same playground the attendance serves as a good record of his success. In the public school the attendance is compulsory and it does not therefore express the opinion of the children as to the value of the school. In the playgrounds the attendance is voluntary, and it serves consequently as an excellent index to the feelings of the children in regard to the playground. If it does not give them what they want, if it does not appeal to them as worth while, they will not come, and consequently the first requirement of the playground is that it must secure the at- The Playground Attendance 179 tendance of the children. This attendance will always serve as one standard by which to measure the value of the director and the success of the playground. It is not the only standard, but it is a standard that must be applied along with others. OTHER ELEMENTS IN THE ATTENDANCE Of course we must not hold the director responsible for the sins of the city fathers. Some playgrounds have been located in almost impossible positions. It does not follow that be- cause there are many people in a certain section of the city that there are also many children. Business sections and apartment house neighborhoods are apt to have very few. It was stated some years ago, that in fifteen blocks on Fifth Avenue, New York, there was only one child, and in nearly four hundred large apartment houses on tjie upper West Side, there were only sixteen children. The playground cannot produce the children. If there are few children in the neigh- borhood, the attendance at the playground must necessarily be small. The registration of the schools of the neighborhood will usually serve as a fair index. However, the question is not so simple as it looks, as there are apt to be sections of the city that do not associate with each other. The children from Irish sections will not as a rule come across into Italian or Jewish sections or mce versa. The children of a well-to-do section will not come into sections inhabited by working people. There are often feuds of long standing between certain dis- tricts of the city. All of these facts have to be taken into con- sideration in laying out playgrounds or the attendance will suffer. It may be best in the end to place a playground where it will draw from different nationalities, so as to prevent the formation of an exclusive foreign colony, but the attendance i8o Practical Conduct of Play will not be nearly so good at first as it would be if it were surrounded by a homogeneous people. The Equipment. — The equipment is of course an element in securing attendance, though its importance is usually much exaggerated. With the exception of the swimming pool, I doubt if even the best of equipment will ever hold the children for long. In fact, the small attendance in Chicago is a practi- cal proof of this statement. However, it does serve to bring the children to the playground in the first place, though their continued presence will depend mostly on the director and the organization of the activities. Shade. — One of the very largest elements in securing an attendance in the summer time is shade. The children do not wish to play in the sun in the hot weather and they will not do it. If they cannot get into the shade on the playground when the thermometer nears the hundred mark, they will seek some place where they can. Hours at which the Playground is Open. — These have been different in different cities, and in the same city in differ- ent years. When the work was taken up in New York, there were two sessions, one from 8.30 in the morning to 12.30, and the other from i o'clock to 5.30 in the afternoon. The general purpose was to have different leaders for the morning and the afternoon. This was thought to be necessary on account of the severity of the service required. Experience warranted the opinion. The children did not know how to play. If left to themselves, they would sit or stand about and talk or wrangle. When games were organized, they would soon break up unless the director continued to play. If the director is to join vigorously in the sports of the children, the time of service should not be long, though the playground The Playground Attendance i8i may be kept open indefinitely by changing directors. The municipal playgrounds of Chicago are open from 9 o'clock in the morning until 9.30 at night. In the South Park System they are open under their regular directors from 3.30 until 10 P.M. during the winter and from 9 a.m. until 10 p.m. during the summer time. In the city of Gary, the school playgrounds are open from 8 o'clock in the morning till 10 o'clock at night. The attendance varies greatly at different hours of the day. In general it will be found that the attendance is not so large in the forenoon as in the afternoon, in my experience not more than half as large, and that it is also much less early in the afternoon than it is later. In Washington we always kept our playgrounds open until dark in the summer and there were always two or three times as many children between five o'clock and dark as there were at any other time during the day. Where the playgrounds are lighted at night, they usually secure the attendance of the working boys and girls in the evening. The evening is the most comfortable time for athletics and all sorts of vigorous games in summer. HOW FAR DO THE CHILDREN COME? There is no definite single answer to this question, of course. The big children will come farther than the Httle children, the boys will come farther than the girls. Children will come farther in an open section of the city than they will where traffic is congested. The playground is a loadstone to the child ; other things being equal, the distance that the children come may be taken as a pretty accurate measure of its attractiveness and serves as one standard for marking its efficiency. However, there are many factors that enter into the problem 1 82 Practical Conduct of Play of attendance. In the study of the registration of the children on the lower East Side which was made by the Park and Play- ground Association of New York City, in 191 1, it was found that ninety per cent of all the children came from within one block. In the playgrounds farther up town, where the con- gestion was less, it was found that sixty per cent of the children still came from within one block. In the study of the kinder- garten playgrounds of New York, it was found that practi- cally none of the children came more than a three-minute walk. In the study of the attendance in Chicago, where the city was comparatively open, it was found that seventy-nine per cent of all the children came from within one quarter of a mile, and about eighty-nine per cent lived less than one half mile from the playground. If these figures were analyzed further, I think it would be found not only that the seventy-nine per cent within the quarter-mile radius included practically all the little children, but that while the registration showed twenty-one per cent coming from more than a quarter of a mile, these children did not come so frequently as these who lived nearer, and as a rule they came in for special features only. Children will come occasionally to a playground as much as two miles away. If it is made very attractive, they may even come frequently, but they will not come every day, and probably not more than once or twice a week. Boys will go a long distance to a swimming place in summer or a skat- ing place in winter, but the range of the other features is much less. Ambassador Bryce says the London rule is that there shall be a playground within a quarter mile of every child, — but these playgrounds are usually very small. The playground is essentially a neighborhood afifair. It ought to be. Parents do not wish their children to go into The Playground Attendance 183 another section of the city to attend a playground. The youngsters are always likely to be set upon and maltreated by gangs if they do. It is not safe for adolescent or even younger girls to attend frequently a playground at a considerable distance from their homes, going and coming through a section of which they or their parents know little. The small children cannot safely go far by themselves, for fear of their getting lost. It would thus appear that the playground should be in the neighborhood in which the children live. It should not be more than half a mile away, and it will be much better if it can be within a quarter of a mile. Recreation centers for adults, however, probably have an effective range of nearly a mile. HOW LONG DO THE CHILDREN STAY? Some are always much surprised and disappointed to learn that the children do not stay on the playground all the time it is open, but there would not be room enough for more than a tenth of the children if this actually took place. In Wash- ington we found from the school registration, that there were from four to six thousand children living within a half mile of most of our interior playgrounds. These playgrounds were sel- dom more than two acres in size. Four thousand children can- not play at once on a two-acre tract, unless they all play ring games or something of the kind. If any playground secures an average attendance of one tenth of the children who are living within the half-mile radius, it is doing much better than most playgrounds are doing now. The boy who is coming in to play basket ball for an hour three times a week may be getting all the exercise he needs, as well as ideals of sports- manship which will remake all his outside play and most of 184 Practical Conduct of Play his life ; yet, so far as appearances go, he may hardly be at the playground at all. From this point of view, with a day of eight hours, six days a week, and an average attendance of a hundred children each hour, it would be possible for sixteen hundred children to have an abundance of good physical ex- ercise and yet have the playground seem almost deserted all the time. This fact of the comparatively brief stay of most children on the playground should give a quietus to the argument that organized play takes away the initiative of the child. Organi- zation gives the child the materials with which he can make hundreds of new combinations in his outside play. The child will always play outside the playgrounds as much as he does inside or more, from the very nature of the situation, — the impossibility of accommodating all the children on the play- grounds at one time, if they should actually make up their minds to have all their play there. The first year the play- grounds were open in New York, we sent out a questionnaire to all the directors asking them their opinion as to how long each child stayed. They nearly all said that the children came in the morning and stayed all day. The second summer, I stationed men with tally registers at a number of the play- grounds, and kept the record for a week. On one playground where the maximum attendance was eight hundred, forty- eight hundred children came in the afternoon. In all of the places where we kept record, the number entering was more than three, and in some cases it was six or seven, times the maximum number present at any one time. Most directors think this is not true of their playground, but it is more true than they realize. There always are certain children who make the playground their home, who take part in pretty The Playground Attendance 185 much everything, and whom the director comes to know well. He is apt to estimate the attendance by these children and to overlook the shifting population constituting the rank and file. There are many children who come in only for special periods and activities. They come for the story period, or the industrial period, or the folk dancing, or the athletics, or basket ball, or something else, and go away as soon as this period is over. Probably they do not stay over an hour, but it may be quite long enough to get what they come for and to receive a valuable training. In all probability the children will always play in the street as much as they do in the playground or perhaps more, at least until we have far better and more adequate playgrounds with better trained leaders than we have at present. One of the greatest services that the playground has rendered to its community has been in giving incentives and ideals to the outside as well as the inside play. The playground that does not reform the street play of the children is doing only half its job. Perhaps even the smaller part of it. What it must really do to serve the actual needs is to create such an enthusi- asm for good games and for proper methods of play that these will go with the child through life. The child needs play out- side the playground as well as inside it, play that is unsuper- vised as well as play that is supervised. But in order that he may get the training that the playground is giving, he must play on one of its regular teams and compete in some of its athletics. WHO COME ? The playground is the most democratic place on earth, yet it is not absolutely democratic. Visitors to whom I was showing the East Side playgrounds would often say to me, 1 86 Practical Conduct of Play " This is all very fine, but where are the poor children ? We want to see the playground where the poor children come. These children are all well dressed. They do not look Hke the children on the streets." It was perfectly true, they did not. Nevertheless they were often the same children. A playground has to set some standard of cleanliness and per- sonal appearance. We used to have wash basins and towels at each playground and scrub the dirty children or send them home to have their mothers do it. Consequently the children on the playgroimd were always reasonably clean and neat in appearance. They nearly all wore shoes. They seemed hke a different genus from the street Arab, though often it was only a seeming. It is necessary to have some standard in these things, for the reason that if the children feel that they are privileged to roll in the gutter each morning before they come in, the playground will have an evil appearance and reputation. The better class of parents who come and see it full of dirty and ill-looking children decide it is not the place for their children. It is necessary to set some standard also for the sake of discipline. The child who is dirty and ragged tends to live down to his appearance. The child who is well dressed and clean and feels himself a " Httle gentleman " tends to act the part. The standard that is set by the playground always tends to exclude the extremes. If the children come in as ragged and dirty as they choose, the street Arabs will come, and the children from the better-to-do families will stay away. If the standard is set too high, the poorer grade of children will be excluded, not perhaps because they could not come whole- some and clean, but because it would require too much effort for them or their mothers. The Playground Attendance 187 REGISTRATION There are some playgrounds where the children are all registered. In some they receive special buttons. There are several important advantages in having this knowledge of just who the children are, though it is apt to consume a good deal of time. If a child is registered, he feels responsible. If his name and address are known, he realizes that it will not be safe for him to run off with the baseball or to cause undue annoyance. The registration also aids the teacher greatly in learning the names of the children, and this is an important advantage. Where a teacher has the playground the year round, it should be possible to get a reliable record of the names and addresses of the children who attend. When it is only a summer playground, this is difficult. Still a certain amount of registration is necessary. The teacher must know the name and address of every child who is playing on a regular team or who is entered for any contest, in order to know that the boy or girl is eligible to compete, and in order also that the child may be sent for if he does not appear at the time the contest is supposed to take place. In permanent playgrounds, it ought to be possible sooner or later to compare the playground attendance with the attendance at the schools, to fi.nd out just what percentage of the children are coming and who are staying away. This would reveal at once the actual weak- nesses. Are the big children coming and the Httle children staying away ? Then something more needs to be done for the little children. Are the boys coming and the girls staying away ? Then very likely the director is not using the best methods with the girls. Are the Irish coming and the Jews and Italians staying away? Then some investigation is 1 88 Practical Conduct of Play needed. Are the children from one side of the playground coming and those from the other staying away? Then sec- tional or race feuds may be suspected. If the children do not wish to come, then there is something wrong with the play- ground, the director, or the children. If they dare not come, then the street gangs of the neighborhood need investigation. If their parents will not allow them to come on account of lessons or home industries, then this condition should be looked into. It does not follow because registration of the children coming to the playground is desirable, that the attendance should be kept in this way. In fact this is almost impossible. The attendance at the playground is difficult to keep track of. In the public school the children are all entered in the school register and the presence or absence of each child is recorded. This is possible because the same children come to the school each day. The attendance at the playground is very different. Within a half mile of most city playgrounds there are from two to ten thousand children. Probably nearly all of these chil- dren come to any successful playground more or less. A part of them will come every day. Some will come once or twice a week and some may come in only once or twice during the year. Out of the thousands of children living within half a mile of a playground, the average attendance probably will not be more than five hundred and may be much less. During three fourths of the day, it probably will be much less than this. The children who are present in the afternoon are in the main a different set from those who were there in the fore- noon ; the majority of children present to-day are not those who were present yesterday. Hence it becomes almost im- possible to keep a register of attendance in the way it is kept The Playground Attejidance 189 at school. The amount of time and effort required to keep such a record is far beyond its value. There is no other way of keeping an accurate record of attendance ; and the accounts that are given in most systems are approximations. In New York there is an effort to keep track of the children entering the play centers by placing some one at the entrance with a tally register, but even this does not give a very accurate report, as many children keep running in and out. THE VALUE OF A RECORD OF ATTENDANCE An accurate record of attendance is the most valuable information in regard to any playground system. It tells whether or not it is reaching the children. It shows how much the playgrounds are costing per child. It is the evi- dence of an actual need, and it serves as the most satisfactory basis for an appeal for funds. Most playground systems that have a central office attempt to keep a record of attendance, but all these records are approximations. Those of different cities are made on different bases, hence they are not com- parable. It must be evident from what has gone before that all the children attending a playground during the day are never there at any one time. I doubt if half of them are ever there at once. In New York, during the early years, we were accustomed to count the children when there was the largest number present and then double it. In Washington we added one half to the attendance morning and afternoon and added the two together. There appeared in The Playground in the fall of 1909 a comparison of the attendance in certain Washing- ton playgrounds during one week of the fall with the attendance in the same week during the previous year, showing an enor- mous increase in attendance. Of course no conclusions can be 190 Practical Conduct of Play drawn from a comparison of single weeks, for the reason that one may be rainy and the other pleasant. In the report it also appears that there had been a great increase in attendance during the summer. However, if we take into consideration that during the summer of 1909 the count was taken three times a day, and during the summer of 1908, it was taken twice, and allow for the rate of increase that had prevailed during the four previous summers, it appears that the rate of increase was slightly less during the summer of 1909 than it was during the previous summers. This may serve to show how misleading comparisons are likely to be while we use our present methods in securing statistics. In some cities, the morning attendance is not added to the afternoon attendance, so that where one city reports an average daily attendance of five thousand, and another city reports ten thousand, it may easily happen that the former has a larger actual attendance than the latter. In Chicago, the method employed is to count separately the children making use of each of the different facilities, as the swimming pool, the wading pool, the library, the club rooms, the showers, thus making ten counts in all. In this system it must be evident that the same child is often counted a number of times. This gives a large record, but it may be justified, because the child gets something valuable from each of the facilities used. TWO DIFFERENT KINDS OF ATTENDANCE Thus far we have spoken of the attendance as though the important thing were to know how many different children were making use of the playground each day, and from a number of points of view this is so. This is the basis on which The Playground Attendance 191 the efficiency of the playground can be best estimated. It is perhaps the best basis of appeal for funds. But for the super- visor the important thing is to know how many children there are on the playground on an average, and here there are difficulties, because the numbers are very different at different times of the day. At nine o'clock in the morning there may not be more than a dozen children present, and at seven o'clock in the evening there may be five hundred. How many directors does this playground need? It is obvious that no one person can successfully direct the sports of five hundred children in a variety of games, dances, and athletics. It is generally held that there should not be more than fifty or seventy-five children to a director. According to this standard one director may be sufficient for a large part of the forenoon, while the afternoon may require eight or ten people. In order to know how many directors such a playground needs, it is essential to know not how many different children are coming in, but how many children there are usually on the ground. This also is the basis on which the casual observer always estimates the attendance. If the directors are selected on this basis, it will give the director too few children at certain times of the day and too many at others, but it will be the most practical basis for the administration. Volunteer assist- ants should be secured for the time when the playgrounds are most crowded. AT THE MUNICIPAL PLAYGROUND DURING THE SCHOOL DAY It would seem in general that the municipal playground should not be kept open during the time when school is in session, as this must necessarily tempt children to stay away from school. But in actual fact, the municipal playgrounds 192 Practical Conduct of Play of New York, at least, are kept open and are fairly well sup- plied with children from the schools that are running on half time. AT THE SCHOOL GROUND AFTER SCHOOL Probably, on the whole, the school playground is better attended after school hours during the pleasanter months of the school year than it is during the summer. It is cooler and pleasanter to play at this time, and the children who have been in school during the day need very much the opportunity to play after school hours. All school grounds should be kept open from the close of school until supper time, at least, and on Saturdays, under competent direction, and during a con- siderable part of this time they usually have a very good attendance indeed. BUILDING UP THE ATTENDANCE It may appear that if the city furnishes the playgrounds, the children ought to furnish the attendance, and that the matter should rest there, and this will be true to a certain extent. Without any agitation of the subject the children will come to the playgrounds as frequently as their parents will go to the parks, probably more frequently, but this will not be often enough for them to get the benefit. During the first years in New York such crowds of children sought admis- sion that the playgrounds were often filled with the first rush and there was no room for play. I have seen 500 children waiting for half an hour before opening time in front of the gate of a playground that was only 50 to 100 feet in dimensions. In some playgrounds the gate would be opened only for a few moments to let some children in and then closed to prevent overcrowding. I know of no other place, however, where The Playground Attendance 193 this has been so, and in most cases the problem of building up the attendance is the most fundamental one the playground has to face. In other fields we no longer provide facilities and leave it to the unguided choice of the people whether they will use them or not. We provide the public schools and we require the chil- dren to attend. We furnish the public library, and the skillful Hbrarian manages to advertise it and its books in a hundred ways. Even the city park departments are coming to see that they must promote the use of the facilities that they furnish. The playground is no exception. Very many of the children in the neighborhood of any playground are only occasional visitors who do not come often enough to get its training, except as it is imparted to them by other children who come more regularly. If all the existing playgrounds in most cities were full to overflowing all of the time, the chil- dren within their radius of influence would not be spending more than an hour and a half or two hours there. If, then, with our small number of playgrounds, the play- grounds are nearly empty much of the time and never so full as they can comfortably be, we may be sure, either that very many children are not coming at all, or that those who do come are spending only a short time there. Very likely both of these conclusions are true, and it will be the first important work of the playground director to build up his attendance. The first thing to do at a new playground is to have a formal opening with an address by the mayor and other ceremonies. This will probably be largely attended by the people of the neighborhood, who will thus learn directly about the project, and accounts will be given in the papers, which will reach many more. In the second place, if the playground is to be open 194 Practical Conduct of Play only for the summer time, it is well to have the opening an- nounced in all the public schools of the neighborhood, and the children invited to come. If the playground is carried on dur- ing at least a part of the school year, various class teams in baseball, volley ball, and basket ball should be organized at the schools to play in the playgrounds after school and during the summer. Some mornings the director can make a few calls before the children get to the playground in large numbers, and talk with the parents about what is being attempted. Not only is this likely to increase the attendance, but it is sure to give the director some interesting sidelights on his own work as well. It is a good thing to keep something running in the papers. Playground contests that call out the parents and the irregular ones and set the children to talking are always excellent means of increasing the attendance. But after all the personality of the teacher and his ability to organize at the playground the things that the children Hke to do is probably the largest element. Conversely, as has already been said, the attend- ance of the children is one of the best standards to meas- ure the value of the teacher. The children who do not come, or who wander in only to wander out again, do not get much benefit. On the financial side, if a teacher who has an attendance of one hundred children per day receives two dollars per day, the cost will be two cents per child. Another teacher who secures an attendance of two hundred children per day might be paid four dollars a day, without the city's being at any greater expense per child. But the attractive- ness of the playground must have been doubled in order to induce twice as many children to come or the same nimiber to stay twice as long. They are probably getting twice as much out of it, so that it is now very likely worth four cents a The Playground Attendance 195 day to them instead of two. Four cents a day for two hundred children would be eight dollars a day for the second teacher. I believe there is often quite as much difference as this in the value of two teachers who secure results of this kind. COMPARISON OF THE NUMBERS USING THE PLAYGROUNDS AND THE PARKS There has not infrequently been criticism of the small attendance at the playgrounds, but there probably has not been a play system in the country which has not had a larger proportional attendance than has the city park system. In general a two-acre playground will probably have more children in it on an average each day than a two-hundred- acre park will have people. There are scarcely any parks in the country, except those of South Chicago, in which park and playground are one, whose attendance approaches that of any well-con- ducted playground which lies well within the city. We had a playground of an acre and three quarters in Washington which probably had larger numbers present every day during the season than the sixteen hundred acres of Rock Creek Park ; and the same would probably be true of many playgrounds throughout the country. Although the parks were more ex- pensive in the first place, have cost a great deal more to put them in condition, and often have more spent upon them for maintenance, yet their small attendance excites no comment. Consequently the criticism of even the comparatively small number of children attending a cheap, unbeautified, poorly equipped, and insufficiently manned playground, such as those found in most cities, is scarcely justified. Nevertheless we cannot consider such an attendance satisfactory and we must seek to secure the presence of every child. 196 Practical Conduct of Play THE SOLUTION OF THE ATTENDANCE PROBLEM In Germany and England, for the most part, the children are required to attend the playgrounds just as they are re- quired to attend their classes in school, and it is believed that no system of voluntary attendance will ever solve the problem. Every child requires for his health and physical development from one to two hours of open-air play a day, but none of our municipal playgrounds the country over are securing an hour's attendance from more than ten to twenty per cent of the children, and most of them are doing far less than this. More- over, the ten or twenty per cent who are coming are the vigor- ous motor-minded children who need the play the least, while the weakly, studious children who need the playgrounds the most are the ones who are staying away. There seems to be no answer to this situation except to put play into the program of the school, as they have done in Gary, where for the first six grades the children have from two to two and one half hours a day of organized play in their daily program and one hour a day for the following five years. CHAPTER XII A CURRICULUM OF PLAY The games, athletics, and folk dances are the course of study of the playgrounds. They determine, for the most part, the sort of training that is to be given and the sort of results that are to be obtained. But thus far we have left the selection of the games to chance and the making of the rules to the machine companies. There is a German curric- ulum of play, and New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and sev- eral other of our great cities have a suggestive curriculum adapted to the grades. These are, however, suggestive only, in the main, and the fact is that the materials for an authori- tative curriculum of play are not anywhere at hand. There are, however, several games, as baseball and volley ball, for in- stance, in regard to which there would be little dispute. But the best that can be done at present is probably to adopt a minimum curriculum and to add to this from time to time other games as they are developed or introduced from other countries or sections. THE SELECTION OF GAMES It must be obvious to any one that the games which children play have very different values. Singing games that have been played for some time on the streets of New York are apt to take up obscene and senseless expressions, and in general to express the social attitude of the street Arab. Tops and 197 198 Practical Conduct of Play marbles obviously have not the same social or physical value as baseball or football. Pitching pennies and shooting craps are vicious in themselves and lead directly to gambling. There is a perfect scale in play, running from the lowest to the highest values, and it is obviously essential that if the playground is to receive public support the higher values of play rather than the lower ones shall be sought. It is also evident that with this end in view the selection of the games cannot be left to chance or entirely to the whim of the children. It ought to be possible at the present time to make a fairly authoritative choice of games adapted to outdoor play for little children, because the kindergartners have been studying this subject for a generation and have been practicing many of the games. The world to-day is everywhere becoming ^cosmopolitan, and we sit down to a table at which the fruit comes perhaps from Italy or Florida, the cereal from Japan, the meat from our western plains, the salad from somewhere in the far South, and the dessert is compounded from simples brought from all parts of the world. The United States Department of Agri- culture has during the last few years sent men through Siberia, Mongolia, and Turkestan to find varieties of alfalfa suited to growth in our own Northwest. Probably the games of chil- dren have been less carefully studied with a view to their educational value than most other ^elements in our civilization, and the best ones should be gathered from the entire world as the beginning of a play curriculum. The individual director on the playgrounds, however, has every opportunity to select from the games that the children play those that are worth while rather than those of little value. A Curriculum of Play 199 THE INVENTION OF GAMES This may seem to demand very unusual ability and, in fact, to require genius to be successful ; but the children themselves are constantly inventing new games as the circumstances de- mand. New games are very much needed to-day to fit certain definite conditions, as for instance, games for the street, games for the door yard, games for the classroom, the gymnasium, and the small school yard. Basket ball was worked out almost as a mathematical problem by Dr. Gulick and Dr. Naismith at Springfield, and it has gone all over the world. We may not suppose that the existing games have exhausted the pos- sibiHties in play development. In the small book Flay by Emmett D. Angell there are thirty- two games invented by the author. There ought to be a game for every age, which would do for the children of that age what baseball is doing for adolescents. THE EVOLUTION OF GAMES By far the most important means, however, of framing a satisfactory curriculum of play must be the evolution of the games themselves. This modification or evolution is going on wherever children are playing, as any one can see who will observe how any standard game, such as prisoners' base, is played in different sections of the country. Many of these changes made by children are improvements in certain direc- tions, but as they are not taken up and standardized, they are not passed on. We have a good example of how an elabor- ate and splendid game can be evolved from a rather simple one in the way baseball has been developed from rounders in the last fifty years. At the present time, apparently, the people of the United 200 Practical Conduct of Play States have intrusted to A. G. Spalding and Brothers the making of the standard rules for all of our children's games, and these games are elaborated and published for the purpose of selling apparatus, as one of the rules which is always in- cluded is that the A. G. Spalding equipment shall be used. Rules so made are much too elaborate for playground use. They presuppose a grandstand, and are designed largely to produce a spectacle rather than play. In Germany there is a large technical committee of the National Playground Association whose duty it is to edit and publish the rules of the children's games, and more than a million copies have been issued during the last twenty years. We ought to have a group of sociological, psychological, and physical training experts who might go over with the greatest care all of the common games of our children, with a view to improving the good points and minimizing the weak ones in these games and modifying the rules so that the game may evolve into a higher form in something of the same way that baseball came from rounders. There ought to be somewhere a play institute in charge of experts who could try out new games upon the children and study and modify old ones. The elaboration of a satisfactory curriculum of play must necessarily be the work of years, perhaps of a generation or more, but under such an arrange- ment, there should be constant improvement in the games that we have. Compared with the development of a fine new game such as baseball, basket ball, or volley ball, the writing of a textbook is a trifling matter, and surely such a study might well have the cooperation of some of our great social foundations which are interested in the welfare of children. A Curriculum of Play 201 The playground director has constant opportunities to modify games so as to improve them, and this modification is going on more or less everywhere, though for the most part these improvements are not passed on. For many of our commonest games, such as volley ball, tether ball, or croquet, it is well worth while at present for the playground associations to get out their own rules in a much simplified form, post these up on the playgrounds, and distribute them among the children. THE TEACHING OF GAMES The same laws of pedagogy apply to the teaching of play that apply to any other kind of teaching. The game should be taught thoroughly and the children should play it until they have exhausted its possibiKties or become tired of it before another game is introduced. If several games are taught at the same time, the probability is that the children will not learn to play any of them well. The director should always be an expert in the rules and teach them as a part of the game itself. This is the only way in which the child will ever become really skillful, and it is also the best training in obedience to law that can be given to him. Any skill that the director himself may have in the game will help to make it popular and will also add to his personal influence among the children. ROTATION IN GAMES It is a curious fact that games, like vegetables, have their seasons, and that it is very difficult to make them popular at any other time. Tops and marbles appear on the streets of New York at about the same time every year, run their season of two or three weeks, and disappear as completely as though 202 Practical Conduct of Play they had been exported to another country. The wise direc- tor must watch the way the wind is blowing, and organize the games which the children wish to play at that time. A TENTATIVE MINIMUM CURRICULUM It would be exceedingly hazardous for any one to attempt offhand to make up for the playgrounds of the country a curriculum of play, or even a minimum curriculum, but there seem to be a few games which have been fairly well worked out which might be accepted in all playgrounds until better ones are found, and added to as time brings other games to light. These games which I shall give are probably not more than one quarter of the number which should be used in any playground. As has been said, it ought to be possible for the kinder- gartners to make out an authoritative curriculum of games for their children. The only one, however, that is universally played in the playgrounds, in my observation, is Soldier Boy. For the children a little older. Cat and Mouse, Jacob and Rachel, Whip Tag, Cross Tag, Slap Jack, Duck on a Rock, Bull in the Ring, Pull Away, Prisoners' Base, Three Deep, Drop the Handkerchief, Captain Ball, and Dodge Ball are popular nearly everywhere. Not all of these games have any great value. Many of them need to be developed from their present state before they can give just that sort of training which children of this age period demand. Baseball, Indoor Baseball, Long Ball, Tennis, Volley Ball, Hockey, and Soccer are games which are popular wherever they are tried and should be played by all boys. Tether Ball, Basket Ball, and American Rugby should be electives in this series. A Curriculufn of Play 203 The older girls should play Indoor Baseball, Volley Ball, Tennis, Croquet, Tether Ball, and Hockey; Basket Ball should be an elective. Any one who is interested in taking charge of the play of the children should, of course, provide himself with one or two good books of games, such as Games for the Playground, Home J School, and Gymnasium by Jessie Bancroft; Play by Emmett D. Angell; Education by Plays and Games by George Johnson; and The Teaching of Play by Wilbur Bo wen. These books contain over four hundred different games, many of them with diagrams and with such explicit directions that there is no difficulty in learning to play them from the instructions given. Therefore, I shall not attempt to give detailed rules for them. Basket Ball, Volley Ball, and Indoor Baseball. — Until very lately all of the games for our older children have required a large amount of space, while often the grounds that were available were very small, so the games and the grounds did not ht together. Of late, however, we have developed or im- ported several good games which are much more economical of space than baseball or football and enable many more children to play on a small amount of ground than was pos- sible under the old conditions. There are three vigorous, highly organized games which seem to be adapted to use in the playgrounds nearly everywhere, and they also have this very great advantage that they have no seasonal rotation but are played during the entire year. Basket ball was the first of these games to come into prom- inence and is now more generally played, probably, around the world than any of the others. Basket ball is played both indoors and outdoors on a comparatively small ground. It is, 204 Practical Conduct of Play the most vigorous game that we have, and herein lies its some- what pecuHar danger. Any man who goes on the football team has to be a strong man, and he must also have had a large amount of preliminary training. But young girls often become members of a basket ball team without ever having played strenuous games before. They do not reaHze that basket ball is more vigorous than football and that the strain involved is greater or that it is more dangerous because of the nature of the strain. A broken leg will soon mend, but a strained heart does not recover so easily. In football there is much time out when the players can rest, but in a fast game of basket ball, especially where boys' rules are used, the struggle is almost continuous from the beginning to the close. It is impossible to estimate how many girls are injured by playing basket ball too long and too hard in the beginning, but I have consulted many of the principal physical trainers of the coun- try on this matter, and they are practically a unit in their belief that a large number of injuries result. Hence, while basket ball is a good game for the playgrounds, it should not be the first game played by girls, and it should not be played by boys' rules ; when the team is just beginning, the halves should always be made short, not more than five or ten minutes. Probably not more than half the girls of basket ball age ought to play it. Indoor baseball is probably now being played by more people than is the national game itself, though it does not lend itself to the making of a spectacle and does not attract much attention where the games are held. It has many pecuHar advantages. The rules are nearly the same as those of the large game. Hence all the boys have an almost heredi- tary knowledge of them, and the game is borne along by an Volley Ball. Delegates to the Fifth Annual Meeting of the Playground Association of America at Play, Washington, D.C. Chelsea Park Playground, New York City. A Curriculuni of Play 205 enthusiasm developed in the outdoor game. Baseball is not adapted to a crowded playground, because the impact of the hard ball may cause a serious injury, and because the game takes too much room. Baseball, also, has several other very great disadvantages for playground use as compared with indoor baseball. Boys do not begin to play baseball much before they are twelve or thirteen years of age, while they will begin to play indoor baseball at eight or nine. Baseball is played only during the spring and summer, while indoor base- ball is played during the entire year. The young man stops playing baseball by the time he is twenty-five, while he may continue to play indoor baseball with pleasure until he is sixty or seventy. Leisure time is increasing rapidly all over the country and there is a great need of games that the children will learn to play young and will continue to play until they are old, in order that they may get the exercise they need and be kept from the temptation of idle hands. Baseball, too, is played by boys alone, while indoor baseball is played nearly as much by girls as by boys. Moreover, it can be played in almost any playground, by day or by electric light; it can also be played in the gymnasium. Volley ball seems to me on the whole the best game that we have. It can be played in any playground, during every month of the year ; it is played by girls nearly as much as by boys ; it requires a smaller space than any other vigorous game that takes a large number of players, as an acre of ground provides for thirty-five volley ball courts and from four hundred to seven hundred players. It is a game which chil- dren will begin to play at eight or nine and may continue to play until sixty-five or seventy ; and it also has the somewhat peculiar advantage that it is the best corrective we have of the 2o6 Practical Conduct of Play stooped postures of the schoolroom as it compels the players to put their shoulders back and throw out their chests. Basket ball tends to rough house and quarrels, but volley ball places the players on opposite sides of the net where there is no per- sonal contact. Fouls are few and easily decided. Like all new games, however, volley ball must be well taught in order to make it popular. As soon as the children acquire some skill and can pass the ball back and forth several times without its striking the ground, it becomes very interesting both for spectators and players ; but there is apt to be a preHminary stage, when the ball is seldom returned or returned only once or twice, during which the game may drag. CHAPTER XIII TEAM GAMES If any one is asked "What is a team game?" he will probably reply, " A game that is played by a team, such as baseball, football, and basket ball." Superficially, his answer will be entirely correct, but in a truer sense, there is no game that is necessarily a team game for the player. A team game is one in which the various members, forgetting the oppor- tunities for individual distinction, blend their individualities into a new unity, and play the game as a unit for a common victory. The team game requires a group consciousness, loyalty, and leadership. It is the highest form of play and one of the highest forms of human activity. It represents the first beginnings of the state in which society becomes an organism, the state which sociologists and biologists are so fond of writ- ing about as the ultimate goal of the race, where individuals will function as cells in the race brain and there shall be in each a consciousness of the whole. The team is essentially a primitive form of tribal or political organization. It represents almost perfectly the tribal life, which is in the race the stage that follows savagery and is essen- tially the period of human youth. So we find in the child, in general, the beginnings of team organization with the be- ginning of puberty. At this time boys begin spontaneously to form themselves into gangs on the street and to play team games. Boys will play baseball before they are thirteen, 207 2o8 Practical Conduct of Play but they will seldom organize permanent teams much before this or play for the glory of the team instead of for them- selves. Young boys seldom get the group consciousness. It is easy to play baseball and seek only to make the successful hit or slide yourself, largely ignoring the team in your play, and this is what young boys are apt to do. Boys left to themselves never play these games much until about thirteen. In England, however, cricket and football are made compulsory for the boys of the preparatory schools who are only nine or ten years old. But one cannot help wondering whether they secure real team play from these little boys. Mr. Walter Wood, in his recent book on " Play in Education," speaks of this requirement for these little boys as " absurd." It seems likely, at any rate, that if they secure real team play, it must be largely a matter of training rather than of spontaneous development. Dr. Gulick, in his studies of the plays of boys and girls, finds that girls have never played organized or team games. Women have never had a game which was for them what baseball and football are for men. When girls go into a team game, such as basket ball, it is much harder to teach them to play for the team than it is the boys. His analysis and explanation of these facts are these : Cooperation and loyalty are masculine virtues, and boys inherit the organizing impulse while girls do not. These virtues were born into the race at the time when the primitive barbarians were driven to unite into families and tribes for the sake of protection. Those who had this organizing impulse and the loyalty which was necessary to maintain the organization were strong with the combined strength of the tribe and survived in the battle of life. The women, however, remained at home. They did not need to Team Games 209 organize, and so the girls do not even to-day inherit the im- pulse. Woman has developed loyalty to her home, but not to the state. She has had personal virtue but not civic virtue. With the coming of the suffrage and the industrial employ- ment of women, it becomes more and more necessary that women shall be able to stand together for common ends, and hence that girls shall play team games. This is of course necessary for physical and social reasons, as well as civic and industrial ones. Every girl should play on a volley ball and an indoor baseball team at least and on a basket ball team also if she is strong enough. It is always more difficult to organize teams of girls who will stick than it is teams of boys ; but it is so necessary for their welfare on the physical, social, and moral side, that every effort should be made to get every girl who is old enough on some permanent team. THE TRAINING OF THE TEAM Every real team must have at least three characteristics : a group spirit and loyalty toward the team as a whole, friendship toward the members of the team, and leadership. The scrub team is not a real team, it matters not which game is played. It seldom, if ever, develops a group spirit or friendship or leadership. The members are usually playing an individual game almost as much as though they were playing singles in tennis instead of baseball. The reasons for this are apparent. The scrub team is chosen up for the occasion from the mis- cellaneous crowd who are present. It has no future, as it is dissolved as soon as the game is over. There is no reason why the boy should be loyal to it. He is not much interested in its record. The members of the team are probably too strange to each other to develop a group consciousness in one after- p 2IO Practical Conduct of Play noon. The scrub team does not give any of those fundamental forms of training which the team game should give. The Formation of Friendships. — The strongest friendships of Hfe are apt to be for the boys who played on the same foot- ball or baseball team with us during our high school or college days ; if only these teams were reasonably permanent, and we played together for two or three seasons. The group consciousness of the play cements the most intimate friend- ships. The team furnishes the best possible opportunity for the developing of leadership. Probably there is no other training being given in the schools or the playgrounds that fits so well for political and social success as leadership in athletics, and especially on the football or other teams. It develops the same sort of traits that society, business, and the social movements everywhere demand to-day. The man must be willing to follow leadership and to work with the group. Obedience to Law. — I have always been accustomed to say to my playground directors, " You must teach the children that the rules of volley ball and basket ball are a part of the moral law.'' In fact it is really so. Children are not much concerned with the laws of the city. They do not expect to rob stores or burn buildings. The law which is most vital to them is the law of the game, and they who play games without regarding the rules or who purposely evade them are getting the most fundamental training in lawlessness that it is possible to receive. The scrub play of the vacant lots never considers the rules. There is no one to teach them in the first place and no one to enforce them when they are known. It develops no sportsmanship which would feel social compulsion. Hence we find that the vacant-lot play is Team Games 211 apt to be a series of wrangles and quarrels. When the children come into the playgrounds to take part in the contests, we generally have to teach the rules, because the children have so fundamentally disregarded them that they have forgotten what they are, if, indeed, they ever knew them. As soon as a team is permanently organized and begins to hold a series of contests, it becomes necessary for its members to learn the rules and to abide by them for the most part at least. There are now three new factors that tend toward a closer regard for the rules. They are the reputation of the team, the decisions of the umpire, and a growing consciousness that breaking the rules is unsportsmanlike. This is a fundamental training in obedience to law which is needed by every child, for the lack of it leads to many excesses of lawlessness and delinquency in our cities. I do not mean that the games are always to be umpired by the director. This will often be necessary in the beginning in order to set the standard, but the children should early be taught to umpire their own games and to accept the decisions of one of their peers. Or it may be even better for them to learn to play finally without an umpire, depending on the honesty of each player to live up to the rules, — to be a law unto himself, as he is supposed to be in life. Loyalty. — The development of loyalty is usually held to be the most important service rendered by the team game. As has been said, the team is a form of social organization similar to the primitive tribe. It was through the tribe that loyalty came into the world. It was there that it developed its greatest intensity; for the tribe might at any time require a man to give his life to save its chieftain or preserve its secrets. Loyalty was absolutely essential to the tribal sur- 212 Practical Conduct of Play vival, for the tribe lacking it was inevitably annihilated or enslaved by one which was loyal. When a boy becomes a member of a permanent team which takes part in a series of contests, he plays at first as he did on the vacant lot, but he soon begins to discover that things are now different. A long hit or a daring run may not be what is wanted. The judgment on his play is a social judgment. It is estimated not on the basis of its individual excellence, but by its effect on the success of the team. The boy must come out and practice when he wants to go fishing. He must bat out in order that the man on third may run in. Many a time he must sacrifice himself to the team. This type of loyalty to the group is the same thing that we call good citizenship as applied to the city, that we call patriotism as appHed to the country. The team game is undoubtedly the best training school for these civic virtues, but it must be a permanent team. Every boy should have this training all through the teens. It is more difficult in the public play- ground as now organized than it is in connection with the school, but it is not impossible. Professor Royce has said that loyalty is our most funda- mental virtue, more basal in the realm of ethics than even love. But he says we must have not merely a loyalty to our particular organization, but loyalty to the spirit of loyalty as well. We must respect the loyalty of our opponents, and not despise and seek to injure them because they are on the other side. Such a respect is deep-seated in the heart of man, for he always despises the traitor. The loyalty of a gang of thieves to one another is a virtue, though all the other principles they hold may be evil. Arousing the Intellect. — The team game is undoubtedly the greatest intellectual stimulus that ever comes to a boy. Tean^ Gaines 213 and this is especially true of the matched game between play- grounds or schools. Never at any other time in hfe may distinction be won in so brief a time, never is the reward so instantly given, and so general. The boy has not only his own interest in the game, his own desire to win, to urge him on to do his best, but he has also the desire of all the other members of the team which he represents, and the social compulsion of which he always feels. And beyond the team are the other members of the playground and of the neighbor- hood. There is always the possibility that he may get his picture in the paper, or have something said about his prowess in its columns ; and this is glory such as even the Presidency might hardly equal in later life. A successful play means that he will not only be known and applauded at once by the other members of the team and by the spectators, but that he will very Kkely become a little hero in the community of which he is a part. Probably there is no other place where distinction may be earned in so brief a time, nor where poor accomplishment receives such immediate and unmerciful criticism. " All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," and if there is anything that can arouse a stupid intellect to action, it is the match game, where rivalry is keen and the contest is close. HOW PERMANENT TEAMS MAY BE ORGANIZED The English have a simple method of solving this problem, by putting the boys of certain classes or dormitories into cer- tain teams and keeping them there. They thus get every boy into some team and a team that is reasonably permanent. This method has never been tried in America. It cannot well be used on the playground. The common method is to 214 Practical Conduct of Play pick out the nine best players in baseball and organize them into the baseball team for the playground. This is probably the worst possible method. It gets all the best players into one group, so that there is no one to play against them. It secures one team to a ground where there ought probably to be a dozen. It would be much better to take the nine best players and let each one of them organize a team. This would allow the nine best players each to coach eight other players. But this will not be found a very satisfactory method either. There are three factors that enter into the permanent team ; they are friendship, leadership, and loyalty. A per- manent team cannot be organized without these, and its permanence will be in proportion to the degree to which these are developed. Friendship. — So far as possible, the team should be made up in the first place of a group of friends. A group of inhar- monious elements will soon break up. A boy will not play regularly with a group of boys whom he does not like. The method that will best secure harmony in the beginning will often be to let certain gangs, if there are such, organize into baseball teams or to have the boys from a certain block, school, church, or scout patrol form a team. It does not matter what the group is so long as its members know and like each other. Having secured the preliminary organization, there should be every effort to strengthen the friendship of the members by having the boys (or girls) meet together at vari- ous times, as clubs, etc. If it is possible for them to have a small spread occasionally, this is a good thing to do. Loyalty. — There are a great many ways in which the loyalty of the^ members of a team may be strengthened. The first and simplest step in the process is to give the club a name. Team Games 215 A club never gets an individuality or becomes a real entity until it is named ; let it become the Columbian Baseball Team, and from that moment it has an individuality. Anything that 'Will serve to distinguish the club will tend to create loyalty to it. In the Civil War the North and the South were loyal to the Blue and the Gray. A club uniform is one of the surest ways to create loyalty. If the club cannot afford a uniform, a club cap or ribbon or button will do. It is very desirable for them to have some sort of insignia. A celluloid button with the club name and some design upon it can be secured for about ten cents. To develop loyalty to a club, it is almost necessary to make the members proud of it. If they can be led to spruce up a little, to take pride in their appearance, that will always be an advantage. One of the best ways to develop loyalty is through the record of the club. It is wise to keep the score of all the games it plays, to post this score on the bulletin board, and to publish it from time to time. Probably the 'most effective method, however, is competition. If Eng- land had declared war on the United States about 1858 or 1859, the North and the South would undoubtedly have joined hands to fight a foreign foe and the Civil War might have been averted. Schools go on, ordinarily, without any school feeling until a series of contests are started with other schools, and then, within a short time, loyalty burns up so brightly that it may even need to be restrained. Leadership. — It is well to strengthen leadership as much as possible by putting responsibility upon the captains. If the captain feels that it is up to him, he takes a great deal more interest. It needs the pretty constant service of a good captain to get members out to practice as much as they need to, to have them master the rules and the difi&cult points of the game. 2 1 6 Practical Conduct of Play To the end of making the captain feel this responsibility, he should be consulted frequently. He should be asked to see after the appearance and attendance and eligibility of his men. He should be shown how to coach them as much as it may be possible for him to do. This responsibility is good for the captain, if he is of the right type. It secures results, and it greatly lightens the burdens of the director. It is wise, as a rule, to let the team elect its own captain. ADVANTAGES OF PERMANENT TEAMS Besides the fact that the permanent teams secure much better training for the children, they are of great help to the director as well. They form a corps of known, reliable children who can be depended on. They can be made moni- tors or placed in charge of apparatus. The baseball that is given out to a scrub team is likely not to return, but perma- nent teams may be trusted with supplies, and often they may be made umpires or coaches for new teams that are just being organized. Because permanent teams are so great an ad- vantage, it is often worth while to give them certain privileges in the use of suppHes, etc. The team game is the highest form of play, and the permanence of the team is its most valuable feature. The existence of a large number of perma- nent teams is one of the best measures of the success of a play- ground. CHAPTER XIV MISCELLANEOUS ACTIVITIES The playground at first was conceived of as merely a place where children should go to play, but with time it has taken on one feature after another until it has become a very compli- cated affair, and contains many activities which are not usually considered as play. There are many who have felt, conse- quently, that the name '' playground " should be given up for " play school," or some similar title. There is some justification for such a designation, but we must remember that all play is essentially educational, and that to call the playground a play school really adds nothing to the signifi- cance of the term. ATHLETICS In playgrounds such as those of the South Park, Chicago, there are many young people who are in the late teens or the twenties, and there is opportunity for all the college athletics ; but in most of the smaller cities and playgrounds there are no such facihties, and the children are for the most part from eight to fourteen years of age. With children of this age there is little occasion for such events as the shot put, the hammer throw, the discus, or even the pole vault. These events are not suited to young children and they are too dangerous in crowded playgrounds. The forms that are universally appHc- able are the short races, jumping and chinning, in short, the same events that are represented in the Standard Test of the Public School Athletic League. 217 2i8 Practical Condtui of Play It is no part of the work of the playground to produce record breakers ; rather should it seek to train all to a moder- ate accomplishment. It seems likely that the best training for any muscle is the exercise that fills it full of blood rather than waste products, and then allows it to rest and assimilate what it has received. There can be Httle doubt that this is the wise method for children. By themselves they always exer- cise in that way. Long races have no place. The Marathon runs probably do more harm than good for nearly all the participants. Those who encourage them seem to have forgotten the first one. For it must be remembered that the Greek runner who brought the news of the great battle that saved Greece, reached the city, shouted " Nike," victory, and fell dead in his tracks. In the last Olympic Contest in London, the Italian runner fell at the entrance to the stadium and was unable to rise. For young children, races of more than a hun- dred yards are to be used with great care if at all. The short races are the ones that are universally appHcable, and they are also the ones in which the children are most interested. I doubt if the interest is ever so keen in foot races at any later date as it is when the children are about ten or eleven years old. For most children under fifteen or sixteen the hundred-yard dash should be the extreme distance. In the short races, for children under thirteen, there is not much difference in the accomplishment of girls and boys. The girls should be encouraged to take part no less than the boys. They must have these athletics before they put on their long dresses, if they are to have them at all, and they need the training. As the girls get less encouragement at home and in the community generally, they require so much the more on the playground. Miscellaneous Activities 219 The children are apt to think at first that the way to train for a hundred-yard dash or other similar event is to run it just as often as they can ; but record runners never do this. They spend fifteen minutes to half an hour each day practic- ing the starts and running fifteen to twenty-five yards, and once or twice a week they run the hundred. Children need to be shown the diJEferent starts, and cautioned not to look back for their competitors as they run. Nor should they slow up as they approach the string as nearly all of them tend to do at first, acting as though they were running into a stone wall. If the children enter the more strenuous events such as basket ball or the hundred-yard dash or the two-twenty, they should have their hearts examined. If all these children are assembled at the playground at some one time, a young doctor is often wilHng to come in and do this without a fee. DANCING Probably the most popular activities for the older girls in most of the playgrounds are the folk dances. These are all survivals from earlier conditions and represent primitive industries, festivals, and religious observances. Most of them are very vigorous and the rhythm tends to create a common spirit. Often they are performed in the costumes of the people amongst whom they originated, so that they add a touch of color and pageantry to the playground. Folk dances also have the peculiar advantage abroad that they are pur- sued by young and old,. and that the whole family often dance them together. But it is still too soon to say whether or not this will be true here. Very often, too, the folk dances have been a revelation to the younger generations of our immigrant 220 Practical Conduct of Play peoples of the beauty of Old- World customs and practices, giving them a new appreciation of the country from which their parents came and doing much to overcome the common tendency amongst Americanized foreign children to feel a certain contempt for their parents. In many of our play systems, the folk dances are coming to be the chief attraction of the play festivals at the end of the season, and everywhere they are one of the most popular activities in the afternoons and evenings. In some systems special teachers of folk dancing are employed who first give the dances to the teachers and then go around to the playgrounds for special lessons at stated times, but it is quite possible for one who has had some experience in dancing to pick up these dances from Miss Burchenal's or Dr. Crampton's book without special instruction. Some of these dances, such as the Highland Fling, for in- stance, are adapted to the open sward or to any piece of level ground and can be danced in the playground itself. Others re- quire a floor and there always should be, at least on the girls' playground, a pavilion where these dances may be practiced. In some cities there is such decided objection to social dancing that there is sure to be opposition to the introduction of folk dances. But this opposition is usually dissipated when the objectors have actually seen the dancing. Most of the dances are too vigorous to be suggestive, and for the most part, in the playgrounds at least, girls dance with each other. Custom does not require full dress, with its low-necked waist, and altogether these dances are undoubtedly the best sub- stitute thus far offered for social dancing. In some places where the objection to social dancing is very intense, folk dances have been introduced under the name of " fancy steps '' or folk games and have roused no opposition. Miscellaneous Activities 221 It adds very greatly to the charm of the folk dances if the children wear the costume of the country to which the dance belongs, but if this is done, the dresses should be of the simplest kind, and the children should make them themselves so far as possible. If the dances chosen are of the nationalities represented in the neighborhood, there will be much more cooperation and sympathy on the part of the parents than if dances of other peoples are chosen. A serious difficulty in the teaching of the folk dances in many places is the lack of any suitable music. This has been overcome in different places in different ways. In some places they have got along by having some of the children play mouth organs or jews' harps. In others they have bribed the hurdy-gurdies to come in. In some cases there are regular playground orchestras which play for the folk dances, while in most of the gymnasiums and field houses and in nearly all of the public schools there are pianos and a pianist. But probably the simplest provision that can be made for the folk dances, especially in the open playgrounds, is the victrola. A large number of folk-dance records have already been pre- pared for the victrola, so that at a comparatively slight expense it is possible to have this music for the dances. In a good many play systems, the schottische, the two-step, the waltz, and even some of the tango steps are taught. In the Chicago field houses the most popular activity during the afternoons is the folk dances, but the evenings are more apt to be devoted to social dances. In a good many of the public schools, also, social dancing is allowed in connection with the social centers. Social dancing was introduced very gradually into the recreation centers of New York about three or four years ago. It has proved very popular and is being extended 22 2 Practical Conduct of Play from year to year. A wave of enthusiasm for the dance is sweeping over the country. Probably there are few places in most cities that are more dangerous for girls than the piiblic dance halls, which are very often connected with saloons and unsupervised. Probably the place where dancing may be safest is in the social center where the fathers and mothers are present as well as the young people, and where dancing is very often only one item on the program for the evening. SKATING If the playgrounds are maintained throughout the year, and the weather is cold enough, skating is usually the most popu- lar activity in winter wherever it is furnished. It is a com- paratively simple matter, in most cases, if there is any hose connection in the neighborhood, to bank up the ground or the snow around the edge of the playground and flood it at night. A pond that is made in this way will give two or three times as much skating as a lake, and involves no danger whatever. On a lake, the ice must be six or eight inches thick in order to hold the army of skaters ; but where the water is sprinkled on the ground, a half an inch or an inch of water is all that is needed. It only takes two or three degrees below freezing to make skating under these conditions ; while it takes very nearly zero on the park lake. In Chicago, the ball fields are used in winter for skating and the pavilions are closed in at the sides during the skating weather and heated. The ice is often fairly thronged up to the closing time at night. In some cities they not only flood the grounds, but rent skates at a nominal charge. Thus far there has not been as much done with roller skating in playgrounds as might well be done. Some of the walks Miscellaneous Activities 223 offer opportunities, but there has been no attempt at system- atic encouragement. In the city of Reading, Pa., however, there are two small reservoirs that have been covered with a smooth cement in order to protect the water from defilement, and these are used very extensively for roller skating. In a number of Mexican cities special cement playgrounds are made for this purpose, and it would seem that in cities where roller skating is very popular, an outdoor rink of some kind might well be added to the playground, although it may be that sufficient opportunity for this sport is furnished in the way of pubHc rinks and the city walks. WALKING Nearly everywhere abroad walking is one of the commonest forms of recreation. School children are taken out many times a year from nearly all of the schools of Germany to visit places in the immediate neighborhood, and sometimes even go on walking trips three or four weeks in duration. From a good many of the summer playgrounds all-day or half-day walking trips are taken twice a week, and very many of the turnvereins and private associations of one kind or another have a walk of a week or more during their vacations. In this country walking has not thus far been considered as recreation, but there is a decided increase of interest in it at the present time, which is bring promoted by the Boy Scouts, the Camp Fire Girls, the playgrounds, and especially by those who have seen what the children are doing abroad. One hundred fifteen playground systems report tramping as one of their activities during the year 1913. The German walking trips are very carefully planned with a view to seeing and doing things that are worth while, and this 224 Practical Conduct of Play should be true of all such trips. Too many of the hikes which have been arranged in this country have been merely hikes. They have been walking merely for the sake of walking, with no end in view, and very often they have been much too strenuous. All walking trips should have a definite purpose, and the walking itself should not appear to the children to be the object in view. Trips should be taken to some point of literary or historical interest, to some factory, or mill, or farm, or river, or lake, and in connection with these trips they should make natural history collections, go fishing and swim- ming, play games, or do other things of interest to them. Any long walking trip should always provide for at least one stop of considerable length, and it is always more interesting if there may be a camp fire and a picnic supper or dinner. A person who is to conduct a walking trip should know well the ground that is to be covered, the points of interest that are to be seen, and the things that are to be done. It is well to organize the party with scouts to discover points of interest. There should always be some definite place and time set for the gathering of the party and also some time set for their return, in order that this may be understood. Of ttimes it is best to take part of the trip by trolley or boat, in order that uninteresting stretches may be saved, and the children will usually need to have some money ; but money for candy and sodas is always a disadvantage on a walking trip. CAMPING It is to be regretted that children should need to spend any of their summers in the city. None of us choose to do it if we can help it, and it ought to be possible for all the children to get out on the farms or into some natural environment during Camp Stecher. Boys' Camp, Smithtown, Pa. Maypole Dances, Hartford. Miscellaneous Activities 225 the hot weather when they are not in school. Probably the best possible arrangement would be for every school to have a camp in the country where the children might be sent during the siunmer vacation. In Germany and Denmark the government itself sends many thousands of anaemic or weakly children from the great cities to forest schools or forest camps where the out- door life may help them to become strong during the summer. The last few years have seen the establishment of a number of municipal camps around American cities. The Boy Scouts and the Camp Fire Girls are to be thanked for a great increase of interest in camping, and private camps of various kinds are also increasing rapidly. Sixty -five play- ground systems report summer camps during the year 1913. The City of Los Angeles has just secured twenty-three acres in the National Forest Reserve about seventy-five miles from the city, and is carrying the children back and forth on great motor busses designed for the purpose. The boys are given the month of July and the girls the month of August in this camp, which is provided with all suitable equipment and is in charge of skillful directors. The children spend two weeks at the Los Angeles camp at an expense of only $3.50 per child. Philadelphia, Buffalo, and Harrisburg have also maintained playground camps for some time. The summer camp should be adjacent to both woods and water if possible, and should have an opportunity for swim- ming, boating, the playing of games, and the taking of excur- sions. It furnishes the best possible opportunity for the organ- ization of the Boy Scouts and the Camp Fire Girls, and the practice of the activities involved. A camp should always be under capable and experienced Q 226 Practical Conduct of Play people who already know the children and their peculiarities. Children who are away from their parents for the first time often become very homesick, especially during the evening, but the director who is well known and liked will do much to tide over this period of homesickness until the children become more familiar with their surroundings. The greatest calamity that can happen to a summer camp is a period of rainy weather, for it is not much fun to sit in your tent during a long summer day and watch it rain. Moreover, the wood and the blankets often become wet, and then it is very hard to keep up the spirits of the company. There should always be come provision made, if possible, for such rainy days and for the evenings. There should be a number of children's books and magazines to read, there should be quiet games, such as authors, dominoes, and checkers, and there should by all means be a good victrola or phonograph which can play Hvely tunes when the company gets gloomy. THE BOY SCOUTS According to the Playground Year Book, Boy Scout patrols were organized in connection with seventy-seven of the play- ground systems of the country during 191 3. Scouting is hardly to be described as a form of play, but as a form of training which has in it considerable play and which encourages outdoor activities in general. The playgrounds themselves do not furnish good facilities for the practice of scouting, but there are opportunities for having certain drills, and it is always of advantage to have troops make use of the play- grounds. They are often helpful to the director in various ways, and their drills furnish an attractive feature of the play festival and of exhibitions given on the playground. Miscellaneous Activities 227 In a great many cases the supervisor of playgrounds is also the Scout Commissioner for the city, and the two movements are thus linked together in a way that is helpful to both. However, the chief work of the Scouts is not on the play- grounds themselves, but in connection with churches, social centers, and summer camps. Scouting offers an excellent interest around which to organize boys in connection with the social center, and the industrial crafts of the Scouts are excellent training in which the boys will take a ready interest on account of their desire to make progress in the order. In connection with playground walking trips the experience of the Scouts should be very helpful, and they will often furnish a nucleus that can be depended upon to initiate such trips and to get out other children who might not otherwise desire to go. In camping, also, their skill will be equally useful and scouting games and exercises offer the best kind of recreation and exercise for the time spent at camp. Their training in first aid may at times also be helpful in dealing with playground injuries. The headquarters for the Boy Scouts are at 200 Fifth Avenue, New York City, and the secretary is Mr. James E. West. Boys who wish to become Scouts are required to pay twenty-five cents a year to headquarters toward the general expenses of the order, but they receive in return many ad- vantages which more than cover this fee. If the playground director wishes to become a Scout Master, he must be ap- pointed by headquarters and registered as such before he is entitled to organize a troop and to take charge of the work. The manuals, which should be in the hands of every Scout, cost twenty-five cents, and the Scout Master's Manual fifty. The Scout Master, however, is entitled for this sum to receive 228 Practical Conduct of Play also the bimonthly magazine Scouting which is devoted to this work. THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS The Camp Fire Girls is a still more recent order that is in many ways similar to the Scouts. It was organized in New York City on March 17, 191 2, but by the first of January, 1 914, about sixty thousand girls had become members of the order. It is offering to girls a fundamental training in the arts which are essentially feminine, and giving them probably the best preparation that is offered anywhere for the work of the home and the development of an intimate social life. Its essential aim, as given by Dr. GuUck, is to bring romance and adventure into the common things of daily life, and it hopes through its ceremonial and honors to develop in the girls a sense of service and a new feeling of responsibiHty for the younger members of the family and for the community at large. The Camp Fire offers one of the best possible organizations for girls in connection with the social center and also one of the most wholesome and pleasant activities that can be carried on in connection with walking or the summer camp or similar activities. Wherever the Camp Fire movement is strong, it will be wise for the playgrounds to offer training in those activities which will enable the girls to win honors and pass from the lower orders to the higher, as this is sure to build up attendance as well as to give to the girls a most wholesome form of training. For each of the arts of the Camp Fire which the girl masters she is entitled to wear a bead, and when these beads are put together in a chain they afford a real decoration and are at the same time an indication that the girl has become proficient in the arts of the housewife and mother. Miscellaneous Activities 229 The idea of service which is found everywhere in the cere- monies of the order should lead these girls to be very helpful on the playground as monitors and leaders in various activities. The headquarters for the Camp Fire Girls are at 118 East 28th St., New York City; Dr. Luther Gulick is president. if the woman director wishes to organize a Camp Fire group among her girls, she must be recommended and appointed as Guardian from headquarters. Each Camp Fire must pay a minimum fee of five dollars a year, for which, however, it will receive in return regalia valued at about eight dollars. CHILDREN'S GARDENS By this title are usually understood the vegetable gardens that are a feature in so many playgrounds. There is no in- herent reason for this connection between the playgrounds and gardening, as gardening is not always play to children. The gardens are to be regarded as a form of manual training in the open air. There is a great lack of such handicrafts for boys in the city playgrounds. No boy wants to play all the time, and almost any form of legitimate handicraft is worth while. Carpentry and iron working are good, but they require a shop and tools and expensive materials, and they savor all too much of the school. Every child ought to know as a part of his education how plants grow. He ought to know how the vegetables that he sees every day on the table look in the ground. Agriculture is, by far, our largest trade in this country. A knowledge of tillage merely as knowledge is much more fundamental to civilization and general education than iron working or carpentry. Furthermore the gardening is in the open air and must be carried on during summer time while the playgrounds are in operation. 230 Practical Conduct of Play Commissioner of Education Philander P. Claxton is now seeking to have the various cities employ at least one teacher in connection with each school for the year who shall devote his time during the summer to instructing the children in garden- ing. He says that on a piece of ground fifty by one hundred feet a child ten years of age can easily raise fifty to one hundred dollars' worth of vegetables each year; that a teacher can supervise the gardening of a hundred children, thus bringing a return to the city during the summer, at a minimum of fifty dollars per garden, of five thousand dollars. The expense connected with this will not be more than five hundred dollars; and the educational value to the children will be no less than the direct returns from the vegetables. The common practice in the playgrounds has been to raise four or five different kinds of vegetables, such as radishes, beets, lettuce, turnips, carrots, and the like in individual plots, and then perhaps to have some large experimental plots on which various other things are raised. One of the most successful gardens of this kind is the one conducted by Mrs. Henry Parsons, of New York City. It is known as the Inter- national Farm School. It is located in De Witt Clinton Park at about Fiftieth Street and Tenth Avenue. There is a tract about one hundred and fifty feet square laid out to somewhat less than four hundred small gardens. The gardens are four by eight feet in size and contain much the same series of vegetables as has been mentioned above. They are so planted that the rows of radishes and beets are continuous from bed to bed across the field. There is a great mass of cannas around the flagpole in the center. At one side is a small house with a range, where the girls often prepare and serve on the spot Miscellaneous Activities 231 the vegetables that they have raised. They can also have afternoon parties and do other interesting things by means of this equipment. The garden is always in general charge of two or three gardeners. The children do all of their planting and most of their cultivation under direction. Each child has his own tools and is responsible for his own plot. If he neglects it, it is taken away from him and given to some other child. The children learn much of the laws of germination, growth, and fertilization, of soil erosion and other fundamental processes. On one of these small gardens, it is possible to raise as much of the minor vegetables as a small family will care for. Some children have sold the produce for as much as five dollars. There is a similar garden for the crippled and tuberculous children at Bellevue Hospital. This is work that these children can do, and th^ open-air life is good for them. Gardening is well worth while in connection with the play- grounds, if there is sufficient land and some one to devote his time to it. Gardens, however, will not run themselves, nor can the interest and knowledge of physical directors be depended on to make them a success. INDUSTRIAL CRAFTS There are three different kinds of industrial occupations which are provided on many of our playgrounds. The first of these are for the little children and are much the same as the kindergarten occupations. They consist of paper folding, picture cutting and pasting, simple weaving, and clay model- ing. These are really constructive play for the children and are thoroughly enjoyed. For the older girls, raffia work, crocheting, and basketry 232 Practical Conduct of Play are carried on in many playgrounds, and are much liked. The products of these occupations are nearly always appreciated by the parents. As there are many children who stay much longeron the playground than they care to play vigorous games, and as there are rainy periods when they are driven to shelter and hot periods when they do not care to play outside, the provision for this industrial work, as it is called, is well worth while. In a number of systems a regular teacher of industrial crafts is employed, who both gives lessons to the other direc- tors and also supervises this work in all the grounds. There are a few cautions which may be worth noting. One is that material should not be given out to the children as has often been done, without first giving instruction as to how to use it. Children should not be given new material until they have finished the baskets, or socks, or mats, or whatever they may have already undertaken, and they ought not to be allowed to carry the material home or around the grounds, as it is rapidly dissipated in this way. Where the children wish to make larger things, as knitted sweaters or fascinators for themselves, they should be required to pay for the materials used. The baskets made are often so excellent that they find a ready sale, if the children choose to sell them ; but they are usually very proud of their work and wish to keep it themselves. Wher- ever the playground adjoins a school building, the domestic economy department should be opened, if it is feasible, so that the girls may have cooking, sewing, and other industrial work inside, and the boys may have manual training. The playground really furnishes an opportunity for a better type of work than we have thus far been able to provide for children anywhere. We have all regretted the disappearance of the chores and the home work through which children got Miscellaneous Activities 233 so much of their training forty or fifty years ago. The school has endeavored to give this back to them in the way of domes- tic economy and manual training, but so much of this work has lacked purpose and interest that it has been far from ideal. If, on the other hand, the children are put out into industry and become child laborers, the occupations that are open to them are blind-alley pursuits with no future and no valuable training, and the child has no normal motive to gain profi- ciency in his work. On the other hand, the playground should be a sort of child's world, a Junior RepubKc, a place where the children themselves are the citizens and where they will not only play but do nearly all of the things that are to be done. There should be every encouragement for them to make and keep in repair the apparatus which they are to use. It is entirely feasible for the boys to plant the hedges and to con- struct their own jumping pits, running tracks, tennis and volley-ball courts, and baseball diamonds. The making of the jumping standards, the concreting of the wading pools, and even the construction of the permanent equipment may not be beyond their capacity. The girls should make the bean bags, baseball bases, and their own bloomers, and special suits for folk dances, so far as these are required. A playground where this is done will need a very skillful and sympathetic director, one who can secure cooperation and develop a social spirit. He should be well paid, but many of the other expenses of the playground in the way of equipment and repairs will thus be reduced to a minimum, not only because the children do most of the work in the first place, but because there will thus be developed a spirit of ownership which will prevent almost entirely the carelessness and vandal- ism which are apt to make the charge for repairs and supplies 234 Practical Conduct of Play larger than it should be. In the construction of the equipment and laying out of courts for games children must work, of course, under expert supervision. In the case of a school playground which already has its manual training equipment and perhaps its iron working, this should be easy, but it will be much more difficult to secure this sort of cooperation in the municipal playgrounds. STORY-TELLING The story is the beginning of literature, and all of our great racial epics have been handed on for many generations by special story-tellers or by the old men of the tribe, often with the strictest observance of the form and with an absolute exactitude of repetition, until the invention of letters made it possible to preserve them in print. Among all primitive peoples story-telling is a main form of recreation, and there are few things that are more delightful to children. In some of the playgrounds, specialists are employed who go from ground to ground to tell stories at stated times, and nearly everywhere the kindergartner or woman director is expected to give a period every day, or at least three or four periods a week, to story-telling. The kindergartners have had some training along this line in connection with their normal courses, but our most expert story-tellers, as a rule, are the children's librarians who have usually had special preparation in order that they may interest children in the reading of books. During the last few years, there has also arisen a class of professional story-tellers who go from city to city. Various arrangements are made in the different cities to secure story-tellers, but the children's libra- rian is nearly always glad to come to the playground at cer- Miscellaneous Activities 235 tain times for this purpose, and there are often young college women without very much to do who are glad to do the same. Story-telHng is difficult in the playground, because the chil- dren are of different ages, and there often is no suitable place. Frequently the children are gathered in the sand bin, some- times on the steps of the school building or of the field house, and sometimes they are seated under a tree. Often, in the smaller playgrounds, the other activities must be stopped during the story hour. The teacher who would be successful in telling stories on the playground must know her story well and be able to enter into the spirit of it. Most of the pro- fessionals commit their stories verbatim and recite them as they would poetry. The most popular stories for small children everywhere are fairy tales and the old classic myths of Greece and Rome, Uncle Remus, Bible stories, and the Hke. An excellent list can be secured from the Playground and Recreation Association of America at i Madison Avenue, New York City or from the children's Kbrary of Pittsburgh, Pa. Stories to Tell Children, by Sara Cone Bryant, and Some Great Stories and How to Tell Them, by Richard Wyche, are two excellent books. Story-telHng also furnishes one of the best forms of evening entertainment for the social center, for any one who can tell the great stories well can usually hold a large audience breath- less, even though the tales that are told are the simplest of children's stories. THE LIBRARY Seventy-one of the playground systems of the country report that they have Hbraries in connection with their playgrounds. The story is one of the most universal forms of recreation during our leisure time, and the sunmier affords the chief 236 Practical Conduct of Play opportunity for reading which the children have. In some way all the common children's books should be accessible to them during the summer. The playground is not the best place for books, because the children's hands are apt to be dirty, the playground is noisy, and, as the children come from different sections of the city and are not well known person- ally, it is difficult to get back books which are lent to them. Probably the best solution of the library question is to have a branch library in connection with each school, and have the children get the books there during the vacations as well as the school year. Children who attend the school are known and responsible, so that it is safe to let them have books, whereas it would not be at all safe to give out books to the children on the playgrounds of a great city who drift in and out as they choose, and who may go from playground to play- ground, perhaps not returning for a long time to the ground from which the book was taken. DRAMATICS Attending some form of theatricals, chiefly the movies, is undoubtedly the most popular form of recreation among adults. The little child imitates the occupations of the people around him, and the stories he reads and hears. When the circus comes to town, it sets the boys to playing circus for weeks afterwards. The kindergarten itself was built on this dramatic impulse, and dramatics are being more and more introduced into school work through the newer types of readers, the giving of plays, and the establishment of children's theaters. Sixty-one cities report dramatics as a part of their annual playground activities. In most of these the dramatics are un- Miscellaneous Activities 237 doubtedly in the field houses or social centers rather than in the playgrounds themselves. But there are a few cities in which the dramatics are carried on out of doors, and Pitts- burgh at least employs a regular director of dramatics. In making a beginning it is often well to let the children act out the parts using their own words, without taking the trouble to commit the stories verbatim. In the social centers and field houses dramatics are nearly always one of the most popular activities, and nearly all of them have one or two dramatic clubs which give entertain- ments at various times. This is not only good training, as it makes life and literature more real to the children ; but it also furnishes an opportunity for wholesome entertainment to the community and helps to make the social center independent of outside talent. MOVING PICTURES Forty-eight playground systems reported moving pictures as one of their activities during 191 3. There is nothing to indicate how far these pictures were exhibited on the play- grounds themselves and how far they were shown in connec- tion with the social center or the field house. But there is every indication that the moving picture is to be a larger and larger element in public recreation in the future. There is a moving picture machine in connection with all the social centers in the city of Boston, and the social centers established under the Brooklyn Institute in New York have been sup- ported almost entirely from the receipts of the moving pictures which have been offered to the public for a five-cent fee. In some places there has been opposition on the part of commercial interests to the offering of these entertainments, and the authorities often fear that the expense will be pro- 238 Practical Conduct of Play hibitive. But in actual fact, where a hall and electricity and perhaps an operator can be furnished free, as is frequently the case in connection with the schools or the playgrounds, the expense of running a moving picture exhibition is very slight. It need not be more than three to five dollars a night for a series of films which will be much better than the average pictures of the ordinary moving picture show, and a fee of one cent might be sufficient to cover all expenses. In every case when it is desired to call the parents and the older boys and girls out in the evening, the moving picture is probably the easiest way to secure their attendance. It is esti- mated that at present about seven million people attend mov- ing pictures every day in the United States, and it is almost the only form of recreation which is commonly patronized by the working people. The pictures .shown in the commercial theaters are no better than the public demands. There is perhaps no other institution which has possibilities equal to those of the moving picture in the teaching of morals and social needs, as well as very many subjects now in the cur- riculum of the school, and we may anticipate that in the future it will be one of the very largest factors in all systems of public recreation and instruction. SINGING Singing is a common form of social entertainment every- where, and groups of young people nearly always wish to sing during a part of the time that they are together. Most of the kindergarten games are singing games, and there is also a great variety of games for children a little above the kinder- garten age involving singing. In some of the playgrounds patriotic songs are always sung at the beginning of the day Miscellaneous Activities 239 and also at closing time. Pittsburgh has made a special feature of choral singing and has a special director of music. Philadelphia insists that its directors shall have a " singing voice.'' In pioneer days the singing school was one of the features that made the district school a social center, and in nearly all of our city centers to-day singing is one of the commonest activities. In the social centers in Rochester, under Pro- fessor Ward, there was a period of singing each evening, and a series of social center songs developed there which it was an inspiration to hear, for they breathed the spirit of good fellow- ship which every social center should develop. In Philadel- phia, also, there is a period of common singing at most of the gatherings of the School and Home Associations which con- stitute the social centers in that city. Boston makes choral singing a large feature, though there it is not so much the singing of all who attend as it is of special groups who come together for singing and a social time. Special instructors in singing are employed in Boston and singing clubs seem to be very well attended. If the director has some skill, singing is one of the best activities for rainy days on the playground. It is one of the best ways of creating a common spirit and developing sociability in any group. For these reasons it should be used in the playgrounds and the social centers whenever the training of the director and the other conditions make it feasible. AN ORCHESTRA There are fifty-one playground systems that report instru- mental music as one of their activities during the year 1913. In these cities this is also probably an activity of the social centers, for the most part, rather than of the playgrounds 240 Practical Conduct of Play themselves, though there are a number of systems where there is considerable instrumental music in the playground . Worces- ter, Massachusetts, for instance, had an orchestra of forty- five pieces which constituted the general band, and also smaller orchestras at many of the separate grounds. An orchestra of its own is an advantage to a playground because music is needed for the marching, the folk dancing, and social dancing. In the social centers an orchestra is often needed in con- nection with various entertainments and may furnish at times a whole evening's program to the community. For the young people who take part, it offers one of the most interesting activities. In the evening centers of Boston, some of these orchestras have a large membership and are led by expert musicians. CHAPTER XV THE PLAY FESTIVAL The play festival is perhaps the best advertisement that the playgrounds have. It is a comparatively new institution here, being largely an importation from Germany, where it is chiefly for adults rather than children. The first one in this country of which I have any knowledge was held in Washington in the summer of 1905. The next year the Playground Asso- ciation of America was organized and its constitution stated that a play festival should be held each year in connection with its annual meeting. At the first congress in Chicago, there was a notable play festival. Since that time, nearly every playground system has had at least one a year. In the vacation playgrounds the festival is usually held during the last week of August or the first week of September. In the school systems, it usually comes in May or June. In the municipal playgrounds it may occur at any time, but it is usually in the spring or early fall. Very often each playground will hold a local play festival on its own grounds during the week before the general play festival for the city. This is a good thing, because it brings out many contestants and participants who would not be able to take part in the general festival. It also gives an inexpensive and pleasing spectacle to the community in which it is placed, and serves as a dress rehearsal for the participants. R 241 242 Practical Conduct of Play In the summer playground the play festival is usually the grand finale. It practically determines the work and the daily program, as the children must practice during the sea- son the things that they are to exhibit at the end. It gives a motive for much of the practice, which would lack zest if it were not to be exhibited. It is well to make this festival a sort of fair or exhibition, and it should show actual activities. It would be a good thing if each play festival might be begun with a short address which would explain the relation of the tournament events to the actual playground program. It is well to have the kindergarten section well represented, because people always love to watch the games and hear the songs of these little people. In Washington we always placed the kindergarten children first on the program. Each play- ground was represented by a group usually from twent)^ to sixty in number. They usually all wore white, each group playing two different games, so that there were from twenty- five to thirty games played in about ten minutes. This was often pronounced the most interesting thing on the pro- gram. The industrial work is not as a rule represented at the play festival, but it should be if there is any place for it. It should be mounted artistically on large cards and hung up under- neath the grandstand or in the pavilion or in any place where wall space is afforded. If there is no such place, the exhibition should not be attempted except in the dry climates of the West. In the folk dances that are given in different cities the children often appear in the costumes of peasants of the country which the dance represents. Such costumes should be made of very inexpensive materials. The Play Festival 243 The maypole dance is one of the prettiest and naost popular dances that can be given at a play festival, and often the whole field is filled with the beribboned poles. The dances at the Chicago festival have been especially interesting. These are of three kinds: those given by the playground children; those exhibited by the schools of dancing ; and those given by the foreign societies of Chicago. The last have attracted most attention. Probably there is no other place where such a sight might be seen. In the rural villages of Sweden, one may see the Scandinavian dances. In the highlands of Scotland, one may see the highland dances, etc. But in Chicago one may see the peasants from Sweden and Norway, from Scotland, Spain, and Italy, give their own characteristic dances in costume. It reveals at once how cos- mopolitan American cities have become, and gives one a com- parative view such as can scarcely be had elsewhere. THE PAGEANT The pageant has not thus far come to play a large part in playground activities, but there has been a new interest in pageantry both in England and America during the last decade. Most of these pageants have represented the history of the place where they were held or the history of the country. They have usually been given by the people of the locality who have often been trained by an expert in pageantry. They have been a very effective means of teaching local history and awakening civic pride. In connection with the Hudson Centennial celebration in 1909, the children from the playgrounds gave a pageant rep- resenting the early history of New York. In Pittsburgh at the third annual meeting of the Playground Association of 244 Practical Conduct of Play America, the children gave a pageant which represented first the Hfe of the Indians, the coming of the trappers, the settling of the fort and city by the French, the capture of the fort by the English, the Revolutionary war, etc. The celebration of the Fourth of July, of Hallowe'en and Labor Day often involves a good deal of pageantry. Boston now has a Director of Exhibitions, on an annual salary, and very notable pageants are given, especially on Columbus Day, but this is a celebration by the city rather than by the play- ground children. In general the pageant seems destined to have a larger part in public recreation than it does in play. The Mardi Gras of New Orleans has become famous the country over. Kansas City has its Knights of Pallas day and many other cities have begun within the last few years to hold some sort of annual pageant. There are some ele- ments of pageantry in most of the larger play festivals. THE TOURNAMENT When the major playground exhibition shows all sides of the playground activity and especially the folk dancing, it is called a " play festival," but when it consists wholly or chiefly of athletics and games, it is usually called a "tournament." Securing Training. — If the play of the playgrounds is to secure different physical results from that of the streets, it must be largely because it has furnished greater and more satisfactory incentives to effort. The play of the vacant lot is listless and motiveless. It is a type of effort that never secures results in any field. The tournament serves the pur- pose of a periodic examination or exhibition. It requires organization and training, and it provides interest and motive for strenuous endeavor. The Play Festival 245 There are always many who feel that the playground should be a place for the children to play and the less it is organized the better it will be. But play in order to be educational must be made interesting, and it will secure physical, mental, and social results almost directly in proportion to the interest which it excites. My conversion to the principle of organized tournaments grew out of our experience in Washington, where we began with the idea that the children should do pretty much as they wanted to, but we found that a couple of boys would go to the tether pole and bat the ball first one way and then the other without any attempt to win. At the end of a second or third inning in indoor baseball, often neither side would know what the score was. It seemed reasonably evident that no vital training could be given by that kind of play; so we began to organize tournaments in the different events, with the immediate result of securing much more interest in the play and very much better play from the physi- cal, the intellectual, and the social standpoint. The principles that apply to athletics elsewhere apply also in the play- grounds. Three things are fundamental to real success : to get as large a number of children as possible to participate ; to teach and enforce the laws of sportsmanship ; and to avoid strains. Playground loafing is little better than loafing elsewhere, and the great problem is to get every one to participate. One of the most effective ways of arousing interest in running is the relay race with a large number of contestants. In a relay race with ten or fifteen on a team, it is not only necessary for a large number to train, but the enthusiasm is much more intense than it is where there are only a few participants. The Standard Test is also a good thing. Every playground 246 Practical Conduct of Play should seek to set a standard of physical achievement and try to get all the children to come up to it. The great advantage of the test is that it is non-competitive and that the winning by one does not interfere with the efforts of the others, but rather lends motive to them. Class athletics have been used successfully in some school systems, but they are not so easily appHed in the playgrounds. A large part of the difficulty is that there is no general feeling thus far for athletics as a part of the training of every boy. The playgrounds are steadily creating that feeling. When it becomes general, every boy and every girl will want to take part. The unorganized scrub play has little value, but when con- tests begin to be held, and sport of the interplayground variety is introduced, we have the same danger that we have in inter- collegiate sport, that the few on the playground teams will get all the training, and the others will be neglected. The problem is how to maintain a high standard of excellence and enthusiasm through the interplayground meets and at the same time get all the children into training. To this end it is well to post up in each playground at the beginning of the season the program of events and the records of the previous year, so that the children may know both the events and the degree of efhciency that will be required in order for them to be successful. A contest is a good thing to arouse energy and effort, but it has no value as a test to find out which boy in the playground can run the fastest, and its larger results are only secured when it serves as an incentive to the training of all. A final tourna- ment in and of itself has little value, because it secures little training, and involves only a few participants. From many points of view the most important tournaments are the ones The Play Festival 247 held within the playground. There should be home tourna- ments in indoor baseball, volley ball, basket ball, and all the field events. Unless this is done, there will probably be only one or two teams in each event of the interplayground tournament, and only a small number of children will take part. There is apt to be some difficulty with boys who have been trained in private schools or elsewhere coming back to take part. These boys have very likely had exceptional advantages and are quite out of the class of the playground children. Three or four exceptional athletes of this kind from Lawrence- ville or the Hill School, for instance, returning a couple of weeks before the close of the summer and entering for the playground contests may win a large number of the prizes offered. It is best to prevent this and at the same time set the whole group of children to training early in the season by requiring that every boy who is to compete in a final event must have won a certain number of points in the prelim- inary contests. We had the rule in Washington that to be eligible for a final a child must have made three points in the event in which he wished to compete in the preliminaries, which meant that he might have won one first, a second and a third, or three thirds. It is well to keep the record of each of these prelimi- nary tournaments, and to add the score of the second tour- nament to the first, so that each playground will know just how well it has done in each contest and how well its opponents have done also. This often adds considerably to the interest. Athletic Events and Games. — So far as possible all the playground athletics should be exhibited. 248 Practical Conduct of Play The chinning can be done either on a horizontal bar or on an incHned ladder, if a bar is not available. The following is suggested as an appropriate list of events in which to hold contests. The 25-yard dash. The 50-yard dash. The 60-yard dash. The 100-yard dash. The 220-yard dash, if there are many older children. The relay race, 60 yards each. The potato race. The low hurdles. The running broad jump. The running high jump. The game of soccer football. The game of hockey. The game of volley ball. The game of indoor baseball. The game of long ball. The game of baseball. The game of basket ball. The game of tennis. The game of tether ball. The game of croquet (for girls). This is by no means an exhaustive list, but every item is suited to playgrounds except possibly the 220-yard dash and the hurdles. Competition for Girls. — As to whether girls should take part in interplayground contests, there is much difference of opinion, some holding that the pubHcity and advertising tend to the development of essentially unfeminine traits, and that The Play Festival 249 the girls are likely to strain themselves. If we go back to history for light, we find that men have always been the par- ticipants in contests, while women have been the spectators and often the prizes of the contest. It cannot be thought that contests develop femininity in girls, as they do virility in boys. No one can well hold that they have as large a place in their training. However, girls and boys are much alike un- til they are eleven or twelve years of age, and the arguments that are offered against competitive basket ball for young women do not apply with equal force to competitive foot races for girls of ten. It is doubtless well to err on the side of safety, but it would scarcely be wise to eliminate such con- tests altogether. Girls need encouragement and incentives in athletics much more than boys do. Classification of Children in Contests. — There has been considerable dispute during the last few years as to the best basis of classification in contests. It is obviously impossible that a ten-year-old boy should compete against a fifteen-year- old boy and have any chance of success or retain any interest in the competition. Contests must take place between chil- dren of reasonably equal ability. The standard that is most used is probably the weight standard. This has the advantage of simplicity and accuracy, and it is very easily applied. A boy can lie about his age, and you cannot correct his state- ment by looking at his teeth or examining his tongue. He may lie about his weight, but he is easily convicted of his falsehood by the ready scales. If five hundred boys are com- peting in the 100-pound class, the scale can be set at a hundred pounds, and the five hundred boys walked over the scales and weighed in five minutes, and there can be no disputing the decision. But there does not seem to be any reason why the 250 Practical Conduct of Play fat boy of thirteen should be made to compete with the wiry muscular boy of sixteen. The fleshy boy is at a disadvantage even with boys of his own age, because he has so much more weight to carry around. It requires much greater muscular exertion for him to secure the same result either in a foot race or in a chinning contest than it does for a thin boy. In justice the fleshy boy ought to be given a handicap. There is no direct relationship between bulk and strength, so the best that can be said for this system in general athletics is that it is a convenience. In all contests involving personal combat, however, such as boxing, wrestHng, and football, weight is an advantage, and contestants may justly be divided according to this standard. A second simple test is the height standard. This is also easily applied, though not so easily as the weight test. It is far more just as a basis of classification. Whereas weight is nearly always a disadvantage in playground contests, height is an advantage in many sports. It enables the pos- sessor to take longer strides in the runs and jumps, and it gives a marked advantage in such games as basket ball, volley ball, tether ball, and more or less in nearly all the other games. However, this height must go with a closely knit muscu- lar frame, which is not often found in rapidly growing children. Loose-jointed unmuscular length is a handicap, as all the muscles have to act on longer levers than where the person is shorter. Physiological age has been suggested as probably the best standard, and it probably is, but in the playground it is utterly impossible to apply it. What do we know about the physiological age of the playground contestants? The only common standard left is the age standard. Chil- The Play Festival 251 dren enter school and leave school, they attain maturity and die, according to their age ; their opportunities for training have been similarly determined. We do not allow the large boy to vote at eighteen and the small one at twenty-five. In the contests of Kfe, the small man has to compete with the big man, and there is no reason why we should impose on the featherweight in general athletics the condition of perpetual childhood. But the difficulties of this standard are serious. There is birth registration over only about one half of this country, and most of this is recent legislation, and it is very easy to lie about your age. At one time a rule was made in the playgrounds of New York City that no child over eight was to go into the kindergarten section where the swings were. We immediately discovered that there were no children over eight in the playground. However, the difficulties are be- coming lighter each year. Birth certificates are increasingly available. If the contest occurs during the school year, the school records may be consulted. With Catholic or Jewish children the record of confirmation will be helpful. In actual fact the work may be simplified in a number of ways. It is a good thing to have a card which the parent of the child and the director of the playground are required to sign, which will contain the parents' statement of the age, and the director's O.K., which will represent his belief in the accuracy of the statement. The captains of the teams may well be made responsible for the eligibiHty of their men. They should be made to understand that if the team should contain a single man over age, the score would be thrown out, and the ones falsely registered disqualified from competing in further events. It is comparatively easy for the captain, as a rule, to find out exactly about the ages of his men, as some of the 252 Practical Conduct of Play boys are sure to know. It is well also to have the qualifica- tion in the age standard that the person shall be " actually and apparently " under a certain age, thus giving an opportunity to the officials to apply the physiological age standard to a few boys who are obviously out of the class of the boys of their age. There are never more than a few boys whose age is in doubt, so using this standard is not really so great a burden as it might seem at first. This paragraph is not an attempt to dictate the use of one standard rather than another, but rather to show the difficulties with each standard. In some cases a combined standard, as age and weight, or age and height, is used. Making Ready. — The preKminaries for a tournament are numerous and more or less burdensome. To run off a contest successfully requires at least a dozen competent officials, and many minor helpers who will assist in marshaling the crowd, judging finishes, etc. If four or five contests are being held on the same day, this really demands forty or fifty officials, a number which it is practically impossible to obtain in most cities. It is well to have an athletic committee that will scurry around among the various athletic clubs, Y.M. and Y.W.C.A.s for these officials and keep as many of them on tap as possible. A large number of officials are always needed as starters and judges of finishes, and to help keep the crowd back from the contestants. It is a good thing to give out to the director of the playground where the contest is to be held fifteen or twenty official badges and instruct him to secure these officials from the neighborhood. It gives the local people a new sense of ownership and interest in the playground when they help in this way. There are some neighborhoods, of course, where this idea is not so applicable as it is in others. The Play Festival 253 The papers should be notified in advance and asked to send representatives and a photographer. To get his picture in the paper is often a greater prize to a boy than a gold medal, and the possibility always stimulates the interest and the attendance. The parents and the city officials should be invited to come. They will not often come merely to visit the playground, but they will come out occasionally to a tournament. The captain of the precinct in which the play- ground is located should be asked to send as many men as he can spare. Policemen may not really be needed, but it is al- ways wise to have them. They will help in keeping the crowd in order, and the space clear for contestants. One can never be sure either that rowdy sympathizers with some of the contestants will not start a disturbance. We once had a con- test between two colored playgrounds in Washington, where, I am sure, there would shortly have been razors on the scene if we had not had the police there. The director of the ground where the contest is to be held should be responsible for seeing that the ground is in condition at the time set; that certain areas are roped off; that the baskets and potatoes are ready for the potato race ; that the jumping pits and track are in condition ; that all the equip- ment needed for the games is on hand. It should be a rule of the contest that every event begin on time, and that the children who are late will sacrifice the points scheduled for that time. This teaches punctuality, and the rule will not need to be enforced more than once or twice. The question of the transportation of the players is sure to be a vexed one. In some localities the children are not able to pay their car fares, and it is hard to discriminate and give car fares to some and not to others. It scarcely seems a good 254 Practical Conduct of Play policy to pay the car fares of all contestants, but often it is the only thing to be done, as the children otherwise will not come. This is a question, however, that each city will have to settle for itself. Children are often taken on outings where their car fare is paid, and there is at least as much reason for paying their fare to contests. One of the great difficulties in contests is that the spectators tend to crowd in on the players. In the playground, it is difficult to prevent this. But certain areas should be roped off, and it is best to have several events going on at the same time, so as to divide the crowd. Girls' events, if there are any, should be run simultaneously with boys', and events for small boys at the same time as events for large boys, jumps at the same time as sprints, etc. Theoretically it is best that every child should compete in a number of activities, and thus secure a rounded development, but a few stars thus often win an undue proportion of the prizes and discourage the others, and it is often necessary to limit each contestant to one field event and one game, in order to finish the contest within the time set. Games that drag on into the evening are apt to see disturbances at the end, and the parents are unwilling to have their children out in a strange part of the city after sundown. It is often impossible to begin a contest in summer before three or four o'clock in the afternoon, so it is neces- sary to run off all events with dispatch. Sportsmanship. — The most important training that the playground can give is a training in sportsmanship. The children usually come without any of its traditions, and they have to be taught. Sportsmanship may be defined in two words, " manliness and courtesy." The children will not understand the significance of either of these words as applied Play Festival, Hazard Playground, Los Angeles, Calif. *._ 0- M ' m ■:k2 ] PI HI 1= T HBH^'^^v V ,^ifi^M^|p ^^_^il^^^^^B jaS^SE»3?£- i^ ^i^ . . .-«i.-^*pP!^ i.i ,.,-■„.-,,.„.. , J juu... ; r:i"^»if^^%. . ■ ' "r '-^''II^Mml II IP -nnB*-*^- ^ 1 ' '■ • r^Wftl Slausen Playground, showing Field House and Boys' Section beyond, Los Angeles, Calif. The Play Festival 255 to play and they will have to be instructed in each detail. " Manhness " means that you are not to lose courage when the other side gets ahead. You are to play just as hard when the score is ten to nothing, as when it is five to five. No one can tell what may happen in the last inning. If the final score is ten to nothing, you must not go ofi like a whipped dog with your head down, or say that they didn't win fair, or that they were bigger than you were, etc., but give them a good cheer and say you will try them again later. " Courtesy '' means that you will treat the visiting team as your guests, that you will show them all the courtesies of your playground, that you will not call them names or push or stone them, that you will readily grant them the benefit of any doubt, that you will not by any cheering or calls or interference try to disconcert their signals or annoy or impede the contestants, that you will cheer their good plays not their mistakes, that you will accept the decisions of the umpire without remark. In actual fact the directors need to be cautioned in these respects nearly as much as the children, and the parents need it a great deal more. It is a question of , building up a sentiment favorable to sportsmanlike play. In Washington, it was a difficult matter in the beginning to hold contests between playgrounds in different sections of the city. Something unpleasant nearly always happened. There were disagreements with the umpire, there was crowding and hustling of visitors, and often on their departure they were " trotted," which means that they were followed and hooted at or even struck or stoned by children of the home ground. In some cases, there were standing feuds between children of different sections of the city which had been handed on from one generation of children to another for a score or more of 256 Practical Conduct of Play years. In order to deal with this situation we made at the beginning of the season the following rules : Ten points shall be given on courtesy and form. They shall be added to the score of each side, if they play a fair game, without disputing decisions of the umpire or "guying" their op- ponents. If a playground as a whole is guilty of gross discourtesy to a visiting team, or vice versa, by stoning them or calling them abusive names, the entire score of this playground shall be canceled, and no other prelimi- nary contests will be held at the ground during the season. The directors set out to win the points on courtesy for their playground if they won nothing else, and they got the children as much interested in it as they were themselves. In some cases vigilance committees of the older and better be- haved children were formed, which would go around and cau- tion any child who was saying or doing anything discourteous. The conduct of the children at all the meets was much better than that of the bystanders, and the children would caution them when they knew them, telling them, " We'll lose our points if you don't stop." The contests certainly gave these children as substantial a lesson in courtesy and promptness and loyalty as it would be possible to give them. As courtesy is essentially the form of an athletic contest it is as justifiable to give points on it as it is to give points on form in a gym- nastic contest. It would sound somewhat strange to give points on courtesy or sportsmanship in a high school or college contest, of course, but we seem to need some such device. Recording the Score. — The results of the three preliminary contests for 1907 are shown in the three following tables : The Play Festival 257 Results of Playground Contest on July 24TH Score on Events Points on Courtesy Deduction for Lateness Final Score Ludlow Playground . . and Neighborhood House . . 54 35 10 10 64 45 North Capitol .... and Juvenile Court .... 59 58 10 20 p. C. 59 58 Rosedale Playground . . and Virginia Avenue . . . 60 75 10 70 75 Jefiferson School . . . and Towers School .... 44 10 10 52^ 102I 5th & W Sts., N. W. . . and Delaware Ave., S. W. 55 50 Entire score of girls canceled for discourtesy 55 30 Results of Contest on July 30TH Score on Events Points on Courtesy Deduction for Lateness Final Score North Capitol .... and Rosedale 53 82 10 10 92 Towers School .... and Neighborhood House . . 150^ 12^ 10 10 i6oi 22^ Virginia Avenue . . . and Juvenile Court .... 75 70 10 10 85 80 Ludlow School .... and Jefferson School . . . 68i 68i 10 10 15 p. c. 68i 78^ 258 Practical Conduct of Play Results of Contest on August 14TH Score on Events Points on Courtesy Deduction for Lateness Final Score Total Score of 3 Contests Ludlow Playground and Towers School . . 41 76 10 10 51 86 183^ 349 North Capitol . . and Virginia Avenue . . 72 52 10 10 82 62 204 214 Rosedale Playground and Progress City . . . 98 42 10 10 108 52 270 190 Jefferson School . . and Neighborhood House 124 29 10 10 39 275 104I 5th & W Sts., N.W. and Delaware Ave., S.W. 25 85 10 10 95 90 in 2 con- tests 125 in 2 con- tests The tabulated results indicate that even with the points on courtesy and with a deduction for lateness, not all of the children were courteous, nor were they all on time at the first meet. At the second meet all the children were courteous, but not all were prompt. The third meet passed off without an incident to mar its record. After the contest is over, the director should send in a full report of everything to the papers, unless the papers have been well represented on the field. This keeps up the interest and serves as a good advertisement, often calling in a number of new children who had not been coming before. It is often wise for the playground supervisor to add the new score to the previous score of each playground and send it around to The Play Festival 259 be posted up in each place, so that the children may under- stand just how well they have done. Prizes and Admission Fees. — The question of prizes to be offered in contests is a vexed one as it brings up the whole question of amateurism and professionalism. In fact the very idea of a prize is inconsistent with the idea of play. Play is an activity that is carried on for its own sake. One is not supposed to be hired to play. The person who competes for a gold watch or a gold medal is just as much a professional as the man who competes for a twenty-dollar gold piece. The difference between the two rewards is a purely nominal one. The one is convertible into the other. The person who competes for any sort of prize for the sake of securing it is not playing, but working. He is professional if we are to keep our present ideas of what professionalism means. The prize that is competed for, in one sense, is pay for the work done, but no service is rendered to those giving the prize, hence for them it is alms or charity. If the prizes are paid for from the gate receipts, then the prizes are a practical method of hiring competitors. There is very little difference between this and paying the contestants directly, but it does have the added value of serving to point out or distinguish the winner. The distinction between the right and the wrong use is easy in theory. The prize is supposed to be conferred upon the athlete for superior excellence in sport. It is Hke an LL.D. It honors superior achievement, but it does not reward it. The athlete is supposed to enter the contest for the sake of winning for pure glory. He should not know that there is any reward offered. Then the officials out of the goodness of their hearts and the warmth of their admiration step down and confer upon him a medal as the English king 26o Practical Conduct of Play might confer a title or a college faculty might grant an LL.D. The Carnegie Hero Fund Commission grants a gold medal for a deed of heroism, but if they knew that the deed were done to secure the medal and not to save a life, they probably would not give it. Theoretically also the officials should withhold awards from all who compete for the sake of the prize, for by that fact they become unworthy of it. The most effective prizes that have been awarded in recent times I suppose are the Victoria Cross of England and the Legion of Honor of France and the Iron Cross of Germany. Probably none of them is worth much more than a penny. Yet they are the most coveted prizes in each army, because they distinguish superior bravery. The prize of the Olympic Games in Greece consisted of a crown of laurel leaves, placed on the head of the victor. But the laurel crown is famous still, and even to-day we strive to win our " laurels," showing how deep a hold this prize took on the public imagination. It is true that the victor at Olympia had the wall of the city taken down for him to enter when he returned from the games, and that he was supported thereafter at the expense of the state. But this does not seem to have been much considered. Most of the contestants did not crave public support, and one hears so little about this side of the award, that we may be pretty sure that it was not the thing really coveted. The real prize was not the laurel crown or the public support, but the honor conferred by the victory. To be a victor at Olympia ! What more could any one desire? The historic point of view seems to say that prizes in them- selves should not be competed for, that the true prize of any worthy struggle where we rise above the sordid need of earning The Play Festival 261 a living, is the sense of achievement in our own breast and the esteem in which we are held by the community. One of the best examples is the bestowing of a title in England. In actual fact this ideal does not reign supreme in American athletics, either in our colleges or in the contests of the A.A.U. The other side of this situation is also equally simple theoret- ically. The idea of paid admissions is repugnant to the very nature of sport. The athlete is supposed to be doing this for sport not for money. If there is a paid admission, the athlete is getting the fee in one form or another, else where does it go ? It may come to him in the form of clothes or training table or railroad fare or medals or room rent or what you will, but in some form a large part of it is getting back to him. This is the most practical distinction, as it seems to me, between the amateur and the professional. If the perform- ance is charged for, then the performer is a professional. If the performance is free to the public, then the performer is an amateur. This is an idea that has meaning and that can be worked, whereas our present distinction has no meaning in regard to most contests and cannot be put into practice with- out infinite pains and bickerings. This is applying to the athletic performer exactly the same standard that applies to any other performer that comes before the public. In actual fact our policy is for the most part nearly the opposite of this. Neither in the college nor in the A.A.U. tournaments is the candidate encouraged to compete for honor, nor is there a noticeable tendency to make the contests free. We cannot expect from the street boys spontaneous ideals higher than those of our collegians, and we shall undoubtedly have to offer valuable prizes in order to secure competition 262 Practical Conduct of Play in the beginning. However, we should always regard this as a temporary measure, and expect to replace it with a higher motive as fast as we can. The one cardinal principle that should always be held in view is that honor should be the reward of winning, and the prize should be only a designation. It seems likely that a prize will nearly always decrease in value as it becomes costly. The most valuable prizes that have ever been given are the laurel crown of Olympia and the hero medals of the modern army. Both are valueless and both are priceless. It seems likely that a costly medal by attracting attention to itself always distracts attention from the achievement which it is supposed to honor, but which it actually obscures. No soldier calculates the value of a Victoria Cross in money. It represents value on a different level. Not so the winner of a medal of solid gold ; the difference between this and a purse is mostly nominal. If we take up the prizes that are being offered in the order of their objectionableness, probably the worst are money prizes, diamonds, watches, and other articles of value. Then come the various solid medals of gold, silver, and bronze. (Bronze would not be objectionable if it were offered for a first prize.) All of these seem to me essentially ahke, a form of pay for an athletic exhibition. The Germans have a very good system of prizes. They give a crown of oak leaves to the victor and a diploma which recites his accomplishment in the event in which he competed. It is in such form that it can be framed and hung up in the room. It is a real mark of distinction. In the English schools boys who make the school team or acquire a certain distinction in their play have their pictures The Play Festival 263 taken and hung up in perpetuity in the school. Their names also are carved in the oak paneling of one of the rooms. Our system of prizes in Washington always seemed to me fairly satisfactory. For the contests in the home grounds, we offered white, red, and blue ribbons. For interplay ground meets, we offered celluloid buttons. These contained a pic- ture of the capitol in the center and a blue, red, or green border, according as they were first, second, or third prizes. The words First Prize, Second Prize, or Third Prize were also written in gold letters at the top. In the contests for the championship of the city we offered plated gold, silver, and bronze medals, the set of three costing a dollar. The giving out of the prizes was made an occasion in itself, thus greatly increasing the value of the award. After we had held contests for four summers in Washington, the children who had been star athletes in the different events came to be recognized everywhere by the other children and this was real distinction. To the children the distinction conferred upon the winner by public notice is a more effective reward than any medal. The mere recounting of the story of the victory in the paper, with the record made, is great glory, and if your picture is also inserted, it is almost an Olympic reward. All of these things tend to create athletic sentiment which will in time make the honor of winning a sufficient recompense. CHAPTER XVI DISCIPLINE There are playgrounds in this country that are probably the worst places in the city for the children, so far as morality and social ideals are concerned. Any playground that is undis- ciplined, where the bully and the street loafer set the pattern for the other children to follow, is likely to be such a place. There is no magic in the word " playground " that can turn the loafing place of rowdies into a moral force. If a play- ground is to do good to children rather than harm, it must set certain standards of conduct and insist on these standards being followed. The playground bids for the attendance of the children on the plea that it is a moral force. It must not betray this confidence by allowing conduct that is unsocial. The playground is a method of making example potent in the forming of ideals and habits. But the playground that merely brings the children together and leaves to the determination of chance and physical prowess the ideals that are to prevail, will probably be a most successful school for the training of rowdies and bullies. The only protection against this danger is discipline. The conditions of discipline are peculiarly difficult on the playgrounds. Most of them, at present, are summer play- grounds open during two or three months only. The teacher who comes to take charge is often a novice and a stranger to the boys and girls. There will often be three or four hun- 264 Discipline 265 dred children present, and those who are there to-day are not the same as those who were there yesterday or those who will be there to-morrow. The teacher does not know the names of many of them or where they live. Most of the grounds are not fenced. The children run out and in as they please. Some of us know from experience that the path of the sub- stitute teacher of thirty or forty pupils at school is not often a path of roses. If the numbers in such a case are multiplied by ten, the freedom of motion by a hundred, and the irre- sponsibihty by a thousand, we have very nearly the condi- tions that prevail on the summer playground. It would be impossible to discipline a school under such conditions. Yet there is little trouble in most cases on the playgrounds. Probably the reason is that the playground is offering the children what they want to do, while the school is often compelling a quiet which they dislike and tasks which find no inner response. DISCIPLINE BY PROHIBITION The traditional method of discipline has always been through prohibitions and in many playgrounds it has been the custom to post up a series of things which the children are forbidden to do ; but we must always remember that a prohibition of any kind is a challenge to the spirit of the child and may give him the first suggestion to do the thing which is forbidden. All ideas have a motor side and tend to execute themselves. If I hold a marshmallow in my hand, I do not need to will to eat it ; it will eat itself ; and any clear idea always tends to self- execution. If a notice is posted up that all children are for- bidden to throw snowballs, for instance, the only picture in the child's mind is the picture of throwing snowballs, and the 266 Practical Conduct of Play throwing of snowballs is very likely to result. For this, among other reasons, no system of prohibitions has ever been very effective in the prevention of undesirable acts. It is necessary that the children understand what they may do and what they may not do, but no playground director will find it wise to rely largely on prohibitions for the securing of results. There are three lines of discipline which are fundamental to success on the playground as they are also in the school. They are preventive discipline, suggestive discipline, and dis- cipline through the other children. PREVENTIVE DISCIPLINE No form of punishment has ever been effective in preventing either disorder or crime; for the very good reason that the punishment cannot take place until after the crime has been committed. I believe it will be found that there are many homes and schools where no punishments are ever inflicted in which the discipline is as good as it is in the homes and schools where the rod is not spared, or even better. All punishment is a confession of weakness. Preventive dis- cipHne avoids it by forestalling disorder. In the days of Draco, in Greece, the death penalty was inflicted for every offense, but there is no record that people were more law- abiding then than now. In the sixteenth century in England there were thirty-two crimes on the statute books for which capital punishment was inflicted, but crime has never been more frequent than it was then. All of our prisons and penitentiaries are overflowing to-day. We are coming to see that our methods of criminal procedure are very ineffective and that we must create instead a condition of society from which crime will not arise. Discipline 267 It is scarcely necessary to point out that medicine has already reached the stage which criminology is just approach- ing. We no longer deal with our typhoid problem by building hospitals, but by looking after our water supply. We do not allow people to take smallpox and then treat it, but we vaccinate against the disease. Better one former than ten reformers. If we will provide the right conditions, the diffi- culty will not arise. The time when trouble is most likely on the playgrounds is when nothing is going on. If the children are kept busy and happy, they have no time or disposition for mischief. Fundamentally this means, also, that the children shall feel so friendly to the teacher and so much in sympathy with what is being done, that they will not wish to get into disorder. On the teacher's part, this means both regard for the children and a habit of instant decision and action which checks the disorder before it is fairly stated. Most poor disciplinarians are people of slow decision ; they do not make up their minds fast enough to cope with the situation. If you step on the match, it is easily extinguished, but if you wait until the whole house is afire, it may take the fire department. Preventive discipline might be called also constructive discipline. It creates conditions from which disorder does not arise. It is exactly this problem of social organization that is the greatest difficulty of constructive statesmanship to-day. It is nearly or quite impossible to have discipHne of this kind unless the teacher is personally popular. DISCIPLINE THROUGH THE OTHER CHILDREN One of the most effective methods of discipHning any play- ground is by pubHc opinion. If the other children applaud a 268 Practical Conduct of Play piece of mischief or misconduct, it is difHcult to quell it, but if they frown upon it, if the offender becomes unpopular by doing it, it soon ceases to amuse him. This condition depends largely upon the popularity of the director. If the children regard him as their friend, and the playground as their property, they soon make the disorderly and destructive child feel so uncomfortable that he desists. When the school playgrounds were first opened in New York, a street gang would sometimes come in like a whirlwind, over- turn the apparatus, throw down the director, and do as much damage as they could in ten or fifteen minutes, and then rush out again. After the playgrounds were better organized, and a number of gymnastic and basket ball teams had been formed, these teams would often take these street gangs in hand so effectually that they were very glad to get safely out on the street again. In any well-regulated community people are not very much influenced in their conduct by the laws of the realm, but are guided almost entirely by their own sense of what is right and by the public opinion of their companions ; and the same is no less true in the playground. If a director or teacher represses in the child acts which he constantly desires and seeks to do, it either makes a coward of him or breaks down his sense of self-reliance. The only sort of training which fits a person to be a member of a free democratic community is a discipline which leads him to control himself. The most effective method in securing this feeling and this assistance is through the spirit of the ground itself. There are a number of playgrounds in which a system of pupil government similar to the School City has been tried. There is a mayor and a common council, a chief of police, a Discipline 269 judge, jury, etc. The officers are elected by the playground citizens who are the children of a certain age in regular attend- ance. It has often worked well. The children dislike a punishment that is inflicted by their peers more than they do one that is imposed by the director. The scheme teaches the children the forms of local government, and the machinery of carrying it out is interesting to them. The policemen are often zealous in arresting offenders, and every case gives to the judge and jury the training not of a mock but a real trial. The children feel a new sense of ownership in the playground and often develop a new loyalty for it. But it must not be supposed that self-government will run itself. It will take no less care and determination on the part of the director to discipline his ground in this way than to discipline it directly. The children will generally tend to inflict too severe punish- ments, and their interest will wane after a little if it is not stimulated. If, however, there are a number of capable older boys and girls, this government scheme gives them another activity that they enjoy as much as the Scouts or the Camp Fire and it creates a better spirit than almost anything else can. So, if the director is himself interested, it is worth while. Children of fifteen or sixteen are greatly benefited by having responsibility placed upon them, and they are much more capable of conducting such governmental affairs than they are usually given credit for, as the George Junior Republic, of Freeville, has abundantly proved. This is a very fundamental training for adult citizenship and gives a real insight into democratic government. It is apt to give the director a corps of efficient unpaid assistants, who will relieve him of many irksome details in the care of supplies, the administration of the swings, and other similar activities. A director ought 270 Practical Conduct of Play always to have ten or twenty student assistants or leaders, to whom he can trust various important activities, and who will share with him the responsibility for success. The system of pupil government serves as an admirable method for the selection of these leaders. SUGGESTIVE DISCIPLINE There are teachers who go through the school year without a single serious problem of discipline and there are others who have many cases each day. Each may be equally capable as a teacher, yet disorder constantly arises in the one room, while it is almost unknown in the other. Carlyle somewhere says of Napoleon that if a band of robbers had held him up at the wayside, he would immediately have taken command of the band and marched them off to the guard house or where he would. In case of a Titanic disaster or a fire or a railroad wreck, some one is apt to take command of the others. He rules on account of the power within himself. One who has been much in command anywhere comes to assume an attitude which leads others to obey. This consists primarily in an expectation of being obeyed. The whole attitude of the person suggests obedience, and others obey this suggestion without realizing why they do it. The prime requisite for playground discipline is this expectation. If the director enters upon his duties in this state of mind, he will not have much trouble. On the other hand many give all their com- mands with a question mark after them. Their hesitation indicates their uncertainty. Their very gestures suggest disobedience to the children, and they generally get it. If the person can get this expectation of obedience so far down into his subconsciousness that it becomes a real part of his per- Discipline 271 sonality, it will solve half of the problem of discipline. We made it a rule in Washington that there was to be no smoking in the playgrounds. There was a colored ground in the lower part of the city, which was in charge of a very slight colored director. She was not over five feet tall and very slender. A group of about forty colored workmen who were employed on a nearby sewer came over during their noon period, sat down on the edge of the playground, and began to smoke. The teacher went up to them and said, " Smoking is not allowed on the playground. You will have to stop smoking or move across the street." She spoke quietly, but her whole manner suggested that she expected them to obey, and that she would probably pick them up bodily and throw them off, if they did not do as she said. Without a word the whole gang got up, moved across the street, and sat down on the opposite curb. The teacher must remember that he has law and order on his side and that he can call the whole machinery of the city to his aid if need be in carrying out any reasonable request. This fear that he will not be obeyed, is often a very serious handicap to the inexperienced director. THE HABIT OF DECISION The methods that I have mentioned are necessary to the larger success of the playground and to the director really enjoying his job, but besides employing these methods the highly successful disciplinarian must also be a person of deci- sion of character. People have very different power of making up their minds. For some, any decision involves a painful effort which is always avoided whenever possible; while others make their decisions so easily that they are scarcely aware when they 272 Practical Conduct of Play are made. A person who decides with difficulty often has to act when his mind is only half made up, and consequently acts without energy or definiteness. This is a serious handicap to any one who has to discipline children, because they always perceive this uncertainty and take advantage of it. A strong disciplinarian must be able not only to make up his mind easily and definitely, but he must be able to do it very quickly, so as to check disorder before it really arises and to take con- trol of situations at the beginning. He must also be a person who, having made up his mind as to what is to be done, as- sumes at the same time the determination to do it. This is just that sort of abiHty which is required in all sorts of executive positions, and which is probably trained more effectively in athletics than anywhere else. The school often unfits a person for decisions of this type by slowing up the processes of judg- ment and leading him to be too judicial — to weigh too care- fully the evidence on both sides before coming to a conclusion. No doubting Hamlet may ever be a disciplinarian. If dis- cipline is not natural to the director, it is all the more necessary that he employ discipline of the preventive type, and that he secure the cooperation of the children in creating the right spirit on the ground. But there will always be more or less trouble unless he is able to make up his mind quickly as to what to do and to stand by his decision. FORMS OF MISCONDUCT Bad Language. — When children first come into the play- grounds, swearing and obscene language are apt to be very common. They have been accustomed to it on the street, and perhaps to hear it at home. They come prepared with a mouth full of it. Suppression is difficult because the teacher Discipline 273 cannot be in all parts of the playground at once, and it is impossible to say what language the children in other parts are using. However, the director must require decent language in his presence, and soon the children accept his standard. This situation is much more serious in an unfenced playground where the boys and girls are free to play together than it is where they are separated. The director cannot afford under any circumstances to close his ears, for if he does the better class of parents will keep their children away, and the play- ground will get a bad name. I once had a clergyman write me, saying that a Catholic priest had been in one of our playgrounds in Washington and, having heard some very objectionable language, he had concluded that they were bad places for the children. I wrote thanking him for the information and the helpful spirit in which the letter had been written. I said I did not doubt that the priest had heard just what he had said, but I was sure he could now hear it only around the edges and at •a distance from the director; but if he had been at that ground two years before, when it was first opened, he would have had to stop his ears to keep from hearing it all the time. At one time we opened a playground in Washington on what had before been an unused reservation. A gentleman without children and about sixty years of age owned all the houses on the end of the block opposite. He objected very seriously to our putting the playground there, and after it was estab- lished, he went out with his notebook and took down for a time all the bad things he heard the children say. He got a very choice collection. He sent this in to the Commissioners of the District and said, " I have heard all this bad language 274 Practical Conduct of Play in this playground in one week, and it ought to be closed." Of course he had merely made a collection of street language. At another time, I sent a young theologian down to open a playground in the worst section of the city. He came back after a week and said : " I want to give it up. I don't think it is a proper place for me to be. Why, I was never at a place before where the boys talked as bad as the girls do down here." In actual fact parents and teachers seldom realize what the street language of their little cherubs may be. Children are not always so innocent and unworldly as the poets have painted them. Any one needs only to listen unob- trusively to the language of a group of boys who are pla)dng on the street. It will always be found, in any well-conducted system, that this language tends rapidly to disappear from the playground and, I believe, to a considerable extent from the adjacent streets also. We had one case of a boy who persisted so far in using bad language before the girls that we had to exclude him. The exclusion did not work very well, as he still continued to hang around the edge. We finally asked the police captain to send an ofEcer to the boy's home and warn his parents that he would be arrested if he did not desist. We had no trouble after that. Sex Improprieties. — The sex problem we have always with us. We may shut our eyes to it, but this will not be more effective than the escape of the ostrich through hiding its head in the sand. There are loose girls and many loose boys, who come to every playground. Their language and actions may be a constant source of evil suggestion to the others. The playground is probably the best place for them, but it may be a question if their advantage will compensate for the possible Discipline 275 injury to the others. It is impossible for the director to be present in all parts of the playground at once or to hear all that is said. The conduct and language of these children will undoubtedly be better than it would have been on the street, but the playground is usually held responsible for whatever language or conduct occurs there, and this is often a heavy burden if the girls and boys are together. The second year the playgrounds were open in New York City, I was asked to investigate the relations between the boys and girls in the playgrounds where they were not sepa- rated. I first asked the directors if they had noticed any- thing objectionable and they said without exception that they had not. After a brief study, however, I was led to recom- mend that different yards be used for the play of the boys and the girls. In general there is no actual immorality in the playgrounds ; the thing that must be guarded against is suggestive gestures and language, the making of dates, etc. The playground serves as a trysting place. Of course these people would meet else- where if they did not meet on the playground, but the play- ground cannot afford to take its reputation from such actions. One of the first playgrounds in Washington was on an un- fenced reservation in the southeastern part of the city. We kept this open as a playground until about eight o'clock at night, when we took down the apparatus and the director went home. A very nervous woman lived on one side of this playground. She was without children and looked upon the playground as a very undesirable addition to the neighborhood. In her efforts to have it closed, she said that while she was crossing the playground one evening at ten o'clock, she found a young man and woman in immoral relations on the 276 Practical Conduct of Play playground itself. She said she considered this a sufficient reason for the discontinuance of the playground. The fact is that sex temptations are always present wher- ever boys and girls in the teens meet together. However, it must be remembered that the danger is not from the boys and girls playing together. I think that it is a good thing at times for them to do so. The loafing together is infinitely more dangerous. The best receipt that can be offered, if there are loose boys and girls in a playground who may not be excluded, is to keep them busy. Perhaps the greatest safe- guard against improper language or conduct on the play- grounds is to get the mothers to attend. Noise. — It is the noise of the playground that causes the most complaint. There are always nervous people who live near by. There are childless people who disHke children, and there are sick people to whom any kind of noise is an irritation. If the playground is in the park, at a distance from homes, the noise will not cause much annoyance, but if it is in the midst of a residence section, it is sure to bother some one. In a number of cases, there has been an effort on the part of resi- dents of the immediate neighborhood to have the playground moved for these reasons, and there is frequently opposition, on the part of real-estate men, to locating a playground in the section in which they are interested. This applies especially to the school playground and the small municipal playground which occupies only a part of a square and has residences adjacent to it. The criticism is a natural one, and it devolves upon the play organizer to see that the neighbors are not un- duly annoyed by missiles thrown or batted, or by unnecessary noise. It is no easy matter to keep five or six hundred chil- dren, who are wildly excited over a match game of baseball Discipline 277 or basket ball from yelling, but it sometimes has to be done. I once attended a contest in indoor baseball between two rival playgrounds in Washington. The girls were playing a good game, but the score was close, and the enthusiasm was running high. When I reached the ground, a good citizen from across the way was walking up and down across the play- ground and throwing up his hands. I asked him what was the matter with him and he replied, '' This is hell." It is too bad that there should be people upon whom the sports of children have this effect. But his protests grew so loud and I knew so well the sort of complaint he would send into the District Commissioners that I finally stopped the game. Smoking. — In regard to smoking there is a considerable difference in practice. Some systems make the rule that there shall be no smoking on the playground, and endeavor to keep spectators as well as children from it. This is impossible where the playground is also a pubHc park, and it is difficult anywhere. It undoubtedly tends to keep the adults away. It seems to me desirable that there should be no smoking, but to enforce such a rule always requires determination and per- sistence and often it is not worth the trouble. Whether adults are permitted to smoke or not, children should not be allowed to. Many of the older boys will come at first with cigarettes, but firmness on the part of the director will soon break up the practice. Getting Dirty. — One of the problems with which every playground worker has to deal is that of cleanHness. At first there were children in New York who came to the playgrounds so dirty that the others, especially the girls, did not wish to play with them. It is also noticeable that a child follows a lower standard when he is dirty than he does when 278 Practical Conduct of Play he is clean. He lives down to the subconscious suggestion of his clothing and person, which tells him he is k street boy. Children cannot be expected to keep clean in a playground, but they should not look, when they come in the morning, as though they had rolled in the gutter on the way. In the kindergarten, the industrial section and the library, ordinary cleanliness is necessary in order to protect the property. It is quite possible to overdo this. I have seen playgrounds where the girls came every afternoon in clean white dresses, and the girl who did not wear one felt uncomfortable. This is cer- tainly carrying it too far, as a white dress is apt to be an effec- tive preventive of play, and the custom keeps away children who cannot afford such luxuries. It is a good thing to get the captains to look after their men, to line them up occasionally for an inspection, and to take pride in their appearance. The director may occasionally call attention to the neatness of some child, or appoint him to some position, because he is so " neat." After the habit is once started, it will generally look after itself if indeed it does not go too far and need to be curbed. Impoliteness. — In most cases the idea that politeness applies to play is new to the children. To them poHteness is a sort of Sunday suit which is to be put on for the parlor and the schoolroom. Yet if courtesy is ever to get in deep enough to seem more than the assumed garment of the savage, it must be wrought into habit in play. The English playgrounds train the English gentleman. The American playgrounds should train the American gentleman. Politeness is very effectively taught in play. One can often recognize the children who have been to a kinder- garten in a down-town section by their treatment of each Discipline 279 other. The children are apt to think that politeness has to do with saying " good night " and " good morning " and " thank you " and " please " but that it has nothing to do with the common relationships of Hfe. PoHteness is taught in the playground in part by the imitation of the teacher and in part by precept. The director should take pains to be polite to the children. He must insist on politeness to himself as a necessary condition of his being obeyed. In all games and contests he must require poKteness to opponents as a part of sportsmanship and one of the necessary conditions of any competition. In the same way, he must enforce politeness to all officials by the penalty of instant disquali- fication or exclusion from the game. KINDS OF PUNISHMENTS In actual fact the playground director is not so helpless in the presence of disorder and disobedience as he sometimes appears at first sight. By far the commonest forms of pun- ishment are to exclude the disorderly child from the ground or from teams and contests. The exclusion, especially from an unfenced ground, is difficult to enforce, but the children seldom disobey. The exclusion from teams and contests is easily enforced, and is often a severe punishment. I have known children to cry for hours and promise full obedience thereafter, if they were reinstated. The director may always visit the parents of a disorderly child, or write them a note. They are generally willing to help. If they come to the playgrounds, their mere presence tends to keep down objectionable language and conduct. In school playgrounds, the janitor is often helpful. He usually knows the children better than the director does. 28o Practical Conduct of Play They are accustomed to his authority, and hesitate to get into conflict with him. Still his discipline is often of the worst kind and tends to keep the children away. He is apt to be under a separate department of the school administration, and as he often does not care for the playground, since it means more work for him, he sometimes makes trouble and always needs to be handled with tact. If the director chooses, he may be appointed a special poHce officer and have the power of making arrests. This gives him a certain protection against rowdies, as resistance to an officer is a serious offense. But if the police officials are willing to furnish the necessary protection, it is usually better to rely on them. However, there are places where it is advisable for the director to have the power of arrest and the personal protection that is offered by an official star. In each of the Chicago playgrounds two policemen are stationed, but it is not certain that they have been much help. However, it is certainly necessary for the playground authori- ties to keep in close touch with the police, and to call on them in difficult situations, such as tournaments, etc. In case there is a chronic source of irritation in any play- ground, the director should inform the playground office about it, and this condition should be dealt with from there. My instructions to the play leaders in Washington were, " If any one makes trouble by destructive conduct or insulting language, report the case at once to the office with the nature of the offense and the address of the offender." At one time we attempted to make a rule that the large boys should use the municipal playgrounds, where there was more room, thus leaving the school playgrounds to the girls and the little children. This seemed necessary, because there Discipline 281 was not room enough for the games of these large boys, and a dozen of them practically preempted the yard to the exclusion of eight or ten times as many small children. But these boys objected to exclusion and sometimes attempted to take revenge on the teacher. In one case they climbed on the high brick wall that surrounded the playground, threw in sticks and stones, and yelled and jeered at the teacher. When she was going home at night, they lay in wait for her with pieces of melon and other soft and juicy things. These boys were summoned before the juvenile court and j&ned five dollars apiece. We never had any more trouble from them. The first few days that the playground is open are usually the most difficult. The children are unknown, and they feel irresponsible on that account. It is often wise to have a policeman present until everything gets into smooth running order. Another period which is apt to be difficult in an un- fenced playground in certain sections is just at noon or at night when working boys or girls are dismissed from neighbor- ing factories and flock over to the playground. They may come in large numbers. They are largely unknown and conse- quently feel irresponsible. It is often desirable to have a policeman present at such times. The unfenced ground is more difficult to discipline than the one that is inclosed, because of the easy escape of the wrong- doer, and because street conduct does not seem inappropriate on a playground which is little more than an open space. All forms of disorder, however, are growing less from year to year as the playground becomes less of a novelty and the children come to understand what is expected. BIBLIOGRAPHY Alumni of the Boston Normal School of Gymnastics. (Carrie A. Harper, G. H. Ellis.) One Hundred and Fifty Gymnastic Games. Boston, 1902. $1.25. American Sports Publishing Co. Spalding' s Athletic Library. $.10 each. Angell, Emmett Dunn. Play. Comprising Games for the Kinder- garten, Playground, Schoolroom, and College. 90 p. Little, Brown and Co., 1910. $1.50. Baedenkoff, T. M. Portable Shower Baths; A New Departure in Municipal Bath Houses. Issued by the Free Public Bath Conmiis- sion, Baltimore, Md., 1911. Free. Bancroft, Jessie B. Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium. 456 p. Macmillan, 1909. $1.50. Boy Scouts of America. Boy Scouts^ Official Manual. 400 p. Doubleday, 1911. $.25. Scout Masters^ Official Manual. 352 p. Doubleday, 1914. $.50. Bryant, Sarah Cone. Stories to Tell Children. Houghton, 1907. $1.00. Burchenal, Elizabeth. Dances of the People. Schirmer. Paper, $1.50; cloth, $2.50. Folk Dances and Singing Games. 92 p. Schirmer, 1910. $1.50. May Day Celebrations. 14 p. Russell Sage Foundation, 19 10. $.05. Burchenal, Elizabeth, and Crampton, C. Ward. Folk Dance Music. 54 p. Schirmer, 1908. Paper, $1.00; cloth, $2.00. Camp Fire Girls of America. Camp Fire Girls^ Manual. $.25. Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. List of Good Stories to Tell Children under Twelve Years of Age. $.05. Cary, C. p. Plays and Games for Schools. Madison, Wis., 191 1. Chubb, Percival, and associates. Festivals and Plays in Schools and Elsewhere. 403 p. Illus. Harper, 1912. $2.00. 283 284 Practical Conduct of Play Crampton, C. Ward. Folk Dance Book. 81 p. Barnes, 1910. $1.50. Crawford, Caroline. Folk Dances and Games. 82 p. Barnes, 1909. $1.50. Curtis, Henry S. Education Through Play. 359 pp. lUus. Mac- millan, 1914. $1.25. Play and Recreation in the Open Country. 265 p. Illus. Ginn, 1914. $1.16. Davis, Michael M., Jr. Exploitation of Pleasure. 61 p. Russell Sage Foundation, 191 1. $.10. Drama League of America. Plays for Amateur Acting. Chicago, 1913. $.25. Dudley, Gertrude, and Kellor, Frances A. Athletic Games for Women. 268 p. Holt, 1909. $1.25. GuLiCK, Luther Halsey. Folk Dancing. 26 p. Russell Sage Founda- tion, 1912. $.05. Healthful Art of Dancing. 237 p. Illus. Doubleday, 1910. $1.40. Hanmer, Lee F. Independence Day Legislation and Celebration Sugges- tions. 24 p. Russell Sage Foundation, 1913. $.10.. Hemenway, Herbert D. How to Make School Gardens. 107 p. Illus. Doubleday, 1903. $1.00. Hofer, Mari R. Children's Singing Games — Old and New. 42 p. Flanagan, 1901. $.50. Popular Folk Games and Dances. 56 p. Flanagan, 1907. $.75. Johnson, Clifton, Editor. Arabian Nights' Entertainment. 298 p. Macmillan, 1905. $.25. Johnson, George E. Education by Plays and Games. 234 p. Ginn, 1907. $.90. Langdon, William Chauncy. Celebrating the Fourth of July by Means of Pageantry. 55 p. Russell Sage Foundation, 191 2. $.15. Lee, Joseph. Constructive and Preventive Philanthropy. New York, 1902. $1.00. Home Playground. Russell Sage Foundation, Publication No. 14. New York. How to Start and Organize Playgrounds. The Playground, Vol. V, No. 4. $.25. Play and Playgrounds. American Civic Association, Leaflet No. 11. Bibliography 285 Lelajstd, Arthur, and Leland, Lorna Higbee. Playground Technique and Playcraft. 284 p. Bassette, 1909. $2.50. Lincoln, Jeanette E. C. Festival Book. 74 p. Barnes, 1912. $1.50. Mero, Everett B. American Playgrounds. 270 p. Baker, 1908. $2.00. Public Celebrations in Boston. Citizens' Public Celebration Association. Boston, Mass. $.10. Miller, Louise Klein. Children's Gardens. 235 p. Appleton, 1910. $1.20. Parsons, Henry Griscom. Children's Gardens for Pleasure, Health and Education. 226 p. Sturgis, 1910. $1.00. Partridge, E. N., and Partridge, G. E. Story Telling in School and Home. 323 p. lUus. Sturgis, 191 1. $1.25. Perry, Clarence Arthur. Wider Use of the School Plant. 423 p. Survey Associates, New York, 19 10, $1.25. Playground and Recreation Association of America. Athletic Badge Test for Boys. Pamphlet No. 105 A. $.05. Athletic Badge Test for Girls. Pamphlet No. 121 A. $.05. Proceedings 1907-1913. Vol. I-VII. Raycroft, Joseph E. Construction and Administration of Swimming Pools. The Play ground, Vol. Vll,Yi./\.i'j~^2>?>- New York City, 19 14. Stecher, William A, Games and Dances. 165 p. McVey, 1912. $1.25. Ward, Edward J. The Social Center. 359 p. Appleton, 19 13. $1.50. Wyche, Richard T. Some Great Stories and How to Tell Them. 181 p. Newson, 1910. $1.00. APPENDIX I A PLAYGROUND AND RECREATION ASSOCIATION How to Organize it and What it Should Do. — Perhaps the chief secret of the marvelous social progress of the last decade has been organization. In many lines, a development that ordinarily represents the slow growth of centuries has been concentrated into less than a dozen years ; and in most cases this new start has followed the organization of some asso- ciation, which took as its especial field the promotion of this idea. As the old adage says, in union there is strength. If twenty-five people will stand together and work unitedly for almost any social movement at the present time, they will carry it over the indifference of a hundred thousand. The rapid development of the play movement in this country followed immediately after the organization of the Playground Asso- ciation of America, in 1906, and the same is apt to be the case in the individual cities. There were in 19 14 one hundred twenty-five cities that had playground associations. Very often the playgrounds have been begun by a committee of the federated women's clubs or by a committee of the Civic Club or some other similar committee. A committee is never as effective as an association for the reason that the body of which it is a committee has various enterprises to carry on and it cannot give its entire time and efforts to recreation. A committee can seldom if ever get as strong people as an asso- ciation and it does not seem as important even to its own members. 287 288 Practical Conduct of Play How to Organize. — It is customary to launch the asso- ciation at a public mass meeting that is called for the pur- pose. In order to secure a crowd it will be necessary to have some well-known man speak, and it is generally best to show pictures of playgrounds in other cities. It will often be possible to get a field secretary of the Playground and Rec- reation Association of America to come for a week before and help in the creating of interest and arranging the meeting. Whoever is selected to assist in forming the association should be on the ground for two or three days before, if possible, in order that he may assist in setting up the meeting and creating interest. It is difficult to get people to attend a mass meeting to or- ganize a new association, and this should be realized in the first place. It is essential that the right people be there, but numbers are not essential. The meeting must be fully adver- tised in the papers. Strategic people must be called up on the telephone. If there is to be no effort to raise the money at the meeting, it may be better not to try to have many people present, because there probably will not be a large audience in any case, and a mass meeting of fifty people seems to indicate a lack of interest. The promoters must not be discouraged by a small attendance. Some of the most suc- cessful associations in the country were organized at very small meetings. In the organization, there are two methods that have been followed successfully; the one is to have a mass meet- ing to consider the matter. Let the subject be forcibly presented, have discussion from the floor, and finally vote as to whether or not an association is to be formed. This will almost uniformly be favorable, and a committee Appendix I 289 should be appointed to nominate the ofhcers and another to draw up a constitution, these committees to report to a second meeting, the dates for which will be set at the time. Theoretically this is the proper way, but practically it is difficult to get people out to two meetings for the purpose of organizing. The first meeting may secure the people, but they will almost uniformly stay away from the second, as they will regard this as a mere matter of detail. Conse- quently it is often wise to have the whole meeting set up in advance, by which I mean that the nominating committee and the committee on constitution should be appointed several days beforehand and have a constitution and a list of officers ready to report. The meeting should now proceed as before until after the motion to organize an association. At this point one of the promoters should rise and move that the chair appoint a committee on constitution and a similar committee on nominations for the offices. The chair then names the committees that have been already selected, ex- plaining at the time that, anticipating this action, he had already asked them to prepare a preliminary report. If any opposition should develop or for any reason it should seem wise, the constitution may be reported as a provisional con- stitution and the officers as temporary officers to serve until a permanent constitution is drafted and permanent officers elected. The chair should call for other nominations to the board of directors from the floor, and the number should be left incomplete for this purpose. Ofttimes the chairman of each committee now moves the adoption of his own report. This prevents what is sometimes an awkward delay, though it is better to have some one else primed beforehand to make these motions promptly. 290 Practical Conduct of Play OFFICERS OF THE ASSOCIATION The President. — The officers of the association, including the board of directors, are apt to be the association in actual fact, and great care must be exercised in their selection. The president and secretary are all important, and the city must be gone over with a microscope to find the right people. The president must be a person of influence whose name commands respect and confidence, but it is suicidal to select a president, because of his prominence or wealth, who is not willing to give his time and thought to it. It is far better to select some young man who is less busy. The leader- ship in modern social movements often proves the easy stepping stone into political life, but of course no one should be selected who will accept for that reason. The best possible president is some influential business or professional man who has retired or who has such ample assistance that he is not overbusy. It is absolutely essential that he be interested and willing to work. It is not wise to try to persuade him to accept the position by saying that he will not have anything to do. The opportunity which it offers for service should be emphasized instead. The Secretary. — The secretary is nearly or quite as im- portant as the president as a rule, and may be much more so. The president must represent the association with the city government and the people of the city. He consequently must be well known and influential. The secretary is usually the connecting link between the association and the work actually attempted. He or she must be both interested and informed on the work to be undertaken. He also must be able to give time. In any well-established work the secretary Appendix I 291 is often the supervisor of the playgrounds, just as the superin- tendent of schools is apt to be the secretary of the school board. Even where he is not the supervisor, the secretary is sometimes paid, as the position is likely to involve consider- able work in any active association. Where the secretary is paid, it may be permissible to choose a very busy man or woman for president, and to leave all the detail matters to the secretary. The Treasurer. — The treasurer should logically be the president or at least an influential member of some prominent bank. The treasurer should always be a member and gener- ally the chairman of the finance committee, though this does not mean necessarily that he should raise the money. The Vice Presidents. — The only place where it is safe to elect people on account of their position or influence, who will not work, is to a vice presidency or to an honorary office of some kind. It is often good policy to elect the mayor of the town first vice president, if he is interested, but at least one vice president should be the second choice for president so that he may preside if for any reason the president cannot be present. The Board of Directors. — The play movement is properly a pubhc movement, and soon becomes so everywhere. The board of directors should represent all classes of citizens and all the more prominent public bodies, such as the city council or commission, the board of education, the park board, the chamber of commerce, the federated women's clubs, the labor unions, etc. Work of the Nominating Committee. — The Nominating Committee must find out in the first place from the Committee on Constitution what officers are to be elected. Then the 292 Practical Conduct of Play city should be gone over carefully for the right people and their acceptance should be secured before the meeting at which they are to be elected. The board should not be complete, in order that others may be nominated from the floor at the mass meeting or new discoveries may be included. It does not do to come to a public meeting with a paper board of directors. It is generally wise to get the board of directors together either just before or just after the organization meeting in order to discuss any matter that requires immediate attention. The Constitution. — ^The following constitution is given, not as a perfect document at all, but as a workable one. It will need to be made over and added to more or less in each place to make it fit local needs. PROVISIONAL CONSTITUTION AND BY-LAWS FOR THE — PLAYGROUND AND RECREATION ASSOCIATION ARTICLE I Name The name of this Association shall be Playground and Recrea- tion Association. ARTICLE II Purpose The purpose of this Association shall be to promote wholesome play and recreation for the children and adults of , in pursuance of which it will seek to secure (i) adequate and appropriate yards in connection with all schools, and the organization of play at all suitable times thereon; (2) the use of school buildings as social centers for the people of the neighborhood, and (3) the provision of adequate facilities for ath- letics, swimming, and other forms of physical and social recreation for the community, in accordance with a comprehensive plan for the city. Appendix I 293 ARTICLE III Officers Sec. I. The officers of this Association shall be a president, first and second and third vice president, treasurer, secretary, and a board of directors of twenty-one members. Sec. 2. The officers of the Association shall be elected at the annual meeting of the Association. Sec. 3. All officers of the Association, except the board of directors, shall hold their positions for one year. The board of directors shall be elected for three years, but of the members of the first board one third shall hold ofiice one year, one third for two years, and one third for three years, those to hold the longer or shorter period being determined by lot. ARTICLE IV The duties of the officers shall be such as ordinarily pertain to these positions. ARTICLE V Sec. I. Membership in this Association shall be of four kinds: honorary, active, sustaining, and founder membership. Sec. 2. Honorary members shall be such persons as are elected to this position by the board of directors. Sec. 3. Active members shall be such persons as contribute annually from one to ten dollars to the Association. Sec. 4. Sustaining members shaU be such persons as contribute annually from ten to one hundred dollars to the Association. Sec. 5. Founder members shall be such persons as contribute one hundred dollars or more to the Association. Sec. 6. All members shall have the right to vote and hold office in the Association. ARTICLE VI Meetings Sec, I. The annual meeting of the Association shall be held at eight o'clock on the second Thursday of January of each year, unless a different date shall hereafter be decided upon by the board of directors. 294 Practical Conduct of Play Sec. 2. Notice of annual meetings shall be sent to all the papers of the city at least one week before the meeting takes place. Sec. 3. Fifteen shall constitute a quorum at the annual meeting. ARTICLE VII Board of Directors Sec. I . The board of directors shall be the general executive body of the Association, and shall have charge between annual meetings of all its affairs. Sec. 2. The officers of the Association shall be ex-officio officers of the board of directors. Sec. 3. The board of directors shall meet at 4.30 p.m. on the second Thursday of each month, unless a different time shall hereafter be deter- mined upon. Sec. 4. Seven shall constitute a quorum of the board of directors. Sec. 5. The supervisor of playgrounds shall be an ex-officio, but an uncounted and non-voting member of the board of directors. Sec. 6. Notice shall be sent to each member at least four days before the monthly meeting of the board. Sec. 7. The board of directors shall have power to fill any vacancies on the board or among the officers of the Association. ARTICLE VIII The Expenditure oe Funds Sec. I. The funds of the Association shall be deposited in some reHable bank. Sec. 2. The funds of the Association shall not be expended except on the order of the board of directors. Sec. 3. The treasurer shall keep an account of the general funds and also of such individual funds as may be contributed for specific purposes. Sec. 4. So far as possible all payments shall be made by check. ARTICLE IX Committees Sec. I. The committees of the Association shall be an executive committee, a finance committee, a nominating committee, a trades Appendix I 295 union committee, a woman's club committee, a chamber of commerce committee, and such other committees as hereafter seem necessary. Sec. 2. Unless otherwise specified, all committees shall be appointed by the president of the Association. Sec. 3. So far as possible the chairman of all committees shall be chosen from the board of directors. Sec. 4. The executive and finance committees shall each consist of five members. Other committees may have any number of members. Sec. 5. The president and secretary shall be ex-officio and counted members of the executive committee. ARTICLE X Duties of Committees Sec. I . The executive committee between the meetings of the board of directors, shall exercise all the functions of the board of directors. Sec. 2. The finance committee shall, in consultation with the presi- dent, secretary, and treasurer, make up a budget of the necessary ex- penses for each year, and organize the means to secure the necessary funds. Sec. 3. The chamber of commerce, women's club and trades imion committees shall seek to secure the cooperation of these respective bodies in the plans of the Association. Sec. 4. The nomination committee shall examine into the qualifica- tions of applicants for positions on the playgrounds, so far as they are employed by the Association, and recommend to the board. It shall also nominate the ofi&cers of the Association at each annual meeting. ARTICLE XI Amendments This constitution may be amended by a two-thirds vote of those present at any annual meeting, or by a unanimous vote of those present at any regular meeting of the board of directors, provided that notice of the change shall have been sent to the members of the board, at least ten days before the changes may be voted upon. 296 Practical Conduct of Play If the members of the association are to be kept interested, they must be given something to do. Every member of the board should be on some committee, and on a committee with some definite task to perform. WHAT WORK SHOULD A PLAYGROUND ASSOCIATION UNDERTAKE? It seems to me that, on the whole, the playground associa- tions have not always well understood their legitimate task and have dissipated their efforts in doing things that did not legitimately belong to them. The Playground Survey. — The first legitimate under- taking of a playground association is to study its field, or in other words, to make a survey of the recreational facilities of the town. No system of playgrounds can be wisely planned unless the promoters know where the children are located and what grounds are available. The present activities of the children, without playgrounds, and the result in sickness, lack of physical development, and juvenile delinquency are apt to be the most important facts. However, in the past it has been exceedingly difficult to secure the money for a social survey, because there were so few people who realized the need of such a study. The public is coming pretty generally to understand the need at present, and it will not be so difficult hereafter. The Bureau of Surveys of the Russell Sage Foundation has had requests from more than a hundred cities to have social surveys made for them. In general, the expense of a survey will probably have to be borne through a few large subscriptions rather than many small ones. A survey can be made by local people at very little expense, but unless there is some one of experience and training to direct it, it Appendix I 297 is to be feared that it will necessarily be superficial and perhaps misleading. It may be possible, however, for the Playground and Recreation Association of America to assist in such a survey, and there are a good many facts that bear on the ques- tion that are already in the possession of the city and that oiily need to be collected. It should be possible in this way to secure the number of children in the city and their ages from the school census, the size of the school yards from the school architect, and the location of public property from the various public departments. The records of the juvenile court, show- ing the causes for which children are arrested, and the sections of the city where most of these arrests are made, should also be helpful. The need of a survey may not even yet be evident to all, but I know of one association which spent almost "its entire effort for a series of years in trying to purchase a particular piece of land as a playground. During all this time there were several other much more suitable pieces of land that belonged to the city and that were available and idle. Making a Plan. — A proper playground system cannot be created without a plan any better than a house can be built without a design. We have a new profession of city planning, and many cities are now spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to correct the haphazard and inappropriate arrange- ment of their streets, railroads, and public buildings. The play movement is now in its first stages, and it is still possible to plan a play system so it will cover the city and reach the children. Nearly all city plans have been made under the direction of private organizations. It is almost impossible in most cities to appropriate public money for this purpose. It may not be wise for a playground association with very 298 Practical Conduct of Play limited funds to make an elaborate plan that it may not hope to carry out, but certainly it ought to have a good general idea of how many and what sort of playgrounds and athletic fields are needed by the city ; which school grounds should be used ; which should be enlarged ; what ball fields, swimming pools, and recreation buildings are needed and where. Until it has seen this vision and has made the city see it more or less, it is not ready to turn the movement over to the city. The Education of the Public. — ^The chief work of a play- ground association should always be the education of the public to demand and support the playgrounds. It is well- nigh impossible to secure and maintain an adequate play system from private sources. If the association is to be really successful, it must always make the public want the playgrounds. There are a great many ways through which this education may be carried on, through the survey, through articles and pictures in the papers, through exhibitions, play festivals, public lectures, banquets, and educational campaigns, — the latter of which combines more or less all the other methods, and is much the most effective in rapidly securing the enthusiasm of the public. From one half to nine tenths of all the efforts of a playground association should be devoted to this end, and for this purpose no occasion of publicity should be wasted. The playground association must first see its vision and then make the city see it. The campaign should always result both in greatly increasing the mem- bership of the association, and in bringing new and in- fluential men upon its board of directors. It is absolutely necessary that an association should set itself a good-sized task and keep at it persistently if it is to keep the interest of people who are busy and influential. Appendix I 299 Guiding the Play Movement. — There are many who seem to think that the playground association should retire from the field as soon as the city begins to furnish the funds ; but, in many ways, this is the time when the association is most needed. It must not be taken for granted that any sort of playground will be an advantage to the city and the move- ment. This is far from being the case. The worst thing that can happen to a play movement or the children of a city is to have an unmanaged or mismanaged playground. The playground that is dominated by the corner gang and that exhibits the ideals of young loafers and bullies, where boys and girls may meet unchaperoned, will probably be the most fruitful source of delinquency in the city. The playground association must see that the playgrounds are properly managed and that competent people are placed in charge. In a great many cases the money has been turned over to the playground association to administer or the leaders of the association are made into an official city commission. This is nearly always a wise move for the city to make in the be- ginning, as it secures to the city interested and intelligent direction of the movement by those who already understand the general situation. It would be a great advantage if there might be a similar private organization behind every city de- partment that would examine into its work and prevent graft or inefficiency. The Public Education Association is doing a work somewhat similar to this in a number of cities. We greatly need at the present some kind of private associa- tion behind the poUce department in each of our cities. But a private organization is especially needed behind a new de- partment which is just getting started. To turn the move- ment over to city officials who are not interested^ and who do 300 Practical Conduct of Play not understand what is to be done, without any one's keeping a guiding hand on the tiller, is almost sure to run it on the rocks. Then too there is scarcely a city in the country that has more than a beginning of a play system as yet. The as- sociation must stimulate development until the needs of the city are met. Maintaining Playgrounds. — Besides studying the field and educating the people, it is nearly always necessary and best for the association also to maintain one or more playgrounds in the beginning. The advice that is usually given is to start one or two playgrounds, but it is little more difficult in most cities to raise ten thousand dollars for ten playgrounds than it is one thousand dollars for one playground, and there is reason to be- lieve that the ten playgrounds will be more successful than the one. It is difficult to enlist the cooperation of influential people to do a little piece of work, while a large task always appeals to large ability. The most important element in the success of the play system is always the supervisor, and no association would furnish a general supervisor for a single playground. The campaign for a single playground will not stir the city or secure the newspaper publicity as the larger campaign will. However, the association must not attempt to operate more playgrounds than it can operate properly. Playground associations are apt to conceive of the maintain- ing of playgrounds as their chief function, in the belief that if they start the movement, the city will inevitably take it over. There are not a few associations that have been doing this for fifteen years or so, and find themselves at present nearly where they were in the beginning. There are a great many other associations that have carried on a few playgrounds for a number of years and then turned them over to a city without Appendix I 301 any plan for future developments or any established ideals of efficiency. The city was still nearly as ignorant of the movement and its significance as it was in the beginning. It took over the playgrounds because other cities were doing it, and mismanaged them because it did not understand what the movement was. It is always dangerous for the city to undertake a movement before it understands what it is. A well-conducted playground will educate its own neighbor- hood, but it will take a number of years for it to educate a city. The playgrounds that are being conducted by the va- rious private associations are less effective in educating the city to support the movement than the promoters usually hope, for a number of reasons. In the first place, playgrounds are apt to be located in foreign quarters where the influential people of the city do not live. They can seldom be induced to visit these playgrounds. In Washington, I always found at first that the public did not know what we were doing. I was accustomed to send personal letters to a considerable number of influential people inviting them to visit the play- grounds, but I never knew of more than one or two of them to come. We tried repeatedly to get the congressional com- mittee that made the appropriations to go with us in auto- mobiles which we would furnish, but without success. Besides the fact that the playground seldom reaches the influential people directly, it has other limitations as a means of public education. The playground association usually has very little money. It often does not own the ground. It is able to put up only a very cheap and temporary equipment. It cannot afford to fence its temporary grounds or to put in shower baths or toilets or wading or swimming pools. Such a playground can never be a great success, and it may be a 302 Practical Conduct of Play great nuisance. The people who live in the immediate neighborhood are likely to be annoyed, and their protests will be heard above the complacent comment of others who are mildly pleased. It cannot be expected that the ordinary parent in a factory section will realize that the playground is developing the physical strength, grace, health, mental alertness, and social habits in his child. The mother is apt to look upon it as a safe place to send the children to get them out of the way, rather than as a means of fundamental education. An Annual Report. — The association owes it to its constit- uents to give an account of the funds it has administered and what it has done with them. The report of work accomplished is also the proper basis for an appeal for funds the next year. The facts gathered for the report will be valuable material in the education of the public. The report should always show the attendance of the children, and if possible, give pictures of the various activities carried on. APPENDIX II FINANCING A PLAY SYSTEM Cities and the people of the city will buy playgrounds on exactly the same basis that they will buy anything else. When it comes to spending money, we all come from Missouri and have to be shown. Since all public action here rests ultimately on the will of the people, the wise method is nearly the same, whether the money that is sought is in private pockets or in the city treasury. What Facts are Important. — It must be said, in general, that the facts that are most needed to carry on a playground campaign are nowhere obtainable at present in most cities. They can only be secured by a careful study of conditions. We may look at the question from three points of view : from the point of view of the city, from the point of view of the adults, and from the point of view of the children. It would appear that it is worth while for a city to maintain a department of public recreation, because it is just these facil- ities for recreation that are bringing in the people from the rural town and country and causing the city to grow. If the city does not furnish attractive opportunities for recreation, the people take their vacations out of town and spend their savings there, greatly to the financial disadvantage of the city. The statistics gathered in Chicago seem to indicate that an adequate system of playgrounds will reduce the delinquency by nearly one half, thus saving from another bill its own cost, 303 304 Practical Conduct of Play and saving many times as much more from the expense of the adult criminals into whom these delinquents would otherwise graduate. With the increasing appreciation of the value of play, play facilities are coming more and more to be demanded by parents. This new appreciation inevitably gets into the value of the real estate of the city. The furnishing of play and recreation facilities is almost the only bid that a city can make for the loyalty of the children. It may be said that the city is furnishing the schools, but the schools are furnished by the adults for reasons that appeal to adults, not to children. It is by its standing in regard to the newer movements that a city takes rank as a progressive or backward city. It would seem to be economy and good policy alike for the city to fur- nish the playgrounds. The effects of inadequate play facilities upon the adults of the city are not so evident. But the following facts are surely worthy of consideration. Our cities are constantly becoming more and more congested. The number of automobiles is nearly doubling each year. The streets are becoming more and more dangerous as places to play. The children who are playing on the street are slowing up all its traffic, so as to reduce by ten to twenty per cent its efhciency in many quarters. They are putting every truckman, motorman, cabman, and chauffeur on the street and all the parents at home under a nervous strain that our oversensitive city nervous systems can ill afford to bear. It is said that at the rate nervous dis- orders and insanity are increasing in this country, we shall all be inside of insane asylums within three hundred years. There is nothing that is doing more to hasten that time than the street play of the children. Probably the parents nearly always save in toys, street car fares, and soda water at least Appendix II 305 as much as the city puts into the playground. The playground relieves the mother of the care of the older children at certain hours, so that she has more time for her housework and the care of the little ones. But of course it is from the viewpoint of the children that the playgrounds are most important, but it is precisely here that we have the least information. Probably the most disastrous effect of the street play on children is upon the nervous system. City children are more subject to all nervous troubles than country children. Havelock Ellis tells us there is no fourth and usually no third generation for London fam- ilies and that the great cities of England have to be constantly replenished from the country. Can we afford that any child should lead a Hfe that would lead to the extinction of the race if it became general? Perhaps the fundamental reason for the success of country boys in later life is that they acquire in the country a stable nervous system. If there is no attrac- tive place to play out of doors, the children stay in the house more than they otherwise would ; they are consequently more subject to tuberculosis, pneumonia, anaemia, colds, grippe, and all other diseases than children who have built up their phy- sique by a proper amount of open-air play. Children who have spent much time in work or gymnastics are usually awk- ward, while children who have been trained in play are apt to have the grace and the buoyant, elastic step which is always an element in personal charm. It is in play that children get nearly all of their physical strength, and in cities that make no provision for play, the children will be found to have not more than one half to two thirds the physical development that they have in cities where ample provision has been made. It is in their play that children learn to be friends and to get 3o6 Practical Conduct of Play on with others. It is in their play that they acquire that rapidity of judgment that makes much of their practical efficiency in life. The child whose hands and head are full of play does not have time for the vices of idleness : smoking, gambling, stealing, obscenity, and immorality. These facts are the really significant basis for the starting of a play movement, but we have no accurate statistics in regard to them. In a large way, it would seem that they should be self-evident, and they are, in the main, to the thoughtful, but they are far from being so to the general public. The facts that are apt to be actually most effective in promoting the movement are the statistics of other cities and what they are doing. Precedent is no argument, but is very effective in securing action. These facts can be ob- tained from the reports of the Playground and Recreation Association of America. The Need of a Plan. — Before any playground association or body of promoters can wisely go before a city and ask for an appropriation, it must have some plan of what is to be done. The council or commission probably will not have thought much about the subject and will have no very definite ideas of what is to be done if an appropriation is asked for playgrounds without any specifications. Probably that has been the greatest single weakness in the presentation of the movement in the various cities, and it must be said also of most of the plans that have been prepared that they have been lacking in imagination. It is quite as easy, in most cases, to raise privately or to secure an appropriation of ten thousand dollars on a ten thousand dollar plan, as it is to raise five hundred on a five hundred dollar plan. To go before a city and ask for ten thousand dollars for playgrounds Appendix II 307 without any scheme for its expenditure is asking the city to buy its playgrounds " sight unseen " and repose unlimited con- fidence in the promoters. Because playgrounds are a good thing it does not follow that the plans of this or that play- ground association are wise or worth while. An unmanaged or badly managed playground is likely to be worse than no playground at all. Who are the Promoters ? — Perhaps the next most impor- tant element in securing an appropriation, in some ways more important than either of the others, is that the movement shall have the right people behind it — people who are accept- able to the administration and people who have the confi- dence of the citizens. There are many people, especially ones who are not particularly interested, who seldom take the trouble to reason about a new movement, but judge of it mainly by the people who are promoting it. If the money is to be committed to the people who are asking the appropria- tion, their personnel is the only assurance that the city has that the money will not be misspent. To assign an appro- priation for some worthy movement to many a zealous but uninstructed and inefficient band of enthusiasts would be little better than throwing it to the wolves. Women are not as effective as men in securing appropriations from the city as a rule, because in most cities they are not voters, because they are not apt to have political influence, and because, rightly or wrongly, men usually have less confidence in the administrative abiUty of women. If the people who are promoting the appropriation are banded together into a per- manent association, they are Hkely to carry more weight and to receive more consideration than if they are a temporary committee or an unorganized body of citizens. This organi- 3o8 Practical Conduct of Play zation should normally come before the facts are secured or the plan made. Must Educate the People and the City Government. — Having a permanent organization, the necessary facts, and a plan of action, the next move should be to educate the people to the need. Even though the objective point be the city treasury, it is always wise to make this appeal to the people. The city government will not often turn down anything that the people demand and for them to grant anything that the people do not demand may be unwise politically. If the appropriation is granted without the city government or the people knowing much about the movement that is to be supported, it is always a question whether it will do good or evil. If, on the other hand, the people of the city have once seen the vision, the ultimate success of the movement is as- sured, and it is never assured until that time. If the city grants the appropriation, the previous campaign of education will help to make it successful, and if the city does not grant the appropriation, the campaign has put the people into an attitude of mind to contribute liberally toward it. There are two chief ways of educating the public to a movement of this kind, one is through public addresses and the other through the press. The public address that is well reported secures both of these ends. The Appeal to the City Council or Commission. — The promoters will usually be assured beforehand that no appro- priation can be granted, but they should not be deterred by such information. It is worth while to go before the council even if it is certain that no appropriation can be granted. It helps to educate the council and gets them into a state of mind that makes a subsequent appropriation more Hkely, and Appendix II 309 it is an opportunity for good publicity that costs nothing. It also gives the most obvious reason for a personal canvass for funds later. It is always well to have the endorsement of important bodies, such as the Federated Women's Clubs, the Trades Unions, and the Chamber of Commerce, and to have each of these organizations send in a request, asking that the appropriation be made. It is well also to have a representative of each of these organizations at the hearing if possible, and there is usually no difficulty about this. If there is any reasonable expectation that the appropriation may be granted, it is usually wise to have some member of the council pledged beforehand to move to that effect and to have some one else primed to second the motion. Appro- priations are often granted after the playground association has been assured that no appropriation is possible. In order for this appeal to be most effective, it should be presented in the fall before all the money has been assigned to other things, though it is usually possible to get a small appropriation from the contingency fund or some other fund at any time. Cities always have some means to meet emergencies. " Faint heart ne'er won fair lady," or a new appropriation from a city council. The Appeal to the School Board. — The majority of the play movement, so far as the children are concerned, un- doubtedly belongs to the schools, and an appropriation should always be asked of them ; but even if the entire movement is to be placed in the hands of the school board, it is still wise to appeal to the council, as their support is apt to be necessary in order that the school board may get the money. What- ever has been said about the appeal to the council will apply equally well to the appeal to the school board. 3IO Practical Conduct of Play THE FINANCING OF A PLAY SYSTEM FROM PRIVATE SOURCES The playgrounds are becoming a public undertaking, but in the beginning they were nearly always a private under- taking. Probably the city authorities have taken the initia- tive in starting the movement in less than two per cent of our cities. The time of the private financing of a public move- ment of this sort will soon be past, but probably it will be necessary for a decade yet in many American cities. I be- lieve it is a good thing for the movement to be begun in this way, because it thus gathers around it the ones who are in- terested, and they feel responsible to see that it is not mis- managed. When the city takes the playground over, these people still follow it with interest and are not willing that the results of their efforts should be wasted by the incompetence or indifference of city officials. As has been said there is Kttle difference in the general method whether the funds are to be secured from public or private sources. In both cases it is necessary to show the need of the city, to form a representative organization of the citizens, to formulate a plan of action, and then to lay these matters before the people in such a convincing way that they will desire to see them carried out. The details, however, are very different in case the money has to be raised from private sources. A great variety of methods have been employed in the different cities. Entertainments. — A common method in some places has been by holding entertainments of one kind or another. Where the entertainment is given by the playground children, so that it serves as a sort of exhibition of their work, in dra- matics, folk dancing, and athletics, it may be well worth while. Appe7idix II 311 as it serves at the same time as an exhibition for them and an entertainment to the pubKc. But where it is gotten up by the playground association for the purpose, I beheve that it will not be worth while. In the first place the time and efforts are all out of proportion to the returns. In order to secure a " house," it will be necessary for the friends of the cause to sell the tickets, and the people who have bought a ticket will often feel that they have contributed to the cause and should not be asked again. When the returns have been counted, it will often be found that the profits do not amount to more than ten per cent of the proceeds, and it would have been simpler for the performers themselves to have given the money outright. These shows have no value in educating the public to support the play movement, and not infrequently have led to a positive prejudice against it. If, on the other hand, some outside organization wishes to give an entertainment of some kind for the benefit of the playgrounds and the proposed entertainment is of an unobjectionable nature, it may be worth while, if the playground people are not expected to sell the tickets. Of all the entertainments that are being given, the society theatrical that charges a high price for a seat is prob- ably the most successful, and perhaps the baseball game second. Fairs. — Fairs are still more objectionable as a means of supporting the movement. They do nothing in the way of the education of the public, are often felt as an imposition by everybody, and the returns are very small in comparison to the effort required. Often not more than ten per cent, and sometimes considerably less than that, of the gross receipts will be profits. While this has not been true of all fairs, it can be said of them, in general, that they are wasteful and ineffective. 312 Practical Conduct of Play Tag Days. — So far as the writer is aware, tag days were first used as a means of raising money for playgrounds in Dallas, Texas. The day chosen for this first tag day was the 29th of February. The tags were handled by the federated women's clubs of the city, and they were called '' leap-year proposals." The women proposed that the men should sup- port the playgrounds. It brought in some $4500. The tag day in Philadelphia the next year netted about twenty thou- sand dollars, and tag days in Washington have brought in as much as eight or nine thousand dollars. In most cities the tags have been handled by women or girls or else by the school children. I think there is no case on record where men have conducted a tag day. The prices have usually been indefinite, thus allowing any one to contribute any sum he might choose from one cent up , but in Washington the first year, the lower limit was set at ten cents, allowing any one to give any amount he chose above this amount. The second year when buttons were used, there was a different button for each contribution, ranging from ten cents to ten dollars. A tag day is a fairly effective way of raising a sum not ex- ceeding two or three cents per capita for the people of a city. It is an impossible method for raising fifty cents or a dollar per capita. It has certain decided advantages. The ex- pense of running a tag day is very slight. It gets a large number of people to work. If it is only an occasional affair, and is done effectively, it begets a spirit of good will, a sort of carnival spirit of giving. The first year in Washington, it was hard to find any one on the streets without a tag. Every one was jolly and familiar. The canvassers were seldom ever refused, and the whole city was led to talk about the play- Appendix II 313 grounds, as they had never done before. The tag was of plain manila with a green string to tie in the button hole. On it was printed, " I am tagged for the children of Washing- ton," and at the bottom " $10,000 for the children's play- grounds." As an advertisement of the movement, and as a means of raising money in small amounts, tag day has few equals. It should be freely advertised in adyance, so that every one will know what is coming and what the purpose of it is. The easiest way is always to have the children do the canvassing, but there are also certain obvious objections to it. The objections to tag day are quite as easily seen as its ad- vantages, and during the last three or four years, it has not been quite the mode for charitable undertakings. The first objection that is raised is that it is a sort of holdup. A person cannot well refuse to purchase a tag of a woman on the street, and if he does, he makes himself conspicuous by the absence of the tag. If he purchases the tag and puts it in his button hole, he also makes himself conspicuous and seems to label himself like a package of goods, which is scarcely good taste. If the tags sell for the same price, they do not secure contributions from the public in accordance with their ability or interest. If they sell for graded prices, they serve to distinguish on the street the giver of a dollar from the giver of ten cents, which very nearly penaHzes the small giver. If the tags sell for anything that the person may care to give, there is great danger, especially if the tags are handled by children, that not all of the money will be turned in. Tag day, in general, undoubtedly tends to promote general giving and to discourage large giving. It is peculiarly applicable in a community of working people. 314 Practical Conduct of Play There are two serious charges that have been made against it : The first is that it leads girls into familiarity with men on the streets, which is socially dangerous, and the other is that it teaches the children to steal through the uncertainty of the amount received for the tag. These objections will be answered by not employing girls in the canvass, and by having all boys work under a teacher, who will serve as a foreman. In Washington, we had the teachers select six boys who wanted to work and whom they felt were entirely trustworthy from each of the upper grades in the schools. These children were sent out two and two with a bank between them, and the people were asked to put the money directly into the bank rather than give it to the children. A teacher was in charge of the boys who were canvassing in a certain locality. The women took charge of the hotels and clubs. Undoubtedly a tag day that is conducted by the women is the least ob- jectionable. Another strong objection that has been made against tag day, and this is the one that has created the sentiment against it in charitable circles, is that it is unfair to the other charities. Tag day is a drag net that takes in every one, and the next char- ity that comes along finds the floor swept and garnished. If the other charities attempt also to hold tag days, they become a nuisance and the public is prejudiced against charity itself. The most dignified and successful tag day that has been carried on in this country, I believe, is the one conducted by the federated women's clubs of Dallas, Texas. It has been carried on ever since the first year and by the women them- selves. It is for five different charities and nets about five thousand dollars. It has become a regular institution in the city. The women are very resourceful and capable women. Appendix II 315 The inaugural address of the club president in 19 13 was largely a eulogy of tag day and what it has enabled the women to do. I doubt if any other women's club in the country has done more for its city. If the precautions that have been mentioned about using children, and especially girls, are observed in a city where there is a large laboring population and few large givers, tag day may be a Very effective means of enlisting a general interest and support. It is certainly one of the best adver- tisements that a movement can have. It should not, how- ever, be used, as it seems to me, for a movement that does not have a general appeal, as for the orphans' home, which should be supported, if supported at all, by a limited clientele, but may more justly be used for the playgrounds than most movements, because the playgrounds are for all the children. The button is probably better than the tag. The House and Store Tag. — While I was in Washington, we invented a tag for the house and another for the store. It was a large tag ten by fourteen inches in size, on which was printed, " This house (store) is tagged for the children of Washington," and on the bottom '' $10,000 for the children's playgrounds." This tag was hung on the door knobs or in the windows of the houses and set in the windows of the stores. The uniform price of one dollar was charged for each store tag, but some merchants took as many as two hundred. For the house tags the price was fifty cents and up. The business tags were handled by the merchants, the house tags by the women. There were very few refusals, and the number disposed of was limited almost entirely by the number of people available to handle the tags. It is believed that this tag eHminated most of the objectionable features of tag day. 3i6 Practical Conduct of Play It is handled entirely by adults, and the business tag by busi- ness men to business men. No women are asked to stand on the street corner and dispense tags to strange men. The women do not find it objectionable to go around to the houses, and after the interest is once aroused, the people are glad to put a tag in nearly every house. In different cities different inscriptions have been put on these tags. It offers a wonderful opportunity for free advertising, which will set the whole town to talking about the movement at once. It is far more effective than any sort of newspaper publicity in getting the movement before the people. The store tag serves to adver- tise the public spirit of the storekeeper, and is probably worth nearly as much as it costs him. The people will be found to pay close attention to where the tags are placed, and to remark on the public spirit or the absence of it in the owners. In London, Ontario, we used the following tag for the houses. "GOOD CITIZENSHIP PLEDGE" "This house is in- terested in the welfare of the children of London. It will help to support the children's playgrounds." " Membership receipt in the London Playground and Recreation Associa- tion." This tag was printed in black on a green card and was rather of a decoration to a window than otherwise. The house tag is a fairly effective method of raising money and it is one of the most effective methods that has been devised for advertising the movement. It serves in the latter case also to point out the fact that good citizenship denotes a willingness to contribute and to work for the public good, a fact which is not always realized, for to many good citizenship is a neutral idea, meaning merely that the person is law-abiding and honest. The Begging Letter. — One of the simplest and cheapest ways of collecting money is the process letter. The usual Appendix II 317 method is to make up a list of the people of the city who are able to give, or who have been accustomed to give to other charitable undertakings, and to send to these people a letter, stating the needs of the work and asking for a contribution. This letter is sometimes signed in person, but more often by process with a facsimile signature of the president or the finance committee. The top is filled in on the typewriter and except for its perfect execution the letter seems to every one a personal typewritten letter. It is customary to inclose a re- turn envelope for a check. This letter is often followed a little later by another letter a little more personal in tone, or per- haps by a few actual personal letters. Many national move- ments of a social nature are supported in this way. The process letter, although filled in on the typewriter, may be mailed from the post office unsealed with a one-cent stamp, but it may be a question if this is wise, as letters under a penny stamp are apt to be classed as advertising matter and to receive scant attention from busy people. The process letter that is effective in securing funds is nearly always effective, also, in educating the public to the movement, and may be worth its cost, as propaganda, quite apart from any money that may be paid in as the result of it. Memberships in the Playground Association. — Another legitimate source of income is the memberships in the play- ground association. These are usually of different amounts, but the common active membership is usually one dollar. Dollar memberships will not support an association financially in its work, but they serve to give it a wide constituency and thus assure it of a large moral support. These memberships amounted to from two to five thousand dollars a year in Washington, and have been a considerable sum in a number 3i8 Practical Conduct of Play of cities. In Baltimore there was an effort to secure a very large membership at one time by a systematic canvass of the town for that purpose. Logically it would seem as though the private work of a playground association should be sup- ported in this way, and that may well be the case after the first year. These memberships are usually secured through personal or process letters, though it is the custom to consider all contributors to the movement, in whatever way the gifts may be made, as members. These memberships ought to be a permanent fund for experimentation and promotion of the idea in the city. The Paid Canvasser. — Canvassing for money is much like canvassing for a book. There is a certain knack and skill involved. Some are very successful canvassers while others show very small results. In general, however, it is better to do the work through volunteer canvassers than through paid ones, because the ones who have the influence and position to be effective cannot be hired, because the canvassing con- vinces those who canvass and makes them stanch supporters of the movement, and because the public feels that if an association wishes their money, it should be enough interested to come out and ask for it. The mere fact that the canvasser is paid tends to discourage giving. This is not so much, if at all true, in national movements. The Mass Meeting. — One of the most effective methods of raising money is a mass meeting. If the right people come out, and a skillful person is in charge, it is often possible to raise several thousand dollars in a few minutes. In a meeting of this kind there should be a clear and convincing presenta- tion of the objects to be attained and there should be an ef- fort to arouse enthusiasm to the point of action. The great Appendix II 319 difficulty is that most mass meetings for philanthropic pur- poses are apt to be lacking in mass and also in the personnel of those who are able to give. But where the people come out and a skillful person is in charge, a large amount of money may be raised in a very short time. The Personal Canvass. — The most effective way to secure money or concessions or anything else is always the personal canvass. Probably the short-term building campaign used by the Y.M.C.A. in erecting its new buildings is the most effec- tive financial canvass thus far devised. A letter never receives the same attention that a personal word does, and again the personal word receives weight in proportion to the importance of the canvasser, the personal attitude of the prospective giver toward him, and the knowledge of the canvasser of the things to be done. The first thing that is needed here, as in all other methods of raising money, is a clear idea of what is to be done, that the public may not be asked to give to some indefinite purpose. Before the campaign is actually begun a list of several hundred names should be made up, and one or two large preliminary subscriptions should be secured if possible. It is often well to launch the movement at a ban- quet and secure there the agreement of representative men to go out on the canvass. If the banquet is decided on, there should be a determined effort to see both that the right people are there and that there are speakers who are fitted to awake the necessary enthusiasm. The members of the association must grow so enthusiastic that it will become contagious. In a playground campaign, it will seldom be possible to have the thorough organization and large number of can- vassers that are drafted into a Y.M.C.A. campaign, but it should be possible to get a few public- spirited citizens 320 Practical Conduct of Play to subscribe generously, and to go with members of the association to see other public-spirited men of large means. A man who has himself given largely is always the most effective canvasser for a movement, and a man who has not himself made a contribution will find his work very difficult. Also the size of the contribution will be largely de- termined by the weight and standing of the citizen who goes to the prospective giver. Men are usually ashamed to make a small contribution to an influential and wealthy person. It is said that when they wished to raise a large amount at the Biltmore church, they were accustomed to ask Mr. Vander- bilt to pass the plate. It is always an advantage for two or three canvassers to go together, as this helps to keep up courage and puts the canvassers in the majority. So far as possible, men should see others of the same set to which they belong. It may be only the influential citizen who can gain access to certain large financiers, and wealthy men often depend on the judgment of certain others in philanthropic affairs. The canvassers should arrange, so far as possible, to take luncheon together each day. This serves to keep up courage and stir emulation. People usually dread to solicit, but nearly every one who has been out in this way with two or three others has found the work both easy and pleasant. The returns should be published in the papers each day, and there should be an effort to clear off all the large givers during the first two or three days. This leaves the coast free for other methods with the small givers and it is also much more effective. A city cannot be kept at the point of enthusiasm very long. When the proper degree of enthusiasm is reached through the press and public addresses, that is the time to secure the funds, and any delay will mean decreased returns. The Appendix II 321 shorter the time of the canvass, the greater the enthusiasm and the more successful it is Hkely to be. Canvassing Teams. — It is sometimes wise to have canvass- ing teams and to stimulate rivalry among them. Also a rivalry between different professions, as the lawyers and doctors, may be worth while. It is very desirable that there should be on each canvassing committee some one who knows about the work and who can answer questions and criticisms. There is often a tendency to put this work on committees of women, but this is not to be advised except for the small amounts. Men do not, as a rule, give as largely to women as to men. Women are usually more timid about asking for large sums, and they will often secure a subscription of ten dollars from a man who should have given a hundred, and who would have given a hundred, if the right man had gone to him. However, the number of willing canvassers is often limited, and it is necessary to use the material that is at hand. The Canvass for a Particular Playground. — Every one feels to-day that the playgrounds should be supported by the public, that it is something of an imposition to ask for them to be sup- ported by contributions. In actual fact, of course, it does not cost any more to support them in the oneway than it does in the other, if the contributions can only be equally well distributed. The one case where this comes very near being true, is where a school playground is started and the patrons of the school are got to stand the expense. All through the South all sorts of things are constantly being purchased for the schools in this way, from stereopticons to playground equipment. If a subscription can be started at a good-sized meeting of the school patrons or if a committee can be got to call on the patrons of any school, the money can usually be secured for 322 Practical Conduct of Play the equipment and maintenance of the playground with very little trouble. Entertainments and Contributions by School Children. — The entertainment that is given by the playground association usually will not be worth while. On the other hand the enter- tainment that is given by a school to raise money for a play- ground for the school is nearly always worth while. Our public schools have too few social occasions, and anything that brings the parents, teachers, and pupils together in a social way is likely to be valuable. The spirit of this age that is coming in is a spirit of service. Almost the only way that children can be trained in this spirit is by doing something for the common welfare. The one thing which they are likely to appreciate most is in providing play facilities for the school. This may not seem very unselfish, but it is not in- dividual selfishness at any rate, and it is the easiest way out from a selfishness that is purely individual. The school grounds of Indianapolis were first equipped in this way. Besides the entertainments, we were accustomed in Wash- ington to distribute to all of the children small brown envelopes on which was written, " Contributions for School Play- grounds." These the children took home and brought back on a designated day either with a contribution or without, as they or their parents determined. We used to receive from one to four thousand dollars a year from this source, and more than half of all the school playgrounds of Washington were equipped in one or the other of these two ways. The children are more loyal to a playground, when they have helped to create it. Contributions of Time, Service, and Equipment. — It is oft- times much easier to get contributions of time, service, or Appejidix II 323 equipment than it is of money. In some cities, in the begin- ning, a full corps of directors have volunteered to serve without pay. At some of the playgrounds in Washington, besides the paid director, we had as many as five or six volunteer workers. The merchants freely contributed almost anything we asked for in the way of toys, balls, bats, or other equipment. In St. Louis, in the beginning, the carpenters' union built the playground houses and the plasterers plastered them free of cost. The mothers in the neighborhood of some of the play- grounds volunteered to wash the towels for the baths. The labor unions are nearly always willing to contribute service, if they are approached on the matter. This is always advis- able, as it not only saves money, but it secures their general cooperation and political support. In return they are apt to demand that the work on the playgrounds shall be done by union men, so far as it is union work. When the playgrounds were first begun in Minneapolis, the merchants, lumbermen, and contractors contributed nearly everything that was needed for the equipment of the play- grounds. In Pittsburgh and St. Louis free transportation was furnished the playground children to contests and on excursions by the street car companies. In Pittsburgh, they have a flower day once a week on which bouquets are presented to every child. These are contrib- uted by the florists and by individuals from their own private flower beds. Contributions of Playgrounds, Field Houses, or Swimming Pools. — Seventy playgrounds and a number of field houses and swimming pools were given by private individuals to our cities last year. More and more the current of public 324 Practical Conduct of Play giving is being accelerated and more and more it is turn- ing into social channels. There are apt to be in each city certain individuals who like to be public benefactors. A playground, a field house, or a swimming pool will make a worthy memorial that will be much more decorative and quite as useful as a tombstone. And there are apt to be one or more individuals in every city, who will be glad to make such a gift, if the matter is once brought to their attention. Any of these gifts has a popular appeal that few other gifts may have. Publicity. — In order to keep up the enthusiasm and to give the public the knowledge that is needed for any wise giving, it is necessary to arrange for full publicity, both of the progress of the campaign and of the facts affecting its success. In a good many cases regular pubHcity men are employed. In the campaigns of the Y.M.C.A. certain men often go from city to city, following the different campaigns. They thus become expert in this especial kind of news and are able to discriminate as to what is important and to handle the press with very little coaching. So far as possible, editors of all the papers should be seen by a representative group of people before the campaign is begun and their interest and cooperation enlisted. They are usually willing to cooperate and will often publish the news on the front page. If no good publicity man is available or funds are scarce, it is generally best for some member of the association to prepare the material for the papers himself, for the reason that the ordinary re- porter does not understand what is really important, and often fills much space with what has little value for the move- ment, and which may do positive harm by distracting the attention from the essential things. It is never difficult at Appendix II 325 the present time either to get the publicity that is needed or to raise the necessary funds, if a few influential people will give a few days to it. Results of the Campaign. — I am inclined to think that a money-raising campaign for the playgrounds is one of the best things that can happen to the movement. It always brings the play question forcibly before the people, and those who have given are always more interested afterwards. A cam- paign or two of this kind is sure also to convert the city to the policy of public support, in part from mere self-defense from personal giving. The canvassing always convinces the canvassers. The people who have given their time and money demand efhciency afterwards, both from the association and the city. It is often one of the worst things that can happen to the movement to have the city take it over in the beginning without any vital appreciation of its real significance. The financial campaign always secures many new members to the association. Ofttimes it should be the policy to reorganize the association at the end of the campaign, in order to put into positions of trust those who have shown an interest and to drop out the dead timber. The gain in interest and per- sonnel from a financial campaign should be at least as great as the financial gain. INDEX Activities, at sand bin, 55 ; miscellaneous, 217; athletic, 217. Advertising, of playgrounds, 315. Age standard, 250. Ages, of children, 56. Angell, Emmett D., 203. Apparatus, 66 ; protection of, 28. Apprentice directors, 147. Athletic League, Public School, 3. Athletics, space for, 21; 217; training in, 219; 24s, 247, 261. Attendance, on playgrounds, 176; effect of equipment on, 180; shade, 180; hours, 180; distance children come, 181 ; time children stay, 183 ; requiring of, 196; 238; value of record of, 189; method of keeping, 190; different kinds of, 190; on municipal grounds, 191 ; after school on school grounds, 192 ; increasing the, 192 ; comparison with park attendance, 195. Badges, 252. Bad language, 272. Balancing mast, 58. Bancroft, Jessie, 202. Basket ball, space for, 23; 203. Bathing beaches, 109. Baths, showers, municipal, 108, 114. Beautifying playground, 34. Begging letter, 316. Boston, 8. Bowen, Wilbur, 203. Boy Scouts, 226. Braucher, H. S., 12. Building blocks, 57. Campaign, educational, 11; financial, 13, 298. Camp Fire Girls, 223, 228. Camping, 224. Canvass, personal, 319; for particular playground, 321. Canvasser, paid, 318. Caretaker, 96. Chamber of Commerce, 309. Circular track, space for, 24. Civil Service, 160. Class athletics, 246. Classification, in contests, 249. Claxton, Commissioner P. P., 230. Cleanliness, 277. Climbing, framework for, 58. Coasting, hills for, 57. Consolidated school, 144. Constitution, of playground association, 292. Construction, of playgrounds, 19. Contests, classification i;a, 249; Olympic, 218, 260. Contributions, 322, 323. Costumes, 221. County Secretary of the Y.M.C.A., 145, Courtesy, 255 ; points on, 256 ; records of, 257; 278. \ Crafts, for playground, 231 ; 242. Curriculum of play, 197 ; minimum, 202. Daily program, 242. Dance halls, 222. Dancing, 219; folk, 220, 242; costumes for, 221; music for, 221; social, 221; Maypole, 243. Day nursery, 44. Decision, habit of, 27. Discipline, 122, 264; by prohibition, 265; preventive, 266; through the other children, 267; suggestive, 270. Dishes, for playground, 61. Disqualification, 251. 327 328 Index Distance children come, i8i. Divisions, of playground, are they neces- sary, 32; on the school playground, 34- Dramatics, 236. Drinking fountains, 28. Educational campaign, 11, 298. Ellis, Havelock, 305. Entertainments, 310, 322. Equipment, space for, 21 ; 66 ; manufacture of, 91 ; repairs to, 93 ; for rural school, 93 ; for city schools, 93 ; value of, 94 ; playground without, 95. Ethics, of play, 124. Examination, physical, 219. Exclusion, from playground, 279. Fairs, 311. Fathers and mothers, 148. Fatigue, 114. Federated Women's Clubs, 309. Fence, 28; beautifying of, 36; kinds of, 36; 281. Field house, loi ; of Chicago, 116; of Philadelphia, 117; school building as, 118; attendance at, 118. Field secretaries, 9. Financial campaign, 13. Financing, of playgrounds, 303. First aid, 134. Flooding playground, 26. Flowers, 40. Flying Dutchman, 86. Folk dances, 220, 242. Framework for climbing, 58. Friendship, in play, 210 ; 214, 305. Fuller Park, 116. Funds, for playgrounds, 12. Games, space for, 21; selection of, 197; invention of, 199; evolution of, 199; rules for, 199 ; rotation in, 201 ; team, 207, 247. Gardens, 229. Gate receipts, 259, 261. George Junior Republic, 269. Giant stride, 87 ; location of, 88 ; locking up, 88. Girls, play of, 208 ; competition for, 248. Glutrin, 26. Good citizenship pledge, 316. Grass, 40. Groton, 96. Gulick, Dr. Luther, 208, 228. Gymnasium, outdoor, 90. Hall, G. Stanley, 56. Hand ball, in playgrounds, 23. Headquarters, for playground, 114. Height standard, 250. Hills, for coasting, 57. Honesty, in play, 200. Horizontal ladder, 59. Hygiene, of swimming pool, 102 ; 133. Impoliteness, 277. Indoor baseball, space for, 23 ; 203. Intellect, stimulation of, 212. Kindergarten, at sand bin, 55 ; 59, 234. Kindergartner, 242. Lawrenceville, 96. Leadership, 215. Lee, Joseph, 32, 59, 67. Library, 117; in playground, 235. Lighting, 27 ; cost of, 28. List of schools giving play training, 151, Loafing, 245. Lockers, 113. Loyalty, 211, 214. Marathon runs, 218. Mass meeting, 288, 318. Maypole dance, 243. Medals, 259, 262. Membership, 317. Menagerie, in playground, 43. Merry-go-round, 86. Milk stations, 45. Misconduct, forms of, 272. Moving pictures, 5, 63, 237. Mud pies, 57. Municipal baths, 108. Nature, on the playground, 35. Newspapers, 253, 258, 308, 320, 324. Noise, 276. Normal schools, 154. Index 329 Obedience to law, 210. Obscenity, 272. Office, 114. Official badges, 252. Officials, 252, 259. Olympic contests, in London, 218; in Greece, 260. Orchestra, 239. Outdoor gymnasium, 90. Pageant, 243. Park Board, 15. Parsons, Mrs. Henry, 230. Pavilion, 115. Phonograph, 63. Physical examinations, 219. Physiological age, 250. Pictures of playground, 115. Pipe, galvanized, 72. Plan, for playground, 11, 19, 21, 297; need of, 306. Play, at schools, 2 ; courses in, 3 ; at home, 4; ethics of, 124; Sunday, 131; on street, 185, 204; curriculum of, 197, 202 ; honesty in, 200 ; of girls, 208 ; friendship in, 210; scrub, 241. Play festival, 241. Playground and Recreation Association of America, 9, 10, 12, 154, 161, 162, 243, 287, 288, 297, 306. Playground association, 9, 10, 287 ; officers of, 290, 307 ; constitution for, 292 ; work of, 296; membership in, 317. Playground directors, 120; work of, 122, 125, 126, 253; teaching of games by, 122; as an ideal, 124; salary of, 129; residence of, 129; time of service, 130; health of, 132 ; opportunity for service, 132; comradeship, 132; technical training of, 133 ; specialists, 133 ; physique of, 134 ; age of, 135 ; general education of, 135 ; love for children, 136; interest in children, 137; respect for children, 138; physical trainers as, 139; teachers as, 140; kindergartners as, 142 ; social workers as, 142 ; college graduates as, 143; rural teacher as, 144; principal of consolidated school as, 144; county superintendent as, 14s; training of, 144, 151; nature of, 153; after appointment, 157; county secretary of the Y.M.C.A. as, 146; paid director, 146; volunteer assist- ants, 147 ; apprentice directors, 147 ; social workers as, 148; fathers and mothers as, 148; reading for, 160; selection of, 160, 177; value of, 194; popularity of, 267. Playground plan, 11, 19, 21. Playgrounds, plan for, 11, 19, 21; funds for, 12; construction of , 19; hand ball in, 23 ; flooding of, 26 ; lighting of, 27 ; divisions of, 30; beautifying of, 34; nature on, 35 ; according to sexes, 42 ; for little children, 43 ; menagerie in, 43 ; for older girls, 60 ; dishes for, 61 ; dress for, 61 ; for older boys, 62 ; for community, 62 ; headquarters for, 114; pictures of, 115; positions on, 127; attendance on, 176; who come to, 185; crafts for, 231; library in, 234; exclusion from, 279; maintaining of, 300 ; financing of, 303 ; expense of, 304; advertising of, 315. Playground site, nature of, 19; dimensions of, 20. Play movement, sources of, 6. Play spirit, 123. Police, 253, 280. Prizes, 259, 262. Professionalism, 259, 261. Programs, 163; nature of, 165; length of periods, 166; different kinds of, 167; general, 167; exhibition program, 168; for rainy days, 169; daily, 170, 242; for Philadelphia, 171 ; for New York, 174. PubHc recreation, 4. Public School Athletic League, 3. Quoits, space for, 24. Rainy days, 226. Recreation, public, 4; rural, 5. Recreation commission, 14. Recreation supervisor or secretary, 16. Registration, 187; comparison with school records, 188. Residence, 129. Rings, 59. 330 Index Roller skating, 223. Royce, Professor Josiah, 212. Rural recreation, 5. Salary, 129. Sand bin, 48 ; benches at, 49 ; why popu- lar, 49 ; shade at, 51 ; need of sand, 52 ; kind of, 52; the sand, 53; keeping clean, 53 ; changing sand, 54 ; utensils, 54; pebbles for, 55; kindergarten at, 55 ; sprinkling sand, 55 ; activities at, 55. School Board, 14, 15, 309. Scrap book, 115. Scrub play, 246. Scrub team, 209, 210. Seesaw, 85. Self-government, 268. Separation, of boys and girls, 31, Sex improperties, 274. Shower baths, 114. Shrubbery, 39. Singing, 238. Skating, 222. Skiing, 84, 85. Slide, 81 ; home-made, 81 ; maple, 82 ; cost of, 82 ; steel, 82 ; gymnasium, 83 ; sliding pole, 83 ; use of, 83 ; effect on clothes, 84. Social center, 237, 239. Social workers, 142, 148. Spectators, 254. Sportsmanship, 210, 254. Squash, 23. Standard, weight, 249; height, 250; age, 250. Standard Test, 245. Stealing, loi. Stecher, William, 154. Storage bin, iii. Story-telling, 234. Straightaway track, space for, 24. Street play, 185 ; nervous strain of, 304. Summer schools, 155. Supplies, in; purchase of, 112; care of, 112. Surfacing, 25. Survey, 10, 296. Swimming, teaching of, 106 ; at school, 107. Swimming pools, 97 ; popularity of, 98 ; construction of, 98; cost of, 99; ad- ministration of, 100; force at, 100; towels, 100 ; stealing, loi ; season at, loi ; in the South, loi ; hygiene of, 102 ; sanitation of, 102 ; diseases from, 103 ; changing water, 103 ; filtration, 104; cleansing, 105; sterilizing, 105. Swing, 57, 67; appeal of, 67; lawn, 68; hammock, 69; chair, 70; wooden framework, 70; steel framework, 70; height of, 72 ; pipe, galvanized, 72 ; fittings for, 73 ; rope or chain, 74 ; tak- ing in, 76; swing board, 76; height from ground, 77; space for, 77; erecting, 78 ; how children are to swing, 79 ; turns at, 80. Tag days, 312. Teaching of swimming, 106 ; at school, 107. Team games, 207 ; age for, 208 ; training of, 299. Teeter ladder, 89. Tennis, 22. Test, Standard, 245. Time children stay, 183. Tobogganing, 84. Toilets, 113. Tournament, 244. Towels, 100. Trades unions, 309, 323. Training, of playground director, 144; nature of, 153 ; after appointment, 157 ; in athletics, 219. Transportation, of players, 253 ; of children, 323. Trapezium, 59. Trees, 38. Vines, 37, 40. Volley ball, space for, 23 ; 203. Volunteer assistants, 147; in playground, 148. Wading pool, 45; changing water, 47; cement, 47. Walking, 223 ; in Germany, 223. Weight standard, 249. West, James E., 227. Wood, Walter, 208. Work of playground director, organizing play, 125; securing cooperation, 125; promoting friendship, 126; 253. Printed in the United States of America. n^HE following pages contain advertisements of a few of the Macmillan books on kindred subjects. Education through Play and The Practical Conduct of Play TWO RECENT PUBLICATIONS By henry S. CURTIS, Ph.D. Former Secretary of the Playground Association of America and Supervisor of the Playgrounds of the District of Columbia ; Lecturer on Recreation and other Social Topics. Education through Play deals with the problem of play as it presents itself to the teacher, the supervisor, the school administrator, and to all those who are interested in educational activities. The topics treated, as indicated in the table of contents, are: What is Play? Play as Physical Training; Play and the Training of the Intellect; Play and the Formation of Habits and Character ; Play in the German Schools ; Play in the English Schools ; The School Playgrounds of American Cities ; Play at the Rural School ; The Playgrounds of Gary ; Play in the Curriculum ; Athletics in Secondary Schools and Colleges ; Recreation at Summer Schools ; The Summer Play- grounds ; The School Camp ; The School as a Social Center ; The Training of Play Teachers. The fundamental assumption in the book is that play is a necessity to wholesome childhood and that the opportunity for play should be offered to every child. The treatment is suggestive of the possibilities of play and the conduct of play as an educational factor. The Practical Conduct of Play, as the title signifies, treats of the practical organization and administration of play. It furnishes to parents, teachers, and playground directors and to those interested* in promoting, organizing, and maintaining playground systems, the definite and detailed information that is necessary in order to carry out the practice of play, for wholesome and efficient results. V THE MACMILLAN COMPANY BOSTON NEW YORK DALLAS CHICAGO SAN FRANCISCO ATLANTA TEXTBOOK SERIES IN EDUCATION EDITED BY PAUL MONROE Textbook in the History of Education By PAUL MONROE, Ph.D. Cloth, 8vo, illustrated, xix-^-yys pageSy $i.go The merits which the author has sought to incorporate in this book are : (i) To furnish a body of historical facts sufficient to give the student concrete material from which to form generaliza- tions. (2) To suggest, chiefly by classification of this material, interpretations such as will not consist merely in unsupported generalizations. (3) To give, to some degree, a flavor of the orig- inal sources of information. (4) To make evident the relation be- tween educational development and other aspects of the history of civilization. (5) To deal with educational tendencies rather than with men. (6) To show the connection between educational the- ory and actual school work in its historical development. (7) To suggest relations with present educational work. Textbook in the Principles of Education By ERNEST NORTON HENDERSON, Ph.D. Clot^, 8vOy illustrated, xiv-{-^gj pages, $i.7S This book presents, in a systematic way, the outlines of the theory of education from the point of view of evolution. It takes up this conception at the point where it has been dropped by other writers. It develops the theory, reconstructing it in accord- ance with the latest scientific knowledge of the subject. State and County Educational Reorganization By ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY, Ph.D. Cloth, crown Svo, xx-\- 2^7 pages, $1.2^ The author presents the revised constitution and school code of the h)Apothetical state of Osceola in order to express in concrete form certain fundamental principles relating to the administration of public education. The hypothetical state of Osceola has organ- ized by a strong and helpful state department of education and abolished the district system of school administration, in order to institute a county-unit system, under which rapid and substantial educational progress may be made. Other volumes in the Textbook Series in preparation THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York BOSTON ATLANTA DALLAS CHICAGO SAW FRANCISCO BRIEF COURSE SERIES IN EDUCATION Edited by Paul Monroe A Brief Course in the History of Education By PAUL MONROE, Ph.D. Cloth^ j2fno, illustrated, xviii + 4og pages, $1.2^ This book has been prepared to meet the demands of students in education in normal, training, and college classes. This book pre- sents in briefer form the material contained in the textbook on the " History of Education." Even in the abbreviated form the book con- tains all the important topics set up with enough helpful material to give body to the subject and to indicate the relationship between history or social Kfe and education. A Brief Course in the Teaching Process By GEORGE DRAYTON STRAYER, Ph.D. Cloth, i2mo, xiv + j/5 pages, $1.2^ This follows the " Brief Course in the History of Education." In this volume several typical methods of instruction have been care- fully treated, and the vahdity of the particular practice indicated in terms of the end to be accomplished, as well as the technique to be used. The problems that teachers face day after day are all con- cretely treated. The book is the direct outcome of experience in trying to help teachers to grow in skill in the art of teaching. School Hygiene By FLETCHER B. DRESSLAR, Ph.D. Cloth, i2mo, illustrated, xi + ^bg pages, $1.2^ This volume contains authoritative information on all the important topics on school hygiene and sanitation, the information needed by teachers, supervisors, and school administrators on the construction and sanitation of school buildings, the establishment of the child in hygienic habits and the conduct of school work and instructions under hygienic conditions. Other volumes in the Brief Course Series in preparation THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York BOSTON ATLANTA DALLAS CHICAGO SAN FRANCISCO By JESSIE H. BANCROFT Assistant Director Physical Training, Public Schools, New York City; Ex-Secretary American Physical Education Association; Member American Association for the Advancement of Science; Author of " School Gymnastics," " Games for the Playground, Home, School, and Gymnasium," etc. The Posture of School Children With its Home Efficiency and New Efficiency Methods for School Training The aim of the book is to aid parents and teachers to improve the posture of children. The failure to achieve and hold the correct position in childhood is the cause of far-reaching harm. Many disturbances, both acute and chronic, are directly traceable to poor posture and carriage. The application of pedagogical principles to the training of children in correct habits of posture and a working description of some of the new efficiency methods practiced in schools for the purpose of obtaining correct posture are authoritatively presented and applied. Games for the Playground, Home, School, and Gymnasium Decorated cloth, gilt top, $ i.jo These games have been collected from many countries and sources, with a view to securing novel and interesting as well as thoroughly tried and popular material. They range from the traditional to the modern gymnasium and athletic games. The material, aside from that accumulated through long experience in teaching and supervision, has been collected through special original research, which has resulted not only in a variety of new plays but in new ways of playing old games that add greatly to their play value. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York CHICAGO BOSTON SAN FRANCISCO DALLAS ATLANTA