A HINT*FOR MUNICIPAL POLICY 205

in hand, of folk dances, hiking parried, young
people's orchestras, mothers' glee clubs, golf
academies, golf courses, swimming pools with
" twenty little mermaids ready for the plunge,"
mountain camps with accommodation for hun-
dreds, and much else of like joyful import and
encouraging suggestiveness.

Turning now to the letterpress we learn
the meaning of all this. The Recreation Com-
mission of San Francisco and County is engaged
in promoting 79 distinct kinds of " recreational
activity," ranging from " hopscotch " up to the
fine arts, every one under skilled supervision and
drawing upon the public funds for the where-
withal. For this purpose the Commission em-
ploys a staff of 210 trained specialists, whose
work is distributed over 29 playground depart-
ments, including 18 school playgrounds, 10
community centres and a mountain camp; for
which services it spent $850,000 during the year,
providing thereby for the recreation of 4,286,820
men, women and children, of whom 3,078,396
were children.

The record winds up appropriately with the
following comment by the Chief Probation
Officer of the Juvenile Court: "From my
experience in this Juvenile Court I would name
first, on the list of agencies preventing delin-
quency, the public playground." Which piece
of testimony I have found confirmed in maiiy
another of the great American cities, statistics