The practical conduct of play

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THE PRACTICAL CONDUCT OF PLAY

ffiome ant) Scbool Series

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

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 "

Wefo gorfc

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1915

All rights reserved

COPYRIGHT, IQIS,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and electrotyped. Published June, 1915.

Norfoooto

J. 8. Gushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.B.A.

BeMcatton

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 ami 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, B.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

vii

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

XL 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

ix

ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING PAGE

The Tenement Playground ........ 4

Mothers' and Babies1 Playground, New York City . . . .21

Drinking Fountain, South Park System, Chicago .... 28

Echo Park Playground, Los Angeles, Calif. 37

Wading Pool, Children's Section, Echo Park Playground, Los Angeles,

Calif. 46

Children's Wading Pool, Armour Square, Chicago .... 46
Playing with Blocks, Mothers' and Babies' Playground, New York . 57

A Combination Frame in Providence, R.I 72

The Slide at Emerson School, Gary, Indiana . . . . . 82
Giant stride, Jefferson School, Gary, Indiana . " . . . .88
Receiving Bathing Suits, Davis Square, Chicago . . . .100

Swimming Pool, Armour Square, Chicago 104

Girls' Day at the Emerson School, Gary, Indiana . . . .108
Athletic Recreation Center, 26th and Jefferson Streets, Philadelphia . 117

Indoor Baseball at Gary, Indiana 125

A Dutch Dance at Gary, Indiana 165

8o-yard Dash, Athletic Meet, East Park, Worcester, Mass. . .165

Dodge Ball at Gary, Indiana 198

Three Deep, Girls' Playground, New York City . . . .202

Volley Ball. Delegates to the Fifth Annual Meeting of the Play-
ground Association of America at Play, Washington, D.C. . 204
Chelsea Park Playground, New York City . . . . . 204

Camp Stecher. Boys' Camp, Smithtown, Pa. . . . . .225

Maypole Dances, Hartford . . . . . . . . 225

Boy Scouts Making Fire 227

Camp Fire Girls in Camp at Fort Pickens, Fla. . . . . .228

Boston Evening Centers Orchestra, East Boston, 1912-1913 . . 239

Play Festival at Worcester . . 242

Play Festival, Hazard Playground, Los Angeles, Calif. . . .255
Slausen Playground, showing Field House and Boys' Section beyond,

Los Angeles, Calif. -.' • 255

xi

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 five 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-year-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 and 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,
summer 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 1913 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 everywhere
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

io 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 1913 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 n

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 tune 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

I Getting Started 15

work out in practice, because public departments are very
jealous of having their activities administered through an
outside 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 the director of physical
training of the school system. Moreover, the park depart-
ment is ofttimes 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. Oft times 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 the 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 off 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

2O 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 facilities for base-
ball, football, tennis, swimming, and similar activities.

ifa^* Jr
\

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 100 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 corner 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 little dispute as to the value of the s-traightaway. 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-five, 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 public 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 $1.00 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 likely 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 unfenced, 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 pjayground 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 little
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 completely the sentimentality 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 limitations 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

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 magnolia 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 Constriction 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. Thi's 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

Playgrounds according to Ages and 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 and 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 afflicted
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 alike. 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 furni$h 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 dislike 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 children 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-
line 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 little 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 slide. 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

60 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 61

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 100 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 race 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 Do 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 falling without danger. These sensations,
however, can scarcely explain the universal pleasure in the

68 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 five 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 lines. 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,1 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 likely
to be left to the little children. The high swing is considerably
more expensive also. My own feeling 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 little 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 likely 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 unlike 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 77

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 likely 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 realized the significance of what was going on and got
the park authorities to build a solid 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 81

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 Home-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 slides were usually made
by supporting planks in an inclined 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 slide 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 type for a fire escape.
It is a very rapid method of leaving the building, and more
fun than the fire.

The Sliding Pole. — Sliding poles are used in most gymna-
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 slide 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 little 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 liked 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 little 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 likely 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 87

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 conies 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 al] 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

go 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 VS. 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

96 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 little 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 efficient, 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.1
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

ffard to cover 27 square feet of surface. If the pool is 90 feet
}y 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^ 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, difficult to protect in the winter and an
outdoor pool thus lined requires to be filled with manure or
some other similar substance to prevent its freezing.

ioo 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 solid 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 likely 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 101

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 ten.ths 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.

IO2 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 sufficient, 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

IO4 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
sufficient. 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 sterilization 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

io8 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 maximum 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 gymnasia, 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 difficult 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 difficulty 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

H4 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 consultations 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

n6 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.

n8 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

120

The Organizer of Play 121

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 monopolize the apparatus and play space. More-
over, street rowdies and corner loafers are likely 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 like 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

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 friendliness among the children, for that spirit of friendliness
will have more to do with the attendance than all the equip-
ment that can be put into the ground. This may seem like
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
public 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
different 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

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 likely 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 realize 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 probability 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 willing 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 ability 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 brotherliness, 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-telling, 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-telling, 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. Ofttimes 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

I3& 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 little 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 peculiar 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
policeman. 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
living out 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 efficient 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 consolidated 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 consolidated 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 life 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, 1914, 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
official 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-
sibility to develop manliness 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 discipline 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

1 50 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 COURSES1

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 listed in the Sources of Information on Recreation pub-
lished 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.

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 22d 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 CoUege, 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 1913 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 relief 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 1911, 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 will make them careful.

11. Always see that the apparatus is taken down at n 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 occasionally 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 friendliness 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.

160 Practical Conduct of Play

9. Keep the children from yelling 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 office, 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 of
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 161

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 qualifications :
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

M

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 list 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 circumstances 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 stories, 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 raffia 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 lilt 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 lines, 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 FOR 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.
n.oo to 12.00. — 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 raffia, making picture frames. Older
children make baskets with raffia or reed, make
hammocks, or cane chairs.
12.00 to 12.30. — FREE PLAY AND DISMISSAL (luncheon period).

10.30 to n.oo

Playground Programs 173

AFTERNOON PROGRAM (For older children)

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 tune. 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
i.oo to 1.30

Assembly

Singing

Salute to the Flag

Talk by Principal
1.30 to 2.30 j Kindergarten

Organized games 1 Gymnastic
2.30 to 3.00

Organized free play

Playground Programs

175

3.00 to 4.00
Drills

Folk dances
Apparatus work

Occupation work

f Gymnastic
1 Military

( Raffia

Basketry
[ Scrapbooks

f Gymnastic
I Kindergarten

4.00 to 4.45

Organized games
Basket ball

445 to 5.15
Athletics
Good citizens' club

5.15 to 5-30 f Marching

Dismissal 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

1 78 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 vice 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

180 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 181

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 little 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 1911, 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 affair. 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 conies 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 like
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 playground were always reasonably clean and neat in
appearance. They nearly all wore shoes. They seemed like
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 "little 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 find 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 little 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 Attendance 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

1 92 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
librarian 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 like 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 number
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-
sibilities in play development. In the small book Play 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

2OO 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 possibilities 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

2O2 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 Curriculum 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, 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
Bowen. 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 fit 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 peculiar 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 realize 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
peculiar 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 Curriculum 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

206

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 preliminary
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

208 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 life 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
applied 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,

Team Games 213

and this is especially true of the matched game between play-
grounds or schools. Never at any other time in life 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 likely 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 'toil! 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 difficult 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 supplies, 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 facilities, 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 applic-
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

218 Practical Conduct 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 little 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 applicable, 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 different 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 willing 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

22O 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

222 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 public
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 public 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. Ofttimes 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 summer 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

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 lively 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 1913. 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, 1912, but by the first of January,
1914, 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. Gulick, 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 responsibility 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 the 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 Republic, 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-telling 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 like.
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 library 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-telling 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 libraries in connection with their playgrounds.
The story is one of the most universal forms of recreation
during our leisure time, and the summer 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 1913. 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 twenty 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 most 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 life 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
applied 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 efficiency 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 inclined 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 5o-yard dash.

The 6o-yard dash.

The zoo-yard dash.

The 22o-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 publicity 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 loo-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, wrestling, 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 life, 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 tnis 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 eligibility 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 preliminaries 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.

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.
" Manliness " 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 off 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
RESULTS OF PLAYGROUND CONTEST ON JULY 24TH

257

Score on
Events

Points on Courtesy

Deduction
for Lateness

Final Score

Ludlow Playground . .
and
Neighborhood House . .

54
35

10
10

0
0

64
45

North Capitol ....
and
Juvenile Court ....

59
58

O
10

0

20 p. c.

59

58

Rosedale Playground . .
and
Virginia Avenue . . .

60

75

10
O

O
0

70
75

Jefferson School . . .
and
Towers School . . . .

42^
92^

10
10

0
O

S4

102^

5th & W Sts., N. W

Ctf

Entire score of

Q

e £

and
Delaware Ave., S. W.

50

girls canceled
for discourtesy

0

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
IO

0

Q

63
O2

y^

Towers School . . . .
and
Neighborhood House . .

150^
If*

10
IO

0
0

i6oj

23*

Virginia Avenue . . .
and
Juvenile Court ....

75
70

10

10

0
O

85
80

Ludlow School ....
and
Jefferson School . . .

68|
68^

10
10

15 P. c.

0

68|
78*

258

Practical Conduct of Play
RESULTS OF CONTEST ON AUGUST

Score on

Points on

Deduction

Final

Total Score of

Events

Courtesy

for Lateness

Score

3 Contests

Ludlow Playground

41

10

O

51

I83£

and

Towers School . .

76

10

o

86

349

North Capitol . .

72

10

O

82

204

and

Virginia Avenue . .

52

10

0

62

214

Rosedale Playground

98

10

O

108

270

and

Progress City . . .„

42

IO

0

52

190

Jefferson School . .

124

10

O

134

275

and

Neighborhood House

29

10

0

39

104^

5th & W Sts., N.W.

25

10

O

35

90 in 2 con-

and

tests

Delaware Ave., S.W.

85

10

0

95

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 like
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

260 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 alike, 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-
sponsibility 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-
cipline 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 tune 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 discipline of this kind unless the
teacher is personally popular.

DISCIPLINE THROUGH THE OTHER CHILDREN

One of the most effective methods of disciplining any play-
ground is by public opinion. If the other children applaud a

268 Practical Conduct of Play

piece of mischief or misconduct, it is difficult 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-

Discip line 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 ability 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 playing
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 officer 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 try sting 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 dislike 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

IDr basket ball from yelling, but it sometimes has to be done.
[ 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 public 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 cleanliness. 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 a 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 politeness 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 life. Politeness 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 politeness 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.

280 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
police 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
fined 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. Spatting' s A thletic 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 Commis-
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, 1910. $.05.

BURCHENAL, ELIZABETH, and CRAMPTON, C. WARD. Folk Darce 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., 1911.

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. Illus. 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, 1911. $.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.
HAMMER, 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, 1912. $.15.
LEE, JOSEPH. Constructive and Preventive Philanthropy. New York, 1 902 .

$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. n.

Bibliography

285

LELAND, 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 Play grounds. 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. Illus. Sturgis, 1911. $1.25.
PERRY, CLARENCE ARTHUR. Wider Use of the School Plant. 423 p.

Survey Associates, New York, 1910. $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 Playground, Vol. VII, p. 41 7-433 . New York City, 1914.
STECHER, WILLIAM A. Games and Dances . 165 p. McVey, 1912. $1.25.
WARD, EDWARD J. The Social Center. 359 p. Appleton, 1913. $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 1914 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

2 QO 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 public 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 office 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 shall 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 OF FUNDS

SEC. i. The funds of the Association shall be deposited in some
reliable 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-ofncio and counted
members of the executive committee.

ARTICLE X

DUTIES or 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 union
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 officers 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
only 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 police 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 efficiency 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 life 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

306 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 ability of women. If the people who are
promoting the appropriation are banded together into a per-
manent association, they are likely to carry more weight and
to receive more consideration than if they are a temporary
committee or an unorganized body of citizens. This organi-

308 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 likely, 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 little 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,

Appendix II 311

as it serves at the same time as an exhibition for them and an
entertainment to the public. But where it is gotten up by
the playground association for the purpose, I believe 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
2Qth 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 advance, 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 penalizes 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 1913 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 eliminated most of the objectionable features of tag day.

316 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

318 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 likely 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 one way 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

Y

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

Appendix 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 publicity 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 efficiency 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; 245, 247, 261.

Attendance, on playgrounds, 176; effect
of equipment on, 180; shade, 180;
hours, 1 80; 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.

s, 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, n ; 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 in, 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, 181.

Divisions, of playground, are they neces-
sary, 32; on the school playground,
34-

Dramatics, 236.

Drinking fountains, 28.

Educational campaign, n, 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, 101 ; 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, n, 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,
145 ; 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, n, 19, 21.

Playgrounds, plan for, n, 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, 1 66; different kinds of, 167;
general, 167; exhibition program, 168;
for rainy days, 169; daily, 170, 242;
for Philadelphia, 171 ; for New York,
174.

Public 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, 8 1 ; 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, 101.

Stecher, William, 154.

Storage bin, in.

Story-telling, 234.

Straightaway track, space for, 24.

Street play, 185 ; nervous strain of, 304.

Summer schools, 155.

Supplies, in; purchase of , 1 1 2 ; care of , 1 1 2 .

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, 101 ; season at,
in the South, 101 ; hygiene of,
sanitation of, 102 ; diseases from,
changing water, 103; filtration,

103
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 day 5,312.

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.

'T^

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 ;
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The fundamental assumption in the book is that play is a necessity to
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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.

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

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Textbook in the History of Education

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Cloth, crown Svo, xx +2^7 pages, $1.23

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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
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The aim of the book is to aid parents and teachers to improve the
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ways of playing old games that add greatly to their play value.

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