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THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE OF AMERICA. 



out of the stock — that this park is a place of rest. Go 

 into any one of these parks today and you think of 

 safety first, always, because you can hardly go any- 

 where without encountering- automobiles and flying 

 missies. They are not restful places. So we should 

 hike out to the periphery of the city and go into a 

 larger development than we have heretofore. 



Now in the schools : There is a very distinct drift 

 there. Architects and school people generally are 

 coming to realize the necessity for planning the school 

 yard as the}' are now planning the schoul buildings. 

 Intensive development has struck the school architect 

 and the school with man and marm. No longer are 

 people satisfied with this one sided sort of yard or 

 grounds. A large assembly place and several class 

 rooms are now had. 



Now, if that drift is followed — and I believe it will 

 be very rapidly in the succeeding years — the school 

 people are going to take hold ver}^ vigorously of play- 

 grounds for children and the park boards will take 

 hold of the supervision of children's play in the jjark? 

 and the school boards will do more than before and 

 will find the utilization of the school yards after school 

 is one way in which the homes can be brought into 

 the schools. Parent Teachers' Associations have beer 

 formed in every community and every effort madf 

 to bring its schools and families together, but the 

 more the parents that discuss the modern curriculum 

 etc., the more at sea they seem to be ; and the parents 

 and children are not getting together very readily. 

 • But this leisure time, what to do with the children 

 from the time they get out of school until they go to 

 bed, is the real problem, and here the school sets up 

 the playground and children will be registered for 

 jilav as they are registered for mvisic, drawing or any- 

 thing else, in the class room, and the parents will then 

 know the children have been cared for after school 

 as well as in school : and I believe that is the drift. 



What is the drift with reference to the playgroum' 

 commission? It seems to me the playground com- 

 mission will become the recreation commission ; that 

 they will give up the treatment of problems of play 

 for general classification of the grammar grades, and 

 will go into the dance halls, municipal camps, bathing 

 beaches, etc., rather than play- of smaller children. I 

 believe we are going to make a fine distinction in the 

 future between children and adults. Adults take pleas- 

 ure in some sort of recreatiim. Children take play 

 They have just one business in life — play. They live 

 to play and they play to live. Play will be for children 

 and recreation for adults, and the question of play for 

 children is going to be tremendously inclusive as an 

 educational problem ; therefore, the educators are go- 

 ing to take a larger hand, thus leaving the park com- 

 mission to direct more largely the activities of the 

 people at large. 



Now, these various co-operative methods. I believe 

 we have stood aloft too much in various communities. 

 The school board has said, "This is our business; it 

 is none of your business." To the Park Board, and tin 

 Playground Commission has said the same thing. 



And so co-operation must enter into all municipa' 

 endeavor. Playgroimd and school and park groups 

 must get together and cut out this overlapping and 

 du])lication of expense and the like. The tax-payer 

 is complaining more and more every year, and 

 economy is the watchword, and we are going to pro- 

 gress through co-operation. Xow, that is, I mean the 

 Park Board will have certain functions and the other 

 two boards the same, and they will supplement each 



other and not duplicate each other in facilities and 

 expenditures. 



1 believe very often we could have one recreation 

 superintendent ni the cities. San Francisco is bruig- 

 ing the school-board and the pla\ground commission 

 together, and the State Normal School in this same 

 circle. There is a fine illustration of co-operation. So, 

 in the |)ersonnel there are various ways of co-opera - 

 tiun. 



This tendency is abroad : To make recreation pay 

 its own way. You have had animated discussion as 

 to what should be ])aid for. I think once we establish 

 that play is for children — and we are going to work 

 out certain facilities in a certain manner. We shall 

 not make them pay, but when it comes to amusements 

 and diversion, and so forth, for those facilities we are 

 going to make them pay. I don't mean make them 

 pav. I believe the public will demand the right to 

 pa\'. His majesty, the American citizen, likes to pay 

 his way. Take the young man who only earns seven 

 or eight dollars a week, and what does he do? He 

 goes down the great white way and insists upon buy- 

 ing his recreation ; and that is one reason why our 

 parks are not more largely used, they are too free. 



Certain things should be charged for, and people 

 wiiuld patronize them more than they do. 



Now the whole world is on a strike for higher pay 

 and less work, and that means we are going to have 

 more leisure and less work. The mass of ]3eople have 

 more leisure than ever before, perhaps. 



Running parallel with that law was another one — 

 that of limited consumption. We thought a tew years 

 ago that we should wear the old suit for years ; that 

 everything should be made to go as far as it would. 

 We insisted that the wife make and remake her 

 gowns, over and over again. 



We do not believe in limited consumption. We be- 

 lieve in unlimited consumption, and every one is con- 

 suming just as much as they can. We have discarded 

 the suit of clothes. The wife has discarded her hat 

 and the old gown, and A\e are getting new ones. We 

 discard the automobiles of 1915 that we may get one 

 of 1916, and the most significant thing is this : we 

 have become the most luilimited consumers of com- 

 modities and of play in the world. All the covmtries 

 of Europe have kept quite steady in their recreational 

 pursuits. \\"e go out to buy our play for five or ten 

 cents, and the kind we buy often condemns us. 



We like to buy our leisure, therefore, isn't it reason- 

 able to give some consideration to letting people pay 

 their own way for recreation? Not for play, because 

 that relates to children, and children should not be 

 made to pay a fee for any phase of their play, it seems 

 to me, but the adults and the working peoole like 

 to buv their own i>lav. 



We have seen in a good many communities a wheel 

 tax — and do you notice the people who own automo- 

 biles pay this tax quite readily, particularly where the 

 law says all money coming in for this tax must be 

 spent for the repair and upkeep of good roads ? The 

 man who owns an automobile pays an automobile 

 license and for the things in connection with that 

 machine, yet pays this tax quite cheerfully. Whv? 

 Because the law says this tax will be paid out for his 

 further pleasure. 



Now, if we work our hardest for park development 

 and just tell the peojile the more money we DUt into 

 the parks will be for their greater pleasure, they will 

 flock to them, and respond, as thev have not responded 

 before. 



