216 



uess or death of a worker it is very iilainly the duty of tlie comuiunity to 

 take the necessary steps of prevention. Tlie playground is one of the 

 necessary means of prevention of disease and has already proven its worth 

 in those conuuunities where it has been given a trial. 



The recreation center should be an important factor in the proper 

 education of our workers in tlie laws of hygiene and health. The igno- 

 rance of the average person concerning the facts of health and the early 

 manifestations of such diseases as tuberculosis, cancer and occupational 

 diseases is in no small way responsible for the large number of incurable 

 invalids which our community has to support. It has been estimated that 

 tuberculosis kills almost one-third of our workers who die between the ages 

 of twent.\- and thirty-five, and it is the experience of nearly all who have 

 much to do with the treatment of tuberculosis, as well as the other dis- 

 eases mentioned, that n large proportion of our incurable cases have 

 applied to the physician for help and advice only after the disease has 

 progressed to a point where relief or cure are impossible. 



The factory and those conditions which have arisen in the growth of 

 our present industrial system have affected not only our public health, but 

 also the moral tone of the community. The church as it exists today .is 

 .scarcely able to cope with the moi-nl iiroblems which have presented them- 

 selves, and it has been found that tlie moral and physical problems are 

 very closely bound together. The natural desire of the average worker, 

 and we might as well say his need, for pla.\- and recreation has had to be 

 satisfied at the saloon, pool-room, cheap theatre or on the street. The 

 enormous increase of crime and degeneracy in the past few years has 

 shown that the effec-t of, at least, some of these agencies has been to work 

 great harm to the individual and finally through him to the community 

 at large. 



The individual needs not e.\hnrta1i()n to refrain from doing those 

 things which are harmful to him morally and physically, but an oppor- 

 tmiity to satisfy his needs for recreation and play in a waj which cannot 

 have this harmful influence. The tendency of the average person when 

 given a choice between the good and the Iiad is to instinctively choose the 

 good, when he once understands it. The experience of the settlement 

 houses and Y. M. (\ A.'s over the country is abundant proof of this. Con- 

 ditions have now become so that it is the duty of the connuunity to make 

 the playground and recreation center a part of its regular activities as 



