CIVIC IMPEOVEMENT WOEK 



HINTS TO OUR SOCIETIES— WHAT TO DO AND 

 HOW TO DO IT— PARKS— BATHS— BILL BOARDS- 

 COLLEGE STUDIES— SCHOOL GARDENS. 



BY JESSIE M. GOOD 



IN "the how of improvement work." 



H 



you 

 and 



Fig 



2591. Sign Name for 

 Street. 



AVE 

 parks 

 open squares as 

 breathing places 

 for the people ? 

 Have you public 

 playgrounds for 

 your children ? This 

 one matter of pub- 

 lic playgrounds in 

 all towns is of vital importance. When the 

 influence upon the character and morals of 

 children of healthful play, under the care of 

 a watchful, high-principled man or woman, 

 is fully understood, no money will be spared 

 to provide such playgrounds, and a new pro- 

 fession, that of play professor, will be among 

 the honorable and^ well-paid callings. 



The possibilities of such playgrounds are 

 almost unlimited. What mother would fear 

 to send her boys to the public playground if 

 she knew that awaiting them was a man who 

 could teach or oversee them in their games 

 and athletic sports, noting and repressing 

 evil tendencies^ in speech and manner? On 

 occasion such a man would take them on 

 fishing and swimming trips and excursions 

 through field and forest. The woman 

 teacher has charge of the girls' plays and 

 games, and teaches to both sexes — without 

 seeming to teach — botany and nature study 

 and kindness to birds and beasts, until even 

 boys will see a bird, or cat, and a stone m 

 juxtaposition without desiring to pick up the 

 one and throw it at the other. This is not 

 a fevered dream of mine. In a modified 

 way these playgrounds are being tried m 



various cities with the happiest results. 



Are there any provisions for public baths 

 in your town? Interest the young men 

 of your town in this matter. Have 

 your casinos, where the social life of 

 your town may find expression? Have you 

 a public library? If not, and your town is 

 too small to support one, there are ways of 

 obtaining traveling library cases. If your 

 state library has no provision for distribut- 

 ing to the people the books your taxes so ex- 

 pensively house, petition your legislature 

 until these books reach the people who need 

 and want them. 



The disfigurement of streets and land- 

 scapes by bill boards and advertisements is a 

 nuisance that is attracting the attention of 

 many of the best men, both at home and 

 abroad. 



What practical teaching are the public 

 schools of your state giving the children re- 

 garding its agricultural resources? What, 

 may I ask, becomes of the students and 

 graduates of our expensive agricultural col- 

 leges? I never met one of them. Let us 

 have the students of these colleges most 

 thoroughly and broadly taught in the sci- 

 ences of agriculture, forestry, botany, arbori- 

 culture, bee keeping, pisciculture, the culture 

 of silk worms, and all else pertaining to an 

 intelligent knowledge of such things; and 

 then in our public schools let these young 

 men teach the sciences they have learned. 

 The electric railways which are fast webbing 

 our country roads are making the centrali- 

 zation of country schools not only possible 

 but so much more economical than the old 



