EXECUTIVE ORGANIZATION OF A PARK DEPARTMENT 537 



as yet among the park executives of the country as to what the content of 

 such a course of training should be. For the past several years the American 

 Institute of Park Executives has had a committee working on this subject, 

 but the successive reports and recommendations of this committee have 

 never been adopted by the institute. Some of the training schools for land- 

 scape architects are broadening their courses to the extent of including 

 certain courses in social-recreational organization and leadership for those 

 students intending to enter park and recreation service. The Playground 

 and Recreation Association of America inaugurated in the autumn of 

 1926 the National Recreation School for professional graduate training of 

 recreation executives. The courses offered by this school will be exceedingly 

 helpful in providing the training for the recreational features of the park 

 superintendent's responsibilities. It is possible that to these courses will be 

 added elementary work in performance of horticulture, landscape design 

 and construction as related to the development of parks and other recreation 

 areas. 



One possible source of future executives is from the ranks of subordi- 

 nates now in existing systems. Even if there were schools designed espe- 

 cially for the training of executives, this source of securing executives should 

 never be overlooked. In all well-established park systems it should be one 

 of the duties of both the governing authority and of the existing executive 

 to have one or more subordinates in training for the general executive's 

 position. For various reasons there is a considerable turnover in the ranks 

 of park executives, and it is often wise for a general executive to make a 

 change after five or ten or fifteen years of service, or sooner if a better 

 opportunity offers. It should be held as a signal failure of a general executive 

 if, at the end of five years as a minimum, he has not at least one subordinate 

 who is more or less prepared to take his place. Experience is the best of 

 all teachers, and training through experience in the services of a highly 

 developed, well organized system is one of the best possible places for prep- 

 aration for executive work. In one of the most highly developed and organ- 

 ized recreation systems in this country the first superintendent and the 

 board adopted a policy of employing one or more subordinates with marked 

 executive possibilities. The successor to this superintendent was trained in 

 the department. The second superintendent, when going to a larger field 

 of work, was succeeded by a third trained in the department. Promotion 

 from the ranks should always be on merit solely and not because of political 

 influence as has sometimes happened in park and recreation systems. 



Because the training of subordinates is not widely practiced in park 

 and recreation systems throughout the country, governing^ authorities gen- 

 erally have to go outside the system for executives. In selecting executives 



