48 



SYSTEM 



EUROPEAN 



PLAYGROUNDS 



And when your friends from the country visit you, 

 do you not flU the hmch-l)asket and invite them to spend 

 the day at the park? Do not parks typify and reflect the 

 embodied conscience of a pec~)ple in the same sense that the 

 eyes are cahed the " windows of the soul " ? Woukl you 

 care to rear your children in a town that has no park nor 

 public playground ? Do we not, to a great extent at least, 

 get our ideals from our surroundings? Judge Lindsay, 

 who has made a special stud}^ of child life in the great 

 cities, and to whom we are largely indebted for the estab- 

 lishment of juvenile courts, says: "No child is worse 

 than the home he comes from;" and perhaps it will yet 

 be told by some gifted tongue that no man is better than 

 the town he comes from. Our surroundings make us 

 what we are. Parks are public educators. They make 

 for good citizenship, for patriotism, for love of country, 

 for a cheerful life, for a beautiful character and a well- 

 rounded mentality. Let us all hope for the coming of 

 that day when there shall be at least one public park in 

 every town. 



In Germany, the land of 

 philosophy and the birthplace 

 of educational svstems, where 

 the psychology of the child mind 

 is best understood, public playgrounds for children are 

 generally provided. They are heavily screened with 

 shrubs and, in some cases, guarded by what we would 

 call in this county a juvenile police, to protect them from 

 boisterous intrusion. Most of the grounds are free, but, 

 in a few instances, a small fee is demanded to provide 

 for maintenance. This fee rarely amounts to more than 

 three cents and secures the unusual privileges of tennis 

 courts, baseball grounds, etc. The Germans are noted for 

 their sturdiness of character and physicjue, and much of 

 their greatness is due to the scientific development of 

 children. Much of our own greatness is due to the Germans, for, 

 more than any other people, they have helped to make our country 

 what it is. 



In France, where nearly everything is done better and more 

 artistically than elsewhere, the same conditions are found and most 

 I)eautiful j^lay gardens are ])r()vide(l for children; the one unfortu- 

 nate thing being that there are not many children. Tupper's 

 felicitous phrase, "A babe in the house is a well-spring of pleas- 

 ure" has never been translated into tlie French language — at least 

 it is not yet perceived as a beautiful truth l^y the French people. 



'I'Itc vSwiss have many playgrounds — how could it be other- 

 wise in the land of Pestalozzi, the forerunner and prototype of 



Plate 37 



JAPANESE GARDEN 



This is the recessed entrance to a Country Club. The design is Japanesque in 

 conception, the lantern being a direct importation from Tokio, and it serves as the 

 motif for the planting. On the right of the entrance is a colony of evergreens and 

 low-growing shrubs. On the left are families of low shrubs, Deutzia Lemoineii, 

 Golden Syringa, Japan Barberry, and Indian Currant. 



Froebel ? Is it any wonder that Switzerland was the first republic 

 in Europe, and that she possesses a happy and prosperous people? 



Educators, the world over, now believe that a child should be 

 trained through its natural actix ities and that all growth, mental 

 and physical, should be pleasurable. Education is a dex'elop- 

 ment, not an acquirement. The one way to develop a child ro 

 the full measure of its capacity is to provide natural associations 

 that are agreeable and let the little mind bloom and blossom as 

 freely as the flowers that give their perfume to the happy air. 



"Suffer little children to come unto Me and forbid them not, 

 for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven," is gospel enough to reju- 

 venate and redeem the world. 



