PARK AND CEMETERY. 
338 
REMARKABLE GROWTH of the PLAYGROUND IDEA 
The newest and most remarkable 
manifestation in present park develop- 
ment is the cry for playgrounds, and the 
realization of the truth so aptly put by 
an eminent authority who said : “The 
boy without a playground is father to 
the man without a job.” In nearly every 
city in the country there is an awaken- 
ing on this subject that is enlisting the 
interest of the leading citizens in the 
community. The New York Sun esti- 
mates that $50,000,000 has been ex- 
pended for this purpose by American 
cities in the past ten years, and $1,000,- 
000 a month for the past six months. 
Within three years Chicago has spent 
$6,000,000 in fitting up fourteen play- 
grounds, ranging from six to seventy 
acres in extent. In these have been 
built lagoons for rowing and skating, 
swimming and wading pools, band- 
stands, baseball fields, tennis courts, to- 
boggan slides, outdoor and indoor gym- 
nasiums and baths for men, women, 
girls and boys, swings, seesaws, teeters 
and sand courts for little children, lock- 
ers, lunch rooms, club rooms, assembly 
halls for musicales, lectures and dances 
— all with attendants and instructors and 
all, excepting the food in the restau- 
rants, absolutely free. Chicago will use 
$180,000 simply for the maintenance of 
her playgrounds this year and will open 
five new ones in addition. San Fran- 
cisco appropriated a million for play 
centers on the very heels of her disaster. 
Cleveland had nine playgrounds last 
summer. This summer it will have 
twenty-two. The board of education of 
Detroit will open nine school play- 
grounds this summer, and the mayor of 
that city, in addition, has found between 
sixty and seventy real estate owners who 
will turn over as many vacant lots for 
the use of children as playgrounds 
through the summer, the city to clean 
them up and prepare them for baseball 
and other games. Berkeley, Cal., has 
issued bonds for $450,000 for play- 
grounds. Richmond will open twelve 
school playgrounds this summer. 
Interest manifests itself in other di- 
rections. The University of Missouri 
has created a new chair, of which the 
first incumbent took his seat in Jan- 
uary. His work will be university exten- 
sion of the physical training depart- 
ment, and to that end he will spend his 
time traveling over the state, and as- 
sisting in the organization of play- 
grounds. Five cities of the state have 
organized playground associations since 
his appointment. 
In Baltimore an organization was ef- 
fected in February b\' some of the most 
representative people of the city which 
was the first of its kind in the country. 
It's object is to bring into harmonious 
co-operation organized athletics for 
school children, athletics for the work- 
ing boys of the city, the playground as- 
sociation and the work of the public 
gymnasia. 
The city of Los Angeles erected, 
last winter, the first municipal recrea- 
tion center distinct from any park, a 
large and beautiful building in the 
Eighth ward, a dreary district consid- 
ered the toughest of the city. This 
1iuilding with a patio and roof garden 
PLAN FOR PLAYGROUND 
.At Kansas City. 
preserves a flavor of characteristic Cali- 
fornian architecture and contains bowl- 
ing alleys, running track, public baths, 
a large gymnasium, clubroom, a stage 
with dressing rooms, kitchen and so 
on. It cost $50,000. Mrs. Willoughby 
Rodman is the chairman of tlie play- 
ground commission of Los Angeles, 
and the erection of this building is due 
tO' her and other women of the city. 
Before the Massachusetts Legislature 
there is a bill which provides that every 
city in the state of 10,000 inhabitants 
or more shall provide at least one cen- 
trally located playground for its chil- 
dren, and an additional playground for 
each additional 20,000 inhabitants. This 
bill was framed by Joseph Lee of Bos- 
ton, one of the vice-presidents of the 
Playground Association of America. 
New Jersey passed an advanced and 
progressive playground law last year, 
which was improved and strengthened 
this winter, and under it mayors have 
recently appointed playground commis-^ 
sion in Trenton, East Orange, Hoboken, 
Newark, Jersey City and Burlington. A 
bill was introduced in the Ohio legisla- 
ture during the present session to au- 
thorize cities to issue bonds, not to be 
counted under the debt limit of the 
Longworth law, for the purpose of es- 
tablishing civic centers equipped with 
I)laygrounds, gymnasiums, plunges, 
music and entertainments. 
Thus far this work, with the e.xcep- 
tion of trifling gift's here and there, has 
been done by municipalities and school 
boards, showing to what an extent it 
has taken hold of the mind of the gen- 
eral public, but John D. Rockefeller 
and his son-in-law, Harold McCormick, 
will this summer finance what is so far 
as known a perfectly new thing in the 
world. This will be a playground in 
the wilds for boys, in charge of Capt. 
Jack Crawford, sometimes called the 
“poet scout.” A tract of wilderness 
containing 1,200 acres will be opened 
on Portage Lake near Manistee, Mich., 
and there boys can camp out and learn 
woodcraft. If the plan proves success- 
ful a much larger tract may be opened 
later in New Me.xico. 
Perhaps the most remarkable proof 
of the interest of the w'hole nation in 
this movement is the curious expedi- 
tion of Lee F. Hanmer, Field Secretary 
of the Playground Association of Amer- 
ica, who travels as an educational mis- 
sionary or playground drummer.-*^’ The 
Sage Foundation pays his expenses, and 
he goes to help the playground move- 
ment in various w'ays. In some places 
he w'ill give moving picture shows and 
lectures on the subject for organiza- 
tions trying to rouse interest in their 
community. In others he will help the 
citizens to get action by' their municipal 
councils. In others where the money 
has been secured he will advise as to 
the best locality, equipment and super- 
vision of the new playground. No less 
than thirty-eight cities between Chicago 
and the Pacific have asked him to visit 
them. It is interesting to see the differ- 
ent elements pushing the thing in dif- 
ferent places. Most often, especially in 
the earliest stages of the movement, it 
is some organization of women; or it 
may be the school boa.rd, the city coun- 
