72 
PA.RK AND CEMETERY. 
A Year’s Record of tKe New .Small ParRs in Chicago. 
The annual report of the South Park Commission- 
ers of Chicago for 1905, the first issued since the 
opening of the new small parks with their field houses 
and elaborate public service features, records a re- 
markable popular verdict in favor of this new idea 
in park service. 
It demonstrates the unquestioned success of the 
gymnasia and field houses operated for the first time 
last year on so large a scale in any American city. 
“The judgment of the commissioners as to the great 
value of the gymnasia and playgrounds as agencies 
with which to combat the tendencies toward social 
and physical degeneration, which inevitably accom- 
pany city life, has been fully sustained and is empha- 
sized bv many eminent pedagogues, scientists and so- 
ciologists,” says the report. 
The liberal use of the dififerent facilities as shown 
by the reports of the Superintendent and Director of 
Athletics confirms the faith the Commissioners had 
in the benefits that would come from the installation 
of neighborhood center ljuildings, with their acces- 
sories, gymnasia, baths, reading rooms, assembly 
halls and branches of the public library. 
The fact that over 1,200,000 persons used the field 
houses in the short time they have been in service 
demonstrates the necessity for them and is indicative 
of their future usefulness. 
E. B. De Groot, director of gymnastics and ath- 
letics, reports that the indoor gymnasia in the ten 
small parks were utilized during six months by 231,- 
505 people and the outdoor apparatus by 272,894. 
The shower baths were used by 285,680 persons in 
the same period and the pools by 416,105 men, women 
and children. 
The classes in physical exercise registered last year 
14,403 regular attendants. Classes were held in the 
afternoon and evening and school children, working 
boys and girls and married men and women took 
part in the exercises. Instruction was given by twenty 
instructors, ten men ami ten women, many’ of whom 
are college graduates. The hygienic, corrective and 
recreative features of gymnasium work are mentioned 
W.\DING POOL, AND FIELD HOUSE IN ONE OF THE NEW SMALL P.inKS IN CHICAGO. 
