146 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
MODERN PLAYGROUND AND RECREATION SERVICE 
LITTLE FOLKS’ FESTIVAL, BUSHNELL PARK, HARTFORD, CONN. 
which have made America : Indians, Co- 
lumbus and the Spaniards, Puritans, 
George Washington and the Colonials, 
Hunters, Trappers and Voyageurs, and 
finally some of the more lately arrived 
peoples — Irish, German, Italian, Russian 
and so on. The details were many of them 
exceedingly crude, but as the entire cele- 
bration went with great enthusiasm and 
swing, although the temperature was 106 
degrees at 2 o’clock and as it was almost 
the first occasion on which there was such 
hearty co-operation between city depart- 
ments and widely differing private or- 
ganizations, there was every reason for 
congratulation. The Artists’ Guild planned 
the pageant and made water-color draw- 
ings of the costumes. Those of non-in- 
flammable tissue paper were made largely 
by the children themselves, but materially 
assisted by the Mothers’ clubs of the pub- 
lic schools and the guilds of some of the 
neighboring churches. The public school 
buildings were opened for the costume 
making, as were the rooms of the Jewish 
Alliance and the Soulard Branch Library. 
A new feature of recent playground 
work in St. Louis has been the giving of 
pageants. The two great occasions of the 
summer, in the opinion of the children, 
were Fourth of July and the day of the 
Annual Meet, the last Thursday of Au- 
gust. 
In the Fourth of July celebration the 
Public Recreation Commission acted in 
co-operation with the Patriotic Independ- 
ence Day Association, an organization of 
citizens formed to encourage the ‘‘safe and 
sane’’ observance of the national holiday. 
The celebration centered in four parks, 
Gravois Park on the extreme south ; Soul- 
arci Place, south center ; Columbus Square, 
north center; and Fairground on the ex- 
treme north. In each of these parks in 
conjunction with the features of the cele- 
bration supplied by the central and local 
citizens’ organizations, the playgrounds 
gave a patriotic pageant called “America.” 
It was simple in plan and execution. Be- 
fore Columbia and the Thirteen Original 
States, passed in review, with appropriate 
dances, the various races and nations 
Turnverein directors helped supervise the 
athletic features of the program. In one 
district the School Patrons’ Alliance had 
charge of the celebration, in another a 
Park Improvement Association, in still 
another a Business Men’s Association. The 
Park Department furnished the grounds 
and the music, the Public Recreation Com- 
mission trained the children. 
Superintendent George A. Parker, of the 
Hartford, Conn., park system in his last 
annual report offers a very keen and 
careful analysis of the fundamental prin- 
ciples of playground service from which ; 
we quote the following : 
The city appropriated $2,500 for out- 
side recreation, and while some of the de- 
tails might be classed as crude and open 
to adverse criticism, yet the results lead 
me to believe they have solved some of 
the fundamental principles underlying the 
recreation problems of city life. In that 
respect the playgrounds were successful. 
A man who works near a window in one 
of the high buildings overlooking the ter- 
ritory served by the playgrounds said that 
