PARK AND CEMETERY. 
149 
PLAYGROUND and RECREATION FACILITIES and their 
MANAGEMENT 
By Edward, B. De Groot, General Secretary, Playground Association of 
Chicago. Formerly Superintendent of Playgrounds and Sports, South Park 
Commission, Chicago; Address given at the Fifteenth Annual Meeting of the 
American Association of Park Superintendents, Denver, Colo., August 25. 
It is my purpose to treat the subject of 
Playground and Recreation Facilities and 
their Management in the light of the com- 
paratively new and increasing interest in 
the public playground and recreation cen- 
ter movement. In this treatment I shall 
not lose sight of the fact that park organi- 
zations have been leaders and not followers 
in certain aspects of this movement. 
In this country the park board of Boston 
was the first to establish public outdoor 
gymnasia for boys, girls, men and women, 
the San Francisco park board the first to 
devise the children’s playground, and the 
South Park Board, of Chicago, the first 
to develop the inclusive recreation center. 
Playground propaganda and the organiza- 
tion of playground associations, which now 
seem to be shaping the ideas of the Ameri- 
can people respecting play and recreation, 
have followed and not led the work of 
park boards in providing play and recrea- 
tion facilities. 
But the new and more precise expres- 
sions found in the country-wide play- 
ground movement have introduced new 
problems in park planning, organization, 
maintenance and operation with which the 
superintendent must cope successfully or 
suffer the stigma “back number.” It has 
now become necessary for the park super- 
intendent to add to his functions as horti- 
culturist, engineer, master mechanic, archi- 
tect, landscape expert, art critic, police 
magistrate, diplomat and keeper of the zoo, 
the function of “Captain of the Leisure 
Time Pursuits of the People.” In other 
words, the park superintendent must not 
only know what the people wish to see in 
parks, but he must now know what they 
wish to do in parks. Also, why and how 
they wish to do certain things in a certain 
manner, just as he has always known why 
people wish to see certain things. 
In this situation the technique of the 
playground is to be placed along side of 
the science of engineering, the canons of 
art and the laws of landscape development. 
Poor and inadequate playgrounds are no 
more to be tolerated than the abuse of 
color, violation of the laws of composi- 
tion, or the absence of esthetic virtues in 
park planning. 
That the modern playground movement 
has injected itself quite generally into 
park organizations is shown by the follow- 
ing statistics, gathered by the Playground 
and Recreation Association of America. 
“In 33 cities playground and recreation 
centers were (Nov. 1, 1912) maintained by 
playground or recreation commissions', in 
51 by playground associations, in 11 by 
playground associations in combination 
with other organizations, in 35 by school 
boards, in 33 by park boards, in 9 by park 
and school boards in combination, in 5 by 
park commissions and playground com- 
missions, in 11 by park boards in com- 
bination with other organizations — a total 
of 58 park boards involved. These records 
show that there are more park boards in- 
volved in the playground movement than 
any other single public agency. 
It may here be observed that the effect 
of the newer playground movement upon 
park boards has been both good and bad. 
In one of the most famous park organi- 
zations in this country, the incorporation 
and expression of the playground idea led 
to long and bitter misunderstandings among 
members of the board and the elimination, 
with attempted discredit, of one and per- 
haps two of the members. Misunderstand- 
ings and personal jealousies among heads 
of departments and the superintendent, and 
constant bickering and cross purposes in 
operation followed the bad pace set by the 
board members. In another park organi- 
zation the introduction of the playground 
idea put new and harmonious life into all 
of the members of the board, fired the 
superintendent with new zeal, and made 
both the workers in the operating force 
and the members of the board happy and 
proud in the new venture. In one case 
there was a relative overdevelopment of 
the playground idea without an adequate 
plan and organization to carry it, and con- 
sequent overshadowing of an old and 
praiseworthy park work that amounted to 
the “dog being wagged by the tail.” Hydro- 
phobia in the organization was of course, 
inevitable. In the case of the other park 
organization there was a very subordinate 
and bolstering development in the intro- 
duction of the playground which enabled 
the “dog to wag the tail” in a new manner, 
and thus carry off the blue ribbon for 
superior park development. In either case 
the acid test of public service and approval 
was so favorable that organization failures 
and even success were lost sight of. In 
this' connection it ought to be observed by 
all park organizations that the onward rush 
of the new playground ideas may be open 
to attack for “exceeding the speed limit” 
but that the public will not listen to charges 
of “reckless driving.” 
A classification or grouping of the tra- 
ditional and newer recreation interests will 
not only aid us in detail study, but will 
help us in shaping policies and attitude 
toward the problems of recreation under 
the management of park boards. 
With sufficient funds available there have 
been few questions in any park board as to 
the extent to which a superintendent might 
go in making a park a passive recreation 
center. Things which have aided people in 
their pursuit of recreation taken in walks, 
drives, through the eye, prone upon the 
grass' or seated upon a bench have been 
supplied abundantly. On the other hand, 
every park superintendent has felt the 
difficulty of determining where to begin 
and where to end in making a park an 
active recreation center. Things and plans 
which have aided people in their pursuit 
of recreation through motor expression 
have not been supplied except in a com- 
paratively limited manner. Questions of 
park composition, landscape effects and 
artistic expression have not governed this 
situation so much as the attitude of park 
boards and superintendents themselves. 
The South Park Commission of Chicago 
has set the pace for the entire country in 
developing a new kind of park which has 
retained as much as possible of the tradi- 
tional park treatment, but with the very 
maximum of facilities for motor expres- 
sion in recreation as the motive. In other 
words in the South Park plan there has 
been unique assembling of modern recrea- 
tion facilities which have been given a 
park-like setting. But the South Park 
Board is still asking the question how far 
it should go in this matter and whether it 
has not already gone too far as a park hoard. 
Four groups of interests, requiring dif- 
ferent kinds of equipment and somewhat 
different management, may be noted. 
Group One: Sports of the Seasons— (a) 
Ice and snow sports, such as skating, to- 
boggganing, hockey, ice boating, etc. (b) 
Water sports, such as rowing, sailing, mo- 
toring, canoeing, fishing, lake, river and 
ocean bathing, (c) Miscellaneous sports, 
such as fly and bait casting, archery, eques- 
trian sports, bicycling, camps, picnics, etc. 
Group Two: Traditional Games — Base- 
ball, Rugby football, soccer football, golf, 
tennis, roque, lacrosse, cricket, etc. 
Group Three: Traditional Track and 
Field Athletics — Running upon a cinder 
track, high jump, pole vault, broad jump, 
shot put, discus' and hammer throwing, 
hurdle racing, etc. 
Group Four: The Modern Directed Play- 
ground — Gymnastic and play apparatus, 
