ÆäÀÌÁö À̹ÌÁö
PDF
ePub

But if the individual can do nothing the community, acting as a community, can. This is the inestimable advantage which the city has over the country. The close association of persons with common interests which is involved in city life and the ready responsiveness of the group-mind make feasible the carrying out of constructive programs for wholesome recreation of a splendor and attractiveness almost beyond the reach of the imagination.

Beginnings of this sort have already been made here and there. Kicked into action by one of its prominent papers, Springfield, Mass., set out to have a sane and safe Fourth of July. A committee was evolved. The committee secured the coöperation. of the School Board, the Mayor, the Chamber of Commerce-the movement became so contagious nearly everybody wanted to get into it. The result was that Springfield had a Fourth of July that really dedicated the day, that bound together thirteen nationalities in one wholesome enthusiasm, that gave the children more harmless fireworks, the youth more healthful athletics and the people more hopeful poetry than the life of that city had ever before. witnessed. The secret of it all was that the people acted as a unit to remedy an intolerable custom instead of, as individuals, just objecting and letting the foolish firecracker slaughter of the innocents go on.

One of the pleasantest aspects of the whole city recreation problem is that its solution is to be accomplished not primarily by restrictive, but by constructive measures. In the main, both children and grown-ups like good things better than the bad. People as a whole are wholesome. Their children are wholesome and they respond to wholesome things. The really shameful part of the business is we do not give them a chance. More than half, I believe, of our American boys and girls have to secure the bulk of their recreation in the streets, much of the time under influences positively unwholesome and sometimes dangerous to life. If our boys attempt to play baseball in the streets we arrest them. The 200,000 young people who frequent the dance halls of New York, if they dance at all, are compelled to take this exhilarating exercise under conditions which are frequently vicious in their moral influence.

To free ourselves from the present indictment of neglecting to give our young people the opportunities for wholesome recreation

and to carry out those constructive plans which promise so much. for the future all-round development of the individual three things must be done. First, we must find out the facts. We should have an instantaneous occupation census.

By occupation census I mean a record of the age, sex and occupation of every person in a certain district upon a given hour. It would probably not be feasible to attempt to cover a whole city. Some Saturday night at perhaps nine o'clock would be a favorable time. This census would show just how many people are at that time on the streets, how many are in saloons, how many are in billiard halls, how many in bowling alleys, how many in gymnasiums, in dance halls, etc., throughout the entire district.

We know pretty well how and where people work. We know, for example, how many people are engaged in the iron trade, how many are miners and engineers, and how many are employed on farms. But we have no reliable data as to how many people dance or how many are interested in art or philosophy. We have quite authoritative information as to what people do to earn their food, clothing and shelter. We have very little idea, on the other hand, what they do when they please themselves, when they are pursuing their own ideals. Such a census as I have described would tell us just this.

The practical uses of census information of this sort are many. To take a single illustration: A great playground movement is going on all over the country. In some of the larger cities commissions, backed by substantial appropriations, have been authorized to investigate existing playground facilities. The attendance at the playground is recorded, but nobody knows how many children in a given area, say the four blocks around the playground, are at any given time not there. Do the children go to the playground for brief entertainment and then return to the street for the bulk of their play? These are fundamental questions and yet we are not able to answer them. The census would give us this information.

The second thing we must do to insure the widest and wisest indulgence in recreation is to promote a full and purposeful use of the facilities we now have. All over America there are school buildings and school yards, a great many of which are locked up

at three o'clock. The balance of the day they serve absolutely no use; whereas if they were open in the evening both children and adults might find in them the means for considerable social and recreative enjoyment. There are our manual training schools with their expensive equipments. Why let them be shut up after the regular school hours? It is better for boys to be working in shops, learning to use their hands by making kites and boats, than "shooting craps" in a dark alley. Why not keep the school yards open all of the time so that our children will not be obliged to play in the automobile-ridden streets. These properties belong to us; why not have the fullest use of them?

Besides extending the use of our school buildings let us also plan the use of our parks. At present we just allow their use. We do not even do what every big summer hotel does for its guests-provide guides who show how the various facilities may be exploited for the enjoyment of the patrons. Modern library administration has pointed the way. Libraries do not simply store books nowadays; they push books at people. But this enterprising and aggressive adaptation of our parks and horticultural gardens to the needs of humanity does not seem as yet to have been dreamed of. There are many which are not being fully used because of a lack of intelligent direction.

We need also deliberately to study our festival occasions. They are great possessions which we are allowing to go to waste. They could be made the focal points for large streams of social life. The marching, dances and ceremonies could be made to dignify the days they celebrate and to render them educational, instead of what they now so frequently are-dissipating for adults and meaningless for the children.

The third part of the program for popular recreation which is incumbent upon us of the cities is that of formulating a comprehensive plan. Such a measure as this is necessary if we are to make sure of an equal attention to the needs of every class and avoid that overlapping of energy which always accompanies individual, unconnected efforts. Our cities are being architecturally beautified in accordance with far-seeing, harmonious municipal designs. Why should not our physical, moral and social health receive the same broad, expert and centralized treatment?

There is an especial need of comprehensive planning at the

present moment because so many states and municipalities, at last awakened to a consciousness of their obligations, are beginning to make appropriations for recreative purposes. The Massachusetts Legislature has passed a bill requiring all cities and towns having over 10,000 people to vote upon the subject of maintaining playgrounds. Only two out of forty-two towns voted "No."

Up to 1908 New York City had spent over $15,000,000 on playgrounds. In some instances the price paid for land was enormous. One plot containing less than two acres cost the city $1,811,000.

In the past few years Chicago has spent $11,000,000 on playgrounds and fieldhouses. These places have become centers of social life, as did the palestra in the old Greek days and the Roman baths during their epoch-places where whole groups of people have the opportunity of doing pleasant things together.

In the far West the movement is also under way and cities are bonding themselves for the support of parks and playgrounds.

Not only must municipalities and philanthropic associations coördinate their efforts in some harmonious, comprehensive scheme, but the whole plan must be administered by experts with definite goals in view. It is not enough to give everybody the chance to play. We must also direct that play to specific as well as attractive ends.

The tendency of a recreation to be warped from its legitimate purpose, when left to private adventure, is well illustrated in the development of baseball. Our national game has produced spectators in a number far out of reasonable proportion to the number of players. In England the actual participation in cricket is much more universal.

If our boys are going to learn team play; if they are going to acquire the habit of subordinating selfish to group interests, they must learn these things through experience and not from books or the "bleachers" maintained by professional baseball. Such moral development comes only through activities which are pursued with spontaneous and passionate enthusiasm. The boys must not only have sufficient opportunity to take part themselves in wholesome games, but these must have that intelligent supervision which shall insure not only the highest degree of pleasure, but also the fullest moral profit.

If, then, we can get people to do these three things, learn the facts, make what we have fully useful, and unify all activities in a harmonious plan, then we shall indeed have taken a long stride toward making popular recreation the well-spring of public morality. For the relationship of recreation to good conduct is not an idle thought. That familiar proverb might well have been written, "As a man playeth, so is he."

With increasing leisure the ennobling ideals which spring from play will wax stronger in the human soul. If we can but get everybody to play their own natures will do the rest. It is a task that can only be performed by coöperation, that union of effort which is possible only in the city. This is why the Bible says that Heaven is a city.

« ÀÌÀü°è¼Ó »