quents who were permitted to veer off from the normal life. She declares: "It is not too much to say the entire institutional program of the future correctional school will be built around the playgrounds, the gymnasium, the swimming pool, dining room and sleeping porch. "In this way will be built up that vigor of life which is necessary to successful adjustment. (Note that: "successful adjustment," i. e.. the normal life.) "Within the institution," she asserts, "there should be outlets for self-expression, arts, and crafts, dramatic production, pageants, interior decoration, landscape gardening, pottery, weaving, toy-making and many other things. For, the chief contribution of the correctional school cannot be made in the field of morals; what will really count in the outside world is: how the child learned to enjoy itself in free-time? What does it do when it is let alone?"

Dr. Van Waters, you see, would make her recreational cure of delinquency so thorough as to cause it to become also a continuing preventive of delinquency for the same individuals. The question is pertinent, therefore: why not in the first instance arrange everything so naturally in the daily life of our youth that they will unconsciously be imbibing the benefits of this type of preventive measure and thus form, form, form rather than wait for occasions to reform before we begin to do the right thing?

We have done altogether too much waiting. We need to remember that our total crime bill today, according to some estimates, has mounted to the stupendous sum of ten billion dollars per year! Surely it is high time that we should blazon imperishably upon the skies for all to read the truth that one potent, proven means of stemming the tide is to universalize the application of this idea of constructive play.

Our general program, town by town, city by city, must be carefully worked out, in each case to fit the local conditions. But experience proves that to be most effective, it needs to incorporate into its scheme the home, the school, the church and the community. There must be no loopholes. Each has its part in the ensemble effort. Each must play into the hands of the other. Not one alone, nor two or three of them, but all four are needed if we are to get anywhere.

More and better parks, playgrounds, athletic fields, neighborhood social centers, opportunities for musical, dramatic and art expression under wise leadership will result. In all of such planning, of course, the adult must not be forgotten. He needs recreation in forms adapted to his condition if he is to avert unnecessary ills in and after middle life (as even the insurance companies are now warning us), and prolong a cheerful, glowing existence into the twilight days well beyond the traditional three score and ten. He can do so if he will keep the forward looking spirit of youth. Premature breakdown will soon be considered a disgrace.

At the center of all our effort must be organization, to which ever new wisdom should be added.

The Playground and Recreation Association of America offers its twenty years experience to communities for studying their recrea

tional needs, mapping out a workable program, furnishing and training of workers and continuous advisory service.

The whole issue is so vital to the welfare of America that it must be grappled with in a large way. The youth of America are so immeasurably precious that we should at any cost in money and effort be joyously concerned to make it possible for them to lead the normal life, the normal life which is in so large a measure the life of abounding health, the life of creative expression, the life of wholesome comradeship, the efficient life, the life of service, the life of happiness. The normal life, rightly conceived, is the abundant life.

Shall we do our part in making it possible, or like the Levite, pass by on the other side? Shall we answer this cry of hunger by offer ing wholesome food or a stone?

DIRECTED RECREATION

By F. O. Eichelberger, City Manager, Dayton, Ohio.

A great deal has been spoken and volumes have been written on the subject of directed recreation and while it is now commonly accepted as an important part of the community life, it has taken a lot of hard work to convince the taxpayers that public funds should be spent for this purpose. Very recently when it seemed necessary for the City of Dayton to reduce its budget there was quite a bit of agitation to dispense with our Bureau of Recreation, on the assumption that it was an unnecessary luxury. But numerous other citizens who have growing children and those agencies that have to do with juvenile welfare refused to stand by and permit this to happen.

It is safe to conclude that the supervised playgrounds and other forms of directed recreation are here to stay and more people are becoming convinced every day that they are paying big dividends in building better communities.

The McCall Publishing Company selected Dayton as the location. for their new plant. The president of the company, Mr. H. B. Warner, gave the following answer to the question as to why Dayton had been chosen: "I can only answer, that it was the 'livableness' of this city that decided the issue. Keep Dayton a good town to live in and your future is assured." A number of instances are on record where cities considered by industries as locations for new factories were finally rejected because of the lack of provisions for community recreation. President Coolidge recently said: "Recreation in its best and most wholesome sense is nowadays becoming an increasingly important interest in the lives of most people. Vigorous, clean, honest sport is only less important than earnest, productive, useful and happy work. The efficiency of productive effort is bound to depend largely upon properly balanced measure of recreation. More and better work will be accomplished where it is accompanied by more and better play."

Maintenance and supervision of public playgrounds and recreational centers is a civic obligation. In 1886, Boston, Massachusetts, established the first organized and supervised outdoor playground in America under private auspices, and other cities here and there throughout the country feeling the need for play space for little children, established, principally through the efforts of interested. groups, playgrounds and play centers. Then came the realization, growing slowly but surely, that the support and administration of playground work should be a governmental function. Gradually, city after city assumed this responsibility. A number of states passed legislation making possible recreation commissions and departments

and the work began to assume the proportions of a national movement. In June, 1907, the Playground Recreation Association of America was organized, the object of this association was to begin a systematic effort to assist cities throughout the country in establishing year-round recreational systems on a permanent basis, supported by funds raised through taxation and administered by a municipal department under the direction of a paid superintendent of recreation. Statistics on the recreation movement in 1918 show that there were 129 cities at that time having year-round recreation systems with over 1600 workers employed continuously. In the past eight years hundreds of other cities have begun the movement for directed recreation under municipal control.

Within the last few years Dayton has forged rapidly to the front in the matter of playgrounds, both in number and in the quality of supervision. Playgrounds in Dayton are excellently distributed, and in few instances are they farther than half a mile from the homes which they serve. They are so distributed that one section is not favored at the expense of another.

During the season which has just closed our Bureau of Recreation operated twenty supervised playgrounds.

The attendance from the last week in June to the first week in September exceeded half a million or about fifteen visits for each child of school age.

These playgrounds are great schools of democracy; the children are taught to be fair in their play and to recognize the rights of others. False social barriers which wealth would set up are leveled and decency is all that is required in making a debut in this society.

Our playgrounds have plenty of equipment and all the children have an equal chance. They are watched as closely as is necessary to insure their safety, but are not interfered with unless it becomes

necessary.

The recreational work in Dayton is co-ordinated with the Dayton's Playground and Garden Association, financed by the Community Chest, all of which is headed by the Supervisor of Recreation in the Department of Public Welfare. Inter-playground contests, including baseball, volley ball, swimming, rowing, kite flying and marbles are held near the close of the season. Junior and Senior field days are held at which appropriate prizes are awarded. The outstanding feature in this year's work was the Annual Field Day with entries from all playgrounds and from numerous industries in the city. An Annual Community Pageant is given by several hundred children representing all playgrounds in the city. Another special feature is the playground picnic to which all children frequenting the playgrounds were invited. On this occasion the championship baseball, and volley ball games are held together with the championship quoit tournament. As a part of the program, trophies and prizes are awarded. Silver loving cups are awarded to the championship baseball and volley ball

teams, and to the winners of the quoit contests. The trophies were furnished by The Dayton Playground and Garden Association.

In Dayton, practically all playgrounds have quoit and tennis courts. The Bureau of Recreation supervises numerous baseball leagues, tennis and quoit tournaments and volley ball leagues.

Free motion pictures are given by the Bureau at thirteen play centers. These pictures consist of one and one-half hour's entertainment of educational and comic films, using motion picture machines and screens owned by the city. These free pictures are very much appreciated and liberally patronized by children and adults as well. Each of the thirteen play centers has its particular night each week for the pictures, and these pictures are shown during the entire vacation. time.

An annual kiddies' field day is held limited to children under the age of seven years. This affair consists of ten events: kiddie kar race of fifty feet for children under four, an auto car race of fifty feet for children under six, a velocipede race of fifty feet for children under six, a girls' and boys' dash of fifty feet for those under six, and other events, such as doll making, soft ball throw, sand building and peanut hunt. Prizes for the winners of these events are furnished by a local bank.

The larger playgrounds have two instructors and the smaller ones have one. Great care is exercised in choosing the instructors. To qualify as a playground director the prospective candidate must attend the Playground Institute; a ten weeks' course, held each spring during which lectures are given upon modern methods of playground supervision. They are then required to pass a Civil Service examination, the results of which determine those best fitted for these positions. The playground director is charged with the responsibility of the children attending the center, must encourage children in the proper methods of play, teach respect for decisions and authority, provide schedules for games among the children of his center, and with the children of other playgrounds through their respective supervisors. The director must encourage entries in the various playground events, such as boat building, kite tournaments, kiddie and junior field days, tennis and quoit tournaments. They must also select children for participation in the annual pageant in which all playgrounds are represented and which forms a fitting climax to the playground season.

Community gardens form a part of the work of directed recreation in Dayton. A chief gardener is employed the year-round to carry on this work. Applications are received in the early part of the year for the plowing of vacant lots, these lots are plowed by the city free of charge; the only requirements are that the applicant appear at the office of the Bureau of Recreation in person and register the location of the lot, exhibit a permit from the owner to use same, and agree to cultivate a garden thereon. Last year 674 of such lots were plowed. These gardens yielded produce valued at $14,286.00. All the gardens