Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/185

 THE MOVEMENT FOR SMALL PLAYGROUNDS 1 67

the legitimate outlet, and the forces will break forth in other and illegitimate directions. Again, quoting from the above report, we find :

With a common accord the precinct captains attribute the existence of juvenile rowdyism and turbulence to the lack of a better playground than the street .... Children use the middle of the street, and a great many acci- dents are caused thereby. They break lamps and windows, because they have no other provision made for them. Loudon, after an experience of forty years battling with the slums, says, tersely: "Crime in our large cities is to a great extent simply a question of athletics."

Europe is far ahead of us in the treatment of the problem, and in providing spaces for and supervisors of sports for chil- dren, which we would do well to copy. In England, Scotland, Holland, France, and Germany very much has been done during the past decade.

Where small parks have been made, the verdict of the police is unanimous that they have changed the character of the neigh- borhood. Give the children adequate playgrounds, and the same spirit and imagination which form rowdy gangs form base- ball clubs and companies for plays and games and drills of various kinds. Children's imagination is vivid and must be satisfied. It will satisfy itself, whether we wish it or not. Feed it properly, and it will blossom into beautiful fruitage; starve it and throw it back upon itself, and we have all the ugly excres- cences, deformities, and depravities of crowded-city life.

The majority of our city parks have no special arrangements for children, although in many parts of the parks the children are unrestricted, but it is a question whether the best interests of the city would not be served by copying the European method, i. e., by having a supervisor of sports and regular places in the parks given over to the exclusive use of the children as their right ; for, though not restricted in their play, it naturally hap- pens that the little ones are crowded out by the bigger ones, and that when grown folk wish the place the children have to give way. Not all persons realize the child's need for space to run around, for a place to make a noise, for a place for the larger play of his imagination in concrete form.