Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/187

 THE MOVEMENT FOR SMALL PLAYGROUNDS 1 69

apparatus is dismantled and the grounds flooded for skating. At night they are lighted by thirteen arc lights.

The apparatus cost about Si, 800; the men's and women's buildings about gi8,ooo. In the women's division the gymna- sium is covered with an awning, has a high board fence, and is equipped similarly to the men's division, with sand piles and provision for small children. The building here has a playroom which, with the grounds, is open Sundays after i o'clock, as well as the rest of the week, although the gymnasium is closed. The hours are from 8 a. m. till a half hour after sunset. Boys under nine are admitted into this ground, which has a superin- tendent and two assistants, beside the force caring for the building. The success of this division is equally great with that of the men's.

In Wood Island park there is a similar gymnasium, in which the building cost $21,000, and the gymnasium apparatus about 83,500.

Boston is striding ahead in providing thus for the good of its people ; ten tracts of land have already been secured under the "Park Act" as recreation spaces, and she contemplates pla- cing gymnasia in all of them, while House Bill No. 1 149, reported to the Massachusetts legislature March 29, 1898, pro- vides for a "comprehensive system of playgrounds for Boston," permitting an expenditure not to exceed $200,000 in any one year. Says Mayor Josiah Ouincy : "We hope within a year or two to have Boston in the lead in this respect;" and in his address for 1897:

I know of no direction in which the expenditure of a few hundred thou- sand dollars will do more for this community through the healthful develop- ment of its children than by the judicious provision of properly located and equipped playgrounds. So much public attention has been given to the advantages of extensive park areas that the equally great need of compara- tively small open spaces, particularly in thickly settled districts, for use as playgrounds, has been overlooked. If one-twentieth of the sum expended for park systems could be devoted to playgrounds, in my opinion there would be a still larger percentage of return in healthful physical development and social well-being.