and perhaps many other forms of activity having to do with the proper use of the leisure moments of the people.

In the smaller cities and towns and in rural communities the best results can possibly be attained by making the schools the focal point of organization and activity. This brings us to a discussion of the public-school system in its relation to the playground and recreation movement.

Even if the commission form of organization and management of a community's recreation program becomes the prevailing method, as seems to be the tendency now, the public schools will of necessity be the gathering point of much of the activity. There are several reasons why this is so. Among them are the following:

1. In the first place, even from a very early age, thru the gradual increase of kindergartens, the schools for three-fourths of the year have the majority of the children up to the thirteenth or fourteenth year, and modern city-life conditions are such that a feeling is developing that the schools should keep control for twelve months of the year and perhaps for a greater number of hours during the day. In some cities the children are coming under the supervisory control of the schools even in the evening for a portion of the time for study purposes (regular day pupils).

2. Again, the schools have the grounds, buildings, equipment, and most important of all, the teachers and leaders. It is significant that in the laying out of a playground system in any city the school grounds furnish a ready-made basis, inasmuch as they are in effective radius of every child in every community of the city. The school building does away immediately, as a general rule, with the necessity of erecting special buildings, such as lavatories, field houses or recreation buildings, which represents a great economic saving to the community.

3. There is a growing sentiment that the material expenditure represented in school grounds, buildings, and equipment ought to be returning to the community a greater dividend upon the investment than they are now doing, hence we have the movement for the wider use of the school buildings and grounds. This movement aims to make the school the center not only of the educational life of the community but of the recreational, social, health, and civic life as well. This has taken many forms, such as evening schools, vacation schools, popular lecture courses, community meetings, evening recreation centers, social centers, public baths, branch libraries, dental clinics, moving-picture shows, public gymnasia, clubs of all sorts, and other forms of activity of both the old and the young that might be mentioned. Perhaps it is not wise for the schools to branch out into this great field of social and recreational activity; but whether the school organization itself does this or whether it co-operates with a public recreation commission, the possibilities for constructive educational, social work are so great thru the larger use of this equipment ready at hand that the field ought not to lie fallow because of want of working.

4. The educational value of play is a matter of very old knowledge, but its significance and power have been largely lost under our present system of curricula organization. I shall not attempt to discuss at length this phase of the relation of the play movement to the school, but will refer you to that admirable little book Education by Plays and Games, by Professor George E. Johnson, as a basis for the study of this subject. If it be true, however, that play is the law of the development of the child; if it be true that his early years, to the adolescent period at least, are concerned with motor development primarily and not with intellectual development; if it be true that we are basing our educational efforts, in part at least, upon an appeal to the interest of the child; if it be true that the higher social relations of life cannot well be taught by precept but best thru action: we grievously err in not making the greatest possible use of this natural and fundamental instinct of the child known as "play."

SUGGESTIONS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF PLAY IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS

1. Space to play upon is the first consideration. It was the common custom of school boards in former days to secure just enough ground for the site of the building and a very small area of unoccupied ground around it. In the large cities of the East where the buildings were large, land values high, and the emphasis was placed upon the work of the child in the classroom, it was not thought necessary or economical to purchase large areas of ground. The same sentiment generally prevailed even in small cities and towns and in the rural districts of the entire country, altho there were many isolated instances to the contrary. The development of the play idea has given rise to a new sentiment regarding grounds, so that there is being set in many states a definite standard as to the number of square feet of play space per child that ought to be provided around the school building. This varies from thirty square feet per child in the large eastern and middlewestern cities to a maximum of one hundred square feet in the Northwest coast region. A bill was actually before the legislature of the state of Washington making it obligatory upon school boards to provide one hundred square feet of ground for each child. This failed to become a law because of the governor's veto, but serves to show the remarkable change in attitude regarding the question of space within the very recent years. There are a number of concrete illustrations of this attitude also. The school board of Portland, Ore., this year spent $150,000 in enlarging their school grounds; Oakland, Cal., voted nearly half a million of bonds for the same purpose; Sacramento voted a large sum of money, some of which will be used for enlarging school grounds; Tacoma, Wash., likewise. It is the plan of Spokane when the million-dollar bond issue is available, which will probably be this fall, to purchase twenty-seven sites in connection with already existing school grounds, thus making them more adaptable and efficient in developing the play idea. There are many other instances of the same tendency even in the country districts, but these cannot be mentioned in this brief discussion.

The Playground and Recreation Association of America advocates the securing of at least three acres for every grade building and at least five acres for every high school. For the latter, ten or fifteen would be better.

Because of the cold and rain, and rain alone in some parts of the country, inclosed play spaces are necessary. These are generally located in the basement in most cities that have them, and as they are quite common no further mention of them is necessary. Play at its best, however, must be out of doors. In those sections of the country, notably the west coast, where the temperature is never so low as to be a hindrance to play in the open all the year around, but where rain is a preventing factor, covered playground areas are highly desirable. One such covered outdoor gymnasium and playground is to be found in connection with the Portland Academy, Portland, Ore.

2. The building should not be located in the center of the plot of ground

but in one corner or well toward the edge of one or the other side, thus leaving as much available space for plays and games as possible.

3. The school playground should be fenced for the purpose of management, of protection of property, and so as to guard against the grounds becoming the resort of undesirable persons. Sufficient ground around the fence should be provided for the planting of shrubs, vines, and perhaps for a strip of lawn. This parking gives greater seclusion and adds greatly to the beauty of the surroundings.

It may be found necessary to have a fence dividing the girls' and boys' side of the ground. For the prevention of accidents it is also advisable to have a low fence around the swings.

As to equipment, reduce it to a minimum. A sand court, a slide, some little swings, and building-blocks for the little children; swings, teeterboard, slide, volley-ball and basket-ball court, tennis perhaps, for the girls; and swings, teeter-boards, traveling rings, slide, horizontal bar, jumping pit and ball outfits for the boys-make a fairly good equipment outfit, and some of this may be done without. In locating apparatus, place wherever possible near the edge of the ground so as to leave as large, open space in the center as possible for running games and plays. If there is a manualtraining department connected with the school, get the big boys interested by permitting them to make much of the apparatus, or parents' associations might be interested in doing this. If the money is available, it is probably more economical in the long run to buy the best commercial apparatus.

SUPERVISION OF SCHOOL PLAYGROUNDS

During the school year this will fall largely upon the teachers themselves, both for the recess and noon activities as well as for the activities before and after school if this system be adopted. For supervision outside of school hours, teachers should receive extra compensation based upon some regularly adopted schedule of payment for extra services. For the general supervision and in order to secure uniform work, the plan of having a physical director with one or more assistants trained in plays and games as well as in calisthenics and gymnastics might be followed. Playground classes might be organized among the teachers under the direction of the physical director or an assistant, as is done in Cincinnati and some other cities, so as to fit the teachers for leadership in plays and games. Teachers would find it profitable and interesting to attend the summer session of those colleges and universities giving courses in play, as in California State University, Wisconsin, Columbia, etc.

Vacation-school playgrounds if under school management are generally supervised by regular teachers who are willing to employ their time in this In order to secure all-year-round work the suggestion is made that the broadly trained physical director be employed for twelve months of the year instead of nine, giving him charge of all play and recreational

manner.

activities centering in the school, with such assistants as the size of the school system and amount of money available warrant.

The kind of activities conducted upon school playgrounds we shall not discuss here, but will pass to a brief discussion of the possible changes in school architecture that the wider use of the school by the community. demands. Suppose, for example, the school principal or the superintendent should desire to take up the recreational problem of the working boy and girl; of furnishing continued educational advantages to them and to adults; to assist in the assimilation of the adult foreign elements; to organize clubs; to hold music festivals; lectures, dramatic performances; to have a public bath-house or a public gymnasium-would the average school building of the cities and towns be fitted for this wide range of educational, social, and health activities? At the present time-no. Therefore certain features of the modern high-school and grade building must be extended and others must be added to meet this growing community need. A description of one such building in Cincinnati will serve to make this plain. The Eleventh District School in this city, in addition to the regular classrooms, has very large playrooms in the basement, with exceedingly high ceiling, a large auditorium, with stage and dressing-rooms, a library room, a reception room, a museum room, double kindergarten rooms, domestic-science and manual-training rooms, shower baths, and a large, splendidly equipped gymnasium. With the addition of a swimming-pool this type of building would be almost ideal for any use to which the community might desire to put it. The plans of the future grade buildings in this city call for swimming-pools also. A model building erected in Lexington, Ky., this summer has all these features, including a swimming-pool and a public laundry. School workers can do much in furthering the development of this more useful type of building by acquainting their school boards with these new features, and inasmuch as a great deal depends upon the advice of the architect as to the form of the building, they likewise could wield a tremendous power along the line of this development.

SUMMARY

1. The playground movement had its origin in the peculiar social conditions growing out of the urbanization of the population.

2. Its growth has been more rapid than that of any other national movement.

3. It has broadened its scope to include the play and recreational needs of all the people.

4. The fundamental principles of municipal control, need of all-year-round activities. need of adequate number of trained leaders, and of some special body to organize and manage a recreation system (especially in large cities), are well established.

5. Schools will always be important centers of play and recreational activity because they have the children, effectively located; have the ground, buildings, and equipment; have the leaders, who know the educational importance of play; and because of a growing sentiment for greater efficiency thru wider use, and because of larger vision of true education.

6. To meet these larger possible expansions of the school there must be larger grounds, better-trained teachers in plays and games, better organization of physical-training departments, correlation of play activities as a regular part of school system, proper laying out and equipment of grounds, and a modification of the architecture of the buildings.

PHYSICAL TRAINING FOR GIRLS OF HIGH SCHOOL AGETHE BIOLOGICAL POINT OF VIEW*

JOHN M. TYLER, PROFESSOR OF BIOLOGY, AMHERST COLLEGE,
AMHERST, MASS.

The goal of education in our public schools is not merely learning or mental discipline, but power and efficiency. A century ago, when farming was almost universal, the home could furnish physical and manual training; could teach nature-study, agriculture, and the care of animals; and could educate to efficiency, industry, ingenuity, and responsibility. The disappearance of farm-life has crippled the educational efficiency of the home, and the whole burden of education is thrown upon the school.

Meanwhile the complexity of our civilization has increased vastly the wear and strain of life. We live mostly in cities and large towns, work in hot, ill-ventilated rooms, and use our brains almost to the exclusion of our heavier muscles. This, as Dr. Baxter has taught us, necessarily means increase of disease and weakness. The strain falls heaviest not on the tough muscles, but on the delicate nerves. It is an unhealthy life, which we cannot well avoid or greatly improve. We must train our boys. and girls to meet and endure under unfavorable conditions a strain vastly greater and more severe than fell to the lot of our ancestors. Hence our system of education must make it its first business to train young men and women of overflowing vitality, of sturdy and abounding health, of toughness and endurance, of great power and efficiency. They must possess the largely physical virtues of courage, hope, and faith; of strong purpose and persistence; of dogged endurance in overcoming obstacles; of calm confidence in emergencies. These qualities I call physical virtues because they depend so largely upon the physical condition of the vital organs of the body, especially of the muscles and viscera.

The physical trainer deals directly and immediately mainly with the muscles and sensory organs. But indirectly or directly he can reach and mold every organ in the body from the digestive system to the highest centers and powers of the brain. "Health"-whether physical, mental, moral, or religious-"comes in thru the muscles and flies out thru the nerves." Physical trainers should do vastly more educational and missionary work in insisting upon the vital importance and wide scope of their grand calling.

But our muscles are of different kinds and ages. We have central *Read before the National Convention Public School Society, April 9, 1909. Reprinted from the American Physical Education Review, May, 1909.