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trail’s end


BULLY FOR PARKS!


the white house, washington, d.c. february 16, 1907. It is with regret that I must refuse your kind invitation to speak at your annual banquet. I have noted with pleasure the good work that your association has done in promoting playgrounds for the national capital. I am especially pleased with the prospect of Congress granting this year an appropriation for the purchase of playground sites. I trust that the bill will go through so that you may be able to secure sites in the various quarters of the city now, while open spaces still exist and before the price upon them becomes prohibitive. I regard this as one of the most important steps toward making Washington the model city that we all feel that the capital of this nation should be. I have been pleased to see also that there is a new interest


in play and playgrounds all over the country, and that many cities that have not previously taken up the movement in a systematic way have made a beginning this year. The new appreciation of the value of play in the develop- ment of children is shown in many ways. Physical trainers have put a new emphasis on the importance of play and are giving a larger place to it in their work. The Public School Athletic League of New York has organized athletics along sane and helpful lines for thousands of schoolchildren, and a number of other cities seem to be about to take up this move- ment. I hope that soon all of our public schools will provide, in connection with the school buildings and during school hours, the place and time for children’s recreation as well as their study. If we would have our citizens contented and law- abiding, we must not sow the seed of discontent in childhood by denying children their birthright of play. City streets are unsatisfactory playgrounds for children because of the danger, because most good games are against the law, because they are too hot in summer, and because in crowded sections of the city they are apt to be schools of crime. Neither do small backyards nor ornamental grass plots meet the needs of any but the very small children. Older children who would play vigorous games must have places 64 · LAND&PEOPLE · FALL/WINTER 2016


especially set aside for them, and, since play is a fundamental need, playgrounds should be provided for every child as much as schools.


This means that playgrounds must be distributed over the cities in such a way as to be within walking distance of every boy and girl, as most children cannot afford to pay carfare. In view of these facts cities should secure available spaces at once so that they may not need to demolish blocks of buildings in order to make playgrounds, as New York has had to do at a cost of nearly $1,000,000 an acre. Neither must any city believe that simply to furnish open spaces will secure the best results. There must be supervision of these playgrounds, otherwise the older and stronger chil- dren occupy them to the exclusion of the younger and weaker ones; they are so noisy that people living in the neighborhood are annoyed; they are apt to get into the possession of gangs and become the rendezvous of the most undesirable elements of the population; and moreover, in all cities where the experi- ment has been tried, it has been found that such playgrounds are not well attended.


Sincerely yours,


Theodore Roosevelt


this letter to the head of the washington branch of the national playground association was reprinted later that year in another magazine, the forum, whose editor at the time wrote: “of course, there is president roosevelt. he does not hesitate to express his views. … this letter is so full of sound advice that i give it here almost in full for the good it may do for the cause of health and vigor.”


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