Plan of Evanston
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play if left to themselves. Street car lines and railroad viaducts are all dangers to little children and act as so many barriers to playgrounds. It is obvious that the nearer these play spaces for little children can be to the home door-yard, the more nearly will the problem of that particular group be solved. Providing public play spaces, under proper supervision, at regular intervals throughout the city, so that no small child would have to go more than a few hundred yards from his home to find one, would be very costly, both as to initial expense and subsequent operation. Some children are fortunate enough to have adequate play facilities provided at home, and parents, or nurses, who will act as play leaders. But the vast majority of children are not so fortunate. Yet it is generally agreed that wholesome play is essential to childhood.
Play facilities for little children are precisely as much a problem in well-to-do Evanston as they are in the crowded slum district. From the child's point of view, it isn't at all a question of open yards, green grass, and fresh air. The areaway of a dirty tenement house on Halsted Street presents just as fascinating a play space, is just as populous with goblins and fairies, and all the wonderful people of a child's mind, as an Evanston lawn. The child must have something to play with, and someone to show him how to play. Children are not born with the knowledge of games, any more than they are born with the knowledge of mathematics. They acquire play knowledge slowly. And the beginning of this knowledge is the beginning of their knowledge of life. They can acquire a perverted attitude toward life by having play instinct perverted at the start, or can acquire a fine and wholesome attitude toward life by having play instinct turned in the right direction.
We suggest that our children have as much right to full consideration as the children of the slum district. With our opportunities for providing better and finer things for the youngsters of Evanston, we should lead in this respect, instead
