Henry Baird Favill, AB, MD, LL.D., 1860-1916, a ... - University Library

MEDICINE AND PUBLIC HEALTH 235
sleep under these life-giving conditions, is fraught with the
utmost difficulty, yet it is safe to say that, with comparatively
minor change in the habits of living, an enormous
gain upon the tuberculosis plague could be made by that
simple device.
Protection of the child must be the watchword under
which this reform will be achieved. The ideal of a healthy
body, the obligation to protect the child in its
susceptible
years, the willingness to sacrifice for the child in material
ways, have to come as the foundation for general reorganization.
The scope of the playground movement broadens
enormously at this point. To provide generously the open
spaces necessary to carry on the work is obviously the first
duty. To regard this work when done as an end accomplished,
is scrupulously to be avoided. To learn to regard
the playground as an elementary means to a very great
end, must be the object of our propaganda.
The question of playgrounds as a mere matter of acquiring
territory is really ver>' simple. The utility of the
playgrounds in their broad relations will stand or fall upon
the method of their administration. To those well versed
in the subject this observation is unnecessary and perhaps
trite. To the mass of people who are really anxious that
there should be playgrounds it will be a more or less new
conception. Nothing is more barren than a playground
which is not administered either by competent management
or by the versatile initiative of experienced players.
Nothing is more inspiring than the responsive participation
of children in purposeful play. But beyond these features
which touch so deeply the love of children that pervades
the human race, there rests upon the playground organization
a deep and imperative duty: — to make the playground
one of the factors in the reorganization of social
method which shall offset the deteriorating viciousness of
modern habitation life.