he leisure-time
activities of all the people. Play was restored as the right of every
child, without which no wholesome physical, mental, and moral growth is
possible.

As constructively related to other great social problems, the playground
and recreation movement was found almost universally applicable. Sexual
immorality and the white-slave traffic are combated by recreation centers
where young women obtain under normal conditions the highest ideals and
satisfy the spirit of youth, which is the sign of life itself.

The scope of this larger movement is as follows: It promotes the
establishment of playgrounds within walking distance of every child;
athletic and sport fields for older boys and girls and for men and women;
boating and swimming centers and parks for the use of all; recreation and
social centers in municipal recreation buildings and in school buildings,
where all the people of a community, irrespective of race or creed, may
find opportunity for the fullest possible recreation and social life; it
promotes school and municipal camps, tramping-clubs, and other activities
that cultivate the habit of outdoor life; physical education and athletics
in the schools that reach every child, instead of a few as now; it stands
for school playgrounds, in connection with every school; it seeks to
provide facilities through which musical, literary, dramatic, and artistic
talents of the people may find encouragement and expression, and for a
constructive social supervision of all commercial amusements.

Yet playgrounds and recreation centers are not free from social dangers.
Many of the moral dangers of commercial amusements may arise in
municipally owned and managed systems of recreation. In fact public
playgrounds have become such moral menaces as to warrant their closure in
the interests of public welfare. Some of the worst cases of sexual
immorality coming to the juvenile courts arise in public playgrounds. This
is the result of bringing large numbers of young people into a common play
place without the most careful supervision, guidance, and direction. The
physical growth and health, the morals, the happiness, and the ideals of
citizenship of great masses of the people are so deeply involved in the
right use of the leisure time of the people that to conduct their
activities in any way but according to the highest standards is a civic
crime.

CHAPTER VII

EDUCATIONAL PHASES

_By Edward Octavius Sisson_