n. He is getting nothing in place of that
which he lost, and the result is bad. There is no occasion for profound
theories about it. The facts are plain enough. The new freedom has
something to do with it; but neglect to look after the young has quite
as much. Apart from its religious aspect, seen from the angle of the
community's interest wholly, the matter is of the gravest import.

What the boy's play has to do with building character in him Froebel has
told us. Through it, he showed us, the child "first perceives moral
relations," and he made that the basis of the kindergarten and all
common-sense education. That prop was knocked out. New York never had a
children's playground till within the last three years. Truly it seemed,
as Abram S. Hewitt said, as if in the early plan of our city the
children had not been thought of at all. Such moral relations as Jacob
was able to make out ran parallel with the gutter always, and counter to
law and order as represented by the policeman and the landlord. The
landlord had his windows to mind, and the policeman his lamps and the
city ordinances which prohibit even kite-flying below Fourteenth Street
where the crowds are. The ball had no chance at all. We have seen in New
York a boy shot down by a policeman for the heinous offence of playing
football in the street on Thanksgiving Day. But a boy who cannot kick a
ball around has no chance of growing up a decent and orderly citizen. He
must have his childhood, so that he may be fitted to give to the
community his manhood. The average boy is just like a little
steam-engine with steam always up. The play is his safety-valve. With
the landlord in the yard and the policeman on the street sitting on his
safety-valve and holding it down, he is bound to explode. When he does,
when he throws mud and stones, and shows us the side of him which the
gutter developed, we are shocked, and marvel much what our boys are
coming to, as if we had any right to expect better treatment of them. I
doubt if Jacob, in the whole course of his wizened little life, had ever
a hand in an honest game that was not haunted by the spectre of the
avenging policeman. That he was not "doing anything" was no defence. The
mere claim was proof that he was up to mischief of some sort. Besides,
the policeman was usually right. Play in such a setting becomes a direct
incentive to mischief in a healthy boy. Jacob was a healthy enough
little animal.

Such fun as he had he