better success. They received permission to open and conduct, during the
long vacation, one playground in a large schoolyard. For two summers the
women maintained that playground, holding their faith against the
opposition of the janitors, the jeers of the newspapers, and the
constant hostility of tax-payers, who protested against the "ruin of
school property." After two years the Board of Education took over the
work. The mayor became personally interested, and the Common Council
gracefully surrendered. They have plenty of playgrounds in Detroit now,
the latest development being winter sports.

If the Germanic alderman who protested that "vimmins" did not know
anything about boys' play was in office at the time, one wonders what
his emotions were when the playgrounds committee first appeared before
the Council and asked to have vacant lots flooded to give children
skating ponds in winter. Of course the Council refused. Fire plugs were
for water in case of fire, not for children's enjoyment. In fact there
was a city ordinance forbidding the opening of a fire plug in winter,
except to extinguish fire. It took two years of constant work on the
part of the club women to remove that ordinance, but they did it, and
the children of Detroit have their winter as well as their summer
playgrounds.

[Illustration: CAPTAIN BALL ON GIRL'S FIELD, WASHINGTON PARK,
PITTSBURGH. Out of the persistent work of club women more than three
hundred playgrounds for children have been established.]

In Philadelphia are fourteen splendid playgrounds and vacation schools,
established in the beginning and maintained for many years by a civic
club of women, the largest women's civic club in the country. The
process of educating public opinion in their favor was slow, for it is