leisure-time activities of all the people, neither the commercial
amusements nor the numerous spontaneous private organizations answer all
the requirements of social and recreative needs of the people. On the one
hand, commercial amusements, while used and enjoyed by masses of the
people, have been objects of danger and distrust because of their
anti-social effects. On the other hand, the private society, club, order,
and organization are essentially narrow, and formed with other purposes
and ideals in view than ministering to the social and recreative needs and
desires of the people. The providing of ample facilities for the fullest
and most wholesome use of the leisure time of the people is a community
responsibility, just as important to the public welfare as a system of
public education.

This community sense of responsibility did not in the beginning have the
wide constructive vision which characterizes it to-day. It was designed
first as a corrective of pathological social ills, especially relative to
childhood and youth. Congestion in the modern city, an incident and a
result of specialization and expansion of American industrial and
commercial life, caused living conditions inimical to the health and
morals of all the people. As usual the children suffered most. Deprived of
light, air, wholesome living quarters, play space, and the advantages of a
real home, they fell easy victims to disease, sickness, death, and, what
is worse, to the disease and death of ideals and morals. Juvenile faults
and crimes increased at an alarming rate. The therapy of play was applied.
It was soon found, however, that the great mission of playgrounds was not
as a therapeutic agent, but as a preventive and constructive force. The
movement took on large, positive, constructive aims, purposes, and ideals.
It expanded into the playground and recreation movement, with emphasis
upon the latter, aiming to provide for and direct the leisure-time
activities of all the people. Play was restored as the right of every