PUBLIC PLAYGROUNDS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIX, Issue 8134, 8 May 1906, Page 3

PUBLIC PLAYGROUNDS.

The Jamestown Exposition Company in Virginia has under consideration the estabishnjent of a large seaside playground for children as an adjunct to its forthcoming exhibition. Such a playground it appears, was one of the most attractive features of the St. Louis Exposition, and it proved to be invaluable not only to the parents who wished to go sight-seeing unencumbered, but even more so to the children themselves, who were spared the ennui and fatigue of crowded impressions, JOSTLING HUMANITY, and a 1 weary dragging through scenes that meant little or nothing to them. The playground was, as well, a refuge for all the children on the grounds who got lost or separated from their guardians. Incidentally the playground was made AS ATTRACTIVE AS POSSIBLE, in order that the little [ones mights be happy duriDg tho time they were separated from t.hose in oharge of them. It had eight diifferent pavilions offering accommodation for rest, baths, free dispensary, and indoor games, while outside there were little gardeuß laid off with gardening toolß, sund-piles, carpenters' beuohee, gymnasium apparatus, swingß, ladders, horizontal bars, Maypoles, hare mocks, tennis courts, and croquet stts. The big playroom pavilion FOR RAINY DAYS had a complete kindergarten equipment, and a corps of twenty four helpers, four trained nurses, and a small army of physical instructors and kindergarten teaohers kept the grounds open every day throughout the exhibition, to an average daily attendance of three hundred children. Entertainments were given for the chiHren several times a week, and the JUVENILE FESTIVITIES were vastly appreciated by tho little ones. Tue playground was supposed to be not only an accommodation place, bat also a truly educational factor in the lives of the little j folks gathered there. Every attention was given to its architecture, and to its~~orticultural beauty, and shade trees, flower-beds, well-laid out paths, plots of glass, and viueenveloped pavilions au3 buildings made it something more than a mere paddock for recreative purposes. In New Zeuland euch institutions are, possibly, not wanted so much as they aro in more populous centres, but tho subject is of interest; at the moment in so far as it suggests that very little has so far been done locally in the matter of catering for the children at our own Exhibition.