Every day, in spring, summer and fall, thousands of young people use the athletic field, the tennis court, the track, the baseball diamond, the indoor cage, for the kind of play that is intended to produce strong muscles and sturdy frames.

The perplexing question that is constantly before the athletic instructor is "how shall we treat these play areas to produce clean, healthy, compact, dustless, natural surfaces."

The Solvay Calcium Chloride treatment is the answer. It binds the surface through its compacting action and prevents surface cracking and weedgrowth does away with dust entirely reduces the danger of infection-cuts sunglare to a minimum all at a cost so low that it can be fitted without strain into today's reduced budgets.

A New Park Given Detroit-Charles Howell of Detroit, Michigan, has given to the city a park consisting of 138 acres along a river valley which will be known as Elizabeth Howell Park. The Park Department, to whom the park has been given, will develop it as a neighborhood park with playground and picnic areas.

A Garden Center in Fort Worth Fort Worth, Texas, has a garden center sponsored by the Garden Club, the Board of Education and the Park Department. The Garden Club and the Board of Education pay the salary of the director of the center, while the Park Department provides the building and the utilities. Carefully designed and constructed by CWA, the center is an attractive building with a main reading room paneled with knotty pine and furnished with early American furniture. On either side of the curved mantel over the fireplace are two well filled bookshelves. It is the aim of the center to provide the visitor with books or other literature on gardening and related subjects. Many garden magazines are also available and a clipping service is maintained. There is, too, a most unusual herbarium containing over 8,500 specimens collected from all parts of the world. The director of the center conducts regular classes in garden subjects and general nature study. These classes, both for adults and children, are free. There is a Saturday morning story hour for children at which attention is called to the best children's books. Special stress is laid on the art of table decoration, one individual or club being responsible each week for this display. Of particular value is the fact that the garden center is immediately adjacent to the conservatory which is a part of the Fort Worth botanic garden. Not only does such an arrangement lend effectiveness to the work of the center, but the presence of such an institution does much to popularize the botanic garden.

At Highland Park, Michigan - Highland Park, Michigan, has extended its program under the leadership of H. G. Myron, who has been serving as recreation executive about two years. Last summer eleven playgrounds were operated. Eight school buildings were used during the past winter as community centers, as were two other buildings. The budget for the year beginning July 1, 1936, amounts to $27,000, half of which is appropriated by the city and half by the Board of Education. In addition, about $38,000 is being

STILL TOPS!

"JUNGLEGYM" Climbing Structures ten years after introduction and now in use in thousands of schools-hold first place among play devices because of their safety, economy, all year round utility and popularity with children. Accommodate greatest number of children in limited play space. No danger from moving or swinging parts. Nothing to wear out. Furnished in variety of sizes. J. E. Porter Corporation offices in principal cities. Ask for new Booklet RE 1.

J. E. PORTER CORP.

PROFESSIONAL MAN in New York City, after an unusually hard week with long hours of exacting detail, returning home had placed in his hands the following program of a concert arranged and presented for his exclusive benefit, with him as the entire audience. The program itself was the work of the eight year old violinist.

to August 14th, with variations to be offered in the course in successive summers over a four year period. In the first year of the course study will be made of birds, ponds and streams, and in nature guidance and in practical and field nature experience. Dr. William G. Vinal will be director of the school.

A Course in Folk Festival Production and Folk Dancing - The American Institute of Normal Methods announces a special course in folk festival production and folk dancing for supervisors of physical education and recreation workers to be held at Eastern School, Lasell Junior College, Auburndale, Massachusetts, July 7-28. The course will be directed by Stella Marek Cushing, well known interpreter of Slavonic lands and an authority on folk festival production. The course will be offered daily for three weeks from 4:15 to 6:00 P. M., one session being devoted to production details, the other to actual participation in folk dances. Further information may be secured from Charles E. Griffith, business manager and secretary, 39 Division Street, Newark, New Jersey.

1937 Leadership Institutes - The Cooperative Recreation Service of Delaware, Ohio, Lynn Rohrbough, Director, announces the following institutes to be held during May and June:

Ohio Creative Leisure Institute, May 17-22; Camp Wildwood, Westerville, Ohio. (Write R. B. Tom, Ohio State University, Columbus.)

Tri-State School of Leisure, May 30-June 4; Camp Hauberg, Port Byron, Illinois. (Reverend D. C. Ellinwood, Rushville, Illinois.)

Second Cooperative Recreation School - June 7-18 at Grandview College; for cooperative leaders. (Dr. C. A. Olsen, Grandview College, Des Moines, Iowa.

Michigan Recreation Institute-June 18-26 at Ashland Folk School. (Write Margaret Graham, Grant, Michigan.)

An Error Corrected

The caption under the picture on page 29 of the April issue of RECREATION should have read, "Courtesy Atlanta, Ga., Camp Fire Girls." This is a particularly interesting picture showing as it does twin sisters taking part in the Silver Jubilee of the Camp Fire Girls.

The First National Boy Scout Jamboree More than 25,000 Boy Scouts from all parts of the country will meet in Washington on June 30th to take part in the Jamboree which will last until July 9th. The Jamboree will be of special significance in that it will be the first national one ever held. The boys will live in a tented city of ⚫ their own on the banks of the Potomac, camping on 350 acres loaned them by the Congress of the United States.

A Training Course for Camp Counselors For the third year Surprise Lake Camp at Cold Spring, New York, is offering a training course for camp counselors for a nine weeks' period during the months of July and August. Information may be secured from Mr. Mordecai Kessler, Director of Training, Surprise Lake Camp, Cold Spring, New York.

A Few More Playground Suggestions

(Continued from page 61)

an abandoned strip coal mine, now become a pond where hundreds of canvasback ducks stop over on their migration north. Other groups may choose to visit the grave of "Uncle Joe" Cannon, former speaker of the House, or the tombs of The King of Carnivals and the King of the Gypsies, listening to the stories of the lives of these men as related by the guide. One club has discovered a wooded area so dense as to be almost inaccessible but a spot where there is timber aplenty to try their hand at log cabin construction.

When the boys return from a hike with their guide each one receives a card certifying his attendance at the hike. When any one of the boys has accumulated ten hike certificates he is entitled to go on an over-night hike, which in the jargon of the day, is "tops" in the boy's mind. On school holidays, all day hikes are very much in demand and many boys are finding new adventure and thrill heretofore unknown.

On rainy days when the boys cannot go into the country they work like beavers equipping their club rooms in the centers, making posters to decorate the walls, or enjoying stereopticon views loaned to the community centers by the public library. Sometimes the boys gather in their club rooms to pour over nature magazines or to work on their scrap books of birds, pets, or any other

For Enriching the Summer Camp Experience

103

CAMPING AND GUIDANCE

By Ernest G. Osborne

The author, a member of the staff of the Child Development Institute of Teachers College, Columbia University, describes in a concrete practical way with non-technical language how the camp experience may help in the emotional and social adjustment of the individual camper. Actual cases to vitalize the camp problems and the approaches he suggests. Of unusual practical value to all camp administrators and counselors.

Cloth, 198 pages $2.00 (Just Published) MONOGRAPHS ON CHARACTER EDUCATION in SUMMER CAMPS

By Hedley S. Dimock and others

Every year 300 or more representatives from all types of camps participate in the discussion of character values of camping and camp standards at the Camp Institute held under the joint direction of George Williams College and the Chicago Council of Social Agencies. The monographs below are the reports of these discussions for the years 1933, 1934, 1935, and 1936.

PRESS

Through your bookseller or from

ASSOCIATION

347 Madison Avenue, New York

If You Are Concerned
With Playgrounds-

Are you going to be a playground director
this summer? Are you a member of a
board in charge of a recreation program?
Or are you a public-spirited citizen inter-
ested in seeing that your community has
an adequate playground system?
Whatever your association with play-
grounds, you will want to know of the
book, "Playgrounds Their Administra-
tion and Operation," by George D. Butler,
which has 402 pages of practical informa-
tion on the operation of playgrounds. It
is the only book devoted exclusively to this
subject, and the playground worker and
official will find it invaluable.

104

a Playground

in itself

The Haskell Climb

A-Round is an endless source of fun and safe recreation for children of all ages-at all seasons. Large groups may use it at one time for free play or directed body-building exercise. It is solidly constructed of heavy galvanized steel tubing, with rounds for climbing and swinging and central poles for sliding. There are no moving parts and no sharp corners or rough edges to tear the clothing or injure the hands. This apparatus is easy to set up, indoors or out; no installation cost, and the low first cost is the last.

Write for full particulars and prices on the various Climb-ARound models and sizes.

N. Y. Office: BRAUN & SNYDER, 16 West 61st Street.

Chicago Office: IRWIN P. RIEGER, 326 W. Madison Street

Up to the present time the Pokagon Club newspaper has been edited by the nature guide through the department office. Subsequent numbers are to be edited in turn by the center clubs. "We are of the opinion," writes Robert Horney, Superintendent of Recreation, "that by building on plans which we have for the future, our nature clubs will not be seasonal but a part of our continuous year-round program."

"Something Old-Something New"

(Continued from page 62)

similar to battledore and shuttlecock from which it is believed our modern tennis also descended.

Table Tennis. Another sport of which a great deal is being heard these days is table tennis (ping pong to you!). It has become so generally used as a parlor game and in recreation rooms that it is more or less familiar to everyone. Table tennis dates back to the gay 90's when it was one in popularity with bicycles built for two and bustles. In fact, during that time it was played largely as a parlor game in the full costume of the period,

and due to the tight lacings which the ladies endured a ball retriever was invented for recovering the balls from the floor! It was first played on the floor across a net with a small ball covered with a knitted web and the battledore of battledore and shuttlecock. Later it came up in the world and was elevated to the table.

Deck Tennis. Another sport of more recent origin and one which has only recently come into marked popularity is deck tennis, sometimes known as ring tennis, quoit tennis or tenniquoit. This is a game similar to tennis except that instead of striking a ball with a racket, a ring of rope or rubber is tossed back and forth. Like shuffleboard, deck tennis had a marine beginning and was first devised shortly before the time of the World War as a substitute for tennis on shipboard. Later it came ashore and has become extremely popular as a land sport.

And Now They Come Into the Home!

No doubt one of the factors which accounts for the rise of these old-new sports to the surface