ENGLISH EXPERIENCE WITH PLAYGROUNDS. 643 
The operations of the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association have 
been largely directed toward the transformation into pleasant gardens, 
and the throwing open to the public, of these closed burial grounds and 
squares ; and no less than sixty-one of the former and eighteen of the 
.atter have been thus treated by the society since its formation. The 
London County Council, the governing body of the metropolis outside 
the city, has been most energetic in furtherance of the open-space move- 
ment, and within four years has itself contributed £170,000, whilst other 
public bodies have subscribed £171,000, in jointly adding 418 acres to the 
open spaces of the capital, besides receiving three noble gifts amounting 
to 66 acres. 
It should here be mentioned that many years before the existence of 
2sither the London County Council or of the Metropolitan Public Gar- 
dens Association, the ancient corporation, which rules over the one square 
mile in the heart of the metropolis known as the City of London, and 
whose head is the lord mayor, initiated the policy of encircling London 
on its outskirts with a series of large commons and open-spaces. In 1882 
the corporation acquired the noble domain of Epping Forest, 5,350 acres 
in extent. Up to the present time the corporation has provided ten or 
sleven of these large open areas, amounting to 6,380 acres, at a total cost 
of £310,000, and is still continuing its large-hearted policy of enclosing 
London in a green ring, a policy which not only promotes the welfare of 
its own citizens, but to a far greater extent benefits the inhabitants of 
London at large, outside the narrow limits of the City. 
There are some who are of the opinion that London possesses for the 
moment a sufficient number of extensive parks and gardens, and that her 
present need is a large increase in the small gardens and playgrounds to 
be found scattered amongst the more densely packed portions of her popu- 
lation. The ideal of the writer of this paper is that a small garden or 
playground, divided into two portions, one for boys and one for girls, both 
supplied with gymnastic apparatus and appliances for suitable games, 
with a certain portion roofed in in case of bad weather, and under the 
care and supervision of special atttendants, should be opened and main- 
sained by the municipal authority in every large city within a quarter of 
a mile’s walk of each working or middle-class home. 
As a rule in cities the large parks—and this is especially the case in the 
United States—are too far from the masses of the population to be of 
much practical benefit to them except on a Sunday; but if small play- 
grounds under the strict supervision of careful attendants were scattered 
all over the town, work-people would be able to send their children to 
shem, even for a short time, between, before, and after school hours, con- 
fident that they would be in safety and well looked after. Such play- 
grounds would seem to be more needed in America than in Great Britain, 
inasmuch as almost all British schools have playgrounds attached to