[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sin,—As Chairman of the
Evening Play Centres Committee, dealing annually with some million and a-half attendances of London children for play and occupation in the after-school hours, may I support your eloquent plea for the opening of the London squares during the children's August holidays ? In the course of a childhood spent in Russell Square during the 'eighties I remember that there were periodic movements to the same effect, all of which suffered shipwreck against the stolid opposition of the few householders who did remain at home in August, and whose veto sufficed to keep the gates of these little paradises locked against the children. May it be hoped that the present generation of inhabitants will give a more gracious response than their predecessors ?
I am more concerned, however, with the closing paragraph of the joint letter signed by Dr. Saleeby and others, suggesting that the London County Council should make greater use of the school playgrounds during the holiday season. It should be known, I think, that the L.C.C. opened some eighty play- grounds during last August and have already arranged to do the same this year, while our committee organized "Holiday Play Centres" in six of these grounds last year and are pre- paring to do so in twenty-four of them this summer, during the six weeks beginning July .27th. These Centres will be open from five to seven every day, and some of them from two to four as well, and will be under the charge of our trained superintendents with a small staff of professional and volunteer helpers. We take in some three to four hundred children at
each session, all from the poorest streets in London, for our Centres are placed in the most thickly populated areas, where parks and open spaces, and even the Bloomsbury squares, are out of the children's reach. Whether the squares can be opened or not, these holiday playgrounds will be with us—the direct descendants of Mrs. Htunphry Ward's work for the Children of London—but they are greatly in need of two things : first, of a larger band of voluntary helpers, and next of greenery and flowers. A weekly hamper of flowers from those who are the fortunate possessors of country houses gives infinite joy to these little city dwellers, while the larger the number of our voluntary helpers the bigger the number of children we shall be able to take in. Offers of help in either of these forms will be most welcome, and should be addressed to the Secretary, Holiday Play Centres, The Mary Ward Settlement, Tavistoek Place, 'WC. 1.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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