OPENING THE LONDON SQUARES [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—Very soon many hundreds of thousands of London school children will have their holidays, which must almost wholly be spent in London. Their houses are dangerous, and the streets are dangerous—ever more so. The parks and gardens remain. You have afforded your space and support in past years to those of us who urge that the gardens should be used, under proper supervision, for the children to play games in, as far as our weather and our ideas of decency permit. A Royal Commission is to report on the future of theie Square gardens and we can scarcely believe that any more will be sacrificed. But what boots it that we do not lose them if We'd° not use them 2
In a few days I shall be rejoicing to see again, at Vidy and Pully respectively, on fhe shores of Lac Leman, the ideal summer holiday and day nursery conditions for children. At Vidy the Town Council of Lausanne provides for its school children baths of water, air, and light at negligible cost, and the School Medical Officer is ceasing to find new cases of tuberculosis amongst them : at Pully children whose parents must work outside their homes during the day are similarly provided for. As I look at them I shall remember London school children being stifled and smashed in our streets. We • have no national future if we continue to refuse our children the creative natural conditions which are making new standards of national vigour in Germany and Switzerland.
Some day the Square gardens will be opened to childhood. Some day even the famous doctors who inhabit Cavendish Square will honour their profession by voting to use its garden for the health of children : and everyone will marvel that such means of life and health and joy were so long unused. To hasten that day we ask for your help and your readers' !-
I am, Sir, etc., C. W. SALEEBY. The Sunlight League, 29 Gordon Square, W.C.
[Two years ago, in a leading article on this subject, we appealed to London Square householders to do all they could to let their gardens be opened to poor children during the summer months. We also printed an appeal from the secretaries of five societies, including the Sunlight League and the Metropolitan Gardens Association, in which it was said that " it is now universally felt that the children of the poor should have some happier place than the dangerous and unhealthy streets and alleys in which to pass their long holidays." We are sorry that the pressing need for this opening of the squares, being recognized, was not acted upon. May we again express our conviction that if one square were to be opened during August and September of this year, in time the example will be followed, and " people will wonder with a blush that they used to be so inconsiderate " ?—En. Spectator.]
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