I have just received your note of the 4th instant.

As I may not be able to attend the meeting to which you invite me, I wish to express the interest that I have long had in the subject to be considered.

You are aware that five years ago, I had a map and table prepared, showing the location, area and other particulars, of nearly two hundred parcels of public land in Boston and its immediate suburbs, many of these being, it is understood, lands which have come into the possession of the City under some legal process, wholly unimproved, and, in their present condition, useless. With regard to them, I urged at the time that “many are well situated for play grounds for school children, and could be adapted to that use at moderate expense; while others, smaller, [even single house lots,] would be available for open air gymnasiums.” This statement was laid by the Park Commissioners before the City Council and widely published, and I have, on various occasions since, drawn the attention of the Mayor, Park Commissioners, School Committee and others to the matter.

I hope that special consideration may be given to the question of the desirability of open air gymnasiums expressly for the physical training of school children. The Charlesbank Gymnasium is designed for the benefit more particularly of working men of sedentary occupations, and ordinarily, under the rules of the Park Commission, school children are not admitted to use the apparatus with which it is furnished. But, by special arrangement, the School Committee last year had squads of boys sent to it from certain schools, at regular intervals, for several weeks, and an experiment was made in training these boys under a competent instructor. I do not know that a report of the result has been published, but I was personally informed, both by the instructor and by the president of the School Committee, that it was most promising. If so, should not the question be well considered whether suitable provision for such training, both for boys and girls, might not be made at several points in the City, at convenient distance from the school houses, as a part of its regular educational system? I am under the impression that the space required at each point would be small, that suitable ground could be selected from public properties that are now useless, and that the apparatus needed would not be very costly. If nothing more is done immediately, might it not be well, before any of these pieces of land are otherwise disposed of, to have certain of the more suitable of them selected and an assignment of these secured for the purpose?

The Park Commissioners are intending this Summer to prepare a small, open-air gymnasium for women and girls under a plan that has been [89]

Girls Playing on Gymnastic Equipment, Charlesbank

I am, dear Mr Paine,

Yours Very Truly