That
was the great gain of that time. It was the thing I had in mind back
of and beyond all the rest. I was bound to kill the Bend, because
it was bad. I wanted the sunlight in there, but so that it might
shine on the children at play. That is a child's right, and it is
not to be cheated of it. And when it is cheated of it, it is not
the child but the community that is robbed of that beside which
all its wealth is but tinsel and trash. For men, not money, make
a country great, and joyless children do not make good men.
[Illustration: A Tenement House Air-shaft]
So when the Legislature, urged by the Tenement House Commission,
made it law that no public school should ever again be built in New
York without an outdoor playground, it touched the quick. Thereafter
it was easy to rescue the small parks from the landscape gardener
by laying them under the same rule. It was well we did it, too,
for he is a dangerous customer, hard to get around. Twice he has
tried to steal one of the little parks we laid out, the one that is
called Seward Park, from the children, and he "points with pride"
almost to the playground in the other, which he laid out so badly
that it was a failure from the start.
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