started with piles of sand dumped into German ghettos to give street urchins productive play spaces
"If the authorities should order a sand heap put in every back yard of our cities, being especially careful not to neglect the tiny inclosures around which the very poor hive together, there would be less vagabondage and less youthful ruffianism. The child must needs be busy, and lacking legitimate means of occupation he will seek out those that are unlawful.
In Germany...one of the beautiful acts of the Empress Frederick...was to set apart certain portions of all public parks for play-grounds, with sand hills upon them, for the little children. Any one who has frequented the parks of the larger German cities knows what an attractive picture the children make in their busy, happy play of digging and packing and building in the easily moulded soil.
The Pestalozzi-Froebel Haus in Berlin, of which Frau Schrader is the leading spirit, is provided with a most beautiful sand garden shaded by trees, over which all visiting kindergartners rhapsodize. This is no petty box of sand such as we in America think ourselves fortunate in possessing, but a " truly " garden, as the children say, where there are glorious heaps of sand in which they can dig with their little shovels, and which they can carry about and load and unload in their toy carts..into this garden of Eden we can usher the little ones, and, provided with iron spoons, toy shovels, one or two old pails and pans and some muffin rings and scallop-tins for cake-baking, they will amuse themselves quietly and happily for hours."
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