VII

THE VALUE OF PLAY

NOTHING more clearly demonstrates the fallibility and mutability of human views than the fact that what is deemed sinfulness in one generation becomes a chief agency of education in another; the playful tendencies of children were regarded by Puritan asceticism as evidence of depravity, while they are now admitted to be the heart of child-education. In the child's early years play is the agency that gives him health, acquaintance with his environment, and unconscious sympathy with the natural, the human, and the divine.

Physical impressions are at first the only mediums possible for awakening the child's sensibilities; the impressions of that early period should therefore be regulated, and not left to chance. It is not advised that one shall enter the realm of babyhood, and interfere with the infant's legitimate tastes by pragmatic pedagogic reasoning, but that one shall select his toys and plays wisely, and then let him enjoy the emotional impressions they create; his toys speak to his feelings, his imagination, as nothing else can. The baby has

not reached the age of investigation and has no vulgar curiosity as to the internal arrangements of his woolly bunny or kitten, but hugs it to his breast and loves and reveres it in its entirety.' As he advances in years and understands and participates in games and play, these should contain purpose and not be altogether trivial in character; if the moral and intellectual powers, through evil heredity or otherwise, are not properly balanced, rightly directed plays may be made the agency for restoring the harmony. Play is an absolute necessity to his physical life, which depends very greatly on the exercise he takes, and no exercise is so beneficial as that which has a motive, which is therefore voluntary and pleasurable. Running produces a healthy development of the lungs and limbs attainable by no other method.

The work and business of life are so engrossing that in the ordinary household the child is left to the atmosphere of servants, the street and chance. The problem is how to furnish fair, faithful environment for these chrysalis breaking years, when the habits are forming, the imagination is awakening, and the emotions are quickening. A great deal may be done through the medium of the child's play and playthings. It is claimed that the periods of man's life run parallel to the racial periods. The races in their primitive savage states are

preeminently physicial, and struggle for the mastery of the material world; so the first years of the child's life are absorbed in its physical growth, and in securing concrete impressions. Then, in the development of the race follows the period when the intellectual begins to join forces with the physical, and the dawn of civilization rises in the skilled use of the primitive man's hands, in his mastery of numbers and in the modification of the choric dances and shouting songs to the dawning music of civilization. This is the time of his greatest triumphs, and is the corresponding period in the child's life which must be bridged for him that he may emerge from the purely physical, and begin to realize his intellectual and moral possibilities.

The child thinks only through symbols, that is, he realizes his own concept of what he has seen and heard. Froebel's plays and games give him a symbolic education, and he is led through a series of primitive occupations such as plaiting, weaving, modeling, through games and dances which bring into play all the social relations. The purpose of the plays is manifold; to awaken the child's interest and sympathy, to lead him along the path the race has trod, and to teach him self-government. If the child has not access to the kindergarten, many of the songs and much of the manual work of

the Fræbel System can be introduced into the home, and when there are several children a great number of the plays can be used. The mother or superintendent of the plays should not permit them to be carelessly produced, nor to degenerate into mere romps. They should be conducted by a woman educated in the principles and theories underlying them. The intellectual and moral development through play is very important. The childish heart opens spontaneously in play, and while the barriers are down, the wise teacher can enter and lead the child's sympathies as she wishes. While his interest is aroused his emotions are accessible, and through the emotions one reaches his thought, thence his will, and from his will the influence extends to his character. It is only necessary that his environment be right, for in his plays and in his growing personality he will reflect his environment.

The undirected plays of children are almost always those of imitation; in fact not only their plays, but their manners and personalities are the result of an unconscious imitation of the persons who surround them in childhood. A child who has for sole associates his father and mother will be a small copy of one or both; he cannot interpret their actions, but he gives a blind imitation of them. In intercourse with brother, sister or playmate, just so far as his

sensibilities are moved, he imitates them, and in imitation his habits are formed. It is, therefore, most important that while his habits are crystallizing, his associates be of superior character, and if an underbred maid or street gamin are his sole companions, what can one hope for? By a varied contact, by receiving suggestions from many sources instead of from only one or two, he is compelled to make a choice, and thus in the stress of the conflict of suggestions the conscience is born and his ethical life dawns. The friendships and companions should not, therefore, be too limited, but should have some variety, for variety of association is the soul of originality.

By imitation the child learns to understand. When he is imitating the fluttering and flight of the bird or butterfly, he is entering into sympathy with bird and butterfly life; when the boy, as father bird, roams out in search of the worms for his baby birds, he not only experiences the feelings of the father bird, but the instincts of fatherhood, protection, and responsibility are fostered in his own breast. As she plays the mother sheep caring for her white lambkins, the little girl's maternal instincts are quickened, and she is for the moment the mother of white lambkins, and learns to love her flock. In all Froebel's plays he mirrors the instinct of universal life; he makes the child undergo "a