A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
LUTHER HALSEY GULICK 
 
A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 BY 
 LUTHER HALSEY GULICK, M.D. 
 
 WITH A FOREWORD 
 BY 
 
 JOSEPH LEE 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO 
 
/ (. 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY 
 CHARLOTTE VETTER GULICK 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 D 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 IF you want to know what a child is, study 
 his play; if you want to affect what he shall be, 
 direjiLlhe form of play. These are the princi- 
 ples enunciated in the first chapter of this book, 
 and abundantly enforced in those that follow. 
 
 To those of us who are interested in the recre- 
 ation movement, the book comes as the last 
 message of the master; to all Doctor Gulick's 
 fellow citizens it is the legacy of an American 
 pioneer in the vitally important field of educa- 
 tion. It has behind it twenty years of study 
 and experiment. It is the fruit of observation, 
 not of the photographic sort, but carried on 
 with an uncanny X-ray power of intuition, and 
 yet without losing that "innocence of the eye" 
 the power of seeing what is there, not what 
 you expect to see so necessary to fresh dis- 
 covery. 
 
 The authoritative value of Doctor Gulick's 
 opinions may be partly judged from his practical 
 experience as an innovator. I suppose that in 
 laying down, when he was teaching at the In- 
 ternational Y. M. C. A. Training-School in 
 
 786507 
 
vi FOREWORD 
 
 Springfield, the principles out of which the game 
 of basket-ball was there evolved, he became the 
 only man who has ever through deliberate ac- 
 tion added to our too short list of major sports. 
 His New York Public Schools Athletic League, 
 a pioneer institution, has grown and prospered. 
 His Camp Fire Girls represent a long step 
 toward the discovery of the girl. The Play- 
 ground and Recreation Association of America, 
 of which he was a principal founder, has led 
 in the development of play and recreation in 
 this country. His teaching has, through the 
 Y. M. C. A. and other organizations, been a 
 great influence in the social and physical train- 
 ing of the American armies in the great war, and 
 has profoundly influenced the morale of the 
 men. His death resulted from personal devo- 
 tion to this object in Y. M. C. A. work in 
 France. 
 
 Doctor Gulick's heresy, in describing Froebel 
 as having evolved his educational methods with- 
 out first observing the child's actual play, which, 
 in fact, Froebel spent fifteen years in studying, 
 and in criticising Froebel' s gamers as not actu- 
 ally played by the children outside the kin- 
 dergarten ignoring Froebel's whole intention, 
 which was not to invent new children's games 
 but to utilize the form of children's games to 
 
FOREWORD vii 
 
 carry their education on beyond will be for- 
 given by all true Froebellians, who will recognize 
 in Doctor Gulick a most potent ally in the pro- 
 mulgation of some of their dearest principles. 
 
 It is most fortunate that Miss Anna L. von 
 der Osten, who worked with Doctor Gulick in 
 the original preparation of this manuscript, has 
 generously given her time to the final editing of 
 the manuscript and to the careful reading of the 
 proof. Every reader of the book will be in- 
 debted to her for this effective -service. 
 
 The book is not for physical educators alone, 
 but for fathers and mothers, school-teachers, 
 social workers, and lovers of children and grown 
 
 children everywhere. T T 
 
 JOSEPH LEE. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 FOREWORD v 
 
 INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 I. THE EXTENT OF THE PLAY INTEREST . 1 
 
 II. SEPARATION vs. CONCENTRATION ... 12 
 
 III. HUNTING AND FIGHTING PLAYS ... 16 
 
 IV. PLAYING HOUSE . - 33 
 
 V. FIRE PLAY 49 
 
 VI. TOYS CONSTRUCTION AND OWNERSHIP . 67 
 
 VII. MASCULINE AND FEMININE DIFFERENCES 83 
 
 VIII. THE PLAY OF ANIMALS 99 
 
 IX. THE PLAY OF ADULTS 113 
 
 X. THE PLAY OF SUBNORMAL CHILDREN . 128 
 
 XI. PLAY PROGRESSION 141 
 
 XII. PLAY AND PHYSICAL GROWTH 155 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 . PLAY AND EDUCATION ...... 171 
 
 . PLAY AND MORAL GROWTH . . . . 184 
 
 XV. INSTINCT AND TRADITION IN PLAY . . 197 
 
 PLAY AND OUR CHANGING CIVILIZATION 211 
 
 XVII. PLAY AND THE MODERN CITY . . . 224 
 
 XVIII. DIRECTION AND CONTROL IN PLAY 
 
 PLAYGROUNDS ....... 230 
 
 *""XlX. PLAY AND DEMOCRACY . . ... . 243 
 
 . PLAY, THE PURSUIT OF THE IDEAL 
 
 INDEX . . 283 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 MY professional connection with physical 
 training, athletics, and games dating from 1886 
 to 1906, gave opportunity and incentive for the 
 study of play in many of its aspects. I was led 
 to ask many questions. Why do boys give to 
 play so much greater earnestness and zest than 
 they give to work? Why do Americans play 
 baseball and the English cricket ? Why have 
 women never had a great team game? WTiy 
 are the Anglo-Saxons the only peoples who have 
 developed team games, polo and lacrosse ex- 
 cepted ? Is it by heredity or environment that 
 boys play fighting games and girls play with 
 dolls? What is play? How are play customs 
 formed? How are they passed on through the 
 generations ? Can the underlying forces of play 
 be so well understood that they may be applied 
 in other directions, in education or morals? 
 What light does a study of play throw on the 
 nature of the player ? 
 
 To the answering of questions such as these 
 the bulk of my available time and attention was 
 given for over twenty years. In this volume 
 
 zi 
 
xii INTRODUCTION 
 
 my aim is to give to others what I can of my 
 conclusions and of the data upon which they 
 rest. I have not hesitated, however, to state 
 some conclusions, the data for which are not 
 given here. 
 
 In studying play I have come to believe that 
 it affords the best and most profitable way of 
 studying humankind itself, both individuals and 
 races. Play consists of that which people do 
 when they have food, shelter, and clothing, are 
 rested and free from worry, when the physical 
 compulsions of life are removed temporarily and 
 the spirit is free to search for its own satisfac- 
 tions. Then man is at his best. The pursuit 
 of food, shelter, clothing, and safety is in the 
 main the means to life; but these things are not 
 the end for which life seems to exist. For this 
 reason I believe that man is better revealed by 
 his play, or by the use he makes of his leisure 
 time, than by any one other index. 
 
 The way in which the spirit of man works 
 when it is free from the shackles of compulsion 
 is not accounted for by any of the present-day 
 systems of psychology. In play we see the ac- 
 tion of great desires, operating with indifference 
 to consciousness or intelligence; the intellect is 
 used as a tool with which to accomplish ends, 
 rather than as a guide. Bergson and the prag- 
 
INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 matists seem to have come nearer this concep- 
 tion than have the psychologists. 
 
 The origin and development of gangs and 
 team games among boys similarly present facts 
 that do not seem to harmonize with the views 
 of contemporary sociologists. Gumplowitz alone 
 discusses the relations of the individual to the 
 group, the growth of morals versus rights, in a 
 way consistent with the facts as I have observed 
 them. 
 
 I am stating my conclusions at the start, for 
 few readers will be equally interested in all 
 parts of these studies, and yet the conclusions 
 themselves may shed light upon the various 
 parts and may thus serve as a guide. 
 
 I have not neglected the literature of play, 
 having read, I think, all that has been carefully 
 written on the subject in English, French, and 
 German. Most of these contributions seem to 
 me to be without deep value because: 1. The 
 writer had formed his theories before he had 
 secured his facts, and hence bent the facts to 
 conform. 2. He was acquainted with but a few 
 aspects of the factfe. 3. He recorded facts, but 
 did not attempt to interpret them. 4. In most 
 cases the writers on play and sport have not 
 sufficient knowledge to see the essential facts. 
 The students of play, as I have studied them, 
 
xiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 have spent far more time at the desk than in 
 watching players. Because the conclusions set 
 forth in this book are based in the main on the 
 first-hand observation or experience of facts, I 
 quote authority but little. 
 
 CONCLUSIONS 
 
 I. My first conclusion has been stated al- 
 ready in part. The individual is more com- 
 pletely revealed in play than in any one other 
 way; and conversely, play has a greater shaping 
 power over the character and nature of man 
 than has any one other activity. A man shows 
 what he really is when he is free to do what he 
 chooses, and if a person can be influenced so 
 that his highest aspirations which are followed 
 when he is free to pursue his ideals are a gain, 
 then character is being shaped profoundly. 
 
 II. A people most truly reveals itself in the 
 character of its pleasures. The pleasures of a 
 people are not the sum of the pleasures of the 
 individuals who compose that people, just as 
 the psychology of the crowd is quite different 
 from the psychology of the individuals compos- 
 ing the crowd. 
 
 Conversely, the manner of its pleasures is the 
 most character-determining force within a peo- 
 ple. Chinese characteristics are not biologically 
 
INTRODUCTION xv 
 
 inherited, as we know by the results of cross 
 adaptation. Chinese characteristics are race 
 tradition inheritances passed on predominantly 
 by the plays and games of the Chinese children. 
 Embedded here in the amber of tradition is the 
 quintessence of that which is Chinese. It passes 
 to the child by the turn of an ancient phrase, 
 the mode of seeing the world as indicated in a 
 century-old story, or the muscular movements 
 of a ceremonial greeting. I doubt if any of us 
 understand the feelings of the Orientals who 
 did not as children play Oriental games in an 
 Oriental atmosphere, with Oriental children. 
 
 III. It is an impression which has been grow- 
 ing during my years of observation, that the 
 individual is more an agent in life than a direct- 
 ing force. It seems that certain great desires 
 engulf the individual, directing his will, his pur- 
 poses, to their own ends, with but slight regard 
 for the benefit of the individual himself. These 
 desires come in great waves, growing larger and 
 farther apart as the years pass from infancy to 
 old age. Each of these great waves or tides of 
 desire raises the level of the psychic range and 
 power of the individual, and makes the next 
 one possible. These waves also in a general 
 way seem to mark the successive periods of 
 progress of prehistoric man. In this sense each 
 
xvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 individual recapitulates the history of his kind, 
 both in individual growth and in social rela- 
 
 tlons ' LUTHER HALSEY GULICK. 
 
A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
A Philosophy of Play 
 CHAPTER i $ji 
 
 THE EXTENT OF THE PLAY INTEREST 
 
 IN the spring of the year occurs a series of 
 events to which more space is given in 
 many of the newspapers which record the 
 world's happenings than would be given to a 
 State election. In normal times when the base- 
 ball games between the large cities of America 
 begin, the reports of their Saturday scores take 
 precedence over almost all other news in the 
 minds of hundreds of thousands of men. Men 
 and boys will stand in groups miles away from 
 the game, watching, throughout the afternoon, 
 while the scores are flashed upon a screen. This 
 enthusiasm is out of all proportion to the ac- 
 tual utility of the game. A similar interest was 
 shown in the Jeffries-Johnson fight. All over 
 the United States men were discussing it, men 
 who did not see it when it took place, whose 
 lives and business it could never touch in any 
 possible way. And this discussion continued 
 
2 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 for over a year. An unusual and apparently 
 uncalled-for interest of this kind seems to need 
 some explanation. 
 
 In the fall the great college football games be- 
 gin. They occupy but slightly less space in the 
 newspapers than do the intercity baseball con- 
 tests. But their effect in the college world is 
 even greater. Before an important game each 
 college holds football rallies. In many univer- 
 sities more students are present at these rallies 
 than at any other student meeting of the year. 
 They learn songs and cheers; they encourage the 
 players. On the day of the game thirty or 
 forty thousand spectators may frequently be 
 seen in the bleachers watching a football match 
 between two of the large Eastern colleges, or 
 two of the Middle West State universities. At 
 the first important play the entire crowd arises 
 and remains standing, breathless, lest a play be 
 lost. The student bands lead in the college 
 songs and the cheer leaders wear their throats 
 hoarse in the effort to direct enthusiasm. A 
 man on the field is knocked out; his substitute 
 is put on. The students cheer for both men by 
 name, but the man who is removed from play is 
 frequently carried off in tears, which no one 
 thinks for a moment of attributing to the pain 
 of any wounds he may have sustained. He is 
 
EXTENT OF THE PLAY INTEREST 3 
 
 heart-broken for one reason only because he is 
 out of the game. 
 
 A friend who witnessed one of the great games 
 in which Chicago University lost the Western 
 Championship says that she never had seen 
 such compelling enthusiasm as filled the stu- 
 dents. After the defeat there was a moment's 
 silence, then a cheer was given by the team for 
 their victorious opponents, and then a thousand 
 young men and women broke spontaneously 
 into the Alma Mater and marched off the field 
 with the band playing. Fully one-third of them - 
 were crying from the nervous excitement of the 
 occasion. It was not merely college loyalty 
 that prompted this demonstration. A victory 
 in debate would have aroused enthusiasm, but 
 not in an equal measure. A convincing proof 
 of the superiority of their institution to all 
 others in scholarship the supposedly real test 
 of a university would elicit barely a cheer. 
 The spirit shown in the game goes much deeper, 
 and seems sufficiently significant to demand 
 consideration. 
 
 Playing baseball on the streets of New York 
 is forbidden by a city ordinance. Yet every- 
 day during the spring a large proportion of the 
 boys brought before the judge of the Children's 
 Court are there for the crime of playing ball. 
 
4 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 The black-robed judge questions them from be- 
 hind a high desk; a big policeman stands near 
 to give testimony. The boys are in the posi- 
 tion of lawbreakers, yet most of them are de- 
 cent, respectable boys, frequently very young 
 and much frightened. There is another game 
 called " Cat," which consists in striking a pointed 
 stick, with the end in view of sending it a cer- 
 tain distance in a given direction. It is not a 
 very thrilling game, apparently, yet it furnishes 
 sometimes as many as one-seventh of the total 
 arrests of the court. The boys have risked 
 arrest to play it. 
 
 In one of the crowded city playgrounds of 
 New York, where the boys were so close that it 
 was impossible to see through the group for ten 
 yards in any direction, several games of ball 
 were going on. Every time the ball was hit, 
 it was either lost in the crowd or it rolled under 
 the iron railing, and had to be tossed in by a 
 boy outside. Clearly, no real game was possi- 
 ble; and yet the boys were attempting it. In 
 a near-by street the sidewalks were covered with 
 baseball games. Here stood a batter, a few 
 yards away a pitcher, and close behind the 
 pitcher was the catcher for another game. 
 There were seven games of ball going on at the 
 same time on the sidewalk on one side of a 
 
EXTENT OF THE PLAY INTEREST 5 
 
 single block. Regardless of cars, trucks, and 
 automobiles, the boys dodged across the street 
 after the ball whenever the batter was fortunate 
 enough to hit it. 
 
 Suddenly, far up the street, one of the games 
 stopped, then the next, then the next. The boys 
 slipped away by twos and threes into alleys and 
 cellar-doors. A street-car went by with a po- 
 liceman on the front platform. After he had 
 passed the boys reappeared and the games went 
 on. Those boys were not lawbreakers at heart. 
 Their mothers and fathers were sitting on the 
 stoops watching their play, and approving it. 
 The games were going on under every conceiv- 
 able difficulty. An instinct strong enough to 
 impel boys to play baseball under conditions like 
 these is worthy of attention. 
 
 A gang to which I belonged as a boy, was 
 called the Boys' Jolly Club. We spent a large 
 part of our free time hunting English sparrows. 
 There is a delight in shooting a sparrow, pulling 
 off its feathers, cooking and eating it, half-done, 
 that is not found in all the food from mother's 
 pantry. We would also go through the woods 
 to hunt squirrels, with a little .22-caliber rifle, 
 ten, twelve, fourteen hours in succession. When 
 we ate our lunch we finished it as quickly as 
 possible, because we might get another squirrel. 
 
6 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 We did not need the squirrels. I did indeed de- 
 vise a kind of justification for myself I always 
 made a point of saving the skin and getting some 
 one to eat the squirrel. But I did not need the 
 skins and I did not need the food. Yet I had 
 this desire to hunt, although my feelings about 
 hunting are not particularly strong. 
 
 These feelings are not confined to children. I 
 have never yet, day or night, gone by the docks 
 on the Hudson River without seeing men sit- 
 ting there waiting for fish to bite. There are 
 little boys and gray-haired men. I have gone 
 up close to the docks at ten or eleven o'clock 
 at night, and even then have found some indi- 
 viduals fishing. No doubt there are times in 
 the day when people do not fish, but I have 
 never discovered such times. I have never seen 
 it rain hard enough to clear the docks of men 
 who were fishing. One of my friends was a 
 Springfield banker. Once when he had a day's 
 vacation he came to a small lake near our house 
 and sat in the rain all day fishing. He got a 
 little string of perch averaging five inches. Yet 
 he had a glorious time. Most of the men 
 who fish on the Hudson are not doing it because 
 they need the fish. They are doing it from mere 
 love of fishing. 
 
 The term play covers a group of activities as 
 
EXTENT OF THE PLAY INTEREST 7 
 
 wide as the scope of human life. It goes even 
 further than human life, for animals also play. 
 Among human beings play is part of the activity 
 of babies, children, young people, and adults. 
 Play has always been of interest to all man- 
 kind. 
 
 Yet there is a sense in which the conscious in- 
 terest in play is new. There is now a well-estab- 
 lished play movement throughout he United 
 States, and, indeed, throughout the civilized 
 world. China, India, and other Eastern coun- 
 tries have set apart play centres. One of the 
 first cities in the United States to establish play- 
 grounds was Boston. After Boston had tried 
 playgrounds for twenty-six years, the Massa- 
 chusetts legislature passed an act requiring all 
 municipalities having 10,000 or more inhabitants 
 to vote on the question of establishing and main- 
 taining playgrounds with adequate supervision. 
 
 Chicago has probably made a larger single 
 appropriation for recreation than any one city. 
 In a little more than two years Chicago set aside 
 $10,000,000 for small parks and playgrounds, 
 and since that time millions have been spent in 
 developing, administering, and enlarging the 
 system. Their recreation centres provide in- 
 door and outdoor gymnasiums for both men 
 and women; sand gardens and wading pools for 
 
8 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 the smaller children; ball fields for the boys and 
 men; outdoor swimming-pools, restaurants, li- 
 braries, neighborhood club-rooms, and an audi- 
 torium. All this is paid for by the city, not by 
 private philanthropy. And the use of these 
 grounds has shown their need. The places have 
 become neighborhood centres in the most prom- 
 ising sense. It is said that aldermen in Chicago 
 lose all popularity with their constituents un- 
 less they secure playgrounds in their wards. 
 
 In 1907, 57 cities reported that they were 
 conducting playgrounds, 54 of these having 836 
 grounds. The annual cost of maintenance for 
 44 of the cities reporting was $904,102. In 
 1918 reports compiled by the Playground and 
 Recreation Association of America showed that 
 504 cities conducted work under the direction 
 of paid leaders at an expenditure of $6,659,- 
 600.84. In addition 108 cities reported that 
 their schools were used as social centres. 
 
 A movement of this kind demands attention. 
 Temptation is strong to continue with the enu- 
 meration of special instances of the splendid 
 growth and deepening social significance of the 
 playground movement throughout the country; 
 but enough has been said to dissipate the im- 
 pression that it is merely a local or transient 
 fad. It is an awakening on the part of our citi- 
 
EXTENT OF THE PLAY INTEREST 9 
 
 zens to an hitherto almost unrecognized respon- 
 sibility. What this responsibility is, and why 
 it exists, and what there is in our modern life 
 which has awakened us to it are questions of 
 vital importance. 
 
 In the succeeding chapters I shall take up a 
 survey of some of the universal forms of chil- 
 dren's plays, the hunting and fighting plays, the 
 shelter plays, the plays of ownership, doll play, 
 playing with toys, and fire play. This is not 
 an exhaustive list of the plays of children, but 
 it is sufficiently representative to show the forces 
 present in play. Certain important forms of 
 play will be omitted altogether or treated briefly. 
 Rhythmical play and festivals will be treated 
 elsewhere, and for that reason are omitted here. 
 Team plays will be discussed only so far as is 
 necessary for the understanding of other topics. 
 The consideration of the playground movement 
 must be omitted, as it is a subject which might 
 easily require a book by itself. Only those 
 phases of it will be considered here which relate 
 directly to the theory of play, such as the prob- 
 lem of play direction. 
 
 In the treatment of the various forms of play 
 I shall discuss the survival value, from the evo- 
 lutionary standpoint, of the feelings involved in 
 play, and the extent to which those feelings are 
 
10 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 still of use. I shall then take up a brief con- 
 sideration of the play of animals, the play of 
 adults, and the play of subnormal children, 
 tracing in each case the relation which play 
 bears to the life of the individual. The rela- 
 tions of various plays to one another and to the 
 physical, mental, and moral life of the individ- 
 ual will be discussed with special reference to 
 pedagogical implications to be derived from a 
 study of spontaneous plays of children. The 
 part taken by instinct and by tradition in play, 
 and the effect which play has in preserving the 
 social inheritance of the race, will also be con- 
 sidered in this connection. 
 
 The final problems discussed relate to the 
 position of play in modern life. The conditions 
 of our civilization are changing; modern indus- 
 try has affected the home, the school, the city. 
 The problem of play is in many ways very dif- 
 ferent from what it was fifty years ago. Play 
 has its relations to the modern city, industry, 
 school, to the modern home. It has also close 
 relations to the ideal which is being tested to- 
 day in America, the ideal of democracy. All 
 these questions must be considered in a theory 
 of play. 
 
 There is still one other aspect of the subject 
 the relation which the spirit of play may bear 
 
EXTENT OF THE PLAY INTEREST 11 
 
 to all life. Play is more than a name applied 
 to a given list of activities; it is an attitude 
 which may pervade every activity. Play has 
 sometimes been used in this sense in connection 
 with artistic achievement in discussions of 
 aesthetic theories; and it may also be used in 
 connection with all work worth doing. Play as 
 free expression of the self, as the pursuit of the 
 ideal, has direct bearing on the ultimate ques- 
 tions of reality and worth. The spirit of play 
 has value as a philosophy of life. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 SEPARATION VS. CONCENTRATION 
 
 IN order that children over six or seven years 
 old may play wholesomely, good leadership 
 is practically essential. Such leadership is 
 of even greater importance than the playground 
 itself or the play apparatus. A competent 
 leader may secure good results with an exceed- 
 ingly meagre outfit of play materials and with 
 very limited play space; whereas playgrounds 
 and such play materials as swings, chutes, bats, 
 and balls, used without wise leadership, are fre- 
 quently productive of evil rather than of good. 
 Directed play is the first requirement for chil- 
 dren of the "game" age. 
 
 The playground is a device by which a single 
 leader can effectively control the play of a large 
 number of children. It is an aggregating plan, 
 and actual experience has shown that children 
 playing in large groups must have competent 
 persons to lead and supervise them, otherwise the 
 larger and more disorderly boys in the neighbor- 
 hood make the playground intolerable by day 
 and, in some cases, a positive menace by night. 
 
SEPARATION VS. CONCENTRATION 13 
 
 Babies and little children under six years of 
 age, however, present an entirely different prob- 
 lem. It is undesirable to have very small chil- 
 dren gathered together in large numbers, and it 
 is unnecessary that their play should be directed. 
 Their first need is suitable space and things to 
 play with. A sand pile in which they may dig, 
 little swings which they can use themselves, 
 small seesaws, blocks, or boards to build with 
 all these are ways in which small children can 
 play even though they have no guidance. 
 
 We have thus to deal with two exactly oppo- 
 site needs. We need the playground with its 
 play leader and apparatus, to concentrate the 
 play of the older children of the neighborhood; 
 and we need play facilities at frequent intervals, 
 over a large area, for the babies and little chil- 
 dren, so that they may be separated into small 
 groups and may play without other leadership 
 than that of the older children or adults who 
 may accompany them. 
 
 In America we have not as yet clearly differ- 
 entiated between these two needs. Not one of 
 our parks is so equipped as to afford this special 
 opportunity for the play of small children, and 
 no play equipment is provided near the homes. 
 
 The latter need is well illustrated on River- 
 side Drive in New York City, where an open 
 
14 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 parking approximately one mile long and thirty 
 feet wide affords play space for thousands of lit- 
 tle children every day. It would be unwise to 
 have these very small children brought together 
 in a playground. A wise provision would be to 
 place a sand pile every hundred yards or so, each 
 of which would attract a small number of babies. 
 The idea is to have a large number of small 
 groups, in contrast to the playground idea, which 
 is to have a small number of large groups. 
 
 In Berlin this plan has already been carried 
 out. Down the middle of some of the broader 
 avenues there are walks and trees; and here, 
 every few days, loads of clean sand are placed 
 short distances apart. In each sand pile a few 
 children can be found playing happily under the 
 supervision of their mothers, nurses, or older 
 brothers and sisters. These sand piles need not 
 be unsightly, nor do they need to destroy the 
 beauty of the boulevard. Small circular basins, 
 having brick floors and a rounded concrete cop- 
 ing, could be embedded in the turf, making 
 attractive centres for the little groups. 
 
 In the ordinary playground it has been found 
 necessary to reserve a certain part of the ground 
 exclusively for the little children, placing them 
 in charge of a kindergartner or some person 
 with similar training. Would it not be wise, 
 
SEPARATION VS. CONCENTRATION 15 
 
 wherever possible, to have these small equip- 
 ments distributed throughout a city, close to the 
 homes of the small children, rather than to 
 attempt to bring the babies together in large 
 numbers on the playgrounds? 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 HUNTING AND FIGHTING PLAYS 
 
 ONE of the vivid impressions of my early 
 fatherhood was seeing one of my own 
 children, aged four, chasing another, 
 aged six. The older child was running for the 
 piazza of the house, and, before reaching it, I 
 saw her and was arrested by the expression of 
 fear on her face. The pupils of her eyes were 
 dilated, her nostrils were playing as they do in 
 extreme fear, her face was white and her breath 
 drawn. They were playing bear, and the smaller 
 girl was the bear. There was no danger that 
 the "bear" would catch her; she could run faster 
 than her sister. She had never been told bear 
 stories which might have accounted for her 
 fright. Yet this fear had come from somewhere 
 and laid hold of her. I stopped her and counted 
 her heart; it was beating 130. This illustrates 
 a set of feelings all children have, though not 
 often so intensely. 
 
 Almost every one has recollections of this 
 kind. There is my own remembrance of play- 
 ing "black man" when I was eight. The two 
 
 16 
 
HUNTING AND FIGHTING PLAYS 17 
 
 sides of the street serve as goals in this game, 
 and one person in the middle is "it." The ob- 
 ject of the game is to run from one side to the 
 other without being tagged. I remember run- 
 ning until it seemed to me I could not stand up; 
 I could not possibly have run faster. It was 
 all for fear that if I were caught I would be "it." 
 And what then would have happened? Noth- 
 ing; I would simply be "it." The fear of this 
 amounted to panic. I also remember running 
 for "home" in hide-and-seek, just at dusk, when 
 it seemed as though something might jump 
 from behind a bush or tree, tearing for "home" 
 with my pursuer keeping an unchanging distance 
 behind and my heart racing because of the fear. 
 I have crouched behind door or bush, waiting 
 for the one who was "seeking" me, with my 
 heart thumping so I thought he would surely 
 hear. All this is true of many children in play- 
 ing hide-and-seek. Even when they are quite 
 still, the heart will run up to over 100. Nothing 
 is going to happen, but this old, old fear, the 
 fear of being caught, has possession of them. 
 
 And when a child is "it," and does not know 
 whether he can catch the other person or reach 
 the goal first, he will run until the world swims 
 in front of him. He must catch the other; it is 
 necessary, he will stop at nothing, taking dan- 
 
18 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 gerous chances. It is a perfectly unreasonable 
 feeling. There is no cause for fear, no reason 
 for the heart to run up to 100 or 130 when he 
 is behind a busih and the pursuing person passes 
 by. There is nothing in what the child is do- 
 ing which bears any relation to any experience 
 in his past life, nor in his father's, his grand- 
 father's, as far as he can know. Yet this feeling 
 of terror in being caught is common to all 
 mankind. 
 
 When my boy was less than two years old I 
 would start toward him as if I were going to 
 catch him. I had never been rough with him, 
 but he would scream and run across the room 
 and hide his face. Then when I sat down he 
 would want me to do it again. There was no 
 reason for him to scream and run away so des- 
 perately; he knew I was not going to hurt him. 
 He had seen no one else run away; he was not 
 mimicking. He had had no experience either 
 with me or with any one else to cause that feel- 
 ing. Yet whenever I started toward him, away 
 he would go. He was in the power of this same 
 instinct feeling. 
 
 My wife told me when she was nine years old 
 she was playing tag with some children in the 
 school yard. A boy chased her; she raced around 
 the yard, up the stairs, into the classroom, and 
 
HUNTING AND FIGHTING PLAYS 19 
 
 hid under the teacher's desk. She must not be 
 caught; it would never do to get caught. She 
 had that same feeling. 
 
 Records of plays based on the fear of being 
 caught and the exaltation in catching, secured 
 from many parts of the world, show that they 
 are found everywhere. The Chinese feelings are 
 like ours, the Hawaiian feelings are like ours, 
 expressed in the same way. We are quite safe, 
 with the evidence we have, in saying that this 
 is a world-wade experience which grips, not every 
 individual, but certainly nine out of ten of all 
 who play tag during childhood. They have all 
 been seized by the feeling of exaltation, on the 
 one hand, and the sense of fear on the other. 
 These two desires to catch and to escape being 
 caught are sufficiently strong to call forth 
 every bit of human power in running and skill in 
 dodging. These motives are dominant through- 
 out life, merely attaching themselves to other 
 activities the escaping of penalty, the pursu- 
 ing of the thing desired, the exaltation in its 
 attainment. The feelings themselves arise and 
 come to power in most of us through playing 
 some form of tag. Ultimately they can be 
 turned into other paths, and used in other ways, 
 but the tag play affords one of the earliest and 
 most common ways for their development. 
 
20 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 These early hunting feelings are not merely 
 mimic feelings, imitating real desires of a later 
 age; they are themselves real. The little girl 
 who ran away from the bear was not imagining 
 a fear; she was in a panic which had physiologi- 
 cal effects. An imitation fear could not dilate 
 the pupils and cause the heart to beat as hers 
 did. The desire to catch, to hunt, is a desire 
 which has very real results in action. A group 
 of boys of about fourteen years of age in passing 
 through the woods saw a little snake. There 
 was no reason for killing that snake, and the 
 boys were not inherently cruel, yet, by this al- 
 most universal feeling, the snake was promptly 
 despatched. If the masculine individual is 
 turned loose where there is anything to kill, he 
 wants to kill it. Not only boys, but men, good 
 men, educated men, do that and enjoy it. When 
 such men as President Roosevelt want to rest 
 they go out jnto the woods and hunt, satisfying 
 their consciences by collecting, or other excuses. 
 
 I have recorded for a year, as far as I could, 
 through Spalding's and other firms that sell 
 sporting goods, the amount of money spent on 
 game preserves. In one year we spent over 
 $10,000,000 to hunt and kill things which we 
 did not need to eat. In that same year there 
 were 48 men killed in the Maine woods alone. 
 
HUNTING AND FIGHTING PLAYS 21 
 
 I knew of a man who killed 287 ducks in one 
 day. On a cold, early winter morning he sat 
 still for hours, in an uncomfortable position, 
 getting things for which he had no need. From 
 a calm, intellectual view-point it was a very stu- 
 pid performance. But there was this old in- 
 stinctive basis of desire which justified the man 
 in his own sight. 
 
 Closely connected with the hunting interest 
 is the interest in a fight. I met a Columbia 
 professor who has charge of one of the branches 
 of aesthetics, and is a mild, gentle man, courte- 
 ous and of a fine nature. He was much elated 
 over having seen two longshoremen fighting on 
 South Street, which borders on the East River. 
 He said there was a large crowd and that the 
 men were evenly matched. I asked: "What 
 did you do? Call a policeman?" "No," he 
 answered, then added: "It was a perfectly fair 
 fight, nothing wrong about it." He had not 
 seen anything for months that pleased him 
 more. He explained that all modern life is so 
 indirect; we smile and are polite; we do nothing 
 straight out. His feeling was the old masculine 
 interest in a fight asserting itself. 
 
 All over the world, in all stages of civilization, 
 very large proportions of men have been inter- ' 
 ested in all kinds of fighting. In China they 
 
22 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 have trained crickets and men come together to 
 make their crickets fight. Wherever there are 
 cocks there are game fights, with men watching 
 and wagering about the results. In Spain there 
 is the public bull-fight. In all Anglo-Saxon 
 countries there is boxing, which still continues 
 in spite of legislation. Frequently those agen- 
 cies which handle the world's news give more 
 space to a discussion whether one man of a cer- 
 tain weight will succeed in knocking out another 
 man in a given number of rounds, than they 
 give to an election. This is a mo,st peculiar 
 phenomenon, if one forgets the history of man- 
 kind, and simply looks at the immediate present 
 interest, aside from any utility, which man has 
 in fighting. 
 
 The two great topics of literature are love and 
 fighting. Practically all the fiction in the world 
 is built upon a combination of these two inter- 
 ests. If we took love out of all the stories, we 
 should still have a choice collection; if we took 
 fighting out, there would still remain a large 
 number of books; but if we took out both love 
 and fighting, the world's poetry, romance, art, 
 and literature would be gone, for these two are 
 the basic human emotions, and our understand- 
 ing of the world's history would be gone. Hence 
 when boys in their teens read dime novels they 
 
HUNTING AND FIGHTING PLAYS 23 
 
 are doing what the rest of the world has always 
 done. When they read books which convey 
 impressions false to life, in which the fighting 
 instinct is perverted, it is bad for them. But 
 fighting of some kind is part of character; it is 
 no superficial, modern thing. 
 
 Under modern conditions there is no real use 
 for the kind of fighting which most of us still 
 persist in having. Yet it still fascinates us. 
 The interest shown in the naval battles and the 
 war between Russia and Japan was not purely 
 an interest in the triumph of righteousness; it 
 was a great fight. Victory for the Japanese ad- 
 vanced them further in the world's estimation 
 and respect than centuries of commercial or in- 
 dustrial success would have done. The combat 
 against tuberculosis is a far more deadly fight 
 than any war in the world, more full of danger 
 and suffering to the families of our nation. 
 But it is not dramatic. Hence more money and 
 time and interest are given in connection with 
 any great pugilistic fight than for so non-exciting 
 a thing as the combat against tuberculosis. 
 
 A desire to throw hard and straight is part 
 of the fighting interest. Doctor Raycroft, of 
 the University of Chicago, gives this account of 
 his feelings in playing golf. Sometimes he 
 made two or three good drives, hitting the ball 
 
24 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 far and hard. After that he had a satisfied feel- 
 ing for many days, a kind of satisfaction his 
 work never gave. He used to play on a base- 
 ball team; he says that a hard throw which 
 went straight and accomplished its aim gave a 
 kind of pleasure that was organic. Other men 
 feel this same interest in throwing. I was walk- 
 ing one day on a beach with four or five com- 
 panions, all of them doctors of medicine, philos- 
 ophy, or law. We were discussing some ques- 
 tion concerning Hegel's philosophy, when I saw 
 an empty bottle on the beach. I remarked to 
 myself: "I will try the relative attractiveness of 
 Hegel's philosophy and this desire to throw." 
 I took the bottle, tossed it about twenty paces 
 into the water, and picked up stones to throw 
 at it. Every man followed my example; every 
 man wanted to break that bottle. These men 
 were not unique; men and boys who play ball 
 belong to all peoples. 
 
 Facts of this kind seem to point to one con- 
 clusion. Mere fondness for exercise does not 
 account for this interest. I once tried to pro- 
 duce games constructed purely with reference 
 to using many different neuro-muscular com- 
 binations. I thought I could combine gymnas- 
 tics with athletics and get the best results 
 through the use of many movements, not merely 
 
HUNTING AND FIGHTING PLAYS 25 
 
 running, throwing, and striking. But the chil- 
 dren, when they were by themselves, would not 
 play the games. There was no "go" in them. 
 Gradually it became clear to me that the in- 
 stincts back of this particular group of activities 
 are so definite that it is impossible even to regu- 
 late the neuro-muscular co-ordinations involved. 
 They are tremendously old instincts, older than 
 civilized history, older than savage history. 
 
 A great many years ago, probably in the 
 early part of the Pleistocene age, before there 
 were any records such as we have now of man 
 as man, before he had invented or obtained fire 
 or learned its use, before he had developed 
 weapons, before he had learned to build houses 
 and structures, when he still lived in caves or 
 in rude platforms in trees, there existed with 
 him the great animals of the world, which have 
 since been killed or subdued. The sabre-toothed 
 tiger, the great sloth were still alive, and some 
 of the great lizards. Here was man; he had no 
 jaws that could bite as animals bite; he had no 
 talons that could hold and kill as could the 
 talons of the great fighting animals; he had no 
 claws like the members of the cat family; he 
 had no thick skin like the rhinoceros, or the 
 shell of the turtle; he had no speed, such as had 
 the deer or the dog or the horse. In all these 
 
26 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 respects he was suited only to be food for the 
 great flesh-eating animals. 
 
 During this time running was of importance 
 to man. He who could run the fastest and long- 
 est was the best-equipped for getting food and 
 also for escaping in moments of danger. So 
 there was a constant elimination of the non- 
 runners and a constant survival of the runners. 
 The boys who liked to run, who had instinctive 
 desires for running, survived and grew into 
 men. It followed that there was a develop- 
 ment in boyhood of this desire to run, this 
 interest in hiding and dodging, out of which 
 gradually grew these tag games, which antedate 
 written history. They antedate even the rude 
 records written on the walls of the cave-dwellers. 
 They go back to animal time, these games of 
 tag, and are merely the elaboration of the 
 hunted and hunting feelings which all the sur- 
 vivors possessed. 
 
 Presently, as man developed, he found that 
 to take the limb of a tree and strip it of its 
 branches gave him a power the animals did not 
 have. He could stand behind cover and strike. 
 The use of the club lengthened his arm and gave 
 weight and power. The man who learned to 
 handle this tree limb quickly, with strength and 
 skill, was far better able to survive and get food 
 
HUNTING AND FIGHTING PLAYS 27 
 
 for his family than the man who failed to de- 
 velop this ability. A third impulse developed 
 with these two the desire to throw. There is 
 something still more effective than the ability 
 to use a club. A stone, half the size of the fist, 
 can be thrown for fifty yards with sufficient 
 accuracy and power to break the leg of a deer, 
 and cripple or kill a smaller animal. It was an 
 effective weapon in defending the home. So 
 this ability to throw hard and straight became 
 one of the great things in the world of boys; 
 those who liked it best and practised it most 
 became the men who survived. The stone was 
 the first weapon that could strike from a dis- 
 tance; it thus served to eliminate differences in 
 size and strength. No animal had a weapon of 
 this kind. Certain fish can project a drop of 
 water and catch a fly, and there are certain 
 apes that throw cocoanuts from a height; but 
 to stand on a level and throw straight and hard 
 is distinctively human. This ability to throw, 
 this love of throwing, is one of the things that 
 through thousands of years has grown deep 
 down into our natures, and is still of fundamen- 
 tal interest. 
 
 From the use of the club and the throwing of 
 stones man has developed the fighting and de- 
 fensive implements. He made the boomerang, 
 
28 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 which is a flat club curved; the spear, a straight 
 club with a sharp end; the arrow, a little spear 
 to throw from the end of a string. From the 
 bow and arrow developed the crossbow, of 
 which the modern rifle is the descendant. The 
 great Roman catapult for throwing heavy 
 weights came from the same sources. Man was 
 then more able to compete with the early ani- 
 mals, but the love of running and throwing and 
 striking still survived, for these were still the 
 fundamental co-ordinations underlying his new 
 weapons. So the children of the men who liked 
 to do these things had an especially good chance 
 of growing up, and they in turn liked to play 
 games that involved running, throwing, and 
 striking. Those are the athletics of the world 
 to-day. This, I believe, is the natural history 
 of athletic sports. 
 
 Examining all the tag games we find running 
 and dodging; in baseball, running and striking; 
 lacrosse, running, dodging, catching, throwing 
 with an implement; polo, running on horseback, 
 striking; basket-ball, running, throwing, catch- 
 ing. They are all built with an emphasis on 
 one or the other of these three activities. Bil- 
 liards are different; solitaire is different; but the 
 great athletic games are based on the funda- 
 mental activities that have been cited. 
 
HUNTING AND FIGHTING PLAYS 29 
 
 Fighting plays may be divided into two groups 
 direct and indirect fighting plays. Direct 
 fighting plays accomplish defeat by giving in- 
 jury. Included in these plays are: 
 
 Boxing Fencing 
 
 Wrestling Football. 
 
 In boxing defeat consists in being unable to 
 go on; in wrestling, victory belongs to him who 
 can put his adversary's hips and shoulders on 
 the mat. In the indirect fighting plays victory 
 inheres in more objective and external results, 
 consisting perhaps of a score, or a number of 
 points. All games of competition may be classed 
 as indirect fighting plays, when the degree of 
 competition is sufficiently strong so as to pre- 
 dominate over other elements in the play. The 
 despair and emulation in a competitive game 
 correspond to the same emotions in a fight. 
 
 This raises the question of the extent to which 
 we should encourage fighting games. The fact 
 that these activities were once useful does not 
 in itself prove that they are so still. Man no 
 longer relies for his life's safety on the ability 
 to throw hard and straight. He has conquered 
 the great animals of the world, and his future 
 career does not depend on the extermination of 
 the few remaining large, dangerous beasts. The 
 present significance of athletic sports, however, 
 
30 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 does not lie in their relation to muscular strength 
 and skill. It lies in their relation to moral qual- 
 ities. Courage was developed in man through 
 the necessity of facing difficult and danger- 
 ous situations, through fighting, and fighting 
 desperately, when the odds were against him. 
 The means used were running, throwing, and 
 striking; these were the co-ordinations which be- 
 came connected with courage. The disregard 
 of pain came into being through standing and 
 fighting regardless of suffering. Those agencies 
 which shaped the neuro-muscular co-ordinations 
 of the human arm no less truly shaped the fun- 
 damental qualities of manhood which we regard 
 as necessary to moral life courage, endurance, 
 the willingness to hang on and finish when one 
 is sorely punished. All the active and positive 
 virtues are related to these old activities. 
 
 There is, of course, no real connection be- 
 tween muscular movement and courage; but 
 when man has had to use his courage for thou- 
 sands of years in ways involving certain muscu- 
 lar co-ordinations, the two have come to be asso- 
 ciated. When we desire to cultivate courage in 
 a boy we do not read him maxims concerning 
 the beauty of courage. We put him in sit- 
 uations that correspond to the old situations in 
 which his forebears had to develop courage or 
 
HUNTING AND FIGHTING PLAYS 31 
 
 go under. These situations we find now in the 
 form of play, and, in this form, the boy can 
 have the education without the physical danger. 
 
 The attitude of the boy who can play a vigor- 
 ous, hard-fought game and control his temper 
 who can run on and finish the race, no matter 
 how tired, no matter if his heart is pounding 
 and objects are growing black before him is 
 significant, not from the standpoint of muscular 
 development, but of moral development. The 
 natural tendency of the boy is to win these vir- 
 tues in this old way; these are the means by 
 which courage and power came to man. We 
 need not expect these qualities in our boys un- 
 less we give them similar opportunities, or op- 
 portunities which will act as substitutes. 
 
 Of course we cannot have real fights in large 
 communities; the actual situations which de- 
 velop the virtues of courage, endurance, scorn 
 of pain, are no longer possible. It seems more 
 necessary now than ever to get what develop- 
 ment can be secured in connection with plays 
 involving these old activities. It is still neces- 
 sary for man to be courageous, but courageous 
 in a different way. It is necessary for him to 
 be a fighter, but not in the sense of killing. 
 The courage that keeps a man straight and 
 clean in politics is a far more difficult form of 
 
32 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 courage than that called forth in the old days. 
 But, in the main, it comes in the same way. 
 There is no way of creating courage; it must be 
 developed. All that we can do is to create 
 opportunity for its exercise. 
 
 When boys have no chance to play games of 
 the hunting and fighting type, they have little 
 opportunity to develop those qualities that 
 make fighters of men, and there is as much need 
 of fighters as there ever was. If temptations 
 were ever strong they are strong in our mod- 
 ern cities. Safeguards have been let down and 
 modern life has been made lax to an extent 
 that it has never been before in the history of 
 the world, as regards high moral and physical 
 standards. We are protected from cold, we 
 have food, clothing, and shelter; immediate 
 physical danger and suffering have been prac- 
 tically eliminated. It seems as if the effect of 
 modern life is to produce ease, mushiness, soft- 
 ness, and when grave dangers arise there has 
 been developed no strength with which to grap- 
 ple them. Hence here is the need of boxing, of 
 football, of games that teach the despising of 
 pain and danger, for these qualities are related 
 to power and the tissue of character. If ever 
 there was need of a stiff-backed boy, it is in the 
 modern city. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 PLAYING HOUSE 
 
 NEARLY all children have at some time 
 or other played house. At the age of 
 four I was given an umbrella, which I 
 set up on my bed. I found a shawl and some 
 pins and draped the shawl over the umbrella so 
 as to make a little house to sit in. I said to 
 myself, "This is my house." The feeling asso- 
 ciated with that statement can never be ex- 
 plained to a person who has not had it. I had 
 the same feeling very comfortable and deep 
 when, after being married, we moved into two 
 small rooms in a boarding-house in New York; 
 that was our house. 
 
 My own experience as a boy is often brought 
 to mind when on travelling through the woods 
 I see the little shelters that boys build, a tree 
 house, a cave, a wigwam of green stems or small 
 trees. These habitations are often made by 
 boys who have good homes, who are not in 
 need of seeking shelter; these dwellings are 
 made for no reason which the boys themselves 
 can give. Frequently a part of the floor is dug 
 up, and stores of chestnuts are collected under- 
 
 33 
 
34 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 neath. In none of the playhouses I ever had 
 could we stand up straight. There was a little 
 raised platform in the middle on which we made 
 a fire, and we sat in very uncomfortable posi- 
 tions. We were too hot in front and too cold 
 in the back. The smoke filled our eyes. Mean- 
 while we were eating partly baked potatoes or 
 half-burned chestnuts or doughnuts taken from 
 mother's pantry; and we had feelings of comfort, 
 of being at home, such as we never experienced 
 in school or in our parents' dwellings. We rec- 
 ognize these feelings later in life when we come 
 to establish our own homes, and have our own 
 kitchens and tables and hearth-fires. These 
 states of mind are not dependent on reason; 
 they are made up of profound instinct feelings. 
 The feelings which centred in one of these 
 shanties were sufficiently strong to tie a group 
 of boys together. We would fight with a 
 neighboring group and steal their stores if we 
 could. We were protecting our own home, our 
 own people. 
 
 These feelings are common to most children, 
 and are experienced by girls and boys alike, 
 although the girl's shelter feelings seem to differ 
 somewhat from those of boys. Many of my 
 friends have furnished incidents from their own 
 experiences. 
 
PLAYING HOUSE 35 
 
 "In our nursery stood an old-fashioned three- 
 quarter bed," says one, "with sides to keep the 
 little ones from falling out. The four legs con- 
 tinued up into posts which supported a mosquito 
 bar. This bed made a house with two stories, 
 one under the bed, the other within the railed 
 enclosure with a shawl to serve as a protecting 
 roof. It is useless to try to describe our feel- 
 ing of protection when enclosed in this comfort- 
 able dwelling. A chair served as steps to the 
 upper story, and one child lived down-stairs 
 while the others occupied the floor above. We 
 made constant visitations up and down." 
 
 A corner of the dining-room screened by high 
 clothes-bars covered with shawls served as the 
 first "house" for another friend. Still another 
 records a large variety of houses. A great oak- 
 tree formed one of these. Tents made of bed- 
 sheets with an umbrella for centre-pole were 
 used for evening and morning play. "We also 
 made houses by sweeping up sand into little 
 walls three inches high. Higher mounds of 
 sand were used for seats, and a pile of bricks 
 formed the stove. These houses were many- 
 roomed, and it was forbidden to cross over the 
 sand walls, except at certain spots where we 
 had made doors. At times, however, we pre- 
 ferred smaller houses which we could occupy 
 
36 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 entirely alone, screened even from the sight of 
 passers-by." 
 
 Small indoor houses seem to belong especially 
 to the experience of younger children, and the 
 house plays increase in complexity as children 
 grow older. 
 
 Another friend used to make a tent out of 
 the bedposts and sheets. A strong sheet was 
 stretched from post to post and tied, and the 
 sides of the "house" were draped with bedding, 
 to keep out the enemy in some cases imagi- 
 nary, in other cases the smaller sisters. This 
 form of house play continued for a long time, 
 and had many variations and additions. At 
 first the tent was used as a home, and the in- 
 terior was separated into rooms by rows of 
 pillows. Sometimes the space below the bed 
 was a cellar or a cave filled with wild animals. 
 Later the children made use of a heavy down 
 comforter with which they built a cave. The 
 party then divided into cave-dwellers and cliff- 
 dwellers, sometimes visiting each other, some- 
 times waging war for the possession of each 
 other's dwellings. 
 
 The same friend who writes of these experi- 
 ences moved at the age of eleven to a house 
 surrounded by many acres of land. A large 
 apple-tree, with low-hanging branches, was 
 
PLAYING HOUSE 37 
 
 adapted to the needs of a playhouse. Boards 
 were nailed from limb to limb, and the house 
 was divided into many rooms. This much more 
 complicated arrangement suited the demands of 
 older children. 
 
 Sometimes, in wanderings from the home- 
 tree, the children played at being lost in the 
 orchard, and as imaginary night came on, they 
 found it necessary to hunt a suitable place for 
 shelter from storm and wild animals. On the 
 top of a hill, behind the house, was a group of 
 pines, dark and cool, and "different" from the 
 rest of the orchard. Under these pines they 
 always made a temporary shelter, protected 
 from the terrors of the dark by a packing-box 
 and a fire. Foraging parties went out for food, 
 cautiously entering the cellar and stealing pota- 
 toes from the bin. And out in that box, on a 
 sweltering day, the children crouched before a 
 hot fire, eating smoky, half -raw potatoes (they 
 could never be prevailed upon to eat potatoes 
 at the table), and were supremely happy. They 
 had been lost, but had made a shelter for them- 
 selves. They felt protected and at home. 
 
 Another friend's playhouse experience always 
 took the form of a wigwam, usually inhabited 
 with some companion. They built wigwams of 
 clothes and quilts, and later of willow sticks tied 
 
38 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 together. These formed a defense which other 
 boys tried to tear down. A great feeling of 
 mystery was always connected with these struc- 
 tures. They had to be concealed. In a copse 
 twenty-five or thirty feet above the travelled 
 road the boys sat with a shawl and plaited the 
 branches together to make the place more hid- 
 den. It was a great joy to make a horrible 
 noise to terrify the countrymen going by, but 
 the boys felt as terrified as those who passed. 
 
 Even the crowded conditions under which 
 city children live have not deprived them of 
 this desire to find a place of their own, where 
 they can feel at home, protected, sheltered. 
 One of the common things for children to do in 
 a city back yard is to get chunks of coal, or 
 blocks of wood, or even a nail, and mark divi- 
 sions in the earth. One sees these markings, 
 also, on the asphalt pavement of the sidewalks. 
 "This is my house. This is your house." And 
 it feels different when they are in "my" house 
 from what it does when they are in "your" 
 house. As far as I observed, the feelings of the 
 house play are stronger with girls than with boys. 
 
 Boys are especially interested in the construc- 
 tion of houses. A gang of boys in a district 
 school in central New York built a house in a 
 fence corner. All the boys of the neighborhood 
 
PLAYING HOUSE 39 
 
 were invited to join in the enterprise, but as 
 soon as the work actually began the group be- 
 came a closed corporation. This is a most sig- 
 nificant fact in its bearing on the connection of 
 the shelter feeling to group life. No boy who 
 had refused to assist was afterward allowed to 
 come into the house. The walls were built of 
 flat stones, piled as high as the top of the fence. 
 Short rails served as rafters, and the whole was 
 well covered with brush. One of the boys was 
 chosen leader; his word thereafter became abso- 
 lute law. That organization was the beginning 
 of a "gang." The boys hurried from school in 
 the afternoon and used every available minute 
 for the completion of the house. Then cooking 
 experiments were tried over a fire that never 
 cooked anything, but burned and scorched and 
 blackened, filling the house with smoke that 
 refused to go up the hole prepared for it. 
 
 The friend who tells of this stone house adds: 
 "My feeling of intense personal ownership was 
 never duplicated until about four years ago, 
 when my wife and I purchased a house and 
 established a home for the first time. Two 
 years ago I happened to pass the spot where 
 the old rail fence once stood. Not a trace of 
 the playhouse remained, but upon gazing at 
 the site the same thrill came over me that I 
 
40 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 used to feel as I squeezed through the narrow 
 door and sat on those torturous seats, with a 
 sharp stone or a jagged rail digging a hole in 
 my back. I have never found an upholstered 
 chair that could compare with those seats for 
 comfort, and that could give in equal measure 
 the sense of being at home " 
 
 If we look back over the history of the human 
 race, and consider what shelter has meant to us 
 and how civilization would have been impossi- 
 ble without this development of the interest in 
 the "house," we begin to see the survival value 
 which these feelings, now expressed in the play 
 of children, have had for our kind. Those indi- 
 viduals who had the inclination to remain in 
 one place, rather than to wander, had a great 
 advantage over the rest. Remaining in one 
 place would result inevitably in greater accu- 
 mulation of property, and out of property much 
 of our social custom and law have grown. The 
 massing together of pottery, baskets, religious 
 properties, cooking utensils, ornaments, changes 
 of clothing, with all that this accumulation 
 means for the advance of civilization, is greatly 
 facilitated by remaining in one place. Those 
 people who had the feeling for shelter gradually 
 obtained these advantages. 
 
 The establishment of the home in one place, 
 
PLAYING HOUSE 41 
 
 with comparatively little wandering, was also 
 favorable to the growth of small children. In 
 the home there was less danger from exposure. 
 There was less danger from enemies, since accu- 
 rate knowledge of the immediate physical en- 
 vironment was a great help in any combat. 
 The domestication of plants and animals can be 
 carried out only by residence, for a time at least, 
 in one locality. Such domestication means in- 
 creasing freedom from the daily pressure for 
 food. It means an opportunity of growth for 
 the higher mental life; it means increasing sta- 
 bility of the home and the social group. 
 
 Of course, one could not maintain that the 
 early races adopted shelter because they per- 
 ceived that it would be advantageous and that 
 through it all these blessings would accrue to 
 them. They had no such conscious purpose. 
 But it is nevertheless true that the individuals 
 and groups in whom the feeling for locality 
 and shelter was most strongly developed inevi- 
 tably gained these benefits. Their children had 
 a better chance of survival. So the shelter feel- 
 ing was passed on and strengthened among the 
 civilized peoples, for it was one of the factors 
 that made those peoples. 
 
 There seems to be a difference on the part of 
 various races with regard to the shelter feeling. 
 
42 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 Out of the lower East Side in New York 40,000 
 people migrated in a short time across the Wil- 
 liamsburg Bridge and settled in what is known 
 as Brownsville. There was plenty of room in 
 Brownsville. There were many vacant lots. 
 But the people packed together as tightly in 
 Brownsville as they had been on the lower East 
 Side. They had not this feeling for individual 
 shelter. 
 
 It seems that in the Aryan invasion of Europe 
 the people in the different waves of the inva- 
 sion possessed different feelings with reference 
 to the home. The first comers, the North- 
 men, demanded individual shelter. Every man 
 wanted his own roof, alone; when the young 
 people married they set up a separate establish- 
 ment, That feeling has remained until the pres- 
 ent time, and those of us who are of Norman 
 stock object much more strenuously to the tene- 
 ment house and the apartment than do people 
 of some other races. 
 
 When the young people of the Southern na- 
 tions married they simply put on an addition 
 to the old dwelling, which became larger as the 
 family grew. The people went to their farms 
 during the day, sometimes at great distances 
 and in many directions, but they all returned to 
 the central place at night. That is, their feeling 
 
PLAYING HOUSE 43 
 
 for family unity and group life differed from that 
 of the Northern peoples. Both these feelings, 
 however, are based on the feeling for shelter. 
 
 The present conditions of city life are affecting 
 to some extent this desire for a particular local- 
 ity and a particular shelter. All the movement 
 of the times is away from continuous living in 
 one place. From the kindergarten up things 
 belong in common. The house is a temporary 
 home. People in Boston move on an average 
 once a year; other cities are probably much the 
 same in this respect. We are very far removed 
 from the feeling for locality which some Hawaii 
 Islanders had of whom I have heard. They 
 had left a small island on which nothing grew 
 but a few palm-trees. They had come away in a 
 group, so that the element of the loss of friends 
 entered into the situation but slightly. But 
 they grew so desperately homesick that some of 
 them died. They wanted their place. A feel- 
 ing of this kind does not survive in the modern 
 city. 
 
 Continuity of character tends to grow out of 
 attachment to a place. One of the most dan- 
 gerous factors in city life is this ease of moving. 
 A person may leave readily the scene of his 
 actions for another part of the town, and the 
 modern makeshift known as a "bluff" may be 
 
44 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 developed in place of character. The sense of 
 responsibility for past deeds is weakened when 
 a man no longer faces their consequences in the 
 locality where they were committed. Constant 
 moving tends to loss of the feeling for home, and 
 all that this feeling implies for group life and 
 mutual responsibility. 
 
 There is great need for encouraging this feel- 
 ing for shelter and home through the plays of 
 children. It may also be encouraged in other 
 ways. My own children went back every sum- 
 mer to the locality where we had lived for six- 
 teen years. They knew the people and the 
 people knew us. The children knew where 
 crabs were to be found, where clams abounded, 
 and where they could fish for trout. They had 
 associations with various places. There was the 
 spot where one of them fell, there the place 
 where we first raised the flag. That means con- 
 tinuity. During the winter they lived in Spring- 
 field, in New York, in Boston, and went to dif- 
 ferent schools. New ties were constantly made 
 and constantly broken. This easy change makes 
 for superficiality^ of character, unless it is bal- 
 anced by some sort of continuity. One of the 
 things which we must give our children is oppor- 
 tunity to develop their feelings for shelter and 
 home by attachment to some locality, and by 
 
PLAYING HOUSE 45 
 
 the various activities which come under the 
 head of "playing house." 
 
 This is true, also, with regard to the other 
 play so frequently connected with playing house 
 the preparation and eating of food. One of 
 the interesting things that small children do is 
 to make mud pies. Sometimes mud pies have 
 really been tasted, in an attempt to carry the 
 play to an extreme conclusion. When the chil- 
 dren grow older, they frequently progress to 
 real cookery of a more or less primitive type, 
 often carried on in connection with the plays of 
 shelter. Boys are as much interested in their 
 way in the mimic preparation of food as girls 
 are. I have already mentioned the doughnuts 
 and half-baked potatoes eaten in the shanty 
 which I had with some other boys in the woods. 
 We also used to kill and cook English sparrows. 
 I ate those meals with an enthusiasm which I 
 have never known in eating anything else in my 
 life. It was a great joy to make little loaves of 
 bread and cake, and to have stores where we 
 sold food. In connection with a house that my 
 children built, they had a complete set of cook- 
 ing utensils. There was nothing cooked on the 
 real stove in the real house that was not also 
 cooked on the little stove in the playhouse. 
 A very real sense of increased power comes to 
 
46 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 the individual who is efficient in these activities 
 of the home. There are feelings of complacency, 
 enlarged personality, independence. There is a 
 great difference between our feeling toward food 
 that we have prepared ourselves or that some 
 one at home has prepared for us, and our feel- 
 ing toward hotel food. 
 
 Two great factors have always held the family 
 together shelter and food. The kitchen has 
 been the social centre of the family during all 
 time. Eating and the preparation of food have 
 been connected with the development of social 
 life. The kitchen with the copper pots on the 
 wall was the place to which the neighbors would 
 come, and the fact that we now set apart a 
 separate room for the reception of visitors is 
 socially an abnormal procedure. When people 
 know each other well, they go out into the 
 kitchen together. 
 
 When people eat together they have expressed 
 a definite social relation. They feel differently 
 about each other. Frequently, if a man wants 
 to ask a favor of another, he invites him to din- 
 ner; in that way he establishes a new relation. 
 This set of feelings is one against which many 
 intellectual people rebel. When the effort is 
 made to get them together and it is suggested 
 that they have something to eat, they say that 
 
PLAYING HOUSE 47 
 
 you want to put something into their stomachs. 
 This statement is not wholly true. "Putting 
 something into one's stomach" does not express 
 it. The symbol of breaking bread and eating 
 salt together is a truer one. The common meal 
 is the sign of fellowship. The cooking of food 
 tends to bring people together. It is a basal 
 element in the evolution of the social life. The 
 meal is the time when men are free to meet. 
 Hence the social activities grow up naturally at 
 a meal, and the social traditions are associated 
 with the partaking of salt and the breaking of 
 bread. The state of the body after eating is 
 favorable to social life. There is quiet and rest 
 rather than hostility. A fundamental desire 
 has been gratified. Hence the establishment of 
 friendly relations is easy. 
 
 The cooking of food has in the past contrib- 
 uted to racial advance and survival. Cooking 
 means a great increase in the quantity of the 
 available food-supply. It enables men to dry 
 and preserve meats. It provides foods which 
 could not be eaten uncooked. It aids the diges- 
 tion of food. For all these reasons it tends 
 toward greater vigor, and hence toward sur- 
 vival. 
 
 Therefore, the playing with food seems to be 
 another of the important preparations for life, 
 
48 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 because it gives the child an opportunity to 
 express and so develop the instinctive feelings in 
 connection with which so much of our racial 
 growth has come about. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 FIRE PLAY 
 
 BEHIND our house in Springfield, Massa- 
 chusetts, was a sand waste, with a bank 
 of sand four feet high. The face of the 
 bank had been dug away so that it could be 
 burrowed into. Periodically the interests of our 
 children would centre about this bank; it was 
 an ideal place for fire play. The children built 
 their fires at various places in the bank. They 
 would burrow a hole some feet from the top of 
 the bank and make an upward excavation to 
 serve as a chimney. Viewed from above, the 
 bank presented a flat surface riddled with chim- 
 ney holes. 
 
 Playing with fire is a little dangerous, and yet 
 children cannot come to know fire except by 
 playing with it in the same way as they have 
 learned to know other things through play. 
 Hence, while fire play was encouraged in our 
 home, it was restricted to one day a week. 
 Friday was always fire day, when the children 
 were allowed to have as many fires as they 
 
50 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 wished, and fires of every kind. They wore 
 woollen dresses as a precaution, and some older 
 person was always present. In the main the 
 children preferred small fires with which they 
 could do things to large fires which were merely 
 spectacular. If a fire could be made to cook 
 something it was enjoyed particularly. 
 
 Ownership in these little fires was passionate 
 and intense. One of my girls ran to me once in 
 great excitement, saying: "Father, Louise put a 
 stick on my fire and I didn't say she could." 
 That fire was her own; it was tied up with her 
 self as much as any other possession that she 
 had. The care with which the children at- 
 tended to their individual fires, the selection of 
 suitable material, was a matter of all-absorbing 
 interest. There was great anxiety lest the fire 
 should go out, not because it was needed, but 
 simply because it was wanted. It could be lit 
 again from another fire, but that was not satis- 
 factory to the child; one's own fire must be 
 kept going. 
 
 The feelings that children have toward fire 
 vary with the size of the fire. There are feelings 
 of tenderness for a small fire, of sympathy and 
 anxiety lest it should die. There are feelings of 
 fear toward a big blaze, even if there be no dan- 
 ger from it. It appears that girls' feelings dif- 
 
FIRE PLAY 51 
 
 fer on the whole from boys', the girl inclining 
 toward the little, domesticated fire, and the 
 boy toward the large, fierce, dramatic blaze. 
 There are feelings of excitement in connection 
 with a roaring fire and of revery with a dying 
 glow. Of all these feelings I have numerous 
 records, and probably all of us have such rec- 
 ords, if not written, then recorded in brain cells 
 and visual images. 
 
 These feelings about fire are by no means 
 confined to children. In our home we had a 
 fair-sized fireplace, in which three-foot logs 
 could be placed. The room in which the fire- 
 place was located held from thirty to forty per- 
 sons. I have repeatedly tried the experiment 
 of having the logs ready to light, so as to avoid 
 all preliminary and disturbing work which might 
 distract the attention, and then when the room 
 was full of friends, chattering as friends always 
 do, lighting the fire. An open fire was not so 
 uncommon a sight as to awaken any feeling of 
 the unusual, for we had it practically every 
 day, but its effect was almost always profound. 
 With the lighting of the fire came first a lower- 
 ing of the conversational tone, then a lessening 
 in its quantity, and frequently a full stop. I 
 have timed many pauses of over thirty seconds' 
 duration, and one of forty -three seconds. On 
 
52 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 the latter occasion over twenty persons were 
 present in the room, and there was no single 
 psychological cause for the stopping of conver- 
 sation. Psychologists who have studied the be- 
 havior of groups of people know that ordinarily 
 no cause of an internal character is likely to 
 arise which will stop the talk of twenty people 
 simultaneously. A half -minute's pause in a 
 prayer-meeting seems interminable, painful; but 
 before the fire it is different; one feels only rev- 
 erence and awe. 
 
 The effect of fire in producing a sense of pro- 
 tection is even to-day experienced frequently. 
 Late one afternoon two boys and I were lost in 
 the Adirondack woods. We tramped about 
 until night came on, and there was no hope of 
 finding our way. We walked in total darkness; 
 there was no difference between looking up and 
 looking down in the woods. We smashed into 
 tree trunks and could not distinguish between 
 the trees and the sky. It was raining hard, our 
 blankets were wet, and we had little to eat. 
 We found a brook by the sound of its rippling; 
 near it we discovered a dry, hollow oak log, 
 and with our last few matches we made a 
 fire. 
 
 The state of feeling before we built that fire 
 had been one of unreasoning despair. We were 
 
FIRE PLAY 53 
 
 not in a dangerous situation, for that part of 
 the country is thickly settled. There was no 
 probability of our starving to death. But the 
 awf ulness of being lost, of being out of touch with 
 human beings, not knowing where we were, and 
 our friends not knowing where we were these 
 feelings were so intense as to blind the reason, 
 not only of the boys, but of myself. The situa- 
 tion seemed desperate. With the lighting of the 
 fire our state of feeling changed to one of com- 
 fort and satisfaction. The actual conditions 
 were the same as before. We were as much 
 lost as we had been. We were no farther from 
 nor any nearer to other people. There was no 
 special danger from which we were protected 
 by the fire. It was raining so hard that the 
 fire did not even change our physical comfort 
 in any striking manner. But our whole attitude 
 toward life became different. The place of the 
 fire acquired the significance of home. We sat 
 up most of the night feeding the flame, and when 
 we went off to get wood and returned to the 
 fire we felt that we were no longer lost. 
 
 Lying down by a large fire at night in the 
 woods never fails to produce in me feelings of 
 safety and the comfort of being at home. A 
 party of which I was one tramped seven weeks 
 through the Yosemite Valley. The camp fire 
 
54 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 was the centre about which we would gather. 
 As soon as it was lit at night, we had a feeling 
 of unity. If we went away for some hours to 
 draw water, or to get a better grazing ground 
 for the horses, going back to the fire was "going 
 home." That was the phrase we used. If we 
 returned to a place after having been absent 
 for some time, we invariably had the fire in 
 the same spot in which we had built it before. 
 Some years ago I experimented with this feeling 
 by deliberately keeping away from a known 
 camp fire. I found that I had a sense of un- 
 easiness, of wanting to get there. Going into 
 the woods and having for company only the 
 birds and the plants is not sufficient; but a 
 fire goes a long way to supply the need of com- 
 panionship. It feels as if it were alive; it gives 
 the sense of home. 
 
 Ascending smoke produces feelings of an 
 aesthetic nature in many people. A striking 
 fireplace which I once saw in California made 
 its appeal in this way. The fire was built on 
 the stone floor against a wall, flanked by two 
 large posts; the chimney hole in the ceiling was 
 placed slightly forward for the sake of the 
 draught. The fire and smoke rose in an un- 
 broken column against the wall from floor to 
 ceiling. It was a sight which one could watch 
 
FIRE PLAY 55 
 
 hour after hour, spellbound by the combined 
 effect of smoke and flame. 
 
 There is fascination about the smoke from a 
 large fire on which green wood or green pine- 
 needles have been piled. When there is no 
 wind, a solid, gray, fluted column, perhaps a foot 
 in diameter, goes up motionless for two or three 
 feet, and than breaks into rhythmical waves. 
 The smoke motion has something almost hyp- 
 notic. There is a similar feeling about the thin 
 gray line of smoke ascending from incense, and 
 gradually spreading out into nothingness. To get 
 the best effect, sticks of Chinese incense must 
 be placed in a room in which every door and 
 window has been closed, on a day when there is 
 little wind. The columns will go up without a 
 break for a long way, passing finally into beau- 
 tiful gray whirls and rings. 
 
 It is said that blind people do not care -to 
 smoke. Smoking in the dark is exceedingly un- 
 satisfactory. If one is not really attentive to a 
 pipe, it will go out unawares. I have been told 
 by a friend that he knows of few things more 
 annoying than to be smoking away on a pipe 
 and suddenly discovering that it has been out 
 for some time. It is the visual sense to a large 
 degree that sets up these smoke reactions. One 
 of the charms of smoking is the vision of gray 
 
56 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 whirls, streams, clouds, rings of impalpable 
 smoke, ever changing their form, ever suggest- 
 ing, never realizing. They grip one's imagina- 
 tion. 
 
 People behold visions on looking into a fire, 
 particularly a fire with embers. Many stories 
 are built on what one sees at such times. We 
 can have a sullen fire, a cheerful fire, an angry 
 fire. These emotional experiences connected 
 with fires have been well caught by Ik Marvel 
 in his Reveries of a Bachelor. The portrai- 
 ture of his state of feeling, of sitting and seeing 
 the fire burn, of watching it die away, lends 
 significance and emotion to the events related 
 in the book. Such books are read because they 
 are true; these are common feelings that all 
 people have in connection with such fires. 
 
 But there are also feelings of terror connected 
 with fire. One day the apron of our oldest 
 daughter caught fire. From an upper window 
 her mother saw her running to the house with 
 the front of the apron ablaze. She hurried 
 down-stairs and met the child at the door; but, 
 as does not usually happen, the running had 
 put out the fire instead of fanning it. The 
 mother was sick for several days after that and 
 did not recover for several weeks from a pain 
 in the lower part of the back. Many people 
 
FIRE PLAY 57 
 
 have had similar experiences. It may be, of 
 course, that there is no special kind of fear con- 
 nected with fire, and that the feeling is merely 
 part of a general great fear; but there seems to 
 be an abject terror aroused by fire which is not 
 experienced in connection with other dangers, 
 such as danger from water or wind. The heroes 
 of youth in our cities are not those who endan- 
 ger their lives for the sake of society, but the 
 firemen who fight the flames. 
 
 I stood on the bluff in Yokohama watching 
 one of the great fires in Tokio, twenty miles 
 away. It was a fire three miles long, in the 
 heart of the city. The sight of that long line 
 of smoke twenty miles across the country ex- 
 cited the most intense feelings of awe and ter- 
 ror. Imagination flew to the scene of the fire; 
 we knew what must be happening there. At 
 another time I have seen a solid square of 
 houses, equal to about eight of our city blocks, 
 burning in Yokohama. A section of the fire 
 was immediately opposite our own house. Peo- 
 ple who were unfamiliar with the fire fear be- 
 haved in an extraordinarily panic-stricken way. 
 Our own house was comparatively safe, but to 
 stand on the veranda and look at this great fire, 
 wholly beyond the power of the Japanese en- 
 gines, produced a feeling of unreasoning terror. 
 
58 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 Fire lends a mysterious effect to the telling of 
 ghost stories. The heart beats unevenly, and 
 the salivary glands are often affected. At Pratt 
 High School in Brooklyn one evening an enter- 
 tainment was held at which a ghost story was 
 told. It was a very good story, but the effect 
 on the audience was slight. Then all lights 
 were put out and another story was told. Some 
 alcohol mixed in salt was burned in a bowl. 
 The man who told the second story held the 
 bowl between his knees, and his strong features 
 were illumined by the yellow light flashing and 
 going. The effect upon all the listeners was 
 very marked ; one girl was carried from the room 
 in hysterics. The story itself was no better 
 than the first, but in the second case the great 
 overmastering fear of the ages had been touched, 
 the fear of the dark, the fear of the weird occa- 
 sioned by flickering flame. 
 
 A group of facts such as these seems to de- 
 mand some explanation which shall relate it 
 to the development of our kind, for it seems to 
 be evident that animals do not have the whole 
 human range of feelings about fire. They have 
 the elemental panic terror to an even greater 
 degree than human beings. Cases of the rescue 
 of horses and cattle from burning stables illus- 
 trate this. But animals do not have the desire 
 
FIRE PLAY 59 
 
 to care for fire. A fire left in the woods will 
 not be treated by animals as it is treated by 
 man. 
 
 The whole human race has had feelings re- 
 garding the significance of fire fire, the de- 
 stroyer, and fire, the protector. Long before the 
 earliest historical records of humankind there 
 are evidences that our forefathers used fire. 
 And as soon as these records begin we find the 
 fire feelings developed perhaps as fully as we 
 have them now all the early care for the fire, 
 the sacred fire in the middle of the house, the 
 lamps which were never allowed to go out, the 
 ceremony before the council fire, the worship of 
 the sun. The first Greek state officers of whom 
 we have any record were the fire-tenders. The 
 individuals appointed to care for the fires be- 
 came the later judges, magistrates, counsellors, 
 kings. 
 
 Fire has been the centre of the family and the 
 social life among many people. About the com- 
 mon fire there developed the common interests. 
 Fire has been closely connected with the relig- 
 ious life of the race. Among the Aryan peo- 
 ples at first the father was the custodian of the 
 fire; later this office was transferred to one of 
 the daughters. The virgins who kept the fires 
 of Vesta possessed powers over life and death. 
 
60 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 The maintenance of perpetual fire in lamps has 
 been identified with religion in the Greek and 
 Roman churches for many generations. To-day 
 we ally fire with religion in our incense, our can- 
 dles, though not to the same extent as did the 
 early peoples. I need only mention the fire- 
 worshippers. In the Old Testament we hear of 
 the worship of Moloch, and the kings who 
 "made their sons pass through the fire" as a 
 gift to the gods. The first quarrel mentioned in 
 the Bible was about smoke. Cain complained 
 that his smoke went along the ground, while 
 Abel's ascended straight to heaven; and so Cain 
 killed Abel. The behavior of smoke was in- 
 dicative of the attitude of the Governing Power. 
 Fire among many peoples has been the symbol 
 of the soul, the living thing, that which subsists 
 on matter but is not matter, that which has no 
 body but consumes body. 
 
 The council fire was one which bore no rela- 
 tion itself to the process of deliberation going on 
 around it. Yet deliberation and revery have 
 been associated so often with the council fire 
 and smoking together that it is difficult to think 
 of the connection as a purely accidental one. 
 The feeling that fire is related to all great occa- 
 sions still survives in many civic celebrations. 
 In Germany and Scandinavia the fires that are 
 
FIRE PLAY 61 
 
 lit at Easter trace their origin to the ancient 
 celebration at the return of the sun god, Balder. 
 The vision of most of our American cities on 
 election night is a vision of what the normal 
 boy or girl does when he or she gets the oppor- 
 tunity. Fires are on the streets of the large 
 cities by the thousands; the children have made 
 preparations for them weeks in advance. The 
 policemen have their minds otherwise occupied 
 at the time. 
 
 These feelings of the significance of fire, run- 
 ning through all human history, raise the ques- 
 tion of its meaning in connection with the de- 
 velopment of our kind. There must be some 
 reason why these feelings have been preserved 
 by natural selection by the law that those 
 tribes and species shall survive which have char- 
 acteristics best fitting them to survive. Man 
 alone of all living beings has learned to master 
 fire, and this mastery has been a great force in 
 his cultural advancement. It makes no differ- 
 ence whether he first took it from the overflow- 
 ing, burning lava, from the stroke of lightning 
 on some dead tree in a forest, or whether he in- 
 vented it by the friction of wood against wood, 
 by striking bamboo against bamboo those in- 
 dividuals, those tribes that had the instinct feel- 
 ings to care for fire were equipped for a broad- 
 
62 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 ening career which was not open to those who 
 were merely afraid of fire. By learning to care 
 for fire, those early men were able not only to 
 escape the danger of the large, uncontrolled con- 
 flagration, but they were also able to make use 
 of the small, controlled fire for their own con- 
 venience. 
 
 Fire was the great destroyer of the forests and 
 towns in those days. But fire was also the best 
 protector from animals, and animals were the 
 chief peril of man then. His chief danger did 
 not consist, as it did later, in plague, typhoid, 
 smallpox, tuberculosis. He feared the sabre- 
 toothed tiger, and the other creatures that we 
 see in the natural-history museum. Fire served 
 as protection from these animals. A cave with 
 a good fire in front of it meant safety. The 
 man of to-day, when he goes out in the forest 
 and lies down at night beside a large, controlled 
 fire, such as is made by piling the trunks of three 
 or four trees together; when he covers himself 
 with his blanket and knows that there are no 
 other human beings within many miles, he, too, 
 experiences those fire feelings which were of 
 use ages ago. There may be no bears or tigers 
 to be protected from, but he is conscious of a 
 sense of protection. Practically all people have 
 this feeling. 
 
FIRE PLAY 63 
 
 Through fire the cold, energy-giving regions 
 of the earth were opened up to man. Fire was 
 the protector from cold. By means of it the 
 food-supply could be extended. The people 
 who controlled fire could eat foods not other- 
 wise eatable, and they could preserve game and 
 fruits. The forest could be cleared and fields 
 cut out by the use of fire a task which would 
 otherwise have been infinitely laborious without 
 machinery. No metals can be worked except 
 by fire. The tribes that first cared for fire had 
 the first use of metals and tools. All the pot- 
 tery we have depends on fire. Clay baked in 
 the sun is relatively unstable; but clay baked 
 in the fire forms bricks which are more enduring 
 than the granite on which rests the foundation 
 of the earth. 
 
 For these reasons we to-day have these feel- 
 ings about fire. They come from the earliest 
 life of the human race; they are one of the great 
 means by which the human race has survived 
 and evolved. The sense of terror, the sense of 
 protection, the sense of religious significance 
 and of beauty attached to fire are part of our 
 inheritance as human beings a most valuable 
 part, and closely related to our being here at all. 
 
 Fire stands essentially as the symbol of human 
 feeling in the world. 
 
64 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 A realization of the race value of fire, fire the 
 domesticator, has led to the selection of the 
 camp fire as the symbol of a great present-day 
 social movement. "The Ode to the Fire" of the 
 Camp Fire Girls expresses these values: 
 
 "OFire! 
 
 Long years ago, when our fathers fought with ani- 
 mals, you were their protection. 
 
 From the cruel cold of winter, you saved them. 
 
 When they needed food you changed the flesh of 
 beasts into savory meat for them. 
 
 During all the ages your mysterious flame has been 
 a symbol to them for Spirit. 
 
 So (to-night) we light our fire in remembrance of 
 the Great Spirit who gave you to us." 
 
 "The Fire Maker's Desire" voices the univer- 
 sality and brotherhood of man associated with 
 fire: 
 
 "As fuel is brought to the fire 
 So I purpose to bring 
 My strength, 
 My ambition, 
 My heart's desire, 
 My joy, 
 
 And my sorrow, 
 To the fire 
 Of humankind. 
 
 "For I will tend 
 As my fathers have tended, 
 
FIRE PLAY 65 
 
 And my fathers' fathers 
 Since time began, 
 The fire that is called 
 The love of man for man, 
 The love of man for God." 
 
 "The Torch-Bearer's Desire" is an expression 
 of ideals: 
 
 "That light which has been given to me, 
 I desire to pass undimmed to others." 
 
 So we want our children to play with fire in 
 order that they may come fully into their racial 
 inheritance. The child who has not had the 
 opportunity to play with fire has missed one of 
 the great means for the realization of mystery, 
 in its good sense. And the person who has no 
 consciousness of mystery fails to understand 
 the world. If all nature seems cold, calculated 
 science, then we have a view of the world which 
 is certainly untrue. But that view of the whole 
 which appreciates the relation of things, which 
 recognizes, also, the great beyond, and knows 
 the world not only in an intellectual but also in 
 this feeling sense that is an estimation which 
 it seems to me is real. The contact of the child 
 with the expanse of ocean, with the dark, with 
 fire these are among the chief ways by which 
 the imagination reaches out, throwing its roots 
 
66 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 way down in the instinct feelings of the past, 
 and giving the power of relationship without 
 which life is not particularly significant. It is 
 difficult to write poetry over a gas log. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 TOYS CONSTRUCTION AND OWNER- 
 SHIP 
 
 A a mother's club in a New York settle- 
 ment house a discussion arose concern- 
 ing what one thing each mother would 
 like to have provided for her boys, in addition 
 to what they already had. One thoughtful 
 woman claimed that a wood-shed was her great- 
 est need. "My boys have reached the age 
 when they want to make things," she said. 
 "They want to whittle and split and hammer; 
 they want to build boats. But when I let them 
 try it in our rooms, the landlord came up and 
 very angrily declared that he would put us out 
 if we did not stop that noise. If we only had a 
 wood-shed where the boys could make things, I 
 think they might grow up properly, without 
 going on the street so much with bad boys." 
 
 This woman had noticed a common phenome- 
 non among boys, the dawning of a desire to 
 make things with their hands. Boys in all parts 
 of the world have this desire. A letter from a 
 missionary in Japan describes the number of 
 
68 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 things which two boys made in a very short 
 time, changing in interest from one thing to 
 another, as each was completed. For a time 
 they busied themselves making boats dug-outs 
 of various shapes. Then they grew more ambi- 
 tious. One of them cut a paper pattern for a 
 tin boat, and then made it in tin and got the 
 tinsmith to solder it together. Then they de- 
 cided to make another and solder it themselves. 
 The knowledge gained in this way was imme- 
 diately applied to the repairing of an old tin 
 lamp for a playhouse which they had built in 
 the back yard. They also made for this house 
 a stove out of a kerosene can. At the same 
 time the interest in boats progressed. One of 
 the boys made a canoe of three boards, six feet 
 long, cut and bent into shape. It was his all- 
 absorbing interest until he had learned to han- 
 dle it perfectly on the pond. Then he aban- 
 doned it and spent a week's hard work on a 
 canvas canoe, bending the bamboo ribs over a 
 fire and wiring them together. 
 
 Toys with which something can be done are 
 much more acceptable to a growing boy than 
 toys which are completed. If he receives an 
 engine and track all complete he is wonderfully 
 pleased, but he does not play with it for a very 
 long time. He exhausts its possibilities soon, 
 
TOYS 69 
 
 and there is nothing new to be done. But if he 
 is given the materials, ideas, and patterns for a 
 little boat, there are hours and even days of 
 useful play in store for him. A knife is a toy 
 for which the average boy longs; there are so 
 many things he can do with it. A tool of any 
 kind, a chisel or hammer, has a similar attrac- 
 tion. Toys are objects in connection with 
 which our instinct feelings have a chance to 
 develop. They might be called pegs on the 
 wall of the mind on which to hang instinct feel- 
 ings. The doll is a peg upon which hangs the 
 bulk of the domestic feelings of the girl. The 
 ball and bat for the boy are toys around which 
 are clustered and in connection with which are 
 developed a large number of activities and feel- 
 ings. 
 
 The great variety of block plays shows this 
 same interest in construction. Some years ago 
 I wanted to arrange some plays for my children 
 which should make use of the desire to con- 
 struct, but should not primarily involve finger 
 movements and minute co-ordinations. I had 
 blocks made large enough so that their use would 
 involve arm movements. After some experi- 
 ment I found that blocks about the size of bricks, 
 twice as wide as they are thick and twice as long 
 as they are wide, are more useful than any 
 
70 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 other shape. A thickness of one and a half 
 inches allows a baby's hand to take a firm 
 grasp. I had some three hundred wooden 
 blocks made, all of this size, and gave them to 
 the children. 
 
 For about six consecutive years those blocks 
 were the chief interest of one or more of the 
 children. An observation of the various struc- 
 tures made and the kind of buildings built 
 showed that all the children went through the 
 same general stages in block plays. The first 
 step consisted in simply piling up the blocks 
 and knocking them down. My boy did that 
 more than any of the girls. Sometimes the 
 children liked to lay the blocks in rows. But it 
 was not until some time after they had begun 
 playing with the blocks that they cared to have 
 the corners fit and the angles placed accurately. 
 
 The interest in playing with the blocks was 
 intense, but intermittent. The children never 
 played with them for many weeks at a time. 
 But as they grew older the period of their play 
 impulse grew longer. A baby might play with 
 the blocks every day for a little while; but a 
 boy or girl of seven or eight played all day long 
 for a number of days or a week, until that pulse 
 of interest was exhausted. These bursts of in- 
 terest were generally related to the discovery of 
 
TOYS 71 
 
 some fresh form of construction. For instance, 
 when the child first discovered the principle of 
 balance which underlies bridge building, there 
 was a very long pulse of interest. The children 
 tried many kinds of bridges, until they had ex- 
 hausted the form. When they received the no- 
 tion of building houses, there was another period 
 of interest, until they could discover no fresh 
 varieties of house. They built as many kinds 
 of houses as they could invent and then stopped. 
 But they never completed a logical development 
 of all the simple forms of block arrangement. 
 They never, for instance, worked out all the 
 possible relations of two blocks to each other. 
 Their interests were grouped, not logically, but 
 practically. The development of the consecu- 
 tive forms of building, which has been similar 
 with all the children, has not been logical. The 
 particular form that the child happened to hit 
 upon was executed in as many ways as he 
 could think of. 
 
 The role of the teacher appears to come hi 
 when the child has exhausted his own ability 
 to invent. As soon as he begins to do the same 
 things over and over again, a teacher may sug- 
 gest a new form. But the teacher who attempts 
 to show all the forms to the child at once de- 
 stroys the child's interest and renders him blase. 
 
73 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 To one of my children I showed in rapid suc- 
 cession all the generic forms of block arrange- 
 ment houses, bridges, mechanical forms. The 
 child was too young to appreciate them, or to 
 have any self-activity following the discovery. 
 From that child I took away all the pleasure of 
 block plays. I prevented him from developing 
 his own instinct feelings in connection with his 
 play. Nothing can so sap the interest and de- 
 stroy the educative value of play so quickly as 
 to discover everything for the child. This is 
 the fault of the too complex toy. The chief 
 value of any toy is that the boy can use it to do 
 something with. 
 
 Self-development through playing is also 
 brought about through the very limitations of 
 material in these block plays. They were 
 wooden blocks, all shaped alike. I might have 
 given the children colored blocks of many 
 shapes, German stone blocks with lintels, door- 
 ways and cupolas, so that building would have 
 been easy and varied. But with the one shape 
 of block the difference in construction lay in the 
 imagination of the children rather than in the 
 thing used. They developed a power of doing 
 new things with old material, as they could 
 never have done had they always had new ma- 
 terial from the start. To a large extent inde- 
 
TOYS 73 
 
 pendence, power, mastery over the material 
 world, comes from using old things in new ways 
 rather than from having the tool or the imple- 
 ment that is perfectly adapted to the present 
 condition. In connection with these blocks, all 
 the development seemed to lie in the imagina- 
 tion rather than in any new muscular co-ordina- 
 tions. No special order of neuro-muscular de- 
 velopment was noticeable in connection with the 
 plays. But the blocks were used with increas- 
 ing complexity, as imaginative material to rep- 
 resent trains or houses. Frequently a social 
 play would be carried through with the use of 
 the blocks as symbols, dividing one home from 
 another. 
 
 The building of houses went through a defi- 
 nite evolution. At first the children were satis- 
 fied to make a pile of blocks and knock it down. 
 Presently they began to prefer to make the pile 
 straight and regular. They wanted the edges 
 of the blocks to fit. Later they came to the 
 idea of symmetry. They built their houses 
 with a door on one side and a door on the other 
 side, a window at this end and a window at 
 that end. This second stage of aesthetic devel- 
 opment is the stage in which many of us still 
 find ourselves. We furnish our houses in this 
 way, a rug here and a rug opposite; if there is a 
 
74 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 plate on the dining-room table on one side there 
 must be a corresponding plate on the other 
 side. But the children came in their block plays 
 to the ideal of balance, which is a more pro- 
 found aesthetic principle than that of symme- 
 try. There was an endeavor to have balanced 
 structures, not symmetrical, but proportioned. 
 There were forts with their defenders; one or 
 two houses for officers, a large three-story house. 
 In all these ways the children went through a 
 definite mental development, accomplished with 
 the aid of blocks. Other toys may accomplish 
 similar results if they give the child an oppor- 
 tunity to express his own activities. His per- 
 sonality must be allowed to develop through 
 doing. This is not merely desirable for the 
 child's education; it is necessary for his enjoy- 
 ment of the play itself. 
 
 Doll play is a form of toy play in connection 
 with which very complex mental and social de- 
 velopments take place. Dolls, like other toys, 
 have their chief interest in the fact that they 
 serve as instruments about which to cluster in- 
 stinct feelings that need expression and develop- 
 ment. In this case it is the domestic instincts 
 that are ripening. Love grows not with the 
 beauty and completeness of the doll, but with 
 the amount of time and attention given to it 
 
TOYS 75 
 
 by the girl. Hence arises the great affection 
 which girls have for rag dolls. The rag doll 
 gives more opportunity for work, and, there- 
 fore, more opportunity for the expression of 
 affection. Many girls are exceedingly lonely 
 without their dolls, but find a sufficient sense of 
 companionship as soon as they have them, even 
 if there are no human beings near. Girls talk 
 to dolls extensively and tell them their troubles. 
 
 There are many kinds of dolls. Miss Maud 
 Shipe tells of "flower dolls" with which she used 
 to play. In a corner of the garden grew a num- 
 ber of old-fashioned flowers, petunias, zinnias, 
 four-o'clocks, and phlox. The dolls were usually 
 made with the half-opened bud of a zinnia for 
 body. They were dressed in skirts made of 
 petunias or four-o'clocks turned to show their 
 brightest colors. Caps of salvia or verbena buds 
 were worn. Men dolls were made of pinched- 
 off stems of petunias, two serving for legs and 
 a thicker one for the body. Sunflowers were 
 dug out to form doll houses. For several years 
 the children played dolls with these flowers, from 
 early spring till late in the fall. 
 
 Another form of doll play was carried on in 
 the orchard. Wild grass grew there, which 
 branched out into thick tufts at the top. These 
 tufts of grass were called the heads of children, 
 
76 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 and were braided into long plaits of "hair." 
 This play was often very intricate, leading into 
 many styles of hair-dressing. Sometimes the 
 children were considered members of an orphan 
 asylum, because there were so many of them. 
 
 Miss Shipe also developed at about the age 
 of thirteen a complicated series of plays with 
 paper dolls. The dolls themselves were very 
 crude, cut out from folded paper, so that both 
 sides were alike. They served merely as sym- 
 bols around which to gather the complex series 
 of relationships which the girls invented. There 
 were large family organizations, with names 
 and histories for each individual. There were 
 houses, represented by strips of paper marking 
 the walls, and furniture, consisting of labelled 
 bits of paper. As the children played they kept 
 up a kind of continued story, adding to it daily. 
 They had weddings and funerals, visits, parties, 
 Christmas dinners; and any event which once 
 occurred was remembered and alluded to as 
 part of the family history. The grown-up sons 
 and daughters married and had children of their 
 own, so that at last there were two or three 
 houses. Finally a church, a store, and a school 
 were added to the now full-grown community. 
 
 The following year the dolls ceased to be used 
 even as convenient symbols, but the continued 
 
TOYS 77 
 
 story was kept up. This seems to show a regu- 
 lar progression from the simpler doll plays in 
 which the actual doll was prominent, to the 
 later plays, based on social relationships and 
 domestic events, but no longer dependent even 
 on the symbolic doll. In fact, Miss Shipe her- 
 self mentions such a progression, extending from 
 a time preceding her play with paper dolls. 
 She first played with regular dolls, gradually 
 coming to prefer the smaller dolls because she 
 "could do more things with them"; then her 
 interest went to paper dolls cut from magazines 
 and bearing an actual resemblance to people, 
 and finally to the little paper dolls with round 
 heads and bodies and long skirts, which served 
 simply as symbols on which to hang a story. 
 This is a natural progression, but it is by no 
 means an inevitable one, as other girls tell of 
 quite different experiences with dolls. 
 
 When one thinks of all the activities useful 
 for later life that are first connected with dolls, 
 the educational value of this form of play is not 
 to be questioned. It takes in the whole problem 
 of the making of clothing, the cutting, fitting, 
 pattern-making, the ornamentation of dress, the 
 use of color. So many persons learn these 
 things later in life at very great expense, or to 
 the humiliation of their parents, when they 
 
78 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 begin to dress themselves. My own girls ac- 
 quired most of their knowledge of the relation 
 of form to color, and styles of dress to the indi- 
 vidual, through their play with dolls. I remem- 
 ber when the idea first came to the girls that 
 there should be a connection between complexion 
 and hats. Immediately they tried all shapes 
 and sizes of hats to observe the effect. Those 
 girls have an experience with reference to cloth- 
 ing which could have been secured in later life 
 only with difficulty and expense. 
 
 The making of doll houses is also a play of 
 educational value. One winter some of my 
 children spent nearly three months making a 
 doll's house with a complete set of doll furniture, 
 sawed from designs. The wall-paper in the 
 bedroom was ornamented with a pattern of sail- 
 ing ships. The stove was complete with all 
 cooking utensils. There were chairs of all pat- 
 terns, some of them copied from an old museum 
 near by. The children thus secured an idea of 
 applied art. They learned the use of a color 
 scheme in the rooms of houses, the use of design 
 in architecture and furnishings. 
 
 Doll parties are occasions for learning a large 
 part of the requirements of social life. Family 
 relations and social customs are developed with 
 increasing complexity. The doll plays may 
 
TOYS 79 
 
 branch out into other related plays at about the 
 age of twelve or thirteen, as was shown in the 
 case of Miss Shipe's paper dolls. The dressing 
 and undressing of dolls and the actual care of 
 them come largely before this age. At this 
 time most girls cease their most active playing 
 with dolls and are more interested in babies 
 and romances. Every one of our five children 
 has been "borrowed" as a baby, to be trundled 
 around by girls of thirteen and fourteen, not 
 because our babies were particularly beautiful, 
 but because the girls felt the need of something 
 to care for. The doll was no longer satisfactory; 
 they wanted something more real. 
 
 OWNERSHIP 
 
 Closely connected with the child's personal 
 and social development are plays concerned 
 with ownership. Part of the joy in making 
 toys lies in the fact that the boy now has some- 
 thing which belongs to him, because he has 
 created it, something which he can take about 
 with him and show to other boys. But whether 
 or not the child displays his possessions, and 
 whether or not those possessions are toys, there 
 is a very distinct joy in the mere sense of owner- 
 ship. The first thing that I have a definite re- 
 membrance of owning was a pair of copper-toed 
 
80 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 boots. It was in July and exceedingly hot, and 
 the boots were heavy and high. The only way 
 in which I could be comfortable in those boots 
 was to sit with my feet on the window sill in a 
 draft. Nevertheless, they were my boots and I 
 found joy in having them on, in spite of discom- 
 fort. 
 
 When my small boy began to realize that cer- 
 tain things belonged to him, he was not happy 
 unless he could take them with him everywhere. 
 At night he wanted all his own belongings in 
 bed with him. He had a rag doll and an en- 
 gine, and one or two crusts of bread which he 
 saved, to take to bed. For a long time one of 
 my daughters had the habit of hiding food in 
 various places throughout the house. Pieces 
 of bread, parts of bananas, anything that could 
 be carried away unobserved from the table, 
 were hidden behind screens and curtains and 
 promptly forgotten. She was obeying an un- 
 usually strong instinct for the hoarding of pos- 
 sessions. There was no possibility of future 
 lack; but she had the feeling nevertheless. 
 
 A small orphan was adopted into a home, com- 
 ing from an asylum in which there was no in- 
 dividual ownership of property. The children 
 had been adequately clothed, their beds were 
 neat, and they had plenty of food ; but they did 
 
TOYS 81 
 
 not own anything. The first night when this 
 child was put to bed in her new home, her gar- 
 ments were laid on a chair and she was told: 
 "Those are your clothes. They will be put here 
 so that you will find them in the morning." She 
 did not seem to understand, but asked: "Shall 
 I have them to-morrow?" "Yes, those are all 
 your clothes." "Can I put them on the next 
 day, too?" she asked. "Yes," she was told. 
 She repeated the same questions about her shoes. 
 "Are these all mine?" she asked. And then, 
 when she was ready for bed, she took all the 
 clothes into her arms. They were the first 
 things that child had ever owned in her life. 
 
 Ownership is closely related to development 
 of personality. We shall never know how to 
 treat possessions that we have in common until 
 we have a high sense of personal ownership. 
 The person who owns nothing is irresponsible. 
 We are, indeed, training children to live in a 
 social world. The sky and the trees are general 
 property. We are increasingly owning many 
 things through community partnership schools, 
 parks, playgrounds. But the relation of the 
 child to school property, school text-books, 
 school furniture, shows how slowly the sense 
 of personal responsibility attaches itself to ob- 
 jects owned in common. The feeling may be 
 
m A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 developed and should be. But it will be de- 
 veloped more easily by recognizing the sense of 
 individual proprietorship than by violating this 
 feeling. The sense of ownership is very strong 
 and fundamental. The boy who owns a stamp- 
 album and loses it through the thieving instincts 
 of another boy feels that his personality has been 
 outraged. His feeling is quite different from 
 that which he instinctively has when school 
 property is disturbed; though, later in life, 
 with the dawn of class and school loyalty, the 
 feeling for the banners, trophies, and other pos- 
 sessions of his class may come to be even stronger 
 than was the earlier individual feeling. But 
 the later sense of common ownership is developed 
 through the sense of individual ownership. Per- 
 sonal responsibility is not adequately developed 
 unless the child has the opportunity to own 
 things, to trade with them, to have and exercise 
 the sense of possession. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 MASCULINE AND FEMININE 
 DIFFERENCES 
 
 IN the discussion of plays, recollections come 
 to each of us which depend largely on 
 whether we are men or women. My first 
 vivid memory of my relation to a doll cenjred 
 about the time when my sister had a party and 
 asked me to go up-stairs to bring down her doll. 
 It was a large doll, and, with a small boy's in- 
 genuity, I tied a string around its neck and 
 attached the other end to a broomstick, and so 
 came into the room dragging the doll. My 
 sister's actions at the sight showed that her 
 feelings toward that doll were very different from 
 mine. 
 
 There are, on the other hand, many plays 
 which are pre-eminently boys' plays and possess 
 relatively small interest for girls. The hunting 
 and fighting plays come under this head. Boys 
 compete more than girls. Competition is an 
 ever-present element in their lives. For this 
 reason they are accustomed to take defeat 
 better than girls. When twenty boys run in a 
 
 83 
 
84 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 race, only one can win. It is a rare boy who is 
 ahead of his fellows most of the time. Boys 
 learn to accept these facts. On the other hand, 
 I have seen the most cultivated and mature 
 young women lose complete control of them- 
 selves and their tempers over a decision in a game 
 of basket-ball. Women do not enjoy competi- 
 tion in the same way as men do. Even in adults 
 the possession of the fighting instinct is one of 
 the differentiations between men and women. 
 There are two sparrows fighting; men like it, 
 women do not. There is a spontaneous dog 
 fight. Men gather around it; no women will 
 be found there. Men may stop the fight, but 
 while it lasts it holds their interest. 
 
 The desire to throw straight and hard seems 
 to be an instinctively masculine desire. It is 
 not because of man's special adaptability that 
 he is able to throw better than a woman. A 
 man's shoulder-joint is not very different from 
 a woman's. In fact, what differences there are 
 in the joint itself seem to be in favor of the 
 woman. But the man has a better neural co- 
 ordination, a different instinct feeling about 
 throwing., Because girls do not have this ideal 
 about throwing hard and straight they do not 
 play the competitive games of boys which re- 
 quire this special ability. 
 
SEX DIFFERENCES 85 
 
 Girls have, however, plays which are pecu- 
 liarly their own. Many years ago, when my first 
 daughter was born, my wife and I planned for 
 her a childhood which should omit dolls. Most 
 of the disorders in my family had been of a 
 nervous type headaches, earaches, backaches, 
 rather than any organic troubles and we 
 wished our children to be out of doorsja great 
 deal in order to counteract this tendency. So 
 we encouraged our daughter in all forms of boys' 
 plays, and gave her much opportunity for play- 
 ing outdoor games. We gave her no dolls, be- 
 cause dolls lead to sedentary occupation. We 
 decided that she should not play indoors with 
 other girls, for we feared that through such 
 association the habit of doll play would be ac- 
 quired. She was not taken down-town to the 
 shops where dolls are prominently displayed 
 lest she should be attracted by them. The 
 plan seemed to work very well for a few years. 
 But one Christmas she was asked what gift 
 she wanted more than anything else. To the 
 astonishment and confusion of her parents she 
 answered: "Oh, if I could only have a doll." 
 She received that doll and so did the three sisters 
 who came after her. 
 
 Some years afterward I took a doll census and 
 discovered that there were in the house thirty- 
 
86 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 seven members of the doll family, each with its 
 own name and relationships. That number did 
 not include the clothes-pin dolls, spool dolls, 
 paper dolls, dolls made from acorns, or any other 
 of the great community of ephemeral dolls that 
 come and go. It included only the regularly 
 established members of the household. These 
 girls had no more intense relations to dolls than 
 most girls have. A remarkable development of 
 domestic feeling was brought about in connection 
 with this doll family. Doll play is essentially 
 girl play. Much of the rich, social life of women 
 and the ready use of the hands come through 
 playing with dolls. The manual skill that boys 
 acquire is different in kind. 
 
 Some boys play with dolls in much the same 
 way as girls do. But usually when boys play 
 with dolls, the military or pedagogical side is 
 emphasized. Many boys have armies and a 
 great many play school with dolls. Every toy 
 store has different forms of boys' dolls, tin-sol- 
 diers, lead-soldiers, with guns for shooting them. 
 Boys have been known to make soldiers out of 
 screws and spools and pieces of elastic. The 
 boy's toys are usually just as definitely related 
 to man's activities as the domestic doll play is 
 to woman's activity. 
 
 The difference is, of course, one of emphasis 
 
SEX DIFFERENCES 87 
 
 only. During those years in which dolls were 
 of predominant interest, my girls also played 
 hide-and-seek and various outdoor games. They 
 played these games well, but did not find them 
 ultimately satisfying. During those same years 
 of childhood many boys play with dolls. But 
 the games which predominate among boys are 
 not built upon the domestic instinct; they are 
 built rather upon the fighting and hunting in- 
 stincts. 
 
 The same difference in instincts is evident in 
 adult life. The father's feeling toward his chil- 
 dren is quite different from the mother's. I 
 remember watching my wife rocking an in- 
 fant daughter. She was singing to the child 
 with such manifest delight, such deep-seated 
 satisfaction in the outgoing of affection, that I 
 wished to experience the same enjoyment. I 
 learned the same song and held the baby in the 
 same way, but I did not have the same feeling. 
 My whole attitude was different. The funda- 
 mental mistake lay in trying to duplicate the 
 woman's relations to the baby. The paternal 
 instinct may be as strong as the maternal, but 
 it is different. 
 
 Several statements received from teachers 
 with regard to the kinds of play observed by 
 them among girls and boys show a striking one- 
 
88 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 ness in their conclusions, The details of their 
 statements may not be universally applicable, 
 but will serve to show the general distinctions in 
 play. Miss Helen Frances Doherty, for in- 
 stance, noted the following differences between 
 boys and girls. Boys have many muscular 
 plays, wrestling and fighting; girls have social 
 plays, calling and visiting. Boys have the con- 
 structive impulse toward large things, such as 
 hut-building; girls like to construct minute 
 things, such as patterns. Boys are more anxious 
 than girls to try new things; they show a love 
 of the grotesque as opposed to the love of the 
 conventional shown by girls. Boys endure 
 dress for utilitarian reasons only; girls love 
 dress for aesthetic reasons. Boys play more often 
 in gangs, girls in pairs. Among boys a quarrel 
 leads to a fight, among girls to pouting and mean 
 remarks. Boys like to shock, or expressing the 
 same instinct in another way, to excite admira- 
 tion for feats they perform. Girls like to act 
 shocked and to admire. 
 
 These same differences appear in other re- 
 lations besides those of play. In school life boys 
 seem to be more loyal to one another than girls 
 are. Boys who get into a scrape, and even other 
 boys who merely know about the scrape, will 
 stand punishment and expulsion from school for 
 
SEX DIFFERENCES 89 
 
 not telling. Sometimes such cases occur among 
 girls, but it is the general testimony of the 
 teachers with whom I have talked that boys are 
 far more loyal to one another than girls are. 
 
 These masculine and feminine differences may 
 no doubt be based to a certain extent on social 
 tradition. Girls can learn to play basket-ball, 
 though it is the almost universal opinion of those 
 who have coached girls that they acquire the 
 habits of team-play less readily than do boys. 
 Certain changes can no doubt be made in the 
 accepted traditions of girls' and boys' play. 
 But upon the whole, these differences are so 
 fundamental and show themselves so spon- 
 taneously, that we seem driven to the conclusion 
 that they are based upon different instinct 
 feelings. 
 
 Certain great ideals have always had a place 
 in the human mind. Long before the dawn of 
 history they were bound up in the texture of 
 our nature; they became ingrained facts. In 
 women, one of these ideals is loyalty to the 
 home; in men, loyalty to the tribe. Necessity 
 produced these ideals. They have a survival 
 value. The very existence of the race required 
 this double set of loyalty impulses. To a cer- 
 tain extent they have been safeguarded by 
 instinct; to an even greater extent social tra- 
 
90 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 dition has become sponsor for them. The deep- 
 est disgrace to a woman has always been dis- 
 loyalty to the home; the deepest disgrace to a 
 man has been disloyalty to his tribe, or his 
 country. 
 
 We have already noticed the fact that the men 
 who were the best runners, fighters, and hunters, 
 were best equipped to survive in the struggle 
 for existence. For this reason the boys who 
 loved to fight, hunt, and run, and therefore 
 played at all these activities, grew into the men 
 who survived. This is true also of the higher 
 development of the fighting feeling into the spirit 
 of loyalty for a group. With a man his tribe 
 counted first. His home life was a matter of 
 comparatively little moment; his wife was his 
 property, to do with as he chose. In tribal 
 affairs the principle of every man for himself 
 meant disaster. A man standing alone was an 
 easy mark for enemies human beings, or wild 
 beasts, or unharnessed forces of nature. Fight- 
 ing, hunting, and working in gangs was the only 
 feasible schedule for such unprotected creatures. 
 Men had to stand together. 
 
 This is the basis of the gang instinct which 
 becomes so prominent among boys in their teens. 
 It is also the basis for the intense interest taken 
 in team games and interschool athletics. These 
 
SEX DIFFERENCES 91 
 
 athletic competitions cannot be defended on the 
 ground of physical training, for they train only 
 a small proportion of the boys, and particularly 
 those individuals who are least in need of train- 
 ing. Their real justification is in the spirit of 
 athletics, the loyalty to school, the social con- 
 sciousness which includes in its grasp all the 
 students, not merely those who actually com- 
 pete. The effect of school athletics on school 
 spirit and on the boy's recognition of his share in 
 a larger whole was illustrated by the statement 
 of a boy on the East Side of New York. "Our 
 school wasn't nothin' at all till we got a gym," 
 he said. "Now we're the champions." It was 
 well for that boy to realize his partnership in a 
 group; it was the beginning of training in wider 
 loyalty. 
 
 It is not sufficient in the cultivation of any 
 virtue to give maxims or formal instruction. 
 In looking for the beginnings of social morality, 
 we must discover the elements in boy character. 
 The strongest instinct which may be utilized for 
 this purpose is the gang instinct, and one of 
 the most wholesome forms of gang activity is 
 in athletic team sports. The gang is a mani- 
 festation of group loyalty. It is true that in 
 most of our large cities the tendency of the gang 
 is evil, because the major part of its activities 
 
92 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 is, and almost must be, against the social order. 
 It is the function of school athletics, when rightly 
 conducted, to convert this gang instinct from 
 evil into righteousness. Social education is 
 going on with all boys; we must see to it that 
 the education is good. The gang is the modern 
 representative of the tribe, the germ out of 
 which the club and society develop. By being 
 loyal to the gang, and having the gang clean and 
 moral, by being loyal to the class and school, 
 the qualities of social morality and social con- 
 science are being developed. This is essentially 
 the root of masculine altruism. 
 
 The development of women has been different. 
 They were not predominantly hunters or fight- 
 ers, but cared for the home and carried on the 
 industries. They wove the cloth, made the 
 baskets, tilled the soil, cared for the domestic 
 animals, reared the children, made the clothing, 
 and performed the numerous other duties that 
 centred around the home. Running, throwing, 
 and striking were not the chief measures of their 
 usefulness. The women who were the best 
 mothers, who were the most true to their homes, 
 were the women whose children survived. So 
 it is clear that athletics have never been either a 
 test or a large factor in the survival of women; 
 athletics do not test womanliness as they test 
 manliness. 
 
SEX DIFFERENCES 93 
 
 An illustration of this fact came to my atten- 
 tion on the occasion of a field-day meet for its 
 girls held by one of our New York City high 
 schools. There were seven events, held under 
 conditions which were practically the same as the 
 conditions for events that are annually held at 
 Vassar College. The high school girls on their 
 first field-day made better records in four events 
 than had ever been made by the students of 
 Vassar College. That is, progress toward wo- 
 manhood had not meant progress toward in- 
 creased efficiency in athletic sports. In basket- 
 ball it is not at all uncommon for a team of girls 
 of about twelve years to defeat a team of young 
 women of college age. The little girls are more 
 athletic. Their bodies have not yet differen- 
 tiated into the form of the adult woman. 
 
 The women of the world have never played 
 team-games. They are beginning to play them 
 now. But hitherto their road to altruism and 
 the larger devotion to the whole has been the 
 road of the home. The history of the develop- 
 ment of the family and of the instinct feelings 
 that lead to domestic life shows that out of the 
 love and self-sacrifice of mothers for their chil- 
 dren has grown a large part of the spirit of ser- 
 vice which is coming to be more and more 
 characteristic of the best of mankind. Studies 
 in the development of the higher moral ideals 
 
94 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 of men, made by Geddes, Sutherland, Drum- 
 mond, and Fiske, have endeavored even to show 
 that all of altruism has grown out of the love of 
 mothers for their children. 
 
 The domestic instincts of women are closely 
 connected with the girl's manner of play. A 
 study was made in a mothers' club in regard to 
 the doll plays of its members during their child- 
 hood. Each member wrote down, as com- 
 pletely as her memory allowed, a history of her 
 play with dolls. She recorded not merely the 
 material facts about the dolls, but the various 
 ways in which she had played with them, their 
 domestic relations, sicknesses, mental and moral 
 characteristics. She recorded also her own feel- 
 ings about the dolls, how they arose, how long 
 they lasted, how strong they were. These 
 women also wrote out, as honestly as they could, 
 something about the facility with which they had 
 come into the new relations of motherhood and 
 the tasks of the home, their feelings regarding 
 housework, its daily drudgery, and the care of 
 children. It was the unanimous agreement 
 of this group of mothers that, on the whole, 
 those women who during childhood had played 
 most fully with their dolls, came into the rela- 
 tions of domestic life with a feeling of greater 
 ease and enjoyment than did those to whom 
 doll play had been less important. 
 
SEX DIFFERENCES 95 
 
 This does not, of course, mean that doll play 
 produces domestic feelings, but it does seem to 
 indicate that doll play and domestic feelings are 
 related. It seems to show that doll play is the 
 budding forth of those same instincts which 
 show themselves later in the domestic relations 
 of life. Moreover, the doll play has an effect 
 in establishing the domestic instincts by giving 
 them opportunity for normal development when 
 they first appear. The tender care of the sick 
 doll, the making of clothes for the doll, the study 
 of color schemes, the sense of the significance of 
 social customs gained at dolls' parties in these 
 and a hundred other ways the child acquires 
 by simple and wholesome development a knowl- 
 edge of the things which are essential in life. It 
 does not seem that this knowledge can be gained 
 so readily where that preliminary education 
 which comes through doll play is lacking. 
 
 Nor is it merely, or chiefly, a question of 
 intellectual knowledge. It must not be inferred 
 from anything that has been said that a woman 
 who has never played with dolls cannot, by tak- 
 ing courses in domestic art and domestic science, 
 and by faithful attendance on lectures, learn to 
 do all that a woman in domestic life should do. 
 But our adaptability to the kind of work that we 
 have to do is not chiefly a question of intellec- 
 tual adaptability. It is mainly an adjustment 
 
96 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 of our liking and disliking, and turns upon the 
 question of whether or not we enjoy doing that 
 thing. Do we enter upon it with ease and free- 
 dom? Does it appeal to us as lovable in it- 
 self ? To establish the instinctive love of home 
 and children so deeply that the feeling will last 
 through the drudgery of the work involved, 
 this is part of the function of doll play. 
 
 So the love of dolls, with all of its wonder- 
 fully complex development, is not merely a 
 pastime. It is one of the main agencies for 
 developing the higher instinct feelings of girls. 
 In the kindergarten and the lower grades of the 
 elementary school there should be doll plays, 
 with dolls belonging to individual girls thus 
 giving them the opportunity of developing the 
 feelings toward home, shelter, and children. 
 These feelings are just now in peculiar danger of 
 perversion or lack of development, owing to the 
 change in the family home under modern city 
 conditions. Girls in tenements and apartments 
 have far less opportunity for the growth of 
 domestic feelings than is afforded to girls in 
 homes. Whether the life of the adult is to be 
 peculiarly domestic in nature or not, these do- 
 mestic feelings need development, since they are 
 one of the great roots of altruism. We cannot 
 produce these feelings, but we can give them an 
 opportunity to grow. 
 
SEX DIFFERENCES 97 
 
 The important question is raised whether it 
 may not be true that, in view of the wide com- 
 petition into which women are coming in the 
 modern world, it would be wise for them to have 
 the discipline afforded by athletic sports. This 
 may be true to a certain extent. The question 
 whether young women shall play competitive 
 games hinges on the question of what woman is 
 going to be. If the states of mind involved in 
 basket-ball are related to the states of mind 
 desirable for women, then basket-ball is good. 
 Indiscriminate basket-ball is certainly bad. 
 Home basket-ball is good. The ground between 
 the two is debatable. If we want women who 
 can co-operate, who can compete, we shall not 
 find these qualities in the scholastic activities. 
 Basket-ball may be a special element in the 
 education of the new woman. 
 
 During the modern age men are acquiring the 
 virtues which have always been predominantly 
 feminine chastity, love of children, patience, 
 loyalty to home. Women, on the other hand, 
 are beginning to be loyal to one another in a 
 new way. Women's clubs all over the civilized 
 world show that it is possible for women to work 
 successfully together. Women are beginning 
 to show a profound interest in the community 
 and the state. The virtues demanded of both 
 men and women are getting to be more nearly 
 
98 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 identical than they have been in the past. But 
 it does not seem likely that the paths by which 
 men and women reach the final goal of devotion 
 to the common good will ever be the same paths. 
 The fundamental qualities to be cultivated in the 
 boy are those of muscular strength, the despis- 
 ing of pain, driving straight to the mark, and 
 the smashing down of obstacles. The world 
 needs power and the barbaric virtues of man- 
 hood, together with the type of group loyalty 
 which is based upon these savage virtues. It 
 needs also the gentler virtues of the love of home, 
 kindness, sympathy, and forbearance. Both 
 men and women need a share in all these virtues, 
 but the order in which they acquire them, and 
 the roads by which they attain the desired ends 
 are diverse. What these roads are is best seen 
 in a study of the spontaneous plays of boys and 
 girls. 
 
r\ 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE PLAY OF ANIMALS 
 
 I WENT repeatedly to Prospect Park to 
 study the crowd that was watching three 
 young bears at play. It was a crowd full 
 of keen interest to see what the little bears would 
 do, as they rolled over one another, played in- 
 formal tag, or climbed the miniature trees placed 
 in their den. There is no cage in the zoological 
 garden more constantly watched than the cage 
 which contains a large group of young foxes, 
 bears, or members of the cat tribe. A litter of 
 puppies that have become active is exceedingly 
 interesting. A family of young cats affords 
 entertainment to all who come. 
 
 The play life of young animals begins very 
 early. If by play we mean those actions that 
 are done instinctively with no immediate pur- 
 pose we must include some strange things. 
 Lloyd Morgan tells of the chirping of chicks 
 within the shell, before hatching. He says : * 
 " Young moor-hens chirp in some cases for 
 more than forty-eight hours, and ducklings as 
 
 1 C. Lloyd Morgan, Habit and Instinct, Edward Arnold, London and 
 New York, 1896, page 31. 
 
100 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 many as twenty -four hours, before they emerge." 
 This is a common phenomenon and one which I 
 have myself observed with a brood of chicks. 
 Moreover, the fear caused by the parent bird's 
 warning begins to manifest itself even before 
 the young are hatched. This prenatal "peep- 
 ing" stops at once if the mother utters the warn- 
 ing note even at a considerable distance. 
 
 Can instances of this kind be rightly included 
 in the category of play ? Do they have the same 
 relation to adult life that other recognized forms 
 of play have? A consideration of some less 
 questioned forms of animal play is the only 
 answer to this question. The playing of kit- 
 tens with balls dragged in front of them, and the 
 playing of dogs with bones, are instances of the 
 often-noticed sportive activities of domestic 
 animals. 
 
 A friend who had a large family of cats has 
 described some of their plays in detail. She 
 declares that they vary individually in their 
 play, just as they vary in other habits. But 
 their plays all bear some relation to the activities 
 by which they gain their livelihood as adults. 
 "The mother and grandmother of them all and 
 her brother Peter were the most playful kittens 
 I have ever seen," she says. "They used to be- 
 gin at daylight, and they had to be shut up in 
 
THE PLAY OF ANIMALS 101 
 
 the evening while the chickens went to roost, 
 because they would chase them so that they 
 could not get settled. Even now the old mother 
 plays sometimes with a string or stick, although 
 she tires more quickly. She is the best mouser 
 we have ever had." The connection here be : 
 tween the early play and the later > ability to 
 catch mice is worth noting. 
 
 Kilter was from a family of mousers. He 
 had several original ways of playing. He would 
 take a piece of meat and worry it as if it were a 
 mouse, while Xantippe, a kitten from another 
 family in the. house, could never be taught to 
 play in that fashion. Kilter used to take a 
 small object in his mouth, stand up on a chair or 
 couch, let the plaything roll over the edge, and 
 then go for it. He would play that way for half 
 an hour or more at a time. Other cats seemed 
 less definite in their play, and used most of their 
 energy in chasing one another, running about 
 very rapidly, and climbing trees. They would 
 often lie down in a path and roll over and over. 
 
 W. H. Hudson has described the play of the 
 puma, which he characterizes as the "most 
 playful animal in existence." He says: "It is 
 at heart always a kitten, taking unmeasured 
 delight in its frolics; and when, as often happens, 
 one lives alone in the desert, it will amuse it- 
 
102 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 self by the hour fighting mock battles or playing 
 at hide-and-seek with imaginary companions. 
 I was told by one person who had spent most of 
 his life on the pampas that on one occasion he 
 had seen four pumas playing. It was at nine 
 o'clock in the evening and a bright moon was 
 shining. He was lying quietly in the shelter 
 of a rock. After a while they began to gam- 
 bol together close to him, concealing them- 
 selves from one another among the rocks, just 
 as kittens do, and then pursuing one another." 1 
 A consecutive record of the development of 
 the play life of several individual animals has 
 been made by Wesley Mills. He has recorded 
 the day-by-day growth of puppies and kittens. 
 In one litter of puppies., he observed the play 
 between two puppies on the fifteenth day, and 
 found that paws and jaws both were being used. 
 Two days later playing was more common. He 
 adds: "Slight movements of the tail are noticed 
 during play, and there is an obvious increase in 
 walking power; muscular co-ordinations of all 
 kinds are better made." On the thirty-third 
 day, when put on the floor of the kennel, they do 
 not manifest uneasiness, but run about and play. 
 "One is seen to run at a slow rate, with his tail 
 
 1 W. H. Hudson, The Naturalist in La Plata, Chapman & Hall, Ltd.. 
 London, 1892, page 40. 
 
THE PLAY OF ANIMALS 103 
 
 up, and several make quick starts backward and 
 forward/' 
 
 Mr. Mills goes on to say: 
 
 "Much of the play of dogs is mimic fighting, even 
 from the first, and I have noted on the twenty- 
 seventh day, during a play, a very brief but decided 
 exhibition of anger, such as may occasionally be 
 seen among mature dogs, or among boys of eight or 
 nine years during rough play. The length of time 
 which this anger lasts depends greatly on the breed 
 of the dog. With terriers very early play becomes 
 serious at times, and later there may be so much 
 fighting that these dogs cannot with safety be left 
 together. In few respects do the different breeds 
 show their characteristics at so early an age as in 
 this. . . . 
 
 "Suggestive action, especially in connection with 
 play, has a very important share in determining the 
 direction of development, and the manner of indi- 
 vidual the dog becomes. It is very common from 
 the fortieth day onward, and greatly increases the 
 activity and hastens the progress of the members of 
 a litter, as compared with a single young dog kept 
 apart. It often, I have noticed, advances a puppy 
 of a few months to a place with older dogs; and this 
 is sometimes followed by the best physical, as well 
 as psychic results, especially if the young dog be 
 allowed to go out to exercise with the older ones. 
 Suggestive action may also have an evil effect on 
 young dogs. Much of the sheep- worry ing results 
 from it. . . .* 
 
 1 Wesley Mills, The Nature and Development of Animal Intelligence, 
 The Macmfflan Co., New York, 1908, pages 122, 123, 133, 159, 163, 216. 
 
104 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 "A certain mongrel brought up alone seemed to 
 be very slow in developing the play instinct, which 
 I attribute largely to his being the sole puppy from 
 an early period, and therefore seeing no other dog 
 but his dam." l 
 
 There is a great difference in the various in- 
 stincts with reference to their development 
 through play. Flying, for instance, seems to be 
 acquired by birds without teaching, simply 
 through the ripening of instincts. William 
 James has made a very interesting experiment 
 in this direction. Strings were tied around the 
 wings of some members of a nestful of birds and 
 they were replaced in the nest. The other 
 birds were left free. In the course of time 
 the free birds learned to fly. Then the strings 
 were removed from the. tied birds and it was 
 discovered that they could fly equally well. 
 Whether the ripening of instincts was in itself 
 sufficient, or whether the presence of an example 
 was necessary, was of course not decided by this 
 experiment, but it proved at least that little 
 definite practice was essential. 
 
 In order to become personally acquainted 
 with the consecutive history of the play life of 
 certain animals I kept guinea-pigs, ferrets, cats, 
 
 1 Wesley Mills, The Nature and Development of Animal Intelligence, 
 The Macmillan Co., New York, 1908, pages 216, 226, 231. 
 
THE PLAY OF ANIMALS 105 
 
 dogs, birds, chickens, and other animals, and 
 made notes of their daily activities. I en- 
 deavored to watch the development of play in 
 the individual animal, to note differences be- 
 tween individuals in the same family, and be- 
 tween different types of animals. Inasmuch as 
 this volume is a study of human play, it does 
 not seem worth while to do more than give cer- 
 tain general conclusions with reference to these 
 observations. 
 
 An illuminating contrast appears in com- 
 paring the play activities of two such animals as 
 the guinea-pig and the dog. I watched a young 
 guinea-pig from the moment of birth to adult 
 life and found no activities that could be surely 
 described as play. The young guinea-pig ap- 
 peared to be able to care for itself immediately 
 after birth. Its reactions were relatively com- 
 plete from the start. With the dog it is quite 
 different. A new-born puppy, while not as help- 
 less as the human baby, is quite dependent upon 
 the parent. It is unable to walk or to care for 
 itself in any way. The consecutive activities 
 of the puppy appeared in rather regular order, 
 the impulse of play being intense though periodic. 
 The general conclusion seems to be that the 
 complexity of the play life of all the animals I 
 observed was a direct measure of the intelli- 
 
106 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 gence of the species as a whole and the individual 
 in particular. 
 
 Different individuals show great contrasts in 
 their play life. This relates to the vigor with 
 which they play, the amount of time they spend 
 in play, the quickness with which they imitate 
 the mother and develop initiative. There is also 
 a difference in species. The play life of the cat 
 has certain marked resemblances to and certain 
 marked differences from the play life of the dog. 
 The dog is more imitative; the behavior of one 
 kitten has little influence on the behavior of 
 another. This is closely related to the fact that 
 dogs, when grown, hunt in packs and associate 
 much more readily than do cats. The type of 
 hunting shown by the cat in play, the lying-in- 
 wait, the crouching, is very imperfectly devel- 
 oped in the dog. It never becomes his peculiar 
 manner of hunting. The dog is a social animal, 
 while the cat is unsocial or even anti-social. 
 All these qualities appear in their play life. 
 
 Ernest Thompson Seton has given several 
 accounts of the play of wild foxes. The follow- 
 ing is one of these tales, showing the way in 
 which the young learn through play the ac- 
 tivities which will be of use later. 
 
 "They played about, basking in the sun, or wrest- 
 ling with each other, till a slight sound made them 
 
THE PLAY OF ANIMALS 107 
 
 scurry underground. Their alarm was needless, for 
 the cause of it was their mother. She stepped from 
 the bushes, bringing them another hen number 
 seventeen, as I remember. A low call from her, and 
 the little fellows came tumbling out. They rushed 
 on the hen, and tussled and fought with it and each 
 other, while their mother, keeping a sharp eye out 
 for enemies, looked on with fond delight. . . . The 
 base of my tree was hidden in bushes and much 
 lower than the knoll where the fox was. So I could 
 come and go at will without scaring them. For 
 many days I saw much of the training of the young 
 ones. They early learned to turn to statuettes at 
 any strange sound, and then on hearing it again or 
 finding other cause for fear, to run for shelter." 1 
 
 Still another account of young foxes describes 
 the way in which they learned to seize and de- 
 vour woodchucks in which life was not yet en- 
 tirely extinct. They growled and fought with 
 all the strength of their baby jaws, until the 
 woodchuck got away. Then it was promptly 
 brought back by the mother, who carefully re- 
 frained from killing it herself. "Again and 
 again this rough sport went on till one of the 
 little ones was badly bitten, and his squeal of 
 pain roused the mother to end the woodchuck' s 
 misery and serve him up at once." Later the 
 mother took the four foxes out to hunt field- 
 mice. They used the tactics they had already 
 
 1 Ernest Thompson Seton, Wild Animals I Have Known, Charles 
 Scribner's Sons, New York, 1900, page 197. 
 
108 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 acquired in play. Mr. Seton adds: "When at 
 length the eldest for the first time in his life 
 caught game, he quivered with excitement and 
 ground his pearly, milk-white teeth into the 
 mouse with a rush of inborn savageness." 1 
 
 Much additional knowledge is needed before 
 our grasp of the subject of animal play is even 
 partially satisfactory. We need more records 
 of the play life of single animals that shall show 
 the amount and character of their play. It is 
 not sufficient for us to know that these animals 
 occasionally perform certain actions. We must 
 know to what extent the actions are common; 
 how much time is spent on them. We need 
 careful observations of the character of this play, 
 and its relation to the adult activities of the 
 same species. Does the play life of the young 
 foreshadow the life of the adult animal? We 
 can trace some connection between the two, 
 but for accurate and detailed conclusions we 
 need far more extended observations than we 
 have now. 
 
 We need observations of animals kept apart 
 from other animals of the same kind, to see 
 how much of their play life is purely instinctive 
 and how much is derived from others parents 
 or comrades. We need to compare the develop- 
 
 1 Ibid., page 204. 
 
THE PLAY OF ANIMALS 109 
 
 ment of those kept by themselves and those 
 brought up by their parents. We need to ob- 
 serve carefully in such animals as the cat and the 
 dog, where it is most easy, the part taken by the 
 parents in teaching the young to play, and the 
 apparent psychic state of the parent while the 
 young are playing. Other problems may also 
 be solved by careful observation. How much 
 exercise does a puppy get in an hour of play? 
 What kind of exercise ? What parts of his body 
 are brought into activity? Are his senses in- 
 volved much? What is the nature of the 
 motor training in his play? How long will he 
 play? Does this vary at different ages? The 
 kind of observation one gives to animals ordina- 
 rily is very different from the kind given when 
 endeavoring to answer specific questions such 
 as these. We need more data from patient, 
 unprejudiced observation. 
 
 The observations already recorded serve to 
 show the wide extent of the play life among 
 living beings. It extends from creatures of 
 very low intelligence to man, from infancy to 
 old age. Several other conclusions may also 
 be reached with more or less definiteness. 
 
 In so far as the young of animals have any 
 physical training at all, or any of the exercise 
 necessary to growth, it is secured through play. 
 
110 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 They have no serious exercises, undertaken for 
 the sake of muscular development. They go 
 out to play because they like it. By this means 
 they obtain all the motor and muscular training 
 they receive. 
 
 The plays of animals are related to their race 
 habits. The instincts needed in later life seem 
 to be expressed and developed in play. In the 
 case of domesticated animals, the play life seems 
 to express the instincts needed by the animal 
 in a wild state. The complexity of the play life 
 of any group of young animals seems to be a 
 measure of their capacity for intelligence. The 
 play of a dog, for instance, is infinitely more 
 complicated than that of a fish. The plays of 
 dogs are more social than those of cats, for the 
 dog belongs to the pack family. His chief at- 
 tachment is to his kind. Thus, in many ways, 
 the plays of the young animals relate themselves 
 to the adult life of their kind. 
 
 In a given species the various plays seem to 
 present a definitely co-ordinated series of activi- 
 ties, each one built upon the preceding one, as 
 definitely as long division is built upon addition, 
 subtraction, and multiplication. The order of 
 development is from the simple to the complex, 
 from the racially elementary to that which is 
 recent; from the muscularly and neurally funda- 
 
THE PLAY OF ANIMALS 111 
 
 mental to that which is accessory. Among 
 animals which play social plays, these come later 
 in time than the individual plays. A dog learns 
 to manage himself before he plays games of a 
 social character. Mastery of self must, in the 
 nature of the case, precede co-operation. 
 
 It is also evident that tradition and example 
 are necessary parts of animal play, especially 
 among the more intelligent animals. Both 
 dogs and cats want to hunt, but they learn to 
 hunt in the precise way in which the instinct 
 is shaped by the parents. Small terriers brought 
 up by a cat and taught in the cat manner of 
 hunting have been known to lie down in front of 
 a mouse hole and remain perfectly motionless, 
 waiting for a mouse. This is an example of the 
 way in which instinct is shaped by tradition. 
 The dog would not have hunted at all if he had 
 not possessed the instinct, but precept gave him 
 the method of hunting. Birds do not learn to 
 sing without suggestion. They do not make the 
 characteristic nests of their species without 
 seeing the nests made. The larger part of the 
 traditions necessary to adult activity are prac- 
 tised in play when the animal is young. 
 
 When one watches an animal at play now and 
 then, its play seems random, just as the play of 
 boys and girls appears to one who sees it now and 
 
A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 then. But when one observes more carefully 
 and sees the tremendous story of the great se- 
 quences of physical, social, and mental develop- 
 ment suggested by the sequences of play, then 
 one becomes fascinated by its complexity. The 
 whole adult life, not only of the individual, but 
 also of the species, is closely akin to the life of 
 play. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE PLAY OF ADULTS 
 
 IF it were possible to make an instantaneous 
 census at nine o'clock some Saturday eve- 
 ning, recording the age, sex, and occupation 
 of every person in a given district, it would be of 
 the utmost value for a study of many problems 
 of modern life. I select Saturday evening because 
 it is the time most devoted to purposes of rec- 
 reation and play. A census of this kind would 
 show how many people are at that time on the 
 streets, how many are in saloons, how many are 
 in billiard halls, how many in bowling-alleys, 
 how many in gymnasiums, in dance-halls, in 
 theatres, at lectures. We should know thus 
 what use is being made of leisure time through- 
 out a given district, could estimate what pro- 
 portion of people is being strengthened and 
 rested by it, and what proportion is degrading 
 body and soul through amusement. 
 
 We have a fairly accurate knowledge of the 
 working life of a modern city, and in fact of the 
 entire country. We know how many people are 
 engaged in the iron trade, how many are miners, 
 
 113 
 
114 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 or engineers, and how many are employed on 
 farms. We know something concerning the 
 food and shelter obtained by various classes of 
 people. But we have no knowledge of how many 
 people dance, or how many are interested in art 
 or philosophy. We have very little idea of 
 what people do when they are pleasing them- 
 selves and following their own ideas of a "good 
 time." Such a census would tell us more con- 
 cerning the mental and moral conditions of the 
 district investigated than almost any other 
 records could give. 
 
 I tried at one time to get an estimate of the 
 amount of money spent in America on recrea- 
 tion. I secured a few items like the following. 
 In 1904 we spent nearly $3,000,000 on our great 
 baseball leagues. This does not include the 
 money spent on smaller leagues and on balls 
 and bats for children's games. In another year 
 over $10,000,000 were spent by our men in 
 hunting. The amount spent incidentally is not 
 included. 
 
 Yachting is only one of the sports of our 
 country. Counting only the large boats, there 
 were 2,959 vessels of all sizes and descriptions. 
 Of these 516 were steamers, 367 gas-engine or 
 electric-motor boats, 205 schooners, 136 cat- 
 boats. The total value of these pleasure boats 
 
THE PLAY OF ADULTS 115 
 
 amounted to more than $40,000,000. This 
 includes only the large, registered ships. The 
 tens of thousands of small boats which the rest 
 of us had were not counted, and it is probable 
 that they also represented over $40,000,000. 
 Play is not an incidental activity of adult life. 
 It is to be reckoned as one of the great expenses 
 of a nation. 
 
 There were in 1906 in New York City, 450 
 moving-picture shows with an average daily 
 attendance at each of 1,000 persons. That 
 made 450,000 persons per day taking part in 
 this one form of public amusement. On Sun- 
 day these shows had an average attendance of 
 540,000. These plays are usually less objection- 
 able from a moral standpoint than many people 
 suppose; but the exhibitions have no value as 
 exercise, and the ventilation is so inadequate 
 that an hour spent in one of these halls, with 
 the attendant risk of exposure to contagious dis- 
 ease, is a positive menace to health. 
 
 New York had in the same year about 200 
 dance-halls, nearly all of them connected with 
 saloons. Dancing is in itself a thoroughly 
 wholesome form of recreation and exercise; but 
 the moral environment of those places of amuse- 
 ment was such that it is not pleasant to think 
 that many of the future mothers of American 
 
116 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 children were resorting to them to satisfy the 
 natural cravings for play and companionship. 
 It is not necessary to mention the saloons and 
 other resorts in our large cities which, under 
 the guise of affording amusement, are inflicting 
 evil upon our young people. Moreover, few 
 of us realize to what an extent some of our 
 national institutions, such as the Fourth of 
 July, have become sources of bodily harm be- 
 cause of our inexcusable way of letting things 
 take care of themselves. The intelligent direc- 
 tion which these celebrations require would not 
 only rob them of their capacity to injure, but 
 would vastly enhance their ability to do good. 
 
 Why do we play ? That is a question which 
 can be finally considered only from an ultimate 
 philosophical standpoint. But there are several 
 reasons which are readily apparent. In play 
 we tend to balance the specialization of our work 
 life. A man who works almost exclusively with 
 his brain, will rarely have recreation of the same 
 type; and he should not. He should play golf, 
 row, swim, run, shoot, take care of horses. 
 These plays tend to exercise otherwise unused 
 parts of the body and of the mind as well; and 
 to do this is the usual tendency of play. Yet 
 this principle holds good only within limits. 
 The men who work predominantly with the 
 
THE PLAY OF ADULTS 117 
 
 muscular system make use of it also in their 
 plays. The recreations of men who load steam- 
 ers or of those who dig ditches are apt to be 
 wrestling, dancing, and other forms of muscular 
 activity. If play were merely the exercise of 
 functions not used in work, we should have our 
 manual workers studying philosophy during their 
 hours of rest. 
 
 Play reproduces the earlier, simpler racial 
 reactions. In golf we have the old feeling of 
 hitting hard and straight; in hunting, the old 
 outdoor relations. The taking care of a gar- 
 den, in which so many people find real recreation, 
 is a survival of the simpler, more primitive, 
 agricultural activities. 
 
 Most modern city activities involve new ad- 
 justments of our neuro-muscular apparatus. 
 They are much more specialized than the tasks 
 to which our nervous systems have been accus- 
 tomed hi the past history of the race. A man 
 cannot dictate letters for as many hours as he 
 can hunt. In writing, he is making new de- 
 mands on his nervous system, he is working with 
 machinery not yet fully suited to its task. 
 When he is fatigued by these recently acquired 
 activities, he finds rest in reverting to older and 
 more perfectly organized activities. A man 
 fatigued by intellectual work may go to bed, 
 
118 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 but he will probably get more rest by walking a 
 long distance, by playing golf, working with 
 horses and dogs, by using reflexes that have been 
 employed so long in the life of the race that 
 they do not demand conscious attention. To 
 go out and walk in the woods, to hear the birds, 
 to listen to the babble of the water and the roar 
 of the storm, to prepare food at a camp fire by 
 doing these old, old things we restore to our- 
 selves the energy which we lose in the exercise 
 of the recently acquired activities. 
 
 The will becomes easily fatigued under the 
 strain of constant attention. When we let go 
 of the will and act under the influence of ca- 
 price, we tend to revert to the older, more ele- 
 mentary activities. And when we have rested 
 well in the summer, our wills are far more able 
 to take hold of work in the fall than they were 
 in the spring. For this reason also our tempers 
 are probably better in the fall than in the spring. 
 By reversion not merely to muscular activities 
 of any kind, but to muscle relations and psychic 
 activities that are old, by doing things that are 
 done without consciously strained attention, we 
 rest our wills. 
 
 The things we do when we are free to do what 
 we please are vitally related to both health and 
 morality. Those nations which devoted their 
 
THE PLAY OF ADULTS 119 
 
 leisure to the recreating of health and the build- 
 ing up of beautiful bodies have tended to sur- 
 vive, while those which turned to dissipation in 
 the marginal hours have written for us the his- 
 tory of national downfall. A daily life in which 
 there is no opportunity for recreation may be 
 fraught with as much evil as leisure time given 
 over to a futile frittering away of energy. Time 
 for rest and recreation is an absolute necessity 
 for personal development; it is especially neces- 
 sary under modern industrial conditions, where 
 work of a peculiarly fatiguing nature is carried 
 on. When a man works twelve hours in a steel 
 mill, as we are told was the practice in Pittsburg, 
 this condition is not merely significant from the 
 standpoint of physical overwork; it is signifi- 
 cant also from the standpoint of the family. A 
 man so situated has neither strength nor time 
 for recreation, nor for pursuing any of those 
 ideals on which family life is built. 
 
 The importance of having some leisure time 
 is no greater than that of the proper use of this 
 time. An investigation in England showed that 
 the effect of shortening the day of anthracite 
 coal-miners from eight to six hours resulted in a 
 lessened output per hour. During their leisure 
 time the men dissipated so much that they were 
 less competent in working hours. The impor- 
 
120 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 tant fact to.be noticed is not mainly the lessened 
 productive activity, but the reason for it, which 
 led to the degeneration of the workers. It is 
 a commonly observed fact that Monday is a 
 bad day in many if not most industries, and it 
 is bad because of the unwise use made of the 
 leisure time on Sunday. 
 
 The recreation problem ranks in importance 
 with the labor and education problems. Char- 
 acter is made predominantly during leisure 
 hours. During work or school time our actions 
 are guided by others. In recreation we do as 
 we please. It is true that honesty in business 
 and faithfulness in work are important elements 
 in the making of character, but the great bulk 
 of crime to-day, and the greatest part of the de- 
 generation during all the eras of history, has re- 
 sulted from wrong play and recreation, rather 
 than through work. 
 
 The companions I choose during my leisure 
 are more important with reference to the de- 
 velopment of character than are my associates 
 during business hours. With the latter I am 
 forced to work; but if, after business is over, I 
 choose men and women of fine personality, 
 wholesome desires, and good tastes, my choice 
 reflects my own self and tends to produce good 
 character in me. If I deliberately associate 
 
THE PLAY OF ADULTS 
 
 with men and women who disregard the higher 
 sanctions of life, it indicates and tends to pro- 
 duce bad character. The choices we make with 
 reference to our leisure are fundamental for 
 morality. In the city, people have small oppor- 
 tunity to make this choice under wholesome 
 conditions. 
 
 A young man of my acquaintance who came 
 to the city went to one of the common dance- 
 halls. I asked him why. He said: "I am alone. 
 I wanted to see some girls. I have no oppor- 
 tunity to meet any. Why shouldn't I go?" 
 The desire to see a young woman is a wholesome 
 one, and it uplifts or degrades, according to the 
 character of the girl; yet in New York City, by 
 failing to make any provision for this instinct 
 which is basic to community life, we have al- 
 lowed it to be exploited commercially in saloon 
 dance-halls, so that it acts almost wholly on the 
 side of evil and immorality. 
 
 Restrictive measures are not adequate to the 
 need. The attitude usually taken by the state 
 with reference to public recreation is one of re- 
 striction only. We do little toward providing 
 forms of play for social life; only when the sa- 
 loon has grown to be sufficiently evil do we take 
 steps to restrict it. When the theatre becomes 
 sufficiently immoral, we make restrictions there 
 
A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 also. When the moving-picture show becomes 
 objectionable, we attempt to regulate it. When 
 the dance-halls become too notoriously numerous 
 as attachments to saloons and places of immo- 
 rality, we pass restrictive measures. This is no 
 doubt necessary, but it cannot solve the problem 
 of adequate play for adults. It is not enough 
 to tell the moving-picture managers that they 
 must not do certain things. It would be well 
 to tell them in positively constructive ways 
 what they can do, for in itself the moving-pic- 
 ture show affords opportunity for wholesome 
 recreation and education as well. 
 
 The same is true of the dance-hall. The 
 dancing is in itself not only innocent, but good 
 exercise. Its surroundings are often bad. Con- 
 structive measures are needed rather than purely 
 restrictive ones. This applies to any form of 
 recreation. It has even happened that certain 
 playgrounds have become sources of evil, so 
 that measures of doing away with them had to 
 be enacted. What was needed was constructive 
 work which would not only prevent those play- 
 grounds from becoming headquarters of neigh- 
 borhood toughs, but which would make them 
 useful as the headquarters of the children's 
 play. 
 
 Financial problems are not primary in these 
 
THE PLAY OF ADULTS 123 
 
 considerations. The first need is that many 
 people shall give thought to these matters. We 
 have enormous resources belonging to the state 
 which might be used for recreation and play. 
 Our public school property is well equipped for 
 many kinds of recreation. To use our present 
 public buildings and parks and other city prop- 
 erty involves not primarily the expenditure of 
 money, but the conversion of public opinion 
 and the establishment of social customs. 
 
 So far we have been content to devise means 
 which by their nature are inadequate. A city 
 of 40,000 regarded its problem of the older 
 girls settled when it established an evening 
 school accommodating 80 girls. Another city 
 of 35,000 established a boys' club capable of 
 holding 100 boys, and the citizens felt that they 
 had provided adequate sources of exercise and 
 recreation. These are actual cases. New York 
 City has spent millions for playgrounds in Man- 
 hattan, but in 1906 the playgrounds could ac- 
 commodate only about 7 per cent of the children 
 below Fourteenth Street. We need to face the 
 recreation problem fairly and deal with it ade- 
 quately, not only for children but for adults as 
 well. 
 
 The problem of the recreation of the adult is 
 not Identical with the problem of the play of 
 
124 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 children. There is a real difference also between 
 play and recreation. The function of play in 
 the life of the individual, and the function of 
 recreation, are problems that must be solved 
 before undertaking public provision for these 
 needs. The boy who is playing football with in- 
 tensity needs recreation as much as does the 
 inventor who is working intensely at his inven- 
 tion. Play may be more exhausting than work, 
 because one can play much harder than one can 
 work. No one would dream of pushing a boy 
 in school as hard as he pushes himself in a foot- 
 ball game. If there is any difference of intensity 
 between play and work, the difference is in 
 favor of play. Play is the result of desire; for 
 that reason it is often carried on with more 
 vigor than is work. 
 
 Recreation is different in character. It con- 
 sists, for the adult, in reversion to the simpler 
 fundamental activities acquired during child- 
 hood. It means relaxation in contrast to the 
 child's outlet of energy. The intense adult 
 plays may be as exhausting as the intense plays 
 of children. For the adult who is working stren- 
 uously in his business, it is not sufficient that he 
 shall be strenuous in his play. He has another 
 and quite different need, the need for recre- 
 ation. 
 
THE PLAY OF ADULTS 125 
 
 If we define play as doing that which we want 
 to do, without reference primarily to any ul- 
 terior end, but simply for the joy of the process, 
 then there are many activities of the adult in 
 addition to his recreation which come in this 
 category. The distinction is one of mental atti- 
 tude, not of actual activities. The feeling of 
 choice and desire is the determining element in 
 play. 
 
 Mark Twain said in regard to the tasks of 
 his life: "I have not done a day's work in my 
 life. What I have done I have done because 
 it has been play. If it had been work I should 
 not have done it." Adrian Kirk, in an article 
 entitled "Masters of their Craft," shows how 
 this feeling toward work may animate men in 
 widely different professions. A bus-driver, a 
 motor-man, an enginer, a type-setter, may take 
 the play attitude toward his tasks. "I'd rather 
 run a car than eat," said the motor-man. "I've 
 been offered charge of the stable, but I'd rather 
 drive," was the statement of the cabman. 
 
 A series of letters from millionaires attempted 
 to answer the question: "Why do men keep on 
 making money when they have enough?" 
 There were letters from Michael Cudahy, D. K. 
 Pearsons, W. S. Kimball, and a number of others. 
 Nearly all of these men spoke of "the fascination 
 
126 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 of the game." It was not the concrete result 
 that they wanted; it was the process which at- 
 tracted them the opportunity to go on, to out- 
 play, to outgeneral. They had long passed the 
 mark they set for themselves. But to drop out 
 of the game ! A boy does not drop out of a 
 game of football when he is fascinated by it. 
 That is the attitude of play. 
 
 The term play is used popularly in many dif- 
 ferent senses. It is frequently contrasted with 
 work and held to cover a series of activities 
 which are highly enjoyable, but quite without 
 utility or seriousness. Or it is confounded with 
 recreation, and its usefulness is found solely as 
 a means of relaxation and preparation for future 
 work. As a result of this view the plays of 
 children are excused on the ground that children 
 are not yet able to do the serious tasks of the 
 world, and may therefore be allowed to enjoy 
 themselves without much loss. But play is 
 not something less serious than work. It dif- 
 fers from what we may call work in mental at- 
 titude rather than in actual activity or output 
 of energy. Play, in the scientific sense, the sense 
 in which we shall use it, is the term we give to a 
 series of activities as wide as the scope of human 
 action, when those activities are performed not 
 from external compulsion, but as an expression 
 
THE PLAV OF ADULTS 127 
 
 of the self, as the result of desire. In this sense 
 the problem of play is the problem of a rich and 
 free life; the problem of recreation is only one 
 of its phases. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE PLAY OF SUBNORMAL 
 CHILDREN 
 
 THE first subnormal boy of whom I had 
 charge was already in his teens, but he 
 could not count to five. He showed no 
 interest in anything that involved effort. He 
 could run somewhat, but he did not like to run, 
 for he considered it hard work. He seldom en- 
 gaged in any form of exercise. If I took him by 
 the hand and ran with him around the gymnas- 
 ium track, he would follow like a dog trotting be- 
 hind me, but he hated it. I told him that if he 
 could keep count of the number of times we went 
 around, we would run only five times, whereas 
 if he did not keep count, we would run twice 
 five. For the first time in his life that boy de- 
 sired definite intellectual power. He struggled 
 to count five, in order that he might not have to 
 run more than that number of times. After a 
 while he accomplished it, and within a week he 
 could count up to twenty. His desire to learn 
 to count called forth all the latent power that 
 was in him. That boy later went to college. 
 
 128 
 
PLAY OF SUBNORMAL CHILDREN 129 
 
 He possessed a good heredity and a good brain, 
 but there was some defect of will and initiative 
 that had to be overcome. After that initial ex- 
 perience he went forward rapidly. 
 
 This boy was an exceptional case. Results 
 such as this cannot be expected in the case 
 of all feeble-minded children. However, a study 
 of the play of subnormal children, made by the 
 teacher of a subnormal class in Springfield, Mas- 
 sachusetts, shows that lack of energy and initia- 
 tive is one of the most marked characteristics 
 of all the actions of feeble-minded children. She 
 divided the children into low grade, middle grade, 
 and high grade, and described them as follows: 
 
 I. Low Grade. In visiting the playrooms of low- 
 grade, feeble-minded children, the dominant impres- 
 sion is that of inactivity. One child among twenty- 
 four has been seen aimlessly piling blocks on one 
 another, one rocking a doll, the rest swaying back 
 and forward, playing with their fingers or feet, look- 
 ing at each other or staring out of the window. 
 
 II. In a somewhat higher grade more activity is 
 seen. Blocks are arranged apparently according to 
 some idea in the mind, dolls are dressed and un- 
 dressed; there is some individualistic play with toys 
 and dolls. When turned loose on a playground, 
 some children show varied play activities, though 
 the majority stand about or run with no apparent 
 object. Occasionally a child is seen swinging and 
 a few are digging in the sand. 
 
130 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 III. The highest grade may be seen in groups 
 about the playground. The casual observer may 
 think that some interesting game is in progress, but, 
 upon nearing the group, nothing of the kind will be 
 discovered simply aimless talking, waiting for an 
 outside stimulus. One more active than the rest 
 may be at the head of a little band whom he is lead- 
 ing as soldiers, but few join the ranks as they march 
 about. A ball nine may be formed, but unless some 
 normal person is present to stimulate and encourage, 
 the game falls flat. Competitive sports seem to be 
 enjoyed only under the direction of an attendant. 
 
 Spontaneity in play is a chief lack of feeble- 
 minded children. The lower the grade, the less 
 spontaneous is the play activity, and the more 
 individualistic is the play, when, indeed, there is 
 any play at all. The higher the grade, the 
 greater are the indications of activity, but the 
 play is still largely individualistic and non- 
 competitive unless there is some outside stimulus. 
 
 These findings are corroborated by some ob- 
 servations recorded in a special class in a public 
 school. These children would compare in ability 
 with the middle and higher grades of the first 
 set of observations. 
 
 I. Low Grade. These children have little activity 
 when set free on the playground, other than an aim- 
 less running about. They may try to catch some 
 one who is running, but they never succeed in hav- 
 ing a group game of tag. They would not know 
 who was "it." They never spin tops or play with 
 
PLAY OF SUBNORMAL CHILDREN 131 
 
 marbles, though they may possess them. They 
 never originate games. No girl in this class has 
 failed to respond to the attraction of a doll, but the 
 play is confined. to dressing and undressing it, hold- 
 ing it, and walking with it. With blocks they make 
 the very simplest forms, usually in imitation of some 
 other child. 
 
 Limited power of co-ordination is shown by in- 
 ability to catch a bean bag or ball, the forearms being 
 used in the effort instead of the hands. When the 
 ball is thrown up vertically, the arms come together 
 after the ball has touched the floor. In every at- 
 tempt to vary the exercise a tendency is shown to 
 play according to the old directions, not the new. 
 
 Rosa, aged seven, when given a ball, was unable 
 on entrance to follow directions, and for weeks sim- 
 ply rolled the ball ahead of her on the floor, running 
 after it like a two-year-old child, although others 
 about her were playing in many different ways. 
 After some months she succeeded in bounding and 
 catching it once out of five times. When given a 
 wooden ping-pong bat, she was unable to use it with 
 a ball. 
 
 II. High Grade. All suggestions for original play 
 come from this group. Occasionally a game of tag 
 is organized, racing games are suggested, demands 
 that "sides" be chosen. A few spin tops and play 
 marbles, but the latter never as a contest. 
 
 Power of adaptation to new directions is much 
 greater, as well as power to co-ordinate. One case 
 was noted of bounding the ball and catching it in 
 time to the rhyme, "I asked my mother for fifty 
 cents to see the elephant jump the fence," etc. Com- 
 plicated constructions are made with blocks. 
 
 Increase of mental activity is coexistent with in- 
 crease of play activity. 
 
132 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 We are not now considering the congenital 
 idiots, nor the hopeless cases of feeble-minded- 
 ness, neither are we referring particularly to the 
 cases of arrested development caused by ade- 
 noids, defective vision, or defective senses of any 
 kind. Most of the work that has been done in 
 the past has been with reference to the excep- 
 tionally low-grade idiot, whom it is impossible 
 to educate to the standards of normal life. But 
 such cases constitute only from one-half to two 
 per cent of the school population, whereas there 
 are from five to eight per cent of subnormal 
 children who may be converted to usefulness by 
 the establishment of right habits of muscular 
 conduct, and by the stimulation of the will. 
 
 The plays of these subnormal children show, 
 then, certain very marked differences from those 
 of normal children. The most immediately 
 noticeable fact is perhaps the absence of energy. 
 There is less energy of endurance, less energy of 
 each muscular contraction, less energy of effort. 
 The feeble-minded are careless. They do not 
 care whether they are "tagged" or not. They 
 are not warmly enthusiastic about their play. 
 This condition does not make for progress. The 
 play is subnormal in almost all directions, both 
 from the physical and the mental side. 
 
 Most of these children are deficient physically. 
 
PLAY OF SUBNORMAL CHILDREN 133 
 
 The skin of many of them is clammy, showing a 
 lack of circulation. They exhibit a marked in- 
 ability to use any part of the body with skill. 
 They have a characteristic shuffling gait, which is 
 evidence of a lack of precise co-ordinations, and 
 they are usually lacking in muscular power. 
 But the most noticeable deficiency is that of will 
 power. Their desire to sit still and do nothing 
 is perhaps their most marked differentiation 
 from normal children. They need an extraor- 
 dinary stimulus of some kind, imitation or com- 
 pulsion, to induce activity. 
 
 In the duration and variety of their plays, 
 these subnormal children are also strikingly 
 deficient. They make practically no progress 
 from month to month and year to year. They 
 may live to adult life in an institution, and unless 
 they are taught to play other and more complex 
 plays, they will do the same things over and over 
 again. 
 
 Play is thus seen to be an indication of the ca- 
 pacity for growth. The play of the normal in- 
 dividual goes on to fresher and fresher interests, 
 and when one thing is mastered, he puts that 
 behind him for background and acquires some- 
 thing new. That means growth and power. 
 This growth the feeble-minded lack. They are 
 not only feeble in regard to intellectual pursuits, 
 
134 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 such as reading, writing and arithmetic. They 
 are feeble when it comes to thinking of anything 
 new to do in play. They do not acquire the 
 higher forms of play developed by normal chil- 
 dren. Competitive play needs to be taught, and 
 team play seems almost completely beyond their 
 capacity. 
 
 Subnormal children also differ from normal 
 children in the place which tradition and imita- 
 tion has in their plays. There are two factors 
 which make play: the desire, or instinct, which 
 gives the driving motive; and the tradition 
 which decides what form the play shall take. 
 Feeble-minded children lack not only the spon- 
 taneous impulse to play; they also possess to a 
 very much lessened degree than the normal child 
 the power of carrying social tradition. If 
 feeble-minded children are taught some interest- 
 ing games adapted to their development, and 
 are then put with other children who have not 
 been so taught, the children who know the 
 games will not propagate them. Among nor- 
 mal children a good game spreads from child to 
 child. But subnormal children must be taught 
 individually and with great care. 
 
 The physical movements which adults make 
 are imitated unconsciously by most children 
 as soon as they reach the age for those move- 
 
PLAY OF SUBNORMAL CHILDREN 135 
 
 ments. On the other hand, to teach a feeble- 
 minded boy to use a hammer requires very 
 minute pedagogical steps. To teach the feeble- 
 minded girl to cut out a pattern, to use scissors, 
 to follow a line, involves great patience and 
 stages of teaching which the normal girl seems 
 almost to omit entirely, so unconsciously does 
 she pass through them. The power of imitation 
 in subnormal children is very low. 
 
 Lack of spontaneous effort, of desire, of va- 
 riety, and of the unconscious imitation by which 
 normal children learn so many muscular co-or- 
 dinations these seem to be the chief deficiencies 
 of subnormal individuals, in play and in all other 
 activities. The way of development, then, lies 
 in the acquiring of these motor accomplish- 
 ments. The treatment of the feeble-minded 
 before the days of Seguin was primarily directed 
 to the intelligence, and it failed. Seguin worked 
 on the hand training of the idiot; he laid the 
 foundation for all that has been done since. He 
 taught the subnormal child the same muscular 
 contractions that are made unconsciously by 
 the normal child. 
 
 The use of rhythmical exercises has been found 
 to be of great benefit in the education of sub- 
 normal children. In the Massachusetts Insti- 
 tute for the Feeble-minded, Doctor Fernald has 
 
136 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 utilized rhythm with reference to muscular 
 labor. He says that if he can get boys to shovel 
 or hammer, using heavy sledges, and with many 
 working in unison, they will do several times as 
 much work through the effect of rhythm as 
 they would do if they were in a position which 
 required them constantly to make a choice. 
 They can thus develop the needed muscular co- 
 ordinations more surely and with greater ease. 
 
 Physical education, especially through play, 
 is the best means for the education of the feeble- 
 minded. The first step is to create a desire to 
 run, to throw, to stand up straight, to do some- 
 thing. This desire can be aroused more easily 
 in connection with the oldest, most fundamental 
 human reactions, than in any other way. The 
 folk-dance is particularly effective in this direc- 
 tion, because of the rhythmic actions involved. 
 Another good method of training is to give exer- 
 cise combined with some game or story. A 
 teacher who had blocks of wood on the floor told 
 the children to step from one to the other for 
 "if they missed one of the stepping-stones in 
 the brook, they would get wet." In this way 
 she succeeded in arousing interest and in teach- 
 ing some of the fundamental co-ordinations nec- 
 essary for further development. 
 
 I once had charge of a little feeble-minded girl 
 
PLAY OF SUBNORMAL CHILDREN 137 
 
 whose attention I could not hold. Without 
 attention, education is, of course, impossible. 
 At last I hit upon the expedient of making her 
 stand with one foot close in front of the other. 
 Then if she did not give attention she would fall. 
 From that time on she made progress. Physical 
 education, given in connection with play, is the 
 most direct method to this end. 
 
 There is a class of children who can by no 
 means be classed as feeble-minded, but in whose 
 play abnormal conditions of life ha^ve produced 
 some of the same characteristics we have been 
 discussing. These are the children in institu- 
 tions. Miss Florence L. Lattimore has written 
 of them: 
 
 I have seen children at play in about one hundred 
 institutions, and, beyond the use of toys, I have 
 never seen any game but tag. Repeatedly I have 
 been told by caretakers that "they like to stand 
 around and watch each other." In photographing 
 the so-called playground of one of these institutions, 
 I tried to take a picture of the children at play; but 
 they did not know how to pose for me, and they had 
 never been taught even how to play tag. They 
 just ran around and pushed one another. 
 
 In one institution some fifty little boys are daily 
 sent to a cement-floored basement at playtime. 
 There is no supervision. The president of the insti- 
 tution told me that they did not seem to know what 
 to do with themselves, and dug the putty from 
 
138 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 around every one of the panes of glass in the win- 
 dows. They were reprimanded for this and told to 
 play. Not knowing how, they scooped out little 
 crescents of cement from the floor in a sort of pat- 
 tern, and when they were reprimanded for this, they 
 sat around in a kind of limp despair. The children 
 tell me that they "don't like to play because of the 
 bullies." In other words, competition is not fair in 
 their undirected play, and the children who do not 
 like free fights keep out of the playtime activities. 
 I have known this to be true of institution after in- 
 stitution. The apparent contentment of these chil- 
 dren, their lassitude and calm, is commonly mistaken 
 for a satisfied play instinct. Close study of these 
 little inmates reveals that lack of bodily tone, of 
 motivation, and opportunity to learn to play are 
 the chief factors in this group passivity. 
 
 This quotation is important as showing the 
 subnormal state into which otherwise normal 
 children may be thrown by lack of proper op- 
 portunity and traditions for play. The lack of 
 motivation, of ability to carry on the higher 
 forms of team play, are characteristic also of 
 feeble-minded children. Miss Sadie American 
 says of institution children: "It is absolutely 
 necessary to inject into them, not only the de- 
 sire to play, but the habit of play." She quotes 
 Mr. Lowenstein of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum 
 in New York as saying that while there is plenty 
 of outdoor space for the children of that institu- 
 
PLAY OF SUBNORMAL CHILDREN 139 
 
 tion, they stand about watching those who have 
 already been taught and they have to be led into 
 the play before they will indulge in it. 
 
 A model asylum visited by Miss Eugenie 
 Macrum, of Pittsburg, revealed an identical 
 condition. It was an invigorating winter after- 
 noon, but not a child had been outdoors. The 
 sisters felt too cold to leave the house and had 
 taken it for granted that none of the children 
 would care to go out. No child had the enter- 
 prise to propose an excursion into the open. 
 The asylum grounds were large and situated in 
 a beautiful neighborhood. A snowball fight 
 would no doubt have been cheerfully permitted, 
 but there was no one to take the initiative. 
 
 "Play expresses spiritual as well as physical 
 exuberance," says Mrs. Harriet Hickox Heller, 
 of the Douglas County Detention School, in 
 Nebraska. "In the sick, exhausted, imbecile, 
 abnormal child, play decreases in a suggestive 
 ratio. In proportion as they are abnormal, 
 these children seem to lose the power of exer- 
 cising the self -expressing, creative play. With- 
 out the experience of play their chances of nor- 
 mal maturity are too meager to risk. They must 
 be taught to play." 
 
 To some extent this same lack of spontaneity 
 and play initiative is found in large numbers of 
 
140 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 city children. Miss American describes a game 
 called "Long Branch" which some little girls 
 were playing on a city sidewalk. It was a dead- 
 ening occupation, consisting merely in seeing 
 who could flip a stone farthest. "Those children 
 should have been playing hop-scotch or pris- 
 oner's base; but the stimulus to such play had 
 been destroyed through lack of use." Long 
 lines of children used to stand in the play 
 grounds of Chicago waiting for an opportunity 
 to swing, without sufficient knowledge or initia- 
 tive to invent any other amusement than the 
 one which was already over-occupied. A clever 
 play leader started a game and relieved the con- 
 gestion. 
 
 The play of feeble-minded children is charac- 
 terized by lack of initiative, of desire, of energy, 
 of variety, of social tradition. These same de- 
 ficiencies are making an appearance in some un- 
 looked-for places. If it be true, as it has been 
 stated, that many of the children of New York 
 do not know how to play, it is a fact startlingly 
 worth considering in connection with the rela- 
 tion which the play stimulus and play tradition 
 sustain relative to normal development. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 PLAY PROGRESSION 
 
 A MOST attractive theory was put for- 
 ward some years ago. It was called 
 the "Culture-epoch" theory. It held 
 that children went through the same epochs that 
 are represented by the different tribes and na- 
 tions in the development from savagery to civi- 
 lized life. There was first the stage of migration 
 and wandering, when the race lived in families 
 and went from place to place; later there was 
 the agricultural stage. It was maintained that 
 these instinct feelings constitute great psychic 
 zones through which the race passed and out of 
 which it drew various lessons. Therefore, the 
 individual also must go through zones of this 
 kind, and school life should be adjusted accord- 
 ingly. In the nomadic stage children should 
 have the literature which developed in the no- 
 madic age, and their art should be related to the 
 kind of art developed then. Their interest in 
 plants and animals should be centred in the 
 plants and animals known by the race in that 
 period ; the history studied should be that of the 
 nomadic stage. 
 
 141 
 
142 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 Let us examine this theory in the light of ob- 
 served sequences in children's spontaneous plays. 
 When does the hunting instinct begin in the 
 boy ? The exact time has not been determined, 
 but we know that a baby under two years of age 
 enjoys running away and being pursued. He 
 also enjoys trying to catch some one else. Nor 
 can it be shown that the hunting instinct ever 
 ceases. There is no age when men are too old to 
 enjoy fishing. This does not mean that all men 
 enjoy fishing, but if a man has enjoyed it as a 
 boy, he does not lose interest in fishing while he 
 is alive and well. 
 
 The other day I saw two men, one about forty 
 and the other seventy-five years old, coming 
 in from the river. They had a basket about ten 
 inches long, seven inches high, and eight inches 
 wide, in which they had brought their lunch and 
 fishing-tackle. These men had been fishing all 
 day. They had eaten their lunch and used up 
 their bait, and had about fifty fish. These fifty 
 fish did not weigh as much or take up as much 
 space as the lunch and bait had taken. They 
 had secured many fish too small to eat, and had 
 spent a day in doing it. But they were happy. 
 They were not too old to have the keenest enjoy- 
 ment in fishing. 
 
 There is no need of going into an extended 
 
PLAY PROGRESSION 143 
 
 discussion of the way in which the hunting 
 feeling, in a modified form, enters into the com- 
 petition of business and professional life. Most 
 of the intensity of the business world is built on 
 these old instincts of fighting and hunting. Men 
 stay in business for the fascination of the game 
 long after the main reason for working has dis- 
 appeared. But leaving this out of account, 
 and keeping to the simpler level of hunting as 
 hunting, there is no definite age at which a man 
 ceases to want to hunt. He may acquire new 
 feelings which keep him from hunting, feelings 
 of sympathy for the animals, but the hunt- 
 ing instinct never dies. He never becomes too 
 old or loses the early interest. The hunting 
 "epoch" extends from birth until death. 
 
 The shelter interest is equally permanent. 
 Little children three years old enjoy playing 
 house. This play corresponds to deep feelings 
 within them. Boys and girls in their teens love 
 their shacks in the woods and the little houses 
 they have built in the yard, and the trees they 
 have for their own. Young married people have 
 the same feeling very strongly when they move 
 into a new home, a permanent shelter which is 
 theirs. Old married people with families experi- 
 ence these shelter feelings when they return to 
 the old home. Grandparents have told me that 
 
144 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 to go back to the place of their childhood and to 
 see their children and children's children around 
 them arouses profound feelings of the shelter 
 type. There is no shelter epoch except the epoch 
 of human life. 
 
 There is no epoch in friendship. There are, 
 indeed, times when friendship grows fastest. 
 Middle life is somewhat of a fearsome period 
 for one thing because new human relationships 
 are established then with much greater difficulty 
 than in the teens. The friends acquired during 
 the twenties, who have kept together enough to 
 share life's experiences, remain closer friends 
 than most people who come together later in 
 life. The friendship feeling does not come in 
 one particular period and then go out of ex- 
 istence. 
 
 The same is true of other interests. The 
 child who has loved dogs and cats, cows and 
 chickens, horses and sheep and ducks does not 
 lose this interest in mature years. The relation- 
 ships to the natural world that come through 
 these associations do not die. The love of 
 plants and the interest in gardens are not con- 
 fined to a single epoch. Those whose hearts 
 have been thrilled by the beauties of the woods, 
 the lights and the shadows, the flash of the sun 
 on the water, do not pass out of this stage. 
 
PLAY PROGRESSION 145 
 
 There may be times when the soul can respond 
 more vividly than at other times, but there is 
 no epoch in the love of nature. 
 
 A child does not go through an "Indian stage." 
 I have seen boys play Indian with great inten- 
 sity. They had their tepees and bows and ar- 
 rows, their councils and Indian fights. But the 
 next hour they might be playing policeman, or 
 fire-engine, using a wholly different set of in- 
 terests, those of a culture period a thousand 
 years removed from their first play. No theory 
 could well have been elaborated that was farther 
 from the observed facts of human life than the 
 culture-epoch theory. This does not mean that 
 there is no order in physical, mental, moral, and 
 social development. The more complicated 
 must always be built on the simple. But to put 
 these instincts in strata and say: "This is the 
 time for the hunting instinct and then that goes 
 out; this is the time for the property instinct 
 and then that goes out" is false from all we 
 know of children's plays. 
 
 Child nature has no culture epochs of this 
 kind. Interests in different plays come, some- 
 times together, sometimes one ahead, sometimes 
 the other ahead. There is no absolute order in 
 the eruption of these great passionate lifelong 
 feelings. Under the stimulus of the hunting feel- 
 
146 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 ing a little boy will run about; under the stimu- 
 lus of the same feeling he will play tag, and the 
 tag will grow more complicated as he grows older. 
 Later he will play baseball from the same im- 
 pulse, and still later he may go into scientific 
 research. The feeling which dominates and 
 guides his life furnishes a constant spring of 
 motive, taking on new forms of activity with 
 ever-increasing complexity. 
 
 There is indeed a play progression related 
 not to the acquisition of new fundamental in- 
 stincts, but to the physical and mental develop- 
 ment of the individual. A baby does not make 
 the same complicated movements that a boy of 
 ten makes. There is a close relation between 
 the particular games in which the various in- 
 stincts express themselves and the development 
 of the heart, lungs, muscles, and especially of 
 the nervous system. Boys do not play running 
 games before the heart has reached a certain 
 balance. Games demanding endurance do not 
 normally occur before the pubertal develop- 
 ment of the heart and arteries has occurred. 
 There is a relation from infancy to adult life 
 between the games that are played and the part 
 of the individual that is growing. 
 
 At about the age of seven or eight the boy 
 wants to play marbles. He does not say: "My 
 
PLAY PROGRESSION J47 
 
 motor areas are now ripening and I will help 
 them in their development by using my fingers." 
 But that is precisely what he is doing without 
 knowing it. The same thing is true of other 
 games. They develop in successive years in 
 complexity, in intensity, in rapidity. They are 
 suited to the growing needs of the individual. 
 
 The chart entitled "Anglo-Saxon Play" 1 will 
 serve for a general outline of play progression. 
 Nothing exact is indicated by this diagram. 
 There is no real division between children of six 
 and those of seven, or between children of thir- 
 teen and fourteen. Moreover, there are always 
 individual variations. But on the whole there 
 is a great distinction between the plays that are 
 most prominent between birth and the age of 
 seven, and those prominent between the years of 
 seven and twelve. There is a similar distinc- 
 tion with reference to the games played in the 
 teens. The difference is chiefly one of emphasis; 
 some boys and girls never reach the third stage, 
 some never pass beyond the first. Yet there is 
 a general progression ; the later games are based 
 from the necessity of the case upon the earlier. 
 A boy cannot jump before he has learned to 
 walk; he cannot throw until he has learned to 
 drop objects and pick them up. As children be- 
 
 1 See page 154. 
 
148 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 come more skillful in the use of certain muscle 
 combinations, they go on to more complex plays. 
 
 The direction of the curved lines in the chart 
 indicates that these interests of life are per- 
 manent. At any age all the previous interests 
 still survive. Other more complex activities 
 come into the child's life and push the ele- 
 mentary plays into the background; later still 
 larger interests are built upon the earlier, with 
 more complex ethical and social relations. But 
 when we take time for the earlier activities, 
 we still discover joy in doing them. I presume 
 that it is still interesting to us to sit on a beach 
 and let the fine sand trickle through our fin- 
 gers, to make little piles of it, to dig gardens and 
 walks of sand. We do not do it as often as we 
 did when we were children, for more interesting 
 matters have claimed our attention. We have 
 more capacity for work and pleasure than we 
 had then; we revert to these simple pleasures 
 only in times of fatigue when we wish to rest. 
 Then we lay aside the more recently developed, 
 more exhausting activities, because they are 
 more complex and utilize more of our entire 
 personality. 
 
 The first group of plays indicated in the chart 
 is individualistic. These plays relate to control 
 of the body. The child learns to use his hands, 
 
PLAY PROGRESSION 149 
 
 to run, to balance himself, to throw, to jump. 
 The complex arm movements of later games are 
 built on these earlier attainments. There is a 
 tremendous joy in these early attainments. I 
 remember watching a little boy of five years 
 learning to throw. He showed great excitement 
 as he changed from putting, which is the throw 
 of children and most women, to the man's throw, 
 in which the weight of the whole body goes into 
 the movement. He had accomplished a new 
 thing. A great part of the joy of early childhood 
 is related to this progressive mastery of self and 
 of the environment. 
 
 From self-mastery the boy goes on to com- 
 petition with others. Little children do not 
 care to compete, and should never be stimulated 
 by competition. They have not learned self- 
 mastery and self-control. Unfair play is partly 
 traceable to engaging in competition before self- 
 control has been attained. With self-mastery 
 comes the desire to master others, to compete in 
 running, at marbles, at tag, in swimming. The 
 intensity with which boys pursue the running, 
 jumping, throwing, striking games, such as 
 "Duck on the rock" and "One old cat," indicates 
 the power of the instinct feelings that hold them. 
 There is nothing in the games themselves to 
 account for their tremendous grip. A boy will 
 
150 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 learn to throw in "One old cat" as he never 
 learns to throw for the pure joy of throwing. 
 He gains a new kind of self-mastery through this 
 competition. His chief object, however, is to 
 master the other boy. 
 
 In the third group, the elements of self-mas- 
 tery and competition still remain, but something 
 new is added, team loyalty. Many boys never 
 reach the third stage. The essence of these 
 games is self-sacrifice for the group, which is the 
 great masculine source of altruism. The boy 
 who hustles for himself and not for his gang is 
 the boy who cannot play these games. He is 
 also the boy who does not develop the wider 
 loyalty of manhood. A boy begins by being 
 loyal to one or two friends, then to a dozen, 
 then to his school, and finally to his commu- 
 nity. 
 
 There are other relations between plays be- 
 sides that of progression from the simple to the 
 complex. No one who has noticed plays at all 
 has failed to observe the seasonal rotation of 
 games. The advent of spring is more surely 
 marked by the games of marbles played on the 
 street than by the coming of bluebirds and rob- 
 ins. The birds may fail, for there may be a 
 late spring. But I have seen marbles played 
 in the snow in Springfield, because it was marble 
 
PLAY PROGRESSION 151 
 
 time. The season had come, even if the snow 
 had not gone. 
 
 All over the world the plays of children rotate 
 with great regularity. This is more true in a 
 stable community than in a new town. In an 
 old English village, where people are living as 
 they have lived for generations, the plays come 
 around with perfect precision. In Japan the 
 sequence of plays is most regular. Even hi our 
 own communities the venders of implements for 
 children's play know what stock to order for 
 every season. I secured records of the plays 
 of 11,000 children in a western city at one time, 
 and classified them. The record showed that 
 while there are many plays engaged in at ran- 
 dom, the larger games are seasonal. Tag, hide- 
 and-seek, marbles, and ball are among these 
 games. Interest in dolls does not rotate, but 
 the things which are done with dolls rotate. 
 
 This rotation of plays is not the same in any 
 two cities or countries I have studied. It is 
 true that in the main kites are flown during the 
 time of the year in which there is most wind, and 
 marbles are usually played when the ground is 
 suitable. But if there are several periods of high 
 wind, kites will be flown in only one of them, 
 and this particular time will vary in different 
 communities. Except for those plays which 
 
152 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 are wholly dependent on the weather, as skat- 
 ing, sliding downhill or snowballing, games may 
 come at different times of the year in different 
 cities, but in the same city the rotation is a fixed 
 one. 
 
 This seems to show that it is not the order of rota- 
 tion which is significant, but the fact of rotation. 
 There is not the same order of games in New 
 York, Chicago, and Tokio, but there is the same 
 fact of a seasonal change. One play does not of 
 itself lead into another play, or the order of rota- 
 tion would be stable. This fact that one play 
 comes to a natural conclusion, and that there is 
 then a demand for another play just what 
 other play is not universally determined bears 
 an interesting relation to growth. 
 
 Growth proceeds by pulses, not in a straight 
 line. We do not grow in height a little every day 
 until our full stature is secured. We grow 
 for certain weeks and then there will be weeks 
 in which we do not grow in height, but rather in 
 breadth. We tend to grow in height in the 
 spring, and in weight in the fall. Even during 
 successive years there is no uniformity of growth. 
 In certain years, perhaps from nine to eleven 
 or twelve, the child will grow only about an inch 
 a year; and then in a succeeding year he may 
 add three, four, five, or six inches to his stature. 
 
PLAY PROGRESSION 153 
 
 Growth in the ability to acquire a language is 
 in pulses. I have the records of the words used 
 by all of my own children up to the age of two. 
 In two or three days the child may learn fifteen 
 to twenty new words, and then for a whole 
 month he may not learn any more. He may 
 even forget the words he has learned. There 
 are pulses in vital power and in every form of 
 enthusiasm. This is the meaning of the sea- 
 sonal rotation of plays. 
 
 These pulses do not coincide in all individuals. 
 If I should measure the growth in height of 
 11,000 children up to the age of twelve years 
 and take an average, I should have a steady 
 curve. But no child grows by a curve of that 
 kind. It is the average, but it is false to every 
 individual child that contributes to that aver- 
 age. The length and appearance of the pulses 
 of interest vary with different ages and different 
 individuals. 
 
 There is, then, a progression in play, from sim- 
 ple to complex co-ordinations. Certain kinds of 
 play precede others. The great fundamental 
 instincts never cease, but the form of their ex- 
 pression varies. There is also a seasonal rota- 
 tion in plays corresponding to the growth of the 
 individual, which is always by pulses. The 
 play progression has physical, mental, and moral 
 
154 
 
 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 relations to the development of the individ- 
 ual. 
 
 CHART OF ANGLO-SAXON PLAY 1 
 
 Kicking. 
 
 Whole arm, body 
 and hand movements. 
 Dropping things. Blocks. 
 Sand plays, digging, piling, etc. 
 Running, throwing, cutting and 
 folding. Swinging. 
 
 Shooting, guns, bows, slings, etc. Knife 
 work. Tools of increasing complexity. 
 Machinery. 
 
 Sailing. ^^ Tag. 
 
 Rowing. /^ Cross tag. Word 
 
 Swimming. /^ tag. Prisoner's base. 
 
 Hide and seek. Black 
 man. "Stunts." 
 Ball games. One old cat. 
 Throwing. Fungo, Rounders, etc 
 Gymnastics. / Marble games. Fat, cints, hole, etc. 
 
 Indian clubs, etc. / Duck on a rock. Leap frog. 
 Track and field sports. 
 Football games. 
 Care of land 
 and animals. 
 Hunting, fishing. 
 War. Wrestling. 
 Boxing, fencing. 
 
 Predatory. Bill- 
 iards. Bowling. 
 
 Baseball. 
 Basket-ball. 
 Cricket. Hoc- 
 key. Gangs. 
 Houses in woods. 
 Pals. Predatory 
 gangs. Hero service. 
 
 1 Pedagogical Seminary, 1899, vi, 137. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 PLAY AND PHYSICAL GROWTH 
 
 ONE of the most evident characteristics 
 of a new-born baby is its movements 
 the motions of its hands, face, legs, arms, 
 feet, mouth, eyebrows. Immediately after 
 birth, the child begins to make separate finger 
 movements, but he is not able to do this with 
 conscious direction for several years. During the 
 time when he is coming into this conscious con- 
 trol, the child's chief interest is related definitely 
 to his movements. To watch the plays of chil- 
 dren with reference to their physical develop- 
 ment is a fascinating process. Each period in 
 life is marked by a new interest, which corre- 
 sponds exactly to the neuro-muscular develop- 
 ment of that period. Thus the interests of 
 children are of the greatest significance, not 
 because they please the children, but because 
 they correspond to vital processes going on in 
 the child's body, mind, and character. 
 
 The amount of physical exercise which the 
 average child obtains through his ordinary play 
 when free to move about and conduct himself 
 
 155 
 
156 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 as he pleases, is inconceivable to the adult un- 
 til he takes the trouble to make an actual record 
 of the number of movements performed by some 
 child in the space of half an hour. I have ob- 
 tained a number of records of this kind. The 
 following is the account of the movements of a 
 boy of four during one hour. 
 
 8:00 A. M. TO 9:00 A.M. 
 
 Breakfast. Raised arm from plate to mouth 50 times. 
 Jumped down from chair. Lifted curtains. Took out 
 blocks and cards. Stood up straight; repeated 8 times. 
 Came down on his knees. Set cards upon window-sill (in 
 crack between window and sill). Ran across with card. 
 Knees in chair and whirled around. Stooped and picked 
 up a card. Ran with it across the room; repeated 15 
 times. Turned around and swung his arm. Went up- 
 stairs to third story with hands in pockets. Walked 
 around, raised his arm to touch things on table. Went 
 down-stairs with considerable enthusiasm. Skipped across 
 the hall. Stooped, picked up leggins. Went up-stairs. 
 Went down-stairs. Scuffed around swinging his arms (not 
 angry, just steam working off). Ran up-stairs. Sat down 
 at table and twirled a box around. Lay down on couch. 
 Ran across hall and part way down- stairs. Lay down flat 
 on landing. Got up. Stooped half-way. Ran across 
 room. Sat down on floor to put on shoe. Buttoned one 
 shoe. Lay on couch swinging feet in air. Hanging 
 from hands and feet between two articles of furniture. 
 Got on head of couch and slid down on his abdomen. 
 Pulled on other shoe. Rolled to sitting posture on the 
 floor. Sat on couch. Slid to floor again. Lay with feet 
 up, looking at shadows cast by his performance. Ran 
 across hall and down-stairs and opened door. Climbed 
 into chair, swung his feet. 
 
PLAY AND PHYSICAL GROWTH 157 
 
 If in that exercise all the body movements 
 could have been put together, and all the arm 
 flexions together, it would have been exceed- 
 ingly fatiguing. The way in which the child 
 combines a variety of movements when he is 
 playing freely gives the greatest amount of ex- 
 ercise with the least amount of fatigue. He is 
 in constant motion, but the motion is always 
 changing. This is in sharp contrast to the 
 methods employed in our school gymnastics. 
 There all the motions of one kind are performed 
 in rapid succession; no method is more fatigu- 
 ing than this. Moreover, the new neuro-mus- 
 cular adjustments, which are acquired even more 
 surely during rest following action than during 
 action itself, are obtained much more readily 
 through the method of play than through that 
 of the gymnasium. 
 
 Here is a record of the muscular movements 
 of a boy two and a half years old the exercise 
 taken in an ordinary day, without suggestion or 
 stimulation. 
 
 8:00 A. M. 
 
 Child was sitting down 15 minutes, playing (arm move- 
 ments only). He stood up, sat down in new position, 16 
 arm movements, 4 bendings from waist. Stood up, 
 stooped twice picking up toys. Sat down, 3 arm move- 
 ments, 2 bendings; 4 arm movements, 1 bending. Stood 
 up, stooped over. Sat down, 3 arm movements, 1 bending, 
 
158 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 3 arm movements. Threw ball across the room. Stood 
 up, 3 arm movements. Walked few steps, 6 arm move- 
 ments. Walked 8 steps, 2 arm movements. Picked up 
 block, sat down, 2 arm movements, 1 bending. Stood up, 
 1 bending, 2 arm movements. Sat down, 1 bending, 6 arm 
 movements, 1 bending. Stood up, walked 10 steps. 
 Stooped, walked back 10 steps, 3 arm movements. 
 Walked 2 steps, stooped, 2 arm movements, 1 bending. 
 Walked 3 steps, stooped, 2 arm movements. Walked 6 
 steps, stooped, 2 arm movements. Sat down, 3 arm move- 
 ments, 1 bending, 1 arm movement. Threw block, 1 arm 
 movement, 1 bending, 4 arm movements, 1 bending, 2 arm 
 movements, 1 bending, 1 arm movement, 1 bending, 4 
 arm movements, 2 bendings, 1 arm movement, 4 leg move- 
 ments. Stood up, 1 arm movement. Walked 3 steps, 1 
 bending, 3 arm movements; walked 5 steps, stooped, 2 arm 
 movements. Walked 5 steps, stooped, 4 arm movements. 
 Walked across the room, 3 arm movements. Walked 
 across room twice, 2 arm movements. Walked across the 
 room again, 6 arm movements. Stooped, 5 arm move- 
 ments, 3 leg movements. Walked 6 steps, 2 arm move- 
 ments. 
 
 Climbed on mother's lap and off again. Walked several 
 steps, stooped, picked up toy. Walked back, 2 arm move- 
 ments. Leaned against mother, swaying back and forth. 
 Walked a few steps, stood rocking from side to side 14 
 times. Sat down; 7 arm movements, 3 leg movements, 
 
 4 bendings. Stood up. Walked 7 steps, 4 arm move- 
 ments. Ran across room and back, swinging one arm. 
 Stooped. Took 6 steps, 1 arm movement, 4 steps, 8 arm 
 movements. Ran across room and back, 1 arm move- 
 ment. Sat on table, 4 arm movements, 4 leg movements, 
 
 1 bending, 1 arm movement. 1 bending, 1 arm movement, 
 4 leg movements, 2 arm movements, 1 bending, 1 arm 
 movement, 1 leg movement, 3 arm movements, 1 bending, 
 
 2 arm movements, 1 bending, 4 arm movements, 1 bend- 
 ing, 7 arm movements, 1 leg movement, 1 bending, 5 arm 
 movements, 2 leg movements, 3 arm movements, 2 bend- 
 
PLAY AND PHYSICAL GROWTH 159 
 
 ings, 5 arm movements, 2 bendings, 3 arm movements 3 
 leg movements. 
 
 Sat on mother's lap, 11 arm movements, 1 bending, 2 
 arm movements, 1 bending, 1 arm movement, 1 bending, 
 1 arm movement. Got down on floor. Walked across 
 room 4 times, 3 arm movements. Sat down, 3 arm move- 
 ments. Stood up. Walked 5 steps, crouched down 5 
 times. Picked up blocks and threw them across the room. 
 Walked 8 steps. Swayed 6 times, 10 steps, crouched 
 down. Stood up, 4 steps, 2 arm movements. Ran across 
 room and back, 1 arm movement. Crawled over mother's 
 lap as she sat on the floor; 3 steps, 2 arm movements. 
 Ran across room and back, 2 arm movements. Ran across 
 room, stooped. Came back, 4 arm movements, 7 steps, 
 3 arm movements. 1 bending, 2, arm movements. 
 Crossed room, came back, 6 arm movements. Ran length 
 of two rooms twice. Sat down, playing with blocks, 9 
 arm movements. Stood up, 4 steps. Picked up block. 
 Walked back. Sat down, 4 arm movements, 1 arm move- 
 ment, 1 bending, 2 bendings. Stood up, took 30 steps. 
 Picked up blocks. Sat down, 1 bending, 4 arm move- 
 ments, 1 bending, 2 arm movements, 1 bending. Stood 
 up. Took 5 steps. Swayed back and forth. Ran across 
 two rooms and back, 1 arm movement. Walked across 
 room, pulling little wagon. Came back length of two rooms, 
 6 times, swinging arms. 
 
 Sat down, spinning little wheel, 18 arm movements. 
 Stood up. Walked 13 steps, 11 arm movements. Walked 
 length of two rooms, 9 arm movements. Walked length 
 of two rooms and back, 5 arm movements. Took 
 a book, turning over the pages, 4 arm movements. 
 Walked across room. Ran across two rooms. Sat down, 
 swinging arm 17 times. Stood up, 3 arm movements. 
 Walked across room and back. Sat down, 2 arm move- 
 ments. Climbed on lap, down again. Walked length of 
 two rooms and back. Walked length of two rooms and 
 back. Ran across room twice. Ran across room, 3 
 arm movements, 1 bending. Ran across two rooms, 2 
 
160 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 arm movements. Ran across two rooms, 3 arm move- 
 ments. 
 
 For next ten minutes was walking or running about, 
 without sitting down or doing anything in particular. For 
 10 minutes he sat on table, using only arm movements. 
 Then he climbed flight of 14 steps. Was put to bed for a 
 nap. Took 45 minutes to go to sleep. Half that time he 
 was rolling or creeping over the bed. Slept two hours. 
 
 Woke and had dinner. This took 25 minutes, during 
 which time only arm movements were used. Sat on floor 
 for 27 minutes, Turk-fashion, using arm movements and 
 bendings from waist (about one arm movement in 3 
 seconds). Then he climbed flight of stairs again, was 
 brought down and dressed to go out. This took 10 min- 
 utes and all that time he was squirming. (No other word 
 will express it.) 
 
 Went out for \Y^ hours. For J^ hour of this time he 
 was visiting at another home, and was walking and run- 
 ning about the whole time. As soon as he returned home, 
 he sat on the floor, playing with blocks, all arm move- 
 ments, except an occasional leg movement in changing 
 position. Stood up, swaying from side to side. Walked 
 across room. Picked up 20 blocks, stooping for each one 
 and placing it on the sofa 3 steps away. Piled them above 
 his head, reaching as high as he could. Walked half across 
 the room, pulled a chair away from the table and pushed 
 it back. Pushed another five feet. Walked around it, 
 then around the room. Picked up 2 blocks and then threw 
 them down. Walked about 4 feet to a chair and rocked it 
 12 or 13 times. Ran the length of room, knelt down, sat 
 down, building up blocks. Stood up. Ran length of 
 room and to a chair, played with toys on it, using arm 
 movements. Ran across room and back. Picked up one 
 toy, carrying it into next room. Repeated this twice. 
 Walked around large table. Walked length of two rooms 
 3 times. Walked around in a circle. Leaned against 
 mother, swinging back and forth 3 times. Walked twice 
 around mother, stooped 3 times to pick up blocks, rolling 
 
PLAY AND PHYSICAL GROWTH 161 
 
 them down inclined plane. Picked up 10 more, stooped each 
 time, and threw them as far as he could. Walked 7 steps. 
 Picked up 8 blocks, throwing them down. Walked across 
 room 3 times, picking up a block each time. Walked 
 across room. Picked up 2 blocks. Walked back, laid 
 them in box. Repeated this 4 times. Climbed on lap 
 and off. Put hands together and swayed up and down 
 
 3 times. Climbed on lap and down again. Walked 
 length of room 6 times. 
 
 Sat down. Stood up. Walked across room twice. 
 Took blocks, 2 at a time, from sofa and threw them on the 
 floor. Sat down. Stood up. Walked across room. Lay 
 on his back for 2 minutes, kicking and rolling over. Sat 
 on table 18 minutes; there were few leg movements during 
 this time, but arm movements and bendings or swayings 
 from his hips were continuous. Sat on lap 7 minutes, 
 arm movements only. Got down on floor, ran around 
 table, rocked large chair back and forth 17 times. Sat 
 down. Stood up. Sat down. Stood up. Put head on 
 lap as mother sat on floor, making an arch of his body. Sat 
 down. Stood up. Walked across room. Walked about 
 
 4 minutes. Sat down, playing with blocks for 6 minutes 
 (all arm and hip movements). Stood up and piled up 
 some blocks, stooping 6 times. Stooped 6 times, lifting 
 lid off box and letting it fall again. Ran around room. 
 Picked up toy horn and blew it 4 times. Climbed on lap. 
 Slid down. Played with doll 1 minute. Walked 6 steps. 
 Picked up box, put block in and shook box until block fell 
 out. Did this twice. Ran across room 15 times. Ran 
 across room 4 times. Ran around room twice, then across 
 twice. Picked up ball and threw it. Did same with an- 
 other toy. Walked a few steps. Picked up 3 toys and 
 set them on the floor. Sat down. Stood up. Walked 
 to corner and picked up several things. Walked back. 
 Sat down for 1 minute. Walked to bookcase twice (10 
 steps each way) . Pulled out 4 books and put them back. 
 Sat down. Played with toys 2 minutes. 
 
 At supper (15 minutes), arm movements only. Was 
 
162 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 put to bed. For an hour was hardly still a minute, creep- 
 ing and rolling about, sitting up and throwing himself back 
 on mattress. 
 
 The length and width of each room was about 15 feet. 
 Usually in crossing room, the child went only 12 feet of the 
 length or width of the room. In going around the room he 
 went 21 feet. 
 
 These are ordinary, not extraordinary, ex- 
 amples of the physical exercise taken by the 
 average child in his play. We need to have 
 brought to our remembrance the amount and 
 kind of movements that children undertake 
 freely, in order to realize how inadequate are the 
 usual school gymnastics of fifteen to twenty 
 minutes per day in giving the kind of exercise 
 that the organism needs for development. 
 
 The progression of plays from one year to the 
 next as the individual grows in maturity coin- 
 cides with and helps to develop the entire mus- 
 cular and nervous systems. The games played 
 at twelve involve more muscular power than 
 those played at seven. This can be clearly seen 
 in the chart of Anglo-Saxon play. Not every 
 game involves more muscular power than the 
 one preceding it; some, marbles, for instance, 
 require little muscular power. But in general 
 a distinct progression can be noticed. Foot- 
 ball, basket-ball, cricket, hockey, shinney, polo 
 demand more physical strength than the baby 
 or the little boy possesses. 
 
PLAY AND PHYSICAL GROWTH 163 
 
 There is also a progression in speed. Notice 
 the demand for speed in baseball, basket-ball, 
 football, cricket, or lacrosse. These games all 
 require instant response. Consider, for instance, 
 the length of time that the baseball batter has 
 to decide whether he will hit the ball or not, 
 after it leaves the pitcher's hand. The ball 
 must go about one-third or one-half the dis- 
 tance, between twenty or thirty feet, before the 
 man can begin to decide. He must judge the 
 curve of the ball and the speed and direction it 
 will have when it reaches him. He must send 
 out stimuli to the muscles that control the bal- 
 ancing of his body; as he strikes, he must bend 
 forward and then run. He must adjust the 
 knees, the back, and the pelvis. The ball is 
 going at the rate of almost sixty feet in a second. 
 It will reach the space where he must do his 
 batting in less than a second. Compare the 
 speed and precision demanded of the player 
 with the muscular adjustment of the baby. 
 Compare it even with that demanded in the 
 games of the small boy, like "One old cat," 
 which does not require instantaneous reaction. 
 The difference in speed makes baseball a dif- 
 ferent game. 
 
 There is also growth in the amount of en- 
 durance demanded in play. One of the interest- 
 ing facts in those records of the movements of 
 
164 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 small children is the brief length of time given 
 to any particular activity. A baby six months 
 old will go over all his plays several times a day 
 if he has the opportunity, and he will play the 
 same plays the next day, each one of them a 
 little at a time. To keep a baby playing at the 
 same thing for two or three hours is foolish and 
 cruel, but to let a man play three minutes four 
 times a day is just as foolish. The man has de- 
 veloped power, and growth of power means ab- 
 sorption for long periods of time. 
 
 The pulses of interest observed in the seasonal 
 rotation of plays increase in length with growth. 
 Early in the teens three months is about the 
 length of consecutive interest and absorbing 
 effort. Frequently it is less than that time and 
 a change is demanded sooner. As he grows older 
 the things which interest a boy remain of interest 
 for a longer period. A pulse of interest in elec- 
 tricity may last for two or three years. The 
 play interests differ in no fundamental respect 
 from these other interests expressed in art, 
 literature, and some work. Formerly I was dis- 
 turbed by the fact that after about three months' 
 work of a particular kind I was no longer in- 
 tensely interested in the task. But I discovered 
 that periods of recurring interest always come to 
 unfinished jobs. The forcing of original, vital 
 
PLAY AND PHYSICAL GROWTH 165 
 
 work beyond the period of interest is a great 
 mistake. It tends toward the killing of fer- 
 tility. That is the lesson of the recurrence of 
 plays. 
 
 Enormous growth in the complexity of co- 
 ordinations is also shown in the play progression. 
 A small baby that cannot yet sit up learns first 
 to hold its head, then to use its back. After a 
 while it learns to take hold of objects, and finally 
 follows the intensely interesting operation of 
 learning how to throw. Very early it discovers 
 its mouth, and learns to carry the hand to the 
 mouth. It acquires conscious control of the 
 hands. I remember the first time a baby of 
 mine acquired the ability to hold and drop ob- 
 jects. The child was in a high chair and had a 
 silver spoon on the tray. She took the spoon and 
 dropped it to the floor. I picked it up and put 
 it back on the tray; the baby dropped it again. 
 The baby did this seventy -nine times without 
 stopping; she was learning about falling things. 
 After that she experimented similarly for a time 
 with everything she could lay hands on. But 
 before long she passed on to other activities. 
 Learning to use a knife and fork is an achieve- 
 ment built on previous attainments. The sta- 
 bility, the power, the speed, the complexity of 
 the later plays are built on the earlier ones. 
 
166 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 Play reflects the muscular co-ordinations of the 
 child at the time; it also assists in developing 
 them. 
 
 Far more important for the child's best 
 growth than any muscular development, or 
 than any increase in strength, speed and com- 
 plexity of movements, is vitality. In this all- 
 around toning up of the physical system, play has 
 one of its greatest contributions to make to our 
 modern society. We have not yet learned how 
 to obtain vitality from city living. City stock 
 tends all the time to dwindle in resistance and 
 recuperative power. In past generations it 
 has had to be replenished by a constant inflow of 
 strong country stock; and the conditions which 
 have made that necessary in the past are even 
 more in evidence to-day. Our industrial life 
 lacks balance; it gives no roundness of develop- 
 ment. 
 
 Everything conspires to bring the city-born 
 child upon the stage of life with an oversensitive 
 nervous system and an undertoned physique. 
 This is an entirely logical result of city conditions 
 as they now are. No amount of medical pro- 
 tection, of sanitary legislation, can make good 
 this depletion of vitality. It can only be rem- 
 edied by providing for the inhabitants of the 
 city, most of all during their years of growth, 
 
PLAY AND PHYSICAL GROWTH 167 
 
 the opportunities of all-around physical develop- 
 ment such as have heretofore been found only 
 outside its bounds. The city child needs a mus- 
 cular system built up along the broad general 
 lines of an unspecialized life, the sort of life his 
 ancestors have known; and since this is not pro- 
 vided naturally in the midst of the artificiality 
 of the city, it must be provided artificially. 
 
 We have begun to recognize the importance of 
 muscles in the normal growth of personality. 
 The nervous system and the muscular system 
 are so vitally interrelated in the carrying on of 
 all life's central activities, that to educate the 
 former without at the same time making pro- 
 vision for the latter is fools' economy. All the 
 most characteristic strains of modern civiliza- 
 tion fall upon the nervous system. Yet it is 
 the latest system of the body, biologically speak- 
 ing, to reach its full complexity of development; 
 and it is the part most easily shattered. The 
 city forces the nervous system, like a plant in a 
 greenhouse forced into flower before its natural 
 time; and if an equilibrium is not in some way 
 re-established, the undue pressure upon the func- 
 tions least able to endure strain is likely to bring 
 disaster. A tower needs foundation. 
 
 The demands of a city child's daily programme 
 develop his physique only in partial and one- 
 
168 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 sided ways. He has no trees to climb, no swim- 
 ming-hole to duck into, no garden to hoe, no 
 wood to saw. He has no space available for 
 playing the big all-around games, such as 
 baseball and hockey. His hand may acquire 
 skill in the manipulation of delicate things, his 
 senses become precociously sharpened, his wits 
 quickened and refined; but his body does not 
 get its dues. 
 
 Out of 78,401 public school children examined 
 in one year in New York City, 58,259 were found 
 to be in need of medical attention. That does 
 not speak very hopefully for the physical calibre 
 of the next generation. And if the next genera- 
 tion is to fail us, our schools costing millions of 
 dollars a year have no object. These schools 
 look only toward the future; they are carried 
 forward on the assumption that there is to be 
 a generation more capable and a future richer 
 than the past. 
 
 The routine physical training of the school will 
 not help us much in this particular situation. 
 The aim of this feature of our curriculum is to 
 correct certain evils that necessarily result from 
 the special conditions of the schoolroom the 
 bent back, the eye-strain, the shallow breath- 
 ing, the mental fatigue. But schoolroom gym- 
 nastics can hardly reach farther than that aim. 
 
PLAY AND PHYSICAL GROWTH 169 
 
 Even at their best they are hopelessly far from 
 meeting the deeper physical needs of the child, 
 needs which reach so far into the child's inner 
 constitution that it would be quite as appropri- 
 ate to call them spiritual needs. For from their 
 very nature, school gymnastics must be formal, 
 almost mechanical, giving little scope to the im- 
 agination, and appealing but slightly to the 
 child's hungry instincts. 
 
 In order then to supply our city children with 
 the opportunity for healthy, spontaneous, free 
 growth from within, we must give them a 
 chance to play. Play is nature's preparation 
 for the business of later life. It finds its roots 
 in the remote past when man lived by hunting 
 and climbing and fighting; it looks forward to 
 the time when each boy and girl must shoulder 
 responsibilities the care of the home, the con- 
 flicts of business and of politics. It sums up 
 and it anticipates. It is life itself in miniature 
 not the narrow specialized life of the me- 
 chanic, salesman, clothes finisher, or account- 
 ant, but the broad, simple, diversified life of a 
 more primitive humanity. 
 
 Play is the only equivalent that can replace 
 the inheritance which the child has lost. It is 
 the whole of the child that is called into action 
 here: muscle, imagination, and moral force. 
 
170 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 The response to these varied demands upon him 
 is made eagerly, passionately, without any 
 thought of obedience to authority. Play makes 
 an instinctive appeal to every child. 
 
 We are learning that we have not paid all 
 our debt to the future when we have established 
 for our children protection against disease and 
 given them the usual school education. Equally 
 imperative is it that we should provide for the 
 development from within of vitality and power 
 of resistance. Healthy play does that, and it 
 does even more; it stimulates and co-ordinates 
 the growth of the entire muscular and nervous 
 systems, in strength, in complexity and speed 
 of adjustment, in endurance; and it accom- 
 plishes these results in the only way that is 
 finally effective the way of joyous self-expres- 
 sion. 
 
nr 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 PLAY AND EDUCATION 
 
 HE spontaneous development of the 
 child's interests as shown in play va- 
 ries in many particulars from the con- 
 sciously directed development given by our mod- 
 ern type of education. Take, for instance, the 
 interest shown by the high school or college 
 boy in football. If he is a healthy, normal 
 boy, during the football season he is interested 
 in that game to the exclusion of almost every- 
 thing else. If he sits down to study, ideas of 
 football keep crowding in. He will dream foot- 
 ball. He will lose his self -consciousness com- 
 pletely in the consciousness of the team on which 
 he plays. He will go to bed thinking how to 
 make a certain play, and he will sit in school 
 working out plans for accomplishing certain 
 moves in the game. That part of his mind con- 
 cerned with football grows tremendously out of 
 all proportion to the actual amount of time spent 
 on the subject. Then the interest in football 
 drops, and in the spring comes baseball. Base- 
 ball now becomes his major interest and colors 
 all his thoughts. 
 
 171 
 
172 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 It is not merely a question of an interest in 
 physical activity overshadowing an intellectual 
 interest. There is a principle here which may 
 be used to great advantage in intellectual work 
 as well. At about the age of eleven one of my 
 daughters became much interested in birds. 
 She was led to make a careful study of the birds 
 in the neighborhood of our home; books treat- 
 ing of them were procured for her. She worked 
 out much information from an encyclopaedia. 
 She accomplished surprising results which were 
 out of proportion to the small amount of time 
 actually spent on the subject. A father read 
 to his daughter, who had barely reached the 
 age when she could read herself, an interesting 
 child's book on astronomy. She became greatly 
 interested, and her father furnished her with 
 the necessary books on astronomy. The child 
 went through several heavy volumes before that 
 pulse of interest was exhausted, although she 
 had to use a dictionary with almost as much 
 frequency as if she were studying a foreign 
 language. As a special favor she was allowed on 
 certain nights to sit up late enough to see the 
 stars. She obtained a map of the sky and puz- 
 zled out constellation after constellation. Then 
 her interest stopped rather suddenly and was 
 never again revived with equal strength. How- 
 
PLAY AND EDUCATION 173 
 
 ever, in that short time she had acquired a 
 knowledge of astronomy of some extent and of 
 much greater permanency than anything she 
 learned in school that year. 
 
 A high school boy became interested in trac- 
 ing out his genealogy. Both his father's 'and 
 his mother's lines were peculiarly rich in illus- 
 trious ancestors. His interest lasted for two 
 years. During that time he acquired such 
 minute knowledge of detailed history, running 
 back to the Middle Ages, that on two occasions 
 he was asked to lecture to a university class on 
 the social customs, family relations, and inti- 
 mate personal history of certain epochs. He 
 pushed certain lines of genealogy farther back 
 than any one else had carried them, and could 
 speak with such authority that he was asked to 
 give his results for publication. He filled his 
 rooms with coats-of-arms painted by himself, 
 and in one year his Christmas presents to his 
 friends consisted almost entirely of these. Then 
 his interest dropped, and he went on to other 
 activities. 
 
 These are merely extreme examples of what 
 frequently happens in connection with the in- 
 tellectual interests of boys and girls. A boy 
 who becomes filled with a desire to find out about 
 electricity, who is given a shop room and al- 
 
174 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 lowed to make bells, telegraph connections, and 
 various appliances, obtains a technical knowledge 
 of the subject which is far more extended and 
 permanent than any which the school system of 
 education has yet succeeded in giving its pupils. 
 Nor can it be claimed that the knowledge thus 
 gained and the mental development secured 
 pass with the pulse of interest. Let any one of 
 us become immersed in a subject, think in it, and 
 live in it, and then stop for a while. When 
 next he approaches the subject, he will find that 
 he has greater power and skill than before. A 
 man who practised throwing balls kept a record 
 of his increase in skill. When he had practised 
 for six months, he stopped for six months. Then 
 when he tried again, in his first three or four 
 trials he did better than he had done at the end 
 of six months' practice. 
 
 That is the way the successful work of the 
 world is done, by pulses of interest, followed by 
 periods of relative inactivity with reference to 
 that interest. The great artistic feats of the 
 world have been performed by people who work 
 in that way. The great geniuses have contrib- 
 uted their work chiefly in periods of intense 
 application followed by periods of relative quiet. 
 
 We have not made extensive application of 
 this observation to our system of school in- 
 
PLAY AND EDUCATION 175 
 
 struction. If there are twenty subjects to be 
 mastered, we divide the time into twenty equal 
 parts and give equal time and emphasis to each. 
 The results may be seen in extreme form in the 
 following instance. A girl came to Pratt In- 
 stitute and applied for advanced standing in 
 geometry. The course there covered five rec- 
 itations a week. She said that she had studied 
 geometry for two years. ''You must have 
 covered much more work than we have," I said. 
 "What book did you use?" She did not re- 
 member the name of the book. She could not 
 remember one of the propositions, formulae, or 
 original problems. It appeared that she had 
 studied geometry for two years, twenty minutes 
 a week. Thus each period of interest was so 
 far removed from the next that there was no 
 cumulative effect. All the enthusiasm had been 
 taken out of the subject by dabbling in it. It 
 was like learning to play the piano or to swing 
 Indian clubs by spending twenty minutes a 
 week on practice. 
 
 The play curriculum gives us a most valuable 
 suggestion here. The play curriculum of chil- 
 dren beyond the age of babyhood does not have 
 its subjects divided equally with all the plays 
 pursued a little every day. It has a major and 
 one or two minors. The little child has indeed 
 
176 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 shorter pulses of interest; he goes the rounds of 
 his plays every day, and a little later in life 
 every few days. But a boy or girl of eight, ten, 
 or twelve years goes the round only once or 
 twice a year. In the teens the pulse of interest 
 may last one, two, or three years. These facts 
 would seem to have very important implications 
 for education. At present our school curricu- 
 lum is divided, not pedagogically nor psycho- 
 logically, but logically. Life interests are not so 
 divided. The division of subjects in the school 
 bears no resemblance to the spontaneous activi- 
 ties either of play or of life. Hence it tends 
 toward fatigue and loss of efficiency. 
 
 In play, the new games are related to new 
 dawning abilities. We find the boy wanting to 
 make machinery and the girl to make the smaller 
 articles of the household during the years when 
 the finger muscles and the nerve centres con- 
 trolling them are ripening. We should not 
 change this order. We waste time and effort if 
 we attempt to go counter to it. Some teachers 
 of gymnastics try to get minute co-ordinations 
 from children of an age when they are and should 
 be totally incompetent to give such co-ordina- 
 tions. Much effort is spent, and the child does 
 not succeed. I once determined that my chil- 
 dren should learn to swim at an early age. Be- 
 
PLAY AND EDUCATION 177 
 
 fore they could learn to walk I put water in the 
 bathtub, adding a little more every day, and 
 tried to teach them to swim. I wasted many 
 hours of my own time and my children's, and 
 they did not learn to swim. At about the age 
 of eight, they learned very easily, almost spon- 
 taneously. The reason for this may be that in 
 the early years of life the head is large in pro- 
 portion to the body, and that as the child grows 
 older the proportions change. Whatever the 
 theory, the fact remains that between eight and 
 ten years of age, children learn to swim with 
 ease. It is quite futile to try to teach children 
 at one age what they will learn of themselves 
 with great delight and rapidity a few years later. 
 The chief forces in play are instinct and tradi- 
 tion. Plays at various ages are based upon fun- 
 damental instinct feelings. They derive their 
 interest for the child from the fact that they 
 give him an opportunity for self-expression. 
 He does not merely go through the activities of 
 play; he chooses to go through them. Self- 1 
 expression is in itself pleasurable; it is also hi 
 itself educational. There is no reason why the 
 subjects of the school curriculum should not also 
 be so adapted to the dawning abilities of the child 
 as to call forth his free choice. An interest - v 
 pursued from choice has much more educational 
 
178 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 value, both in the extent and permanency of 
 knowledge gained, than has any subject to which 
 the child is driven. 
 
 There is, however, a force other than mere 
 instinct feeling which guides the choice of the 
 child in play. Play traditions furnish the form 
 in which the instinct feeling finds expression. 
 One child in a group does not play marbles while 
 another plays ball, and still another engages in a 
 different game. Similarly, it would not be neces- 
 sary in the schoolroom, in order that every child 
 might have free self-expression, to have each 
 study a different subject. What is necessary is 
 to provide for strong pulses of interest in subjects 
 related to the actual abilities of the child. The 
 group requirements may quite easily furnish 
 the actual social form which the subjects will 
 take, and will provide for many children studying 
 the same subject at the same time. 
 
 The reason for the great amount of truancy 
 and vagabondage during the school age is to be 
 found in the permanency of a wholesome juve- 
 nile nature, which has been suddenly plunged 
 into an environment entirely out of joint with 
 its instinct feelings. The remedy lies, not in a 
 fruitless attempt to change the nature of chil- 
 dren, or to turn back the wheels of a movement 
 which has changed their environment, but in an 
 
PLAY AND EDUCATION 179 
 
 intelligent constructive effort to adapt the new 
 environment to the children's needs. The needs 
 which are no longer provided for at home and 
 which are most definitely related to idleness and 
 vagabondage are those connected with suitable 
 conditions for work, play, recreation, and social 
 life. It is necessary that children learn the great 
 moral lessons involved in work. This points 
 toward the incorporation of a large industrial 
 feature into our conception of school. The 
 need is not merely or primarily that of furnish- 
 ing vocational training. It should be directed 
 rather toward developing a gradual participa- 
 tion in the real work of the world by the boys 
 and girls while they are in school. These ac- 
 tivities should be so invested with the character 
 of real life that the great moral habits will de- 
 velop from them naturally. 
 
 For the activities of play are not merely prep- 
 aration for life; they constitute actual living at 
 the time, and the process is a real one. This 
 same reality should be carried over into the 
 activities of school. Life in school should be 
 actual life in the stage at which the child finds 
 himself. School experiences should be not only 
 representative, but actual. The various definite 
 things learned by the child should be learned in 
 connection with an activity which is desirable in 
 
180 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 itself. Spelling is now taught incidentally, in 
 connection with writing. It becomes a means 
 to an activity which actually interests the child. 
 In some schools arithmetic is taught in connec- 
 tion with measurements of trees and other nat- 
 ural objects. In one of the New York schools 
 a year was given to the study of the city water 
 system. The boys were taken to visit the res- 
 ervoir; they learned the engineering, sanitary, 
 and geographical problems; they clamored for a 
 table of measurements which would enable them 
 to go more fully into the subject. 
 
 An inductive study of the spontaneous in- 
 terests of the child is worth while for education, 
 not merely or chiefly from the standpoint of 
 making school life pleasant for the child, but 
 because the really great intellectual achieve- 
 ments must be done from desire. Education is 
 accomplished largely by the child himself. In 
 the very earliest years the child learns of his own 
 initiative. His parents may spend time teach- 
 ing him to talk or walk, but the great bulk of 
 his learning is done by the child himself. He 
 learns by suggestion and imitation, based on 
 instinctive tendencies. Think of the labor that 
 would be involved in explaining to every child 
 how to smile. What frightful smiles we should 
 see ! Smiling and many similar achievements 
 
PLAY AND EDUCATION 181 
 
 are the result of spontaneous activity on the 
 part of the child, directed through selective 
 imitation in accordance with the traditions of 
 his kind. 
 
 The place of conscious direction in education 
 is to furnish the time, place, and materials which 
 will draw out the best interests of children. 
 We must build upon the child's instinctive ten- 
 dencies so that these shall blossom into the best 
 intellectual life, rather than drive the interests 
 by force at a time when we think them appropri- 
 ate. Now children seem to spend the years 
 from seven to twelve in accomplishing with 
 great difficulty achievements which are done 
 with ease a little later on. We take from the 
 children time that is needed for growth, for the 
 establishment of physical health and bodily 
 skill and the related intellectual activities, and 
 put it upon abstract subjects such as mathe- 
 matics and grammar, which are forgotten with 
 the greatest ease and rapidity. It is not the 
 place of conscious teaching to make children do 
 at a particular time with infinite pains what 
 they would do with delight at another time. 
 It is not the place of conscious processes to at 
 tempt to force the physical or mental education 
 of the child. It is our place to study the or- 
 derly development that nature adopts whenever 
 
 :, 
 
182 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 there is opportunity, and to relate our sub- 
 jects and habits of study to that development 
 so that the child shall be brought most easily 
 into sharing the best life of the past and pres- 
 ent. 
 
 In order to do this, a careful inductive study 
 of the spontaneous plays of children is necessary. 
 It is perhaps the most fundamental criticism 
 to be passed on Froebel's theory of play that he 
 made no inductive study of this kind. He was 
 keenly sensitive to the educational value of 
 play, and voiced new and epoch-making ideas. 
 But when he actually chose the plays for his 
 kindergarten, he did not study the spontaneous 
 plays that have gone on among children. He 
 thought out a theory of play, and made a cur- 
 riculum of various plays to produce certain 
 results. In consequence, many of the kinder- 
 garten plays do not go of themselves. They 
 are played only so long as the child is under the 
 direction of the teacher. They have not really 
 aroused the child's interest and desire. 
 
 It is said that repetition produces habit and 
 character, but we know that this is not true. 
 Desire produces habit. Making a boy brush 
 his teeth every morning for ten years will not 
 make him brush his teeth one more morning 
 if he does not wish to do it. Habits of action 
 
 AT;AK^ 
 
PLAY AND EDUCATION 
 
 183 
 
 and of thought are the result of the great in- 
 stinct feelings moulded by tradition until they 
 grow into the living structure of human char- 
 acter. Educators have repeatedly recognized 
 this fact when they have said that the end of 
 education was not to impart information, but 
 to arouse the desire for knowledge. But they 
 have not realized the full implication of this 
 statement. Desire is aroused only along the 
 line of the great instinct feelings, and it is 
 guided by group tradition. These are also the 
 forces dominant in the child's spontaneous play. 
 A careful study of the plays of children will 
 give valuable and authoritative suggestions for 
 the future development of education. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 PLAY AND MORAL GROWTH 
 
 THE spontaneous plays of children are 
 significant not alone from the standpoint 
 of their relation to the physical growth 
 of the child, but also from the standpoint of 
 his gradually growing social relations. From 
 this point of view the most noticeable fact about 
 the plays of the baby is their individualistic 
 character. During the first months of life 
 come the spontaneous kickings and all the great 
 body movements, which form the play life of 
 the growing infant. Then he progresses rapidly 
 to playing in more complicated ways. He learns 
 to pick up objects and drop them, to play with 
 sand, blocks, pieces of wood, sticks, anything on 
 which he can use his fingers. He will take de- 
 light in running from one place to' another, 
 tossing his arms about as he goes. Later he 
 acquires a desire to throw, and the possession 
 of a ball brings delight. Cutting with scissors 
 or a knife is the basis of a whole group of play 
 activities. Swinging and seesaw in various 
 forms begin to interest him. 
 
 184 
 
PLAY AND MORAL GROWTH 185 
 
 All these activities are individualistic, and 
 there is little if anything of the game character 
 about them. If very small children are in- 
 duced to engage in a game of tag, they show sur- 
 prisingly little desire to avoid being "it." I 
 have even known them to change quite volun- 
 tarily, one assuming the part of being "it" 
 when the other was tired. Games have a 
 definite programme and conclusion, which these 
 plays lack. Moreover, the earlier activities 
 are common not only to children, but to the 
 higher animals as well. 
 
 The early play period is devoted to the ac- 
 quirement of self-mastery in its simplest sense. 
 The child is then learning the fundamental 
 neuro-muscular co-ordinations, and is acquiring 
 a system of reflexes. This is to the baby an 
 intensely interesting process. He may have 
 no desire to do something better than another 
 baby has done, but he enjoys doing something 
 that he himself has done over and over again. 
 If the action of an adult has called forth some 
 new movement from a small child, the insistent 
 cry of "Do it again," is repeated until it becomes 
 a nightmare. The child is forming habits of 
 co-ordination. 
 
 This is the time for the acquirement of the 
 reflexes that are not only related to the best 
 
186 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 life of the child at the period, but those upon 
 which the righteousness of later life must be 
 built. I refer to such ' -.?, 
 
 obedience, care of the body, cleanliness. The 
 child must also learn to control his actions; he 
 is acquiring skill and mastery. Loyalty, de- 
 votion of the self to the whole, is of small worth 
 if there is no strong, well-managed self to devote. 
 
 Interest in the mastery of things and in the 
 increase of power remains throughout life. It 
 may be overshadowed by larger interests, but 
 it is never lost. A man who spends time later 
 in life learning to play the violin finds that a 
 large part of his enjoyment comes from the sense 
 of added dexterity which he gains. He can do 
 something new with his hands; and the sense 
 of additional power is very pleasant. People 
 who learn languages late in life have the same 
 feeling. Even the skill acquired in running a 
 new kind of motor may produce it. I did a little 
 reading in the mathematics of the fourth di- 
 mension; at first my mind refused utterly to 
 entertain the idea; it was confusing, unimagina- 
 ble. But when I began to master the concep- 
 tion, and to see what could be done with it, 
 the added insight was a great source of enjoy- 
 ment. My sense of the world was enlarged. 
 
 Power over one's self, whether it relates to 
 
PLAY AND MORAL GROWTH 187 
 
 strength of muscles, skill, endurance, mental 
 or moral achievement, is a source of joy. To be 
 able to ride a horse or a bicycle, or walk a tight- 
 rope, to swing Indian clubs three-fourths time 
 with one hand and two-fourths with the other 
 these are small sources of pleasure, but very 
 real ones; and they have a direct connection 
 with moral development. The same growth 
 through new achievements will be found in 
 the baby's play activities. He is acquiring the 
 mastery of his physical mechanism: this is re- 
 lated to all self-control. 
 
 After mastery of the self comes the competi- 
 tive period, which means the mastery of others. 
 This period begins at different ages with dif- 
 ferent individuals; seven is perhaps nearest the 
 average age. At that time it is no longer suffi- 
 cient for the boy to throw a stone better than 
 he himself has thrown it before; he wants to 
 throw it farther and straighter than the other 
 boy. This is the beginning of competitive 
 games not team games, but those involving 
 competition of one individual with another. 
 
 The great group of complex tag plays has its 
 place here. The ball games, of which the most 
 common are "One old cat" and "Rounders"; 
 the marble games, varying in details all over 
 the country; racing in its various forms, throw- 
 
188 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 ing in competition, jumping and pole-vaulting 
 in competition, and the whole group of track 
 and field sports acquire interest at this age. 
 There are many throwing and running games 
 not included on the chart, because of the lack 
 of space: "Duck on the rock," "Puss in the 
 corner," "Blind man's buff," "Leap-frog," 
 "Mumble the peg." These interests are not 
 lost in after-life, though they are in many re- 
 spects overshadowed by the great team games. 
 A comparison of the intensity of interest felt 
 in most colleges concerning track athletics and 
 the football team will illustrate this fact. 
 
 A friend of mine made a trip to the South. 
 During his stay there he won a tennis cham- 
 pionship. When I saw him on his return there 
 were matters of serious import to discuss; he 
 was president of the Public Schools Athletic 
 League and one of the prominent lawyers of 
 the city. But the first fact he mentioned, 
 which evidently gave him great joy, was that 
 he had won a tennis championship when he 
 was twenty -five years older than any of his com- 
 petitors. This zest in competition continues 
 to old age, under many forms. Even scholar- 
 ship is not merely the abstract pursuit of learn- 
 ing; it takes account of competition and the 
 superiority of one individual over another. 
 
PLAY AND MORAL GROWTH 189 
 
 This group represents higher interests than 
 those which come at an earlier age; there are 
 more complex intellectual activities involved, 
 more complicated muscular movements, a higher 
 degree of foresight. Many of the movements 
 of this group lead to reflexes of a high order. 
 The effect of tradition begins to make its ap- 
 pearance here, for play has become social in 
 character. The particular games played may 
 vary greatly, far more than do the activities 
 of the first group. The tradition of the group 
 of boys determines the direction that the in- 
 terest of the individual shall take. 
 
 The morality developed during the years of 
 competition is legal, individual, combative. 
 The greatest indignation is felt by the small 
 boy in that period at any one who violates his 
 rights, who will not play by the rules of the 
 game, who fails to observe the law of justice. 
 For him it is "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a 
 tooth." If a boy punches him, it means a 
 punch back. That to him is right, inalienably 
 right. This is the Old Testament period. It 
 is not the time for self-sacrifice, but the time 
 for the establishment of justice. I do not mean 
 that there should be no co-operation or courtesy 
 during this time, because these must begin in 
 babyhood and continue throughout life; but 
 
190 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 the great achievement that must happen during 
 those years is the setting of the moral back- 
 bone. This is fair and that is not fair; this 
 is cheating and that is not cheating. 
 
 A boy's sense of fair play is at this period 
 his most precious moral asset, and few boys 
 lack this sense. It must be developed and 
 emphasized most strongly at this time. We 
 occasionally meet persons in whom many of 
 the later virtues of self-sacrifice and yielding 
 to the group have never been balanced by this 
 earlier sense of fundamental honor and fairness. 
 They have no beliefs to hold, no conception 
 of what constitutes justice; their attitude to- 
 ward life is one of continuous concession to 
 everything. To live wholly for others is im- 
 possible, because we must eat, sleep, and ob- 
 tain clothing. A man who does not live for 
 himself, to a certain extent, cannot live for his 
 family or his community. In the same way, a 
 man who has not acquired a firm concept of 
 justice and simple honesty cannot make up for 
 this deficiency by any of the more complex 
 virtues. He lacks the moral fibre that makes a 
 strong, well-balanced character. 
 
 There is, however, a more comprehensive 
 morality that comes in with the team games. 
 Here enters the element of devotion to the 
 
PLAY AND MORAL GROWTH 191 
 
 whole, of loyalty to a group. It begins at about 
 the age of twelve, although, in this case also, 
 there are individual variations. As a rule, it 
 is quite futile to plan team games for the years 
 from seven to twelve. Basket-ball played by 
 small children is not team-play. Every one 
 wants to put the ball into the basket himself. 
 The age at which the boy will take another 
 boy's punishment without telling, when he will 
 surrender his own will to the will of the gang, 
 is the age at which a wider morality is begin- 
 ning, although the symptoms of it are not always 
 lovely. The boy who will go back on his 
 crowd is setting himself against the most pro- 
 found ethical impulse that these years can de- 
 velop. This may not be subtle ethics; but it is 
 a fundamental and primary fact. 
 
 Team-work is the keynote of this group of 
 games. And team-work is very different from 
 simple co-operation, as any boy who has played 
 on a team knows. A game in which every 
 boy plays as well as he can, but without sacri- 
 ficing himself for the good of the whole, is not 
 team-work. Rowing, even when done by a 
 group, is not team-work in its most complex 
 sense. One member does not suffer loss in 
 order that his side may win. The sacrifice-hit 
 in baseball is one instance of the kind of play 
 
192 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 demanded for the good of the team. The mem- 
 bers of the group work for the same end, but 
 they do not all do the same thing. Co-ordina- 
 tion and self-sacrifice are the two major ele- 
 ments of this group of games. These games 
 also involve the pursuit of a distant end by 
 means of definite steps, in a more or less definite 
 programme. They involve obedience to a 
 leader, even when he is mistaken. They involve 
 also a higher form of self-mastery than any pre- 
 ceding group, for they demand the despising 
 of pain and individual discomfort for the sake 
 of the cause. These qualities are the begin- 
 ning of the altruism on which a complex civiliza- 
 tion must depend. 
 
 A study made of some children who had been 
 brought up apart from others and had never 
 learned to play team games showed some 
 significant facts. They were children of mis- 
 sionaries living with their parents in foreign 
 lands. Their home environment was of the 
 best, but having had no other children with 
 whom they could play, they had played only 
 with their parents. When the period of for- 
 eign residence had extended to sixteen years for 
 any child, it was observed that he did not un- 
 derstand the significance of team-play. These 
 children did not learn the tremendous lesson of 
 
PLAY AND MORAL GROWTH 193 
 
 the subordination of the individual to the group. 
 They had learned the lessons of individual 
 righteousness, but had failed to acquire ideas 
 of social righteousness, which do not come 
 through studying a book, but through tradi- 
 tion brought to fruition by action. 
 
 One of the great lessons that boys must learn 
 is that there is something larger than the in- 
 dividual self. It is pleasant when playing 
 basket-ball to make a brilliant play for oneself; 
 it is pleasant to be the hero who makes the 
 home run in baseball. But no team that is 
 made up of individuals looking for their own 
 glory ever wins in any of the great collegiate 
 sports any more than a community can suc- 
 ceed where each citizen works solely for per- 
 sonal interest. This lesson the boy must learn 
 by experience; and he learns it, partly at 
 least, in playing a team game. If a boy plays 
 baseball and does not know the difference be- 
 tween playing for himself and playing for the 
 team, his mates will teach him very promptly 
 and with more energy than any other method 
 could provide. 
 
 For play not only expresses the growing moral 
 standards of the boy, it is also a great force in 
 the development of these standards. The so- 
 cial traditions expressed by the play of a group 
 
194 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 of boys has a far more powerful effect in deter- 
 mining the standards of individual members 
 than has parental authority or reasoning. The 
 team games develop respect for law, in a rudi- 
 mentary form, to be sure, but in a form capable 
 of growth. The boy that is caught cheating 
 or lying to his own crowd is ostracized. He 
 may lie to others, to his teachers or parents, 
 but he cannot lie to his mates with impunity. 
 The boy learns then that while it is very desira- 
 ble to win, it is worse to win and forfeit public 
 favor than not to win at all. The essential 
 rules, even of later life, are not written in the 
 statute-books; they are expressed in public 
 opinion. 
 
 When the instinct for the gang develops, par- 
 tisanship may become very violent. This may 
 take various forms. There may be clubs or 
 secret societies. But whatever the form of the 
 combination, the gang is the group of boys 
 who hang together, who sink their individuality 
 in the crowd, who will all fight together if any 
 member is attacked, who do for the group 
 what they would not do for themselves; they 
 feel an allegiance to a cause greater than they 
 themselves. Boys' gangs may very well do 
 better than to fight the policemen, as they do 
 in the city of New York. But whether its oc- 
 
PLAY AND MORAL GROWTH 195 
 
 cupations are good or bad with reference to so- 
 ciety, from the standpoint of the gang itself 
 loyalty is the fundamental virtue. 
 
 This loyalty developed out of play relations 
 and enforced through play traditions may or 
 may not grow into a wider altruism truly moral 
 in that it is truly and completely social. The 
 direction of development will depend largely 
 upon the nature of the group traditions trans- 
 mitted through play. Here is the opportunity 
 for the teacher who can come into play as a 
 member, rather than as a director. When 
 Judge Lindsey put his arm about a boy and 
 went out to find what the shack was that the 
 boy wanted, and for which he stole the lumber, 
 and why he wanted the sand he gave some- 
 thing besides sympathy, although that was 
 profound; there was something else than be- 
 lief in the boy, although that was fundamental. 
 If I understand that boy at all, there arose in 
 him a consciousness that he had come into 
 "playing the game" with the man. 
 
 There is great need in the guidance of free 
 play for teachers who know what play is, who 
 understand the force of the instinct feelings in- 
 volved and the way in which play traditions 
 are formed. Forced play does not change 
 character. Free play, even though there be 
 
196 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 an adult playing, has the power of modifying 
 character profoundly. And the master of the 
 school who can go out on the grounds and play 
 genuinely with his boys, and be the medium of 
 carrying high athletic traditions, is moulding 
 instinct feeling into the fine form of character. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 INSTINCT AND TRADITION IN PLAY 
 
 IT is a striking fact that games built on the 
 same fundamental instinct feelings differ 
 among different nations. Even in the case 
 of two peoples as closely related as the Eng- 
 lish and the American we find this difference. 
 Cricket and soccer football are typical English 
 games, baseball and American football typical 
 American games. Soccer football is the open 
 game in which the ball is kicked, and it is differ- 
 ent from our football. Cricket and baseball 
 also differ, not merely in superficial rules, but 
 in the type of play demanded. The ball is in 
 both cases of the same shape. Both games are 
 played on a flat turf. The difference is not 
 physiological. In both games we have the ac- 
 tivities of running, catching, and striking. Both 
 depend upon the ability to throw hard and 
 straight, to judge quickly, and to make accurate 
 muscular co-ordinations. 
 
 The first noticeable characteristic of a cricket 
 match to an American is the length of time it 
 takes. The movement of cricket is slow; a 
 
 197 
 
198 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 good match is never played in a day. One 
 person may make a hundred runs. The move- 
 ment of baseball, on the other hand, is rapid; 
 a game takes at most a few hours. The pitch- 
 ing and catching, the running for bases, the sides 
 coming in and going out these happenings 
 follow in quick succession. Baseball is the game 
 of an impatient man; it is a driving, restless, 
 pushing game. It allows no pauses. Cricket 
 is a leisurely, gentlemanly, patient, long-con- 
 tinued game. It requires the same kind of skill 
 as baseball, but not the same constant activity. 
 These differences seem to point to basal differ- 
 ences between English and American life. 
 
 The origin of baseball is uncertain. Some 
 authorities believe that it grew out of "Round- 
 ers," others that it came from "One old cat." 
 But whatever its starting point, baseball has 
 become the great American game, because it 
 expresses American feeling, as cricket is the great 
 English game, because it expresses English feel- 
 ing. And if we should find that social traditions 
 expressed in play are among the great moulders 
 of character, we must expect that the boy who 
 plays baseball will be shaped, to that extent, to- 
 ward American life, and the boy who plays 
 cricket toward English life. 
 
 It seems evident from this fact that there is 
 
INSTINCT AND TRADITION 199 
 
 some other factor in play besides the instinctive 
 desire to throw, run, and perform various other 
 acts. If our games were based on instinct feel- 
 ings alone, unmodified by any other force, there 
 would seem to be no reason for these wide differ- 
 ences in games which call for the same physi- 
 ological co-ordinations. It would seem, more- 
 over, that the children of every generation would 
 be able to invent all their games afresh from 
 their own developing instincts, that a boy might 
 be able to play baseball without ever seeing 
 the game played, simply because he had the set 
 of instinct feelings that go into the playing of 
 ball. 
 
 As a matter of fact, opinions not very much 
 at variance with this view-point have been held. 
 In a warm debate in the House of Representa- 
 tives with reference to an appropriation for play- 
 grounds in the city of Washington, one con- 
 gressman said that it was "as necessary and 
 important to teach children to play as to teach 
 the lambs to gambol on the sunny hillsides." 
 He expressed a wide-spread opinion that all 
 play is alike, that children can be trusted to 
 manufacture their own games. 
 
 But it is not true even of animals that they 
 play without being taught. There are, it is 
 true, some instincts of life which seem perfect 
 
200 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 at birth and act without reference to social in- 
 heritance or tradition. When a cocoon hatches 
 into a butterfly, it has a set of full-fledged re- 
 flexes. It needs no experience; it flies as well 
 at first as later. An instinct of this kind re- 
 mains unchanged by teaching; it is not plastic. 
 But as we come higher in the animal scale, 
 many instincts lose their fixed character. 
 
 Professor Scott of Princeton University ex- 
 perimented extensively with reference to the 
 extent to which the instincts of young birds 
 develop without the aid given by the example 
 of their parents. He raised blackbirds from 
 the eggs, and gave them no opportunity to 
 come in contact with older birds of their kind. 
 They had throats like those of other blackbirds, 
 but they never heard the song of their species. 
 The only noise they heard, which their throats 
 were adapted to copying, was the crowing of a 
 near-by bantam rooster. The result was that 
 the young blackbirds came as near giving a 
 crow like that of the bantam rooster as the 
 nature of their throats permitted. They had 
 an instinct to make a noise, but that instinct 
 developed through imitation. The song of the 
 meadow-lark and the song-sparrow varies so 
 much in different parts of our land that it is 
 possible to identify birds from various sections 
 
INSTINCT AND TRADITION 201 
 
 by the character of their song. It seems proba- 
 ble that this is attributable to the fact that the 
 young copy their song from the old birds, and 
 that variations in different localities perpet- 
 uate themselves, passing along from bird to 
 bird. 
 
 Scotch terriers have a peculiar way of grasp- 
 ing the hind leg of an opponent in a fight. This 
 has been said to be instinctive; but careful 
 observers have noticed that Scotch terriers not 
 brought up with Scotch terriers do not learn this 
 trick. It is acquired by dogs through playing 
 with the mother, and, in common with the main 
 habits of every dog, is passed along from gen- 
 eration to generation by social inheritance. 
 The otter is one of the most perfect swimmers 
 among land animals, and it would seem as if 
 its instincts must be adapted to water. Yet 
 the young otter dreads the water, and it is neces- 
 sary, in order that it shall learn to swim, to 
 entice it into the river on the back of its mother, 
 who then plunges under. The animal is thus 
 forced to swim against its will; but, having 
 acquired the habit, it soon learns to enjoy it. 
 
 Among savage tribes, children play constantly 
 in the presence of older children and their 
 parents. Initiation ceremonies are common 
 among all primitive peoples. The boys to be 
 
202 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 initiated into the race ceremonies of their kind 
 are taken apart for a month, or series of months, 
 to learn tribal secrets, the ancestral mode of 
 worship, the sacred language. The boys do 
 not perform these ceremonies by themselves. 
 The rites are in charge of some man who knows 
 them all, and who passes along to the boys this 
 precious inheritance of social tradition that 
 characterizes their people and makes them 
 different from other tribes. 
 
 Social tradition is the great shaping force in 
 most of our racial differences. There is in all 
 babies the instinctive tendency to make sounds, 
 but the language that the baby will talk depends 
 on the social inheritance into which he comes. 
 All peoples have an instinctive feeling for shel- 
 ter, but the houses built are not all of one type. 
 Why do we have standard loaves of bread? 
 The Japanese have other kinds of loaves. Why 
 do men wear one type of hat and women an- 
 other? Whether it is the form of language 
 we use, the shape of a loaf of bread, the coloring 
 of a hat, the way men may speak to each other 
 and women may speak to each other all these 
 things are determined not by actual physical 
 heredity, but by the no less firm grasp of social 
 heredity. We may be capable, free individuals, 
 but we are held by laws of tradition which de- 
 
INSTINCT AND TRADITION 203 
 
 termine the direction in which our feelings shall 
 express themselves, what we may do and what 
 we may not do. 
 
 We are told that the graduates of Yale differ 
 from the graduates of Harvard in certain fun- 
 damental respects. If this is true, the difference 
 is not attributable to the fact that the Harvard 
 professors know more Latin than do the Yale 
 professors, or that the Yale professors are better 
 informed on mathematics, philosophy, chem- 
 istry, or physics, or any other subject what- 
 ever. Neither is it true that such differences 
 in the character of the students coming from 
 these two institutions are traceable to differ- 
 ences in the organization of the institutions. 
 The character of the boy that is being shaped 
 into the character of the man is developed 
 largely by social traditions, passed along from 
 generation to generation of student life. We 
 are told that in the great public schools of Eng- 
 land Rugby, Harrow, and Eton there are 
 differences in standards and ideals, in the char- 
 acter of the students, in the way they look at 
 life. These are arrived at by the way in which 
 the great school traditions take the raw material 
 of life and shape it constantly and steadily into 
 the form that is characteristic of that institution. 
 Civilized life is something other than mere i 
 
204 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 dividual development; it is the force of social 
 tradition that makes civilized life possible. 
 
 These same agencies determine the form of 
 children's plays. A boy has a tendency to run 
 and throw, but the particular running and throw- 
 ing games he will play are determined by the 
 traditions of his people. Games come down 
 without essential change in any stable com- 
 munity, because they are passed from child to 
 child, from the older to the younger. When 
 we speak of the traditions active in play, we are 
 speaking of one of the great controlling forces 
 in all human action. Authority and reason are 
 impotent compared with tradition. The great 
 tragedies of adult life are produced when reason 
 comes in conflict with tradition, when certain 
 actions seem rational and other actions are in 
 accord with social conventions. The same trag- 
 edy comes to every boy when the commands of 
 his parents oppose the traditions of the gang. 
 It is the exceptional boy who does not feel the 
 pull of gang custom more strongly than the 
 command of authority. This holds also for us 
 as adults. Whatever we may be told about the 
 unhygienic nature of modern clothing, for in- 
 stance, we shall hardly be prevailed upon to 
 change our costumes immediately in any striking 
 manner. We prefer to do as the crowd does. 
 
INSTINCT AND TRADITION 205 
 
 The way to influence play and the develop- 
 ment of the individual that takes place through 
 play is to combine the instinct feelings and the 
 play traditions instead of opposing them. 
 
 One of the most interesting examples of the ' 
 intelligent use and direction of the play in- 
 stinct feelings is an experiment carried on by 
 Mr. Ernest Thompson Seton. He has an es- 
 tablishment of Indian tribes for boys. All the 
 things that Indians do are done by the boys. 
 They have their mode of government, laws, 
 and a totem-pole. The boys get their names 
 in the manner in which the Indians got theirs, 
 from their looks or from something they have 
 accomplished. They are taught to make tepees. 
 They have games of deer and bear hunts. 
 The bear in these cases is a boy with a balloon 
 on his back. There are three dens about a 
 hundred yards apart to which the bear can re- 
 treat. Of course, as there are three caves, the 
 hunter does not know in which one the bear may 
 be hiding. In hunting him the boys have clubs 
 made of light sticks wound with straw, with 
 which they can hit without hurting. If a boy 
 can whack the balloon and break it, he has killed 
 the bear. There is also a system of scouting, of 
 man hunting, and rabbit hunting. There are 
 many honors small and large for boys under 
 
206 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 fourteen years old. They receive feathers for 
 athletic prowess not for beating some one else, 
 but for attaining some absolute record. 
 
 The boys are fascinated with this Indian 
 play. They will submit to a rigid system of 
 discipline, as rigid as that of boys in gangs, 
 and yet not feel that they are under discipline 
 at all. There are many hundreds now of these 
 tribes of "Indians" organized in connection 
 with Mr. Seton's movement. The organization 
 is an adaptation of the outdoor life of Indians 
 to the conditions of the boy, and is the outcome 
 of long years of experiment. Mr. Seton has 
 learned how to make use of the instinctive de- 
 sires of the boy in reinforcing the traditions and 
 standards which he wishes to impress. He has 
 learned the proper method of play control. 
 
 All play is controlled in one way or another. 
 Only the child who is absolutely alone is un- 
 governed by the rules of the game. When 
 children play tag, no child is free to do as he 
 pleases. The game is controlled by mutual 
 consent. The rigor demanded by this control 
 may exceed any imposed by external authority. 
 The supervision of older children over younger, 
 of mothers over their children, of the whole 
 community over the young, is a well-nigh uni- 
 versal fact. >/ The community is relatively safe 
 
INSTINCT AND TRADITION 207 
 
 from moral disaster as long as the young people 
 play and dance in the presence of their elders; 
 but society is in danger whenever the young go 
 off by themselves unsupervised, for then the 
 control which is inevitable will be in the hands 
 of the inexperienced or even of the vicious. 
 
 One of my friends has a boy about nine years 
 old, with whom from his birth the doctrine of 
 "hands off" has been carried out. In conse- 
 quence he is a nuisance to himself, to his mother, 
 his father, and to all their friends old and young. 
 The boy's instinct feelings have never been 
 curbed, and control has not been acquired. 
 He has never learned what it means to come 
 into conflict with another personality and be 
 answered back in kind. He has learned that 
 he can do anything he pleases with people, and 
 that there are no consequences. To be sure, 
 he knows that if he puts his hand into a flame 
 he will be burned; but he has not been allowed 
 to learn that if he puts his hand against another 
 individual, he will also be burned. The par- 
 ents of that boy have done him incalculable 
 harm, because they have not allowed him to 
 acquire the great fundamental lessons of human 
 relationships. That boy will go to college, and 
 there he will learn a great deal. 
 
 Aside from the influence of older people in 
 
208 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 the playing of games, the child learns much 
 through association with his playmates. He is 
 not coming into a world of separate individuals, 
 but into a world of social relationships, and 
 play is the great carrier of social traditions. 
 As soon as one child begins to play with another, 
 that other necessarily limits his freedom. And 
 the limitations are themselves sources for the 
 increase of enjoyment. The instinctive desires 
 to run, throw, strike, begin to be shaped in 
 accordance with the "rules of the game." This 
 shaping means an increase of power, because it 
 brings increased definiteness and correspondence 
 with the social environment. The idea of free 
 play unmodified by playmates, parents, and 
 teachers is a truly pernicious one. 
 
 The force of social tradition operating through 
 play has sometimes been deplored. It is said 
 that blind imitation detracts from individuality, 
 and that children are deprived of all initiative 
 by stimulating their desire to follow an example. 
 But unconscious imitation is not a blind force; 
 it is very selective. When a new football 
 player comes to town, nine out of ten of the 
 boys of the town will at once copy him as nearly 
 as they can in attitude of body, expression of 
 face, tilt of hat or cap. But when a boy walks 
 down the street and sees a willow-tree waving 
 
INSTINCT AND TRADITION 209 
 
 its branches, he does not stand and balance 
 and commence imitating the willow-tree. There 
 is something in the football player that makes 
 the boy want to imitate, something that re- 
 sponds to his ideal, that arouses a desire in him 
 to be like his kind. There is nothing in the tree 
 to call forth a similar stimulus. Expose a 
 thousand boys to the power of music, and only 
 those who have special capacity for music will 
 respond. This imitation, conscious of kind, 
 enormously selective, apparently making for 
 likeness, is really an agency which brings out 
 individual differences. 
 
 One other objection is frequently made to 
 the conscious use of play as a carrier of tradi- 
 tion. We are told that it is "unnatural" to 
 interfere with children, that they must be left 
 to develop freely according to their "nature." 
 But the instinctive desire to teach is as natural 
 as any other desire. The father wants to teach 
 his boy to throw, to shoot with the bow, to 
 hunt, to paddle, to swim. The mother instinc- 
 tively desires to take the baby in her arms and 
 to sing to it. These feelings are as natural as 
 any other feelings. If human instincts are to 
 be allowed to develop freely, then the mother 
 and father instincts must also be considered. 
 
 There is apt to be great confusion as to what 
 
210 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 is natural. We hear of a natural food cult 
 which claims that since man's body grew up 
 under conditions of nature, the special prepa- 
 ration of food by cooking, which man himself 
 has developed, is artificial, and therefore un- 
 desirable. In this narrow sense of the word 
 natural, the best possessions of human kind are 
 unnatural. The wearing of garments is arti- 
 ficial; the building of houses is wholly unnatural; 
 it would be natural to crawl into caves. The 
 ventilation of houses is unnatural; heating is 
 exceedingly unnatural. Education is, of course, 
 above all unnatural as morals are unnatural. 
 
 But in the wider sense of the word, we must 
 consider natural those things which have sur- 
 vived and approved themselves in the course 
 of evolution. We have reached that stage of 
 development where human affairs are being 
 increasingly directed by conscious effort. That 
 state of control is natural now for the human 
 race. We can no longer rely wholly upon the 
 blind forces of instinct, but must deliberately 
 shape those instincts so that they shall operate 
 in accord with general human needs and be of 
 service to mankind. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 PLAY AND OUR CHANGING 
 CIVILIZATION 
 
 SOME years ago the University of Mis- 
 souri introduced a bill in the State Legis- 
 lature asking for $100,000 for the building 
 and equipment of a gymnasium. The hard- 
 headed, conservative legislators laughed at the 
 proposal. "Why cannot those boys saw wood 
 for exercise, as we did?" they asked. The rep- 
 resentatives of the State university waited un- 
 til the meeting of the next legislature and in- 
 troduced another bill' asking for $200,000 for 
 the erection and equipment of a plant for saw- 
 ing wood. It was shown that the wood had to 
 be brought from so great a distance, and the 
 loss occasioned by hand-sawing instead of 
 machinery would be so large, that at least as 
 great an endowment as asked for was neces- 
 sary. The legislators had forgotten the fact 
 that the conditions in which they were brought 
 up have passed away, and that it is no longer 
 possible to educate a boy by muscular work, 
 
 as muscles do not do the great work of the world 
 
 211 
 
A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 to-day. They voted the $100,000 asked for the 
 gymnasium. 
 
 The foregoing illustrates only one aspect of 
 the change that has come over modern life. 
 The increasing urbanization of our population 
 is another factor in the problems of our day. 
 We are fast becoming a city people. We have 
 tried the experiment of exporting the dwellers 
 in the crowded tenements. But while we are 
 driving them out of one slum, they return to 
 another. Statistics tell most convincingly the 
 growth of cities. In 1790 3.3 per cent of the 
 people in the United States lived in cities of 
 8,000 population and upward. To-day, more 
 than 33 per cent live in cities of the same class. 
 This means not only that the cities are growing 
 with phenomenal rapidity, but that the total 
 population growth of our country during the 
 past three censuses has been almost entirely an 
 urban growth. I was told that within a single 
 generation the average country school in Illinois 
 had shrunk from seventy-eight to thirty-eight 
 pupils. 
 
 A still larger proportion of our population 
 is bound to become urbanized. It is the neces- 
 sary consequence of our industrial civilization, 
 where the processes of working up material 
 require vastly more individuals than those of 
 
PLAY AND OUR CIVILIZATION 213 
 
 raw production. There is nothing to gain and 
 everything to lose through an attitude of hos- 
 tility to this tendency. So long as we try to 
 stand out against it, planting ourselves on an 
 old civilization, championing to the last ditch 
 those conditions that are being surely under- 
 mined and swept away, we are fighting against 
 the stars in their courses. To talk of "three 
 acres and liberty" for our children is futile. 
 We must accept the city for what it is, neces- 
 sary, artificial, congested, nervously organized; 
 and we must discover how to make these very 
 traits count in upward development. Not by 
 opposing inevitable tendencies, but by discover- 
 ing their possibilities for good and pushing these 
 to their logical issues shall we aid in the solution 
 of our greatest social 'problem. 
 
 For this problem is not merely one of the city. 
 This increasing urbanization is but one symptom 
 of the change going on everywhere, a change in 
 the direction of greater organization and speciali- 
 zation. It is not a question of city or country, 
 as we are tempted to think when we compare 
 the farm of a past age with the city of the pres- 
 ent. The farm has become as man-made as 
 the city; it is in many respects as specialized 
 in activity. Whole farms are given over to the 
 raising of violets, whole sections of the coun- 
 
214 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 try to the raising of wheat. The change is one 
 in the texture of modern life. It makes no dif- 
 ference whether a boy's father runs a trolley- 
 car, is president of a bank, owns a wheat-farm, 
 sells goods behind a counter the work of the 
 modern man, except in rare cases, is such that 
 it is impossible for the boy to serve an appren- 
 ticeship to life's tasks by working with his 
 father. Yet in that way the boys of an earlier 
 generation gained their physical power, health, 
 and moral responsibility. 
 
 The farms in the old days were of the all- 
 around character. The children were obliged 
 to help their parents spin the thread. They 
 wove, dyed, cut out the cloth. They made the 
 garments; they even made the patterns. They 
 made their hats, and sometimes even their 
 shoes. They made their farming utensils, both 
 of wood and iron. The boy thus secured a 
 training such as is given in no manual training 
 school to-day. I am not now speaking of the 
 pleasurable side of childhood, for I am well 
 aware that a boy's hands will blister much more 
 quickly on a hoe handle than on a baseball bat. 
 But a hoe handle is an instrument of exercise of 
 a genuine sort, and it does result in power of 
 the arms and back, in ability to digest food. 
 We have taken from our boys not merely the 
 
PLAY AND OUR CIVILIZATION 215 
 
 work, but the physical and moral results that 
 come from it. 
 
 During a brief period it was my privilege and 
 obligation to work on a farm. I arose at four 
 o'clock in the morning to get the cows, of which 
 I milked seven twice a day. That was exer- 
 cise for the hands. I had to care for the milk 
 and wash the cans. Then came the regular 
 farm work. I was not old enough to plough, 
 but I had to handle a horse rake, and there 
 were many chores. I helped to fill the wood- 
 shed, to build stone and wooden fences, and to 
 dig out woodchucks. I helped thresh the wheat 
 and brought it in, husked the corn, and did the 
 other jobs that are to be done on an all-around 
 farm. My boy cannot do these things at home; 
 there is no opportunity 'for him. 
 
 In still other ways has the relation of the 
 child to the community been modified. The 
 family has hitherto always been the chief unit 
 of society. But during the past century the 
 relation of the family to society has changed 
 profoundly in all civilized communities. Many 
 functions of the old family unit are now being 
 performed by the community in other and 
 mainly better ways. The features of this change 
 most vital to our subject are disclosed in the 
 statement that until recently the home has been 
 
216 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 the place (a) where children learned to work 
 with their parents, (6) where they secured most 
 of their education, (c) where they obtained their 
 religious and moral training, (d) where they 
 centred most of their social life. 
 
 A great deal of work has gone out of the home. 
 Everywhere the family is ceasing to be the centre 
 of the industries of the world. Walking behind 
 one of the great steam gang-ploughs drawing 
 sixteen ploughs, each cutting three inches deep 
 and sixteen inches wide, one can see that there 
 is no place here for the boy to take the lines of 
 the horses and to co-operate with his father. 
 Articles are now made in the shop or the fac- 
 tory, and not in the home. The boy can no 
 longer help his father in the practice of trades. 
 He has no chance to make things, no tools to 
 make things with, no materials out of which 
 to make them, and no place to keep any things 
 he might make. The modern home affords no 
 opportunity for the growing boy to exercise his 
 constructive impulses in a wholesome way. 
 
 The situation is just as difficult for the girl. 
 It has been one of the problems in our family 
 to discover necessary, useful work for our girls; 
 it is hard to find work that cannot be done 
 better by some one else; and it is not only hard, 
 but unjust, to require girls to do work merely 
 
PLAY AND OUR CIVILIZATION 
 
 for the sake of doing it. We are willing to give 
 help where help is needed, but to work for the 
 sake of its subjective effect alone gives no per- 
 manent solution of the problem. And a large 
 part of the necessary work, even of women, is 
 leaving the home. Few people to-day bake 
 their own bread; many no longer bake even 
 their own cake. Underwear is no longer made 
 in the house. Outside clothing is usually made 
 away from the home. 
 
 Education is leaving the home. Practically 
 all the formal instruction that children now re- 
 ceive is given in school. In the old days there 
 were schools, to be sure, but they did not begin 
 so early, nor did they last so many months out 
 of the year, nor so many years out of the chil- 
 dren's lives. The school which takes all the 
 children of the country from the ages of six to 
 fourteen and compels them under penalty to be 
 incarcerated in the schoolroom from nine o'clock 
 in the morning until three o'clock in the after- 
 noon, five days a week for nine or ten months 
 in the year, is a new institution and has mate- 
 rially altered the lives of children. No change 
 equal in magnitude has ever occurred in the 
 lives of the young of any other living species. 
 
 The home is no longer the centre of religious 
 and moral instruction. An investigation made 
 
218 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 in New England some years ago with reference 
 to family worship and the asking of the blessing 
 at meals revealed the fact that these practices 
 had been all but abandoned even among church 
 members and regular attendants at church. 
 This was true in the city of Springfield, Massa- 
 chusetts, a community not yet disturbed in 
 its traditions by the mixing of many kinds of 
 people. Yet its homes had been practically 
 stripped of the old-time religious practices. 
 In the past the home has been the centre of 
 religious instruction, ever since the time when 
 the father was the high priest of the family and 
 the mother tended the fire that was never al- 
 lowed to go out. Now we have organized young 
 people's societies, young men's and young wom- 
 en's Christian associations, and many other in- 
 stitutions of religion. These are accomplishing 
 what the home never accomplished. They are 
 influencing the actions of the masses in a way 
 in which the home never influenced them. 
 
 Yet the difficulty is, if a boy does not learn 
 moral conduct from the example and traditions 
 in his home, it cannot be given to him by any 
 precept or discourse. The power of social tra- 
 dition is not to be overcome or supplanted by 
 reasoning, but only by other social tradition. 
 The principal of a large eastern school said to 
 
PLAY AND OUR CIVILIZATION 219 
 
 me: "What would you do if a boy came to you 
 who had been lying, one of the brightest boys 
 in the school? When I talked to him and told 
 him how the whole community despised a liar, 
 he said: 'I don't believe a word you say. My 
 father is a liar, my mother is a liar, and my 
 sister is a liar. My father is a thoroughly suc- 
 cessful business man of high standing and great 
 wealth, and I do not believe that the whole 
 community despises a liar. It is only fools 
 that tell the truth all the time.' And his father 
 was a brilliant man, and his mother was a 
 woman of culture and she was a liar; all those 
 things were true that the boy was telling." 
 
 Habits of conduct cannot be inculcated by 
 right instruction. Right living is not trans- 
 mitted by telling children to be honest and true 
 and brave. It is developed in the individual 
 as a phase of other activities, and through the 
 example of parents and other adults working, 
 playing, and carrying on their social life to- 
 gether with the children. The transmission of >j 
 morals is no longer safe in the family because 
 the activities out of which morals arise have 
 been taken away. I do not mean that the family 
 has degenerated or deteriorated. But the com- 
 munity has taken over many of the functions 
 that the family formerly had. The moral prob- 
 
220 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 lems facing the father and mother are not the 
 kind into which the children can enter as they 
 did in the past. In the case of the clerk, the 
 bank president, the trolley-car conductor, the 
 moral questions are technical and of a kind that 
 do not lend themselves to general family ex- 
 ample. When children worked with their par- 
 ents they had opportunity to adjust themselves 
 gradually to the world's work and the obliga- 
 tions of adult life. 
 
 To remedy the situation we must look for- 
 ward and not backward. It is as impossible 
 as it would be undesirable to restore the old 
 family industries. There are a number of so- 
 cieties in America that are trying to reintro- 
 duce handicraft in the family, and thus to solve 
 this and certain other problems. That is to 
 restore by looking backward. To call the father 
 from the railroad or the shop, from the special- 
 ized farm, the store or the bank, and have him 
 again live the long wasteful hours of unspecial- 
 ized labor, to have the mother again become the 
 slave of toil in order to create the rude home 
 necessities of a century ago, all this is foolish 
 and impossible. We have passed that stage. 
 
 Play is leaving the home. The family life 
 has always been the centre of children's play. 
 In the case of small children it is so still. But 
 
PLAY AND OUR CIVILIZATION 
 
 the home is no longer the centre of activities, 
 and children want to be where something is 
 going on; so as they grow older, they go out 
 on the street where things are happening, and 
 have their play and social life there. The school 
 has become for many the centre of compan- 
 ionship. The city home is too small for any 
 great number of children to come in and play. 
 Children less and less have their parties at 
 home, not merely because the home is not large 
 enough the home is no longer the centre of 
 the activities that make up social life. 
 
 We are not to face this conclusion with pain 
 and regret; that is the attitude of most of 
 us when we think of the home. We speak in 
 despairing voices and 'in a dejected manner, 
 and there is no hope in us. But the condition 
 that we face is not one of irreparable loss. It 
 is not even a second best that I am proposing. 
 I believe in the home, but I believe more in the 
 individual and the community. We are to 
 conserve only the features of the home that 
 are best for us, and we must let others go, one 
 after the other, to the community, as soon as 
 it is clear that it is best for all to do so. 
 
 We have gained greatly by performing in the 
 community many of the things formerly done 
 in the home. This is notably true in respect to 
 
A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 industries and education. Even play, under the 
 best modern conditions, may be better provided 
 by the community than it ever was by the 
 family. Modern play is carried on under the 
 leadership of splendid young men and women 
 who are familiar with the play traditions that 
 have been passed on from generation to genera- 
 tion. By selecting from among us those who 
 are best adapted to be play teachers we may 
 secure for our children a play life which is as 
 much richer than the product of the old average 
 home, as modern education excels the old home 
 education. 
 
 Industry has been organized in a wonderful 
 way, and the material progress of the day is 
 related to this fact. Education too has been 
 highly organized. We have not merely the 
 general school-teacher, but specialists of all 
 kinds, who are giving much better instruction 
 than the mother ever gave. But recreation re- 
 mains the one great activity in America which 
 has not fully felt that genius for organization 
 which brings to play the advantages of human 
 co-operation so characteristic of this century. 
 We have lost the relation of recreation to the 
 home, but have not fully established its relation 
 to the community. That is the present state 
 of affairs. 
 
PLAY AND OUR CIVILIZATION 223 
 
 We need, then, first of all, an intelligent fac- 
 ing of the problem. We must study our re- 
 sources. We must deliberately set about know- 
 ing what we have to work with streets, parks, 
 school buildings, roofs. We must know what 
 instincts and social traditions we can count up- 
 on. We must formulate some comprehensive 
 plan. A measure such as this is necessary if 
 we are to make sure of equal attention to the 
 needs of every class and avoid that overlapping 
 of energy which always accompanies individual, 
 unconnected efforts. Our cities are being archi- 
 tecturally beautified in accordance with far- 
 seeing, harmonious municipal designs. Our in- 
 dustries are being developed through thorough 
 and effective study of resources and aims. Our 
 physical, moral, and social health should receive 
 the same broad, expert, and centralized treat- 
 ment. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 PLAY AND THE MODERN CITY 
 
 THE ideal home playground is the back 
 yard. What are our ideals concerning it 
 with reference to children? The utility 
 of the yard for play is not directly related to the 
 extent of its area. One eight feet wide and 
 twelve feet long that is, a very small yard 
 if it is properly equipped may afford an exceed- 
 ingly large amount of play for children. 
 
 A back-yard swing is always interesting to 
 children. It need not be fifteen feet high in 
 order to give enjoyment, and any one can put 
 up a little swing of three feet. I am not in- 
 formed as to the kind of feelings that children 
 have in swinging at different heights; but I 
 know that when swinging in a swing twenty 
 or thirty feet high, I have a different state of 
 mind from that which I experience when swing- 
 ing in a low, short swing about five or six feet 
 in height. My own belief is that, so far as ap- 
 pealing to the interest of children is concerned, 
 the short swing is far more effective than the 
 long one. And yet the fathers and mothers 
 
 224 
 
PLAY AND THE MODERN CITY 225 
 
 who wish to do exceptionally well for their chil- 
 dren erect large swings which require a definite 
 amount of time to complete the change of direc- 
 tion, whereas what the children want is a quick 
 change of direction. 
 
 Then there is the sand pile. It need not be 
 large. An ordinary soap box filled with sand 
 will keep small children happily employed hour 
 after hour. There is no problem of either space 
 or expense which would warrant denying chil- 
 dren the joys of a little swing and a sand pile. 
 
 Ordinary kitchen ladders were arranged by 
 Mr. Joseph Lee around the sides of a back 
 yard in a way so as to permit children to play 
 tag while swinging from one rung to another 
 of the ladders. In this way they went round 
 and round the yard in their play. This simple 
 apparatus converted the yard into a three- 
 dimension playground. The ladders were ar- 
 ranged in a manner so that the children could 
 mount and dismount them easily, and would 
 run small danger from possible falls. 
 
 The possibilities of block and structural 
 plays in the back yard have already been de- 
 scribed. The only trouble with our own little 
 back yard in Brooklyn, where we kept a sup- 
 ply of these building-blocks, was that the yard 
 was always swamped with children. During 
 
226 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 all the hours of daylight children were found 
 there. Even when we were away the children 
 of the neighborhood would climb over the fence 
 and play there all day. 
 
 Thousands of poor little rich children parade 
 on Riverside Drive in New York every day, 
 holding their nurses' hands, or merely walking 
 or running about within range of the nurse's 
 voice. These children do not want an airing; 
 they want to play, but there are no back yards 
 for the poor little rich children. Is it not 
 possible to multiply these back-yard playgrounds 
 in our city life? 
 
 I question whether what we are doing for 
 children in providing play opportunity in our 
 cities is, in the nature of the case, adequate. 
 We now use the surface of the ground twenty 
 times over for purposes of business, but for a 
 playground we use it only once. The mode of 
 making manifold use of the ground for business 
 has been evolved as the result of much labor 
 and intensive study. Corresponding study and 
 effort have not yet been given to creating condi- 
 tions which will provide as adequately for child 
 life in our cities. To give children in the con- 
 gested parts of old and large cities adequate 
 playgrounds involves so great a degree of re- 
 construction as to render such an attempt prac- 
 
PLAY AND THE MODERN CITY 227 
 
 tically impossible. The solution of this prob- 
 lem lies in the future. One suggestion that has 
 occupied and fascinated me is a many-storied 
 playhouse, of twenty stories, perhaps. But a 
 playhouse, strictly speaking, placed in a solid 
 block of other buildings, would not be adequate 
 to the needs of child life because of the lack of 
 sunshine and air. The plan may be feasible, 
 however, if the house is constructed with open 
 sides, after the manner of our recreation piers. 
 The twenty -story play -pier is a structure of the 
 future. 
 
 The church may help in meeting the play 
 situation. When it throws open the gates of 
 its beautiful grounds, in order that within the 
 enclosure the people and children of the neigh- 
 borhood may have opportunities to play, this 
 action will stand as a symbol of the relation- 
 ship of religion to life. The spiritual life can- 
 not be lived apart from the world; it includes 
 and envelops the simplest daily work, play, 
 and relationships of life. 
 
 If there are times of the day when our 
 parks are not adequately used, it might be 
 brought about that groups of children would 
 then be permitted to play in them. By this 
 I do not mean that the parks should be over- 
 run with children, so as to destroy their beauty, 
 
228 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 but simply that we need to take an accurate 
 account of all the available facilities at our 
 command in the city, so that the greatest use 
 possible will be made of the undeveloped play 
 possibilities which we possess. 
 
 Blocks of city streets may be set aside for 
 the play of children. I have no explanation 
 to offer for the feelings of joy that children 
 obtain from swift running and sliding. Three 
 of my daughters had roller-skates, and the 
 time they spent going up an asphalted street 
 and down again like the wind, with the elation 
 of spirits that resulted, the ecstasy produced 
 in them, seemed to me matters of much won- 
 der. The expression of this exuberance of 
 spirit it is possible to obtain only by the use of 
 a relatively extensive area such as a city block 
 affords. 
 
 The community must provide for children to 
 the same extent, and more completely, more 
 intelligently, more fully than the family form- 
 erly provided for children because the com- 
 munity is to have the children. It has them 
 now and leaves them unprotected on the 
 streets after school hours. That situation must 
 be remedied. Our streets must be made places 
 that are as wholesome for children as are our 
 homes. The very word "home" is tied up 
 
PLAY AND THE MODERN CITY 
 
 with the thought of children, and the time will 
 surely come when the word "city," the larger 
 home, will similarly be tied up with the idea of 
 the care of children. The most important thing 
 in the world is how children grow up. It mat- 
 ters not how splendid is our architecture, how 
 complete are our parks and statues, how fine 
 is our poetry, how perfect our political system 
 if the children of our families grow up sickly 
 or immoral or poor. The supreme question for 
 every generation to ask itself is: Have you done 
 that which has passed on to the next genera- 
 tion the treasures of life fully, completely, and 
 wholesomely? If you have not, then civiliza- 
 tion means nothing, art means nothing, educa- 
 tion means nothing, religion means nothing. 
 Religion means nothing unless it means progress 
 toward God, and that means wholesomeness 
 in all aspects of life. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 DIRECTION AND CONTROL IN 
 PLAY PLAYGROUNDS 
 
 IN 1897 the Park Board of Toledo secured 
 two pieces of ground and installed a com- 
 plete equipment of playground apparatus. 
 No supervision was provided, the grounds being 
 in charge of the regular park attendants. As 
 a result the apparatus was soon destroyed by 
 rough usage, and the smaller children received 
 such treatment at the hands of older bullies 
 that they did not dare to go near the play- 
 grounds. The grounds were eventually closed 
 on the petition of the people living in the neigh- 
 borhood, because their influence proved wholly 
 bad. This unfortunate experience caused wide- 
 spread opposition to later efforts made in Toledo 
 for the establishment of playgrounds. At last 
 a well-regulated playground was established, 
 financed by the Federation of Women's Clubs, 
 and supervised by a leader from the Young 
 Men's Christian Association. The good results 
 obtained from this playground effectually de- 
 stroyed the opposition. 
 
 230 
 
DIRECTION AND CONTROL 231 
 
 The experience of Toledo is not unique. In 
 Duluth, Minnesota, in the spring of 1908, 
 Mayor Haven inaugurated a campaign for 
 playgrounds. An association was formed to 
 secure funds for rental, equipment, and super- 
 vision. The local physical director of the 
 Young Men's Christian Association was ap- 
 pointed supervisor. At about this time the 
 Park Board installed a few swings and seesaws 
 in Portland Square, but failed to put the ground 
 under supervision. It immediately became a 
 meeting-place for undesirable boys, especially 
 at night. So much protest came from residents 
 in the vicinity that the apparatus had to be 
 removed. Since then the Park Board has co- 
 operated with the Playground Association in 
 supplying apparatus only to grounds under 
 supervision. 
 
 Pawtucket, Rhode Island, had a similar ex- 
 perience. In the spring of 1908 the city au- 
 thorities decided to experiment with a small 
 playground on a piece of city property centrally 
 located. An appropriation was made for a 
 small amount of apparatus, but supervision 
 was not provided. The place became an ex- 
 ceedingly noisy one and a loafing ground for 
 the rough element of the town. The larger boys 
 monopolized the apparatus. The neighbors pro- 
 
232 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 tested. The Associated Charities offered to 
 provide a supervisor. This offer was accepted 
 and the work was carried on under that organi- 
 zation for the remainder of the season to the 
 entire satisfaction of the neighborhood. 
 
 These examples illustrate one extreme in the 
 attitude toward playground control. The other 
 extreme was shown in Paris, at the time when 
 the value of play first began to be recognized. 
 A good playground was established in connec- 
 tion with a certain school, and the teachers 
 worked out a play curriculum, which should 
 contain all the desired elements. At a given 
 hour the children were marched to the play- 
 ground in military fashion, and told: "These 
 are your playthings, and such are the games 
 you must play." If they did not obey, they 
 were punished. 
 
 This is the type of directed play to which 
 objection is rightly made. But the objection 
 to directed play is frequently carried further. 
 When the Playground Association of America 
 was organized in Washington, President Roose- 
 velt said: "It is a splendid thing to provide in 
 congested districts of American cities spaces 
 where children may play; but let them play 
 freely. Do not interfere with their play. Leave 
 them alone." Later he changed his opinion, 
 
DIRECTION AND CONTROL 233 
 
 but in those words he voiced a general public 
 feeling regarding the whole matter of play and 
 playgrounds, the feeling that children should 
 be let alone, that they will play wholesomely 
 if adults do not interfere. This view can no 
 longer be held in face of the experience of 
 Toledo and other cities. Real freedom is im- 
 possible without protection. An unsupervised 
 playground is nominally free; in reality it is 
 controlled by the strongest and most vicious 
 element in the crowd. It is a dangerous place 
 for girls and small children; it can be con- 
 verted from a direct source of evil to a source 
 of benefit by having some one put in authority, 
 who will see that the ground is used for the 
 purpose for which it was intended that the 
 older boys have their place and the smaller 
 children theirs, and that each group is free 
 within its own limits. No large company of 
 people can be free without control of this kind. 
 In addition to this negative protection, free 
 play needs to go one step further in our modern 
 city, or in any place where play traditions are 
 relatively new. If untaught boys are put on 
 parallel bars, they may not know what to do. 
 If they are taken to a swimming-tank and have 
 never learned to swim, they are unable to enjoy 
 themselves. But if a man goes with them who 
 
234 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 is a good swimmer and diver, who is proficient 
 in the various accomplishments that the boys 
 want to learn, then the example which he sets 
 not only does not interfere with the freedom of 
 their play but makes real play for the first 
 time possible. He is a play promoter. His 
 task is the same as that of the modern librarian, 
 who directs by showing possibilities. 
 
 The conditions of modern life have empha- 
 sized the necessity of some play example. A 
 young woman came out of a New York settle- 
 ment one afternoon, and found nearly 200 chil- 
 dren crowding around the door. The play- 
 ground across the street had closed. She asked 
 what they were waiting for. "The Children's 
 Service," was the reply. "What is that?" she 
 asked. "Oh, that's where you sit around and 
 sing. It comes at half -past six." It was only 
 a little after five at the time, and the children 
 were waiting there, standing on the street for 
 more than an hour, until they should have an 
 opportunity to "sit around and sing." They 
 did not have to come early to get a seat. But 
 they had no idea of any way to amuse them- 
 selves. They did not know anything to play 
 in the meantime. 
 
 In a community that is relatively stable, 
 where one generation of children succeeds an- 
 
DIRECTION AND CONTROL 235 
 
 other almost imperceptibly, each graduating 
 generation can be counted upon to leave play 
 traditions behind it: such and such shall be the 
 games of this community, and played accord- 
 ing to this standard; and the legacy is accepted 
 unquestionably. Games handed down in this 
 way have proved well suited to their environ- 
 ment. Thus a game like "Monkey chase," 
 which requires trees and a grassy running space, 
 was an ideal game for an old Connecticut 
 orchard, where it was developed with a most 
 elaborate code of regulations; but it could not 
 bear transplanting to the city. The play tra- 
 dition was broken, and "Monkey chase" died. 
 The majority of country games has shared 
 the same fate. There is no space to play these 
 games in a large city. 
 
 Most of the traditional games of the world 
 have grown up under conditions of plenty of 
 space and plenty of time. Relatively few games 
 can be found that are useful where 500 children 
 are turned out for a ten-minute recess into a 
 yard where 50 can play comfortably. Then 
 some one must come in to modify the old games, 
 so that 50 can play in a given space where only 
 10 could play before; so that games which once 
 demanded an hour can be played in ten minutes. 
 The old conditions under which the games 
 
236 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 arose have gone. The games will go also, un- 
 less they are adapted to the new conditions. 
 For this also we need the play promoter, the 
 play teacher. 
 
 One of the most keenly sought enjoyments 
 of those who visit the older countries is to wit- 
 ness the celebration of national holidays. The 
 national and folk-dances which have grown up 
 around these occasions are the most common 
 form of art available to all the people. Here in 
 America we have the same human feelings de- 
 manding expression, we have occasions demand- 
 ing adequate celebration, but we have no form 
 of social habits. We do not yet know how to 
 celebrate the Fourth of July adequately. We 
 have no appropriate celebration for Lincoln's 
 birthday, or for Thanksgiving Day. We need 
 traditions. Our poverty in this direction is 
 shown when our people come together after 
 some great occasion, such as a state or national 
 election. We have fireworks in some cities; 
 but most people do nothing but surge up and 
 down the streets in hopeless confusion. We 
 have no social forms in which to express our 
 common emotion. 
 
 It would seem that in a country like ours, 
 made up of people from many parts of the 
 world, we could be peculiarly rich in all our 
 
DIRECTION AND CONTROL 237 
 
 social inheritances. It would seem as if we 
 would have gathered together all that rich 
 folk-lore which comes down from mouth to 
 mouth, from mother to child, from generation 
 to generation, sometimes carried by the profes- 
 sional story-teller, sometimes by the children 
 themselves, embodying within itself the forms 
 of moral discipline and social relation, and stores 
 of folk music in which the dawning aesthetic 
 sense is shown. We have many people from 
 Norway and Sweden, Russia, Italy, Spain, and 
 Greece. But we have not the folk music, the 
 folk-lore, the folk poetry, the great games which 
 have been elaborated during the experience of 
 the centuries, and which perfectly fitted the 
 children of the communities from which our 
 immigrants came. The children of New York, 
 one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world, 
 are poverty-stricken in the knowledge of play. 
 
 These facts seem to point inevitably to one 
 conclusion. The great traditions of social life 
 are not carried by the individual, or even by , 
 the family; they are carried by the community 
 as a whole. It would seem as if the great com- 
 munities, composed of groups of people from 
 all parts of the world, would inherit the tradi- 
 tions of all; but such is not the case. They 
 inherit only the simplest traditions, the ele- 
 
238 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 ments common to all. The children of these 
 complex communities play only a few games, 
 the games they all have in common. They will 
 play tag because tag is played everywhere, 
 but not the complex forms of tag. They will 
 dance none of the great dances which have 
 been the first stimulus toward the sense of beauty 
 and rhythm the world over. They may in- 
 vent some games which suit the conditions in 
 which they find themselves, but they will in- 
 vent poor games at first. 
 
 Craps, a gambling game played with dice, 
 is a typical city game, invented by the children 
 of the city. It is the product of city environ- 
 ment, and it is in many respects admirably 
 adapted to that environment. It is an inter- 
 esting game; of that there can be no doubt. 
 All the severe steps taken to eliminate it have 
 been in vain. Craps is suited to city condi- 
 tions. It can be played in a limited space. It 
 is a quiet game; boys playing craps break no 
 windows and do not annoy the neighborhood. 
 It is a game suited to limited time; it can be 
 played in five minutes or five hours. It adapts 
 itself to any number of players, five, ten, or an 
 indefinite number. Craps is the almost in- 
 evitable outgrowth of modern city conditions; 
 it bids fair to become the national game of the 
 
DIRECTION AND CONTROL 239 
 
 tenements. There are, however, two respects 
 in which craps is not a good game. It is useless 
 physiologically and it is bad morally. It 
 keeps boys crouched in an unwholesome posi- 
 tion, and it teaches them to gamble. This is 
 the type of game that our city environment 
 creates and fosters, unless "by taking thought" 
 we provide some better game equally well 
 adapted to the conditions of space and time 
 and opportunity. 
 
 The conscious teaching and promotion of 
 play need not take the form of interference. 
 A friend spent his summers in a small country 
 community from which most of the active and 
 energetic young men had gone to the cities. 
 Those left remained for some special reason, or 
 because they lacked initiative. In that par- 
 ticular community no games were being played 
 by the older boys. There was no baseball. 
 The young man referred to was a catcher on the 
 Yale University baseball team. He became 
 acquainted with some of the country boys, 
 who on one Fourth of July asked him if he 
 knew how to play ball. He answered "Yes." 
 So he came out with them, and it was soon evi- 
 dent that he was a good player. They enjoyed 
 playing with him, he organized them, and they 
 elected him captain. When they discovered 
 
240 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 that he had played in college, he became the 
 great man of the community. After a while 
 he proposed that they should keep up their 
 organization for doing other things besides 
 playing ball. That young man went to them 
 for several years and reshaped the lives of those 
 country boys. He became to them an ideal, 
 and was, no doubt, idealized. He led them in 
 directions that make for power, persistence, 
 clean, strong play. He gave them something 
 to do and a model. 
 
 This is the ideal type of play direction the 
 control which comes through example and play- 
 ing together. Through play leaders such as 
 these a transfer is made from generation to 
 generation, not merely of games, but of char- 
 acter. Teachers who play with their children 
 accomplish this type of control to some extent, 
 and the measure of their success lies in the 
 measure in which they themselves play rather' 
 than imitate playing. It may be tested by its 
 results. If the children repeat of their own 
 free will the games they have learned on the 
 playground, if they have accepted those plays 
 not under compulsion, but because the games 
 appealed to them, then the play leader has ful- 
 filled his function. The right kind of playground 
 leadership attracts children; a properly super- 
 
DIRECTION AND CONTROL 241 
 
 vised playground is always more crowded than 
 an unsupervised play space. To adapt old play 
 traditions and to create new ones suited to the 
 requirements of city life is to set in motion a 
 force the influence of which can hardly be 
 measured. 
 
 Doctor Haddon relates an experience in 
 Borneo during a rain-storm when he took refuge 
 in the hut of a native. He found a group of 
 persons waiting, like himself, for the storm to 
 cease. Thinking to amuse the native children, 
 he took a piece of string from his pocket, tied 
 it in the form of a loop, put it on his hands and 
 made a "Cat's cradle." He then showed them 
 how to "take it off." He was surprised that 
 it was taken off promptly. Then he took it 
 off, and this pastime was continued until he 
 came to the end of his series, after which the 
 native children went on for four or five figures 
 more. It is a long time, Doctor Haddon says, 
 since their forefathers and ours dwelt together 
 and as children played "Cat's cradle" to- 
 gether; but upon no other hypothesis is it 
 possible to account for the development and 
 preservation of this form of play, which is too 
 complicated to have been developed twice in 
 just that manner. The children played it and 
 taught it to the younger children; they learned 
 
A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 it and taught it to the younger children, they 
 in turn to the younger children, and so on for 
 hundreds and thousands and maybe tens of 
 thousands of years, in an unbroken chain from 
 the time when their fathers and ours lived 
 together. 
 
 Such is the force that carries the forms of 
 play, and we in America have seriously inter- 
 fered with it. That is why the great folk-dances 
 and folk festivals have gone, and why we must 
 teach our children to play. That is why we 
 must make a conscious effort to restore their 
 birthright. Therefore we need tradition car- 
 riers, play leaders. Without them it would be 
 better to have no playgrounds at all; that has 
 been the experience in congested districts. 
 With the right kind of play promoter, play is 
 free from the interference of bullies; it is en- 
 riched and made more interesting; it then be- 
 comes capable of transmitting the social and 
 moral traditions of the race. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 PLAY AND DEMOCRACY 
 
 WHEN the baby was learning to creep, 
 she one day discovered the bottom 
 step of the stairs leading to the upper 
 story. The step interested her. Placing her 
 hands upon it, she raised one foot. When this 
 was safely put on the higher level, she en- 
 deavored to raise the other foot. While she 
 was doing this, she was followed by her anxious 
 mother and doting father. The latter had 
 brought a sofa pillow and had it ready, so that 
 when the loss of balance came and the toddler 
 rolled backward down the step, she was shocked 
 and frightened, but in no way injured. She 
 had learned the first lesson about climbing and 
 falling. 
 
 This policy of allowing children to learn by 
 experience, but safeguarding the experience so 
 that it shall not be disastrous, was pursued 
 with the other children of that family. They 
 spent their summers on the edge of a bluff 
 about forty feet high, with the bank sloping 
 
 243 
 
244 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 down at an angle of forty degrees. During the 
 summer vacations, although the children had 
 complete freedom swinging over the bluff on 
 tree branches, going where they pleased down 
 the slope not one of them, little or big, ever 
 fell, because they had learned the lesson of fall- 
 ing when they were small, and in ways that did 
 not bring disaster. 
 
 In a well-managed playground the children 
 are treated in a similar way with reference to 
 their experiences with one another. In addi- 
 tion to receiving the physical benefits that 
 come from wholesome outdoor exercise, and the 
 intellectual benefits that come from useful con- 
 structive work, the little children playing on 
 the sand pile learn fundamental lessons in mu- 
 tual rights. The older children learn lessons in 
 mutual relationships by sharing the use of 
 swings, by having to play by the rules of the 
 game. Later on, as they form into teams, 
 they learn that self-sacrifice which is involved 
 in the team game. They learn that the social 
 unit is larger than the individual unit, that in- 
 dividual victory is not as sweet as the victory 
 of the team, and that the most perfect self- 
 realization is won by the most perfect sinking 
 of one's self in the welfare of the larger unit 
 the team. Thus the child learns to control 
 
PLAY AND DEMOCRACY 245 
 
 himself in these increasingly complex relation- 
 ships, and he learns to control himself because 
 he is not externally controlled. 
 
 It is true that there is in the playground a 
 measurable degree of control that kind of 
 control which wards off disaster as in the case 
 of the baby learning to climb. There is that 
 control which prevents the older from en- 
 croaching on the rights of the younger, which 
 restrains the bully from encroaching on the 
 rights of the weaker. But the control in a well- 
 managed playground is largely of the mutual 
 consent kind. It is that control which obtains 
 throughout well regulated society the control 
 of public opinion, rather than the control of 
 either force or fear. 
 
 Play in itself is neither good nor bad. To sink 
 one's very soul in loyalty to the gang is in itself 
 neither good nor bad. The gang may be a 
 peril to the city, as indeed is the case in many 
 cities. The gang of boys that grows up to be 
 the political unit, bent merely upon serving 
 itself, possessing a power which mutual loyalty 
 alone can give, is thereby enabled to exploit 
 others for its own advantage in a way that is 
 most vicious. My point is that these mutual 
 relationships have an ethical effect. This effect 
 may be toward evil and it may be toward good; 
 
246 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 but the ethical nature in itself is primarily re- 
 lated to self-control and to freedom. 
 
 In some institutions of learning the traditions 
 of athletics are such as to tolerate, and even to 
 approve of conduct and of ways of playing 
 which in other institutions are utterly con- 
 demned. The boy going through one institu- 
 tion will come out having ideals with reference 
 to athletics and other things which have been 
 shaped toward good or toward evil in the 
 other case. Hence the significance of having 
 playgrounds and play organizations, including 
 school athletic organizations, in which the ideals 
 presented shall make for good social relation- 
 ships that frown on the bully, that exclude the 
 person who is selfish, that approve of the per- 
 son who is courteous as well as strong and 
 quick organizations where honesty is recog- 
 nized and fair play is generally accorded. Anti- 
 ethical play is worse than no play at all. It is 
 not merely play that our cities and our children 
 need; they need the kind of play that makes 
 for wholesome moral and ethical life, the play 
 that makes for those relationships between in- 
 dividuals that will be true to the adult ideals 
 which belong, and should belong, to the com- 
 munity. 
 
 There is real freedom on the playground, be- 
 cause the child must either play by the rules 
 
PLAY AND DEMOCRACY 247 
 
 or be shut out by his playmates or those in 
 charge. In this respect the playground is 
 unique. The child is not free to leave school 
 as he pleases. He cannot leave his home as 
 he pleases. Of course, within the limitations 
 of the school and the home there are varying 
 degrees of freedom, but essentially and at bot- 
 tom there is and must be authority. I am not 
 decrying authority; it is necessary. But I am 
 saying that in addition to authority there must 
 be an opportunity in the life of the child for 
 the development of those qualities which de- 
 pend upon, and which are developed only under 
 .conditions of freedom. This kind of control 
 which people exert upon one another is, to be 
 sure, external control and external control, 
 we have said, does not develop morality; but 
 this external control of the playground differs 
 from the control of the home or the school in 
 this respect: the child is free to leave it if he 
 chooses. If a boy does not want to play ball 
 in the way that satisfies his comrades, he can 
 get out; he is free. Hence, if he stays, con- 
 trolling his temper and playing according to 
 the fair ideal of his playmates, there is a kind 
 of self-control that is not exercised either in 
 the school or in the home, where authority 
 is fundamental. 
 
 The school and the home must teach obedi- 
 
248 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 ence as a primary virtue. Obedience is in- 
 creasingly necessary wherever large masses of 
 persons come together. This is perhaps no- 
 where better shown than at a fire in a school 
 building. There have been several fires in 
 New York city schools, but in not one has there 
 been loss of life. In not one has a class been 
 stampeded; not a single teacher has fainted 
 or screamed or left her post. In these fires 
 (which might otherwise have resulted in great 
 loss of life) the children have stood quietly in 
 their places although in some instances the 
 rooms were filled with smoke until the order 
 came for them to go, when they moved rapidly, 
 quietly, in step, down the precise way which 
 they were told to go. Nothing but plain, 
 straight obedience can meet situations such as 
 these obedience to authority, immediate, 
 prompt, and all-inclusive. 
 
 The child must progress through the grades 
 step by step. It is not his to say when he will 
 study geography and when history or mathe- 
 matics. These decisions cannot be left to him. 
 It is not his to determine what shall be the school 
 hours, the school vacations. These questions 
 must be settled by persons of far larger view- 
 point than he possesses. In a measure the school 
 may be organized so that a certain degree of 
 
PLAY AND DEMOCRACY 249 
 
 co-operation is secured from the pupils, as in 
 the school city; but the fundamental questions 
 of school administration are not for the pupil 
 to decide, and we need not blind ourselves to 
 the fact that the school must be fundamentally 
 and essentially a monarchy; and that it does, 
 should, and must develop primarily the qualities 
 of obedience. 
 
 In view of the changing conditions that now 
 obtain, it is a little difficult to discuss the ques- 
 tion of obedience in relation to the home. 
 But even under the present conditions it is 
 perhaps safe to say that except in so far as there 
 is obedience to some authority in the home, there 
 is no true home. 
 
 Thus the two great institutions that have to 
 deal with children the school and the home 
 rest primarily upon the development of the 
 qualities of obedience. The playground alone 
 affords to children the one great opportunity 
 for cultivating those qualities that grow out 
 of meeting others of like kind under conditions 
 of freedom; it develops progressively, from 
 babyhood on, that sense of human relation- 
 ships which is basal to wholesome living. Thus 
 the playground is our great ethical laboratory. 
 
 Where there is no freedom, there can be no 
 self-control. The man whose limbs are shackled 
 
250 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 cannot control them. The man whose mind 
 is shackled, cannot control his mind. The 
 person who is compelled by force or fear, so 
 that he is not free, has no self-control. The 
 J control of one's self is absolutely based upon 
 having the freedom to control one's self a 
 freedom to do wrong, as well as right. If a 
 boy is made to do a thing by force, he has to 
 do it; he may or may not want to. It is a 
 non-moral proceeding. It may be necessary, 
 but it is not on a moral level. For instance, a 
 boy may have to take quinine. He may object 
 to it so vigorously that his nose must be held in 
 order to open his mouth. This may be good for 
 him, but it has no effect on his morals. He is 
 not free, and freedom is necessary for morality. 
 Self-control of the higher type is primarily de- 
 veloped under the conditions of the playground, 
 rather than under the conditions of the school 
 and the home. 
 
 I spoke of that experience which the baby 
 had in learning her early steps the process of 
 avoiding tumbles. She learned by doing. This 
 is one of the fundamental words of the new edu- 
 cation, and it has now come to be applied prac- 
 tically to all the subjects of the school cur- 
 riculum. The child learns to read by reading. 
 He learns to write by writing. He learns 
 
PLAY AND DEMOCRACY 251 
 
 arithmetic by adding, subtracting, multiplying, 
 and dividing. He learns his physics by making 
 experiments. He learns his chemistry in the 
 laboratory. He learns his botany out of doors, 
 rather than from books alone. He learns his 
 geography primarily by studying the school 
 and the schoolroom, its environments, and then 
 the city. He thus learns to read maps, and he 
 understands things as you and I did not under- 
 stand them at his age at all. 
 
 Ethics alone seem to be regarded as the ex- 
 ception. We apparently still think that we 
 can develop the power of self-control without 
 giving people freedom, that we can develop 
 ethical power by merely talking about it, ser- 
 monizing about it. We still think that we can 
 cultivate obedience to such an extent that it 
 shall balance over and become self-control; 
 and yet we know that living twenty years in 
 prison, where the most perfectly enforced rou- 
 tine is secured, does not develop in the in- 
 dividual that high degree of self-control which 
 such perfect obedience would suggest. The 
 absolute obedience which the seamen on our 
 men-of-war maintain during their ocean trips, 
 where they rise on the minute, eat, work, play, 
 attend divine service regularly, all according 
 to well-regulated" schedules, does not so estafo- 
 
252 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 lish within them that perfect self-control which 
 will keep them from license on receiving shore 
 leave in Yokohama, as I have seen. The sea- 
 man has not had liberty; so his free time does 
 not mean freedom, but license something which 
 kills itself. 
 
 Time and again I have seen young men who 
 had been cared for so assiduously by their 
 parents as never even to choose their gloves, 
 shirts, or neckties for themselves, whose funds 
 had been so carefully administered for them 
 that they themselves had no responsibility or 
 freedom. They had, perhaps, been given small 
 allowances to do with as they pleased, but all 
 their essential needs were met. They never 
 learned the value of money by having to earn 
 it. They never learned the value of things by 
 having to go without them. They never learned 
 the necessity of control by having freedom, 
 and thus learning by experience. And when 
 these young men went to college and were given 
 an allowance which should cover all their needs, 
 they suddenly had an extent of freedom thrust 
 upon them for which they were totally unpre- 
 pared. It was just as if the baby had been com- 
 pelled to wait with reference to controlling her 
 bodily movements, so that she never fell or 
 never even had the feeling of falling, until she was 
 
PLAY AND DEMOCRACY 253 
 
 pretty well grown until her desires were such 
 as to lead her to climb to high things. She cer- 
 tainly would learn at some time the meaning of 
 the fall, but at this later time the meaning 
 might be disastrous; it might result fatally. 
 So with these college boys. The expensiveness 
 of learning freedom after one is well grown con- 
 sists in the fact that the experiments involved 
 are so large. The risks are so much greater, 
 and disaster, rather than success, often results 
 from such experiments in freedom at a later time. 
 
 The development of the ethical, social self 
 must begin as soon as the child is old enough 
 to have relations with other children of his own 
 age, and it must continue as long as human 
 life continues. 
 
 The relation of this to democracy is already 
 evident. During our age we are witnessing 
 an unparalleled development of commerce. Sci- 
 ence in all its branches is progressing by leaps 
 and bounds. The number of journals and books 
 issued in the name of science has not only en- 
 tirely passed beyond the capacity of Bacon's 
 ideal, but the specialist in a single field in a 
 subsection of the field of physiology cannot 
 hope to keep up with the researches published 
 in this line. So to know what is going on even 
 in this one subject, one must take a section of a 
 
254 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 section of one science. The humanitarian de- 
 velopments of our times are unique and ex- 
 traordinary. Our charity organization soci- 
 eties, the development of our hospitals, the 
 wonderful "first-aid" work that is going on in 
 the armies of the world, the relief work for chil- 
 dren, the societies for improving the condition 
 of the poor, the societies for sending destitute 
 children to the country in summer these are 
 working in great numbers and with unprece- 
 dented efficiency. This is an era of popular 
 education. Never before has so large a per- 
 centage of the population been in schools. 
 Lectures for adults on improving subjects, corre- 
 spondence schools, colleges, public schools, pri- 
 vate schools all mark a wave of interest in 
 education that is new in the history of the 
 world. 
 
 But we see also an unparalleled exploitation 
 of the many by the few, with oftentimes a dis- 
 regard for law. And further, we see a tendency 
 for popular, unthinking, uncontrolled action, 
 which is shown in its worst form by the lynch 
 mobs. Both these tendencies are fatal to the 
 permanent life of a democracy. These are two 
 of the greatest dangers of our times the ex- 
 ploitation of the many by the few and uncon- 
 trolled public action. 
 
PLAY AND DEMOCRACY 255 
 
 Neither of these dangers rests upon the 
 development of any new feelings in mankind, 
 or upon the development of new intellectual or 
 other powers. It simply appears that new op- 
 portunities have been given to old powers and 
 that these enlarged opportunities consist in the 
 nature of the material development which is 
 now going on in the world. For example, the 
 application of steam to transportation on land, 
 railroads; to transportation on water, steam 
 vessels; to printing; to all kinds of manufac- 
 tures, construction, building, machine making, 
 and the like, has made the modern city not only 
 possible, but necessary. The modern city with 
 its development of machinery places the empha- 
 sis upon elaboration rather than upon the pro- 
 duction of raw materials. We are no longer, 
 and can never be again, a farming, fishing, min- 
 ing people. We must work where large numbers 
 of persons can get together quickly, where com- 
 modities can be exchanged rapidly, where goods 
 can be carried from one part to the other easily, 
 where intercommunication is prompt, economi- 
 cal, and efficient. 
 
 Steam and electricity have tied the world 
 together. They have made specialization in- 
 evitable, because they have created so many 
 more things that need to be done. And thus 
 
256 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 has been vastly increased the mutual interde- 
 pendence, not only of all people, but of all the 
 peoples. It is not only true that the honesty 
 of the banker in a community affects the wel- 
 fare of the other people in that community; 
 it is also true that the welfare of the farmer who 
 supplies the milk, the butcher who furnishes the 
 meat, the school-teacher who teaches the chil- 
 dren, the city official all these involve the wel- 
 fare, or the reverse, of all the rest in that com- 
 munity. Communities are also mutually inter- 
 dependent. A calamity to our great wheat- 
 fields in the West would be a calamity for New 
 York city, although we have no wheat-fields in 
 the city. A financial calamity in New York 
 would be a calamity to the wheat growers of 
 the West and wider even, a calamity to the 
 wheat growers of America means a calamity 
 to the bread eaters of the world. The mutual 
 interdependence of all people has been increased, 
 and it is this interdependence that has given 
 opportunities for the great exploitation of the 
 many by the few. This exploitation is in itself 
 neither good nor evil. It may result in vast 
 benefits to the community, as well as in benefits 
 to those in control. The reverse may be true, 
 but usually the two effects are mixed. So it is 
 not any new human power that has produced 
 
PLAY AND DEMOCRACY 257 
 
 these great dangers. They are attributable to 
 the development of our material civilization, 
 which has given opportunity for old power to 
 show itself in new forms. 
 
 This interdependence has also rendered many 
 things socially significant which in former days 
 were largely individualistic. For instance, years 
 ago, when our forefathers lived in small groups 
 of families, the disposal of refuse was apparently 
 a matter which affected the health of that 
 individual family alone; other families lived 
 far enough away so as not to be affected. The 
 making of clothing by the family was not of 
 social significance to the whole community as 
 it is at present. Now clothing made in a home 
 where there is scarlet fever is a menace to the 
 entire community. A single case of typhoid in 
 a family living near a stream may now result, 
 and has resulted, in thousands of deaths in coni- 
 munities supplied with water from the same 
 stream. This is possible only under conditions 
 of water-supply as developed during city life. 
 It is now a crime punishable by law to erect 
 a wooden building within certain congested dis- 
 tricts of large cities, because a wooden building 
 is apt to burn, thus proving a menace to other 
 structures. In the old days when buildings 
 stood isolated, it was a matter of individual 
 
258 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 choice what materials should be used in con- 
 struction. 
 
 So we see that in the matter of unthinking, 
 uncontrolled action, it is not that we are less 
 thoughtful and less controlled than in former 
 days, but that we have suddenly had thrown 
 upon us the need of self-control and thought- 
 fulness in a very large number of new directions. 
 Conscience is growing as it has always grown, 
 but the last century has seen thrust upon it a 
 set of fresh burdens of an extent, complexity, 
 and character unprecedented in scope. 
 
 These new deeds must be and are being met 
 by changes in the direction of the development 
 of conscience. Not that anything new in the 
 nature of conscience itself is being evolved, but 
 fresh subjects are being brought within its con- 
 sciousness, fresh applications are being made of 
 self-control. I refer to that self-control which 
 is related to the very wide extension of the ef- 
 fects of one's acts as compared with former 
 days. 
 
 That system of ethics, and the conscience 
 that went with it, which was satisfied by the 
 ideal of "visiting the fatherless and the widows 
 and keeping one's self unspotted from the 
 world," has passed. It is not enough to help 
 the unfortunate of our immediate environment; 
 
PLAY AND DEMOCRACY 259 
 
 the unit has enormously enlarged, until it em- 
 braces the whole community. Conscience is 
 developing in civic directions and in corporate 
 directions. We have not yet developed citizens 
 in great numbers who possess a civic conscience, 
 but we have some and more are coming. The 
 last decade has seen an enormous development 
 in the sensitiveness of conscience to corporate 
 activity, and it is not too much to say that the 
 conscience of our leading men is sensitive to cor- 
 porate activities in a way that it was not ten 
 years ago. It is no longer sufficient for a man 
 to lead a personally blameless life in order to be 
 socially esteemed in the community. His cor- 
 porate life must not only be free from evil, but 
 must have in it positive social good. It is no 
 longer enough to pray and to work in accordance 
 with the spirit of this plea, "Oh Lord, bless 
 me and my wife, my son John and his wife 
 we four and no more"; because these four are 
 so bound up with all the rest of the community 
 that it is impossible to single them out either 
 for good or evil. What affects them affects 
 the rest. We stand or fall together. 
 
 These multiplex ties, the very ones that bind 
 us in modern society, are the sources of a free- 
 dom that expands and gives us new power. We 
 may have either slavery or freedom depending 
 
260 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 upon the kind of people we are. If we can use 
 freedom, we keep it. If we cannot use freedom, 
 it turns into license and into slavery not 
 through the exercise of any external power, but 
 in the very nature of the case. 
 
 The necessity of self-control and corporate 
 civic conscience in a self -governed people may 
 be illustrated by any number of historical cases. 
 The failure of Liberia is an instance to the 
 point. Here was a community built up of slaves 
 who had grown up under conditions of autocratic 
 control, who had not developed the power of 
 using freedom, who had not evolved a social 
 conscience, that kind of personal control which 
 looks to the whole community for its effects. 
 Liberia failed not because of the absence of ideals, 
 but because there were not in the community 
 enough persons who were accustomed to being 
 free. 
 
 The story of the forty years' sojourn of the 
 Jews in the Wilderness may not be literally 
 true; it is, however, morally true. This group 
 of former slaves had to be kept on the march, 
 under the rigorous hygienic conditions of wilder- 
 ness life for one whole generation, until there 
 could arise a new generation that had been 
 brought up under conditions of freedom. Then 
 there was a measurable degree of self-control, 
 
PLAY AND DEMOCRACY 261 
 
 and the development of property and higher 
 social conditions could and did arise. 
 
 The difficulties that obtain in Russia to-day 
 seem to be partly at least due to the absence of 
 a sufficient number of persons who have learned 
 the first lessons of freedom in childhood. There 
 is no lack of passionate devotion; there is a 
 lack of social control. Peoples of the woi-ld 
 have certainly failed from many different causes, 
 but prominent among them is their misuse of 
 free time, that is, the time of their freedom 
 the misuse of that which gives the opportunity for 
 the very highest development of the individual. 
 
 The type of freedom found in play is the type 
 of freedom on which democracy rests. Is the 
 boy free who is in a gang ? In one sense he has 
 very little freedom. If he does not wear clothes 
 approved of by the gang, his clothes may be 
 torn off. If ten members of the gang want to 
 play ball, the remaining member is not free to 
 go to the woods. If the others want to steal 
 watermelons, he is not free to go home. His 
 freedom is conditioned by the rules of the game 
 and by the wishes of the group. This is the kind 
 of freedom he may expect later in life; it is the 
 only type of freedom which a human being, 
 living in social relations, can hope to secure, 
 freedom conditioned by rules and by the desires-^ 
 
262 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 of others, expressed in law. This is the freedom 
 of a democracy, and the control of a democracy 
 is mutual-consent control. It is for this free- 
 dom and this control that play gives prepara- 
 tion and training. 
 
 Granted that the freedom from which alone 
 self-control can come is one of the best gifts of 
 play to our civilization, where shall we look for 
 the other requisite of democracy, a sensitive 
 social consciousness? In this respect, also, the 
 playground has a tremendous contribution to 
 make. Through the loyalty and self-sacrifice 
 developed in team games by the mutual-consent 
 control, we are laying the foundations for 
 wider loyalty and a more discerning self-devo- 
 tion to the great national ideals on which de- 
 mocracy rests. The gang instinct is in some 
 respects anti-social, because the group is limited, 
 but it marks the beginning of real social con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 A great play festival was held in Chicago in 
 1907. Large groups of the various peoples of 
 that city came together and presented their 
 national dances, expressing the ties that bound 
 them to their own pasts and uniting with other 
 citizens in a spirit of civic unity. It was an 
 occasion of great significance in the welding to- 
 gether of diverse elements of our nation. 
 
PLAY AND DEMOCRACY 263 
 
 The immigrants coming to America have 
 frequently been made to feel that their past 
 was not wanted. The smart young American 
 has not understood the traditions of the country 
 from which his parents came. He has failed to 
 understand the significance of their national and 
 folk-dances, the historic traditions which help 
 to tie the individual in a community to that 
 which is wholesome in the past, as well as to 
 express that which is necessary in the present. 
 
 The need of developing a new country has 
 taught us the necessity of work. We have yet 
 to learn the place of play and recreation 
 not as individuals, but as social units for we 
 do not live as individuals, but as parts of a social 
 whole. These folk-dances and games in which 
 many individuals can participate afford one of 
 the few avenues that exist for the expression of 
 mass feeling. The spirit of unity has been 
 developed as much by these exhibitions of com- 
 mon feeling as by the mere fact of working to- 
 gether. Working together in some industry or 
 factory may instil into the coworkers a kind of 
 unity or sympathy; but the getting together 
 on an occasion of freedom where they can express 
 their joy in a symbolic dance operates far more 
 effectively in bringing about this consciousness 
 of the whole. 
 
264 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 Some years ago, at the instigation of a com- 
 mittee, the Greeks of Chicago presented " Ajax," 
 an old Greek play. The effect upon the Grecian 
 workers of the city was astonishing. They came 
 to be conscious of themselves as a people. It 
 was not merely a performance done for the en- 
 joyment of others; it was a recognition of their 
 common historic past and of its tie with the pres- 
 ent. It is not by chance that the peoples of the 
 world have developed their dances and other 
 means for celebrating occasions. We Americans 
 need these occasions also, for we are built of the 
 same stuff as are the other nations. Celebra- 
 tions of this type are not merely entertaining; 
 they meet a deep need that we all feel the need 
 for community action. The time will surely 
 come when every city will have developed its 
 own celebrations, when those holidays that be- 
 long to all in common shall have acquired an art 
 form in which they may be adequately expressed. 
 
 Democracy must thus provide not only a seat 
 and instruction for every child in the school, but 
 also play and good play traditions for every child 
 in a playground. Without the development of 
 the social conscience which has its roots in the 
 early activities of the playground we cannot 
 expect adults to possess those higher feelings, 
 which rest upon the earlier social virtues de- 
 
PLAY AND DEMOCRACY 265 
 
 veloped during childhood. The sand pile for 
 the small child, the playground for the middle- 
 sized child, the athletic field for the boy, folk- 
 dancing and social ceremonial life for the boy 
 and the girl in the teens, wholesome means of 
 social relationships during adult life these 
 are fundamental conditions without which de- 
 mocracy cannot continue, because upon them 
 rests the development of that self-control which 
 is related to an appreciation of the needs of the 
 rest of the group and of the corporate conscience 
 that is rendered necessary by the complex inter- 
 dependence of modern life. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 PLAY, THE PURSUIT OF THE IDEAL 
 
 JACOB RIIS told the story of a little sick 
 girl who had been hungry a long time, and 
 who did not have sufficient clothing to 
 protect her from the biting cold. Some good 
 friend who discovered her asked what more than 
 anything else she would like to have. She re- 
 plied : " Can I have just what I want ? " "Yes," 
 was the answer. "What I want," said the little 
 girl, "is a pair of red shoes." 
 
 There are things in life more important than 
 bread. To that little girl red shoes meant 
 beauty, the thing desired, the ideal. Many 
 persons who have been in the cold without suffi- 
 cient clothing, food, or shelter, because they pos- 
 sessed the things of life that for them were ideal, 
 have been happy and have lived wholesome 
 lives. The reason for the coarseness and sordid- 
 ness of the great mass of people is not their lack 
 of sufficient food, shelter, and clothing. It lies 
 in the fact that they have not been successful 
 in the pursuit of other than material things. Or 
 
THE PURSUIT OF THE IDEAL 267 
 
 quite possibly it lies in the fact that they have 
 not even pursued these other aims. They have 
 had no ideal which meant more to them than 
 comfort. They have been driven by necessity, 
 not by desire. 
 
 Play is what we do when we are free to do 
 what we will. It is the spontaneous expression 
 of the inner desire. A father came home one 
 day and found his nine-year-old daughter writ- 
 ing busily. Face and hands indicated extreme 
 tension and severe labor. He asked her what 
 she was doing, and she replied: "Please don't 
 disturb me. I am doing something very im- 
 portant. I am on the entertainment committee 
 of the Saturday Afternoon Club, and I am writ- 
 ing the programme." It was finally produced 
 as follows: 
 
 1. Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow. 
 
 2. My Country, 'Tis of Thee. 
 
 3. Waltz. 
 
 4. Come Ye That Love the Lord. 
 
 5. Two-step. 
 
 6. I Need Thee Every Hour. 
 
 7. Love Divine, All Love Excelling. 
 
 8. Hark ! the Herald Angels Sing. 
 
 9. Irish Dance. 
 
 10. Spanish Dance. 
 
 11. Where Is My Wandering Boy To-night? 
 
 12. Barn Dance. 
 
 13. God Be With You Till We Meet Again. 
 
268 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 Here was the human spirit expressing itself 
 freely, fully, like a field flower. Fortunate, 
 indeed, are they who retain this spirit for man- 
 hood and womanhood adding only work ! Re- 
 ligious feeling, play, and work a balanced life. 
 We labor now magnificently, but the two other 
 avenues of expression die young. Another age 
 may have to expend its best energy in getting us 
 back to dance, pray, and play. 
 
 The work which the world counts really great 
 has been done in this spirit of free self-expres- 
 sion, which is also the spirit of play. The 
 poems of the world, the great statues, the great 
 paintings of the world these are not produced 
 under compulsion. The Portuguese Sonnets 
 were not a product of economic necessity. One 
 cannot conceive of the work of Rodin being pro- 
 duced because of the need of the money which 
 it brought. While he was doing the work 
 into which he was putting his life, he was 
 supporting himself by laboring in a factory 
 where images are made for the trade; but his 
 life interest lay in the pursuit of the ideal. That 
 is the contribution by which the world remem- 
 bers him. The famous violin-makers, who loved 
 their instruments and could hardly bear to part 
 with them, worked because they enjoyed it. 
 They were not impelled by necessity, but by 
 desire. 
 
THE PURSUIT OF THE IDEAL 269 
 
 I talked with a tool-maker in Pratt Institute, 
 and as I picked up a two-part tool that he had 
 just made, I said: 
 
 "How closely does it fit?" 
 
 He answered: "I don't know"; but he added 
 that it fitted closer than one-thousandth of an 
 inch. 
 
 I said: "Why can't you tell?" 
 
 To which he replied: "I have no calipers that 
 will register closer than that." 
 
 I said: "Is it necessary to fit it so closely ?" 
 
 "No," he said, "it is not." 
 
 I said : " Why do you do it ? " 
 
 Then he just looked at me. That man's work 
 was his life. He was expressing himself as did 
 the old violin-makers; he was pursuing his ideal. 
 It was not the lash of economic necessity that 
 was driving him, nor the scourge of public opin- 
 ion. 
 
 That is what I mean by play, and that is what 
 play really is. It is not something less than 
 work. It means a difference in mental attitude. 
 One may play when ploughing, or cooking, or 
 experimenting, or reading poems or one may 
 work. One attitude is the pursuit of the ideal; 
 the other is a mere acceptance of the compul- 
 sions of life. Play as a matter of fact slides 
 over into what is called work, but the glorious 
 thing about life is that usually the great work 
 
270 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 is play. Not only the work which becomes fa- 
 mous may be done from the standpoint of play, 
 but all work that is worth doing. The teacher 
 who loves to teach, the business man who is 
 fascinated by "the game," the inventor who 
 forgets sleep because of interest in that which he 
 is bringing into the world, the mother who does 
 her tasks with joy born of love for her children 
 all these are acting from desire. They are ex- 
 pressing themselves freely; they are playing. 
 
 When a boy has rigged up a little paddle- 
 wheel in the stream in the meadow and has de- 
 vised a way by which a thread may be attached 
 to the axle and a small block of wood hauled 
 up against the current, he has done essentially 
 what Edison does when he has been evolving 
 a new electrical attachment. In the absorption 
 of the occupation he has forgotten all about his 
 meals; everything else has become of no conse- 
 quence; the enthusiasm and joy of a certain ideal 
 have taken possession of him. That is play. 
 It is the spontaneous enlistment of the entire 
 personality in the pursuit of some coveted end. 
 We are not compelled to pursue this goal; we 
 wish to pursue it, for it is our main desire. In 
 the light of it everything else dinners, punish- 
 ments, the world's opinion become inconse- 
 quential. We have not taken possession of the 
 idea; the idea has taken possession of us. 
 
THE PURSUIT OF THE IDEAL 271 
 
 Play does not mean the omission of difficulties, 
 or even of hard labor. A boy playing a game 
 may work harder than he could possibly be made 
 to work by any other means. He may not en- 
 joy all the details of the play, the training for 
 athletic sports, the hard practice, the defeats. 
 But he accepts them because he has chosen the 
 game; and he knows that the game involves 
 rules. He will submit to the rules because they 
 are necessary for the end he desires. Similarly, 
 a man who does his work because of desire will 
 submit to endless detail and routine if it is neces- 
 sary for the accomplishing of the work. It is 
 not drudgery, forced upon him from an external 
 group; it may be hard, it may be wearying; but 
 it is that which he himself has chosen to do. He 
 does it because he wishes to do it, and for no 
 other reason. 
 
 This play attitude may be deliberately as- 
 sumed in the face of the tasks of life. A boy who 
 was compelled to work in the wood-shed showed 
 his imagination by pretending that the blocks 
 of wood were Indians whom he was attacking. 
 The difference in attitude made the whole dif- 
 ference in the enjoyment of the work. Two sis- 
 ters who had been quarrelling in their play were 
 suddenly heard to say: "Let's play sisters." 
 From that time on they played harmoniously, 
 fulfilling their ideal of the sisterly relation. 
 
A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 There was a difference between being sisters and 
 playing sisters: in the first case the condition 
 was imposed, in the second case the relation was 
 a chosen one, an ideal to be worked out in action. 
 Kipling has given classic expression to this 
 joy in work for the work's sake in his "L'Envoi" : 
 
 "And no one shall work for money, and no one shall 
 
 work for fame; 
 But each for the joy of the working, and each, in 
 
 his separate star, 
 Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of 
 
 Things as They Are!" 
 
 The phrase "Art for art's sake," although it 
 has become distorted from its original meaning, 
 had this idea back of it, that any work worthy 
 of being considered aesthetic must be done for the 
 joy of the process. The attitude of play can be 
 taken deliberately under much less promising 
 circumstances than those in which the artist is 
 situated. Many adults, compelled to do tasks 
 which seemed in themselves uncongenial, have 
 quite consciously done as the small boy did with 
 the logs in the wood-shed; they have made a 
 game of their work. This is possible even under 
 difficult conditions, and it usually requires much 
 less mental effort to stimulate desire than to do 
 the work from the sheer heave of duty and with 
 a dissenting spirit. 
 
THE PURSUIT OF THE IDEAL 273 
 
 The way in which the feeling of the game may 
 be taken into the affairs of life, giving power 
 and the ability to endure to the end, has been 
 stirringly expressed by Henry Newbolt, in a 
 poem describing how the spirit of the cricket 
 match saved the day for a British regiment on 
 the battle-field. 
 
 "There's a breathless hush in the Close to-night 
 Ten to make and the match to win 
 A bumping pitch and a blinding light, 
 An hour to play and the last man in. 
 And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat 
 Or the selfish hope of a season's fame, 
 But his captain's hand on his shoulder smote 
 'Play up ! play up ! and play the game !' 
 
 The sand of the desert is sodden red 
 
 Red with the wreck of the square that broke; 
 
 The Gatling's jammed and the colonel dead, 
 
 And the 'regiment blind with the dust and smoke. 
 
 The river of death has brimmed its banks 
 
 And England's far and Honor a name 
 
 But the voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks: 
 
 'Play up ! play up ! and play the game !' 
 
 This is the word that year by year, 
 While in her place the school is set, 
 Every one of her sons must hear 
 And none that hears it dare forget. 
 This they all with a joyful mind 
 Bear through life like a torch in flame, 
 And, falling, fling to the host behind 
 'Play up ! play up ! and play the game !*" 
 
274 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 That is what life is, at its highest and best 
 a playing of the game, a pursuing of the ideal 
 under the rules and limiting conditions necessary 
 for this pursuit. The pursuit is an end in itself. 
 The goal of life is not found in any definite ac- 
 quisition of pleasure; and, curiously enough, 
 children do not play for pleasure. The boy 
 does not say: "It will give me pleasure to play 
 marbles." He says: "I want to play marbles." 
 He does not think of the pleasurable state of 
 feeling that will occur when he secures a jack- 
 knife. He thinks of the knife and wants it. 
 It is only the sophisticated person who says: 
 "It will give me pleasure to eat these grapes." 
 The ordinary person thinks of the grapes and 
 wants them. Pleasure comes with the eating, 
 but rarely abides in consciousness as something 
 to be sought. We do not choose because of the 
 pleasure; we choose because we have the desire. 
 Desire and not pleasure is the ultimate mo- 
 tive. 
 
 The real satisfaction of life is not found in any 
 end that is attained. One of my children made 
 a doll's house with a very complete set of furni- 
 ture, with pictures on the walls, a piano, a bed 
 and bedclothes. She seemed possessed with the 
 desire for a doll's house and worked at it intensely 
 from early morning until late at night. But 
 
THE PURSUIT OF THE IDEAL 275 
 
 she did not want the doll's house when it was 
 completed. At that moment her satisfaction 
 in it began to lessen. The doll's house was not 
 the real end. A man worked with great en- 
 thusiasm over the logical structure of logarithms, 
 sitting up all night to learn it. He thought his 
 motive was that he wanted to use that particular 
 knowledge later. But he never cared to use it 
 afterward; his joy was in the accomplishment, 
 not in the thing acquired. Boys will work for 
 hours or days to make a house or a wagon, and 
 their satisfaction wanes the moment the object 
 is completed. It is a common experience for 
 men to set a mark beyond which they will not 
 go in the earning of money. But that mark is 
 passed again and again, and still they keep at 
 their work. 
 
 Our minds are so constructed that they draw 
 curtains over past achievements. We are not 
 satisfiable beings. Choice is not to be regarded 
 as existing for the sake of any definite content of 
 pleasure, nor for the end to be attained. We 
 want something and get it, and at once it is be- 
 hind us. So long as we have it not, we long for 
 it, and our hearts go out after it. We use every 
 feeling of earnestness and passion for its attain- 
 ment, and then when we get it, it is gone from 
 our desire and we strive for some other thing. 
 
276 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 The essence of choice is not in the end, but in the 
 choosing. In the doing is the result. Happiness 
 is not in the attainment, but in the attaining. 
 "Life is in the quest." 
 
 President Hadley has drawn attention to this 
 fact, that we are moved by the splendor of the 
 action rather than by the tangible results. 
 "Turn back over the pages of history to the 
 stories that have most moved men's hearts, and 
 what are they ? Stories of action, deeds of dar- 
 ing, where the risk habitually outweighed the 
 chance of practical results. Nay, the most in- 
 spiring of them are often manifestations of hope- 
 less bravery, where the likelihood of success 
 was absolutely nil. When we read of the soldiers 
 of Gustavus Adolphus's regiment at Liitzen, who 
 after the loss of their king stood firm in their 
 ranks until the line of the dead was as straight as 
 had been the line of the living on dress parade; 
 when we hear of the Cumberland at Hampton 
 Roads waging the hopeless fight of wood against 
 iron, and keeping the flag afloat at the mast- 
 head, when the vessel and all who remained in 
 her had sunk; when we remember the tale of the 
 Alamo, in whose courtyard and hospital a hand- 
 ful of American frontiersmen fought the army of 
 Mexico, without hope of victory, but without a 
 thought of retreat or surrender, till they earned 
 
THE PURSUIT OF THE IDEAL 277 
 
 by the very completeness of their annihilation 
 the glory of that monumental inscription: 
 ( Thermopylae had its messenger of defeat; the 
 Alamo had none' then do we see how hollow 
 is our pretense of valuing things by results, when 
 we are brought face to face with the really heroic 
 struggles of life. It is the doing that makes the 
 deed worthy of record, not the material out- 
 
 come." 
 
 The first conclusion to be drawn from these 
 facts about human choice and free play is that 
 life, self -activity, is an end in itself. This is true 
 all the way up the human scale; it is as true for 
 the child as for the adult. The man who is will- 
 ing to brush aside the child's feeling about play, 
 thinking of his activities as mere preparation, 
 completely misunderstands the nature of human 
 life. That child is now living the human life, 
 his feelings are the same and the results of living 
 are the same to that child as they will always be. 
 Though the process be with purely imaginary 
 objects, though the child be making an imaginary 
 currant jelly with an imaginary dish on an im- 
 aginary stove, the process is real. And the proc- 
 ess is an end in itself. The impulse to play is 
 the impulse to express oneself, to function, to 
 live. We make great slaughter of our own and 
 our children's lives when we think of ourselves or 
 
278 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 of them as preparing to live. Life is now; the 
 present process is the real end of desire and of 
 choice. 
 
 Simply because this is a real process, not an 
 imaginary one, is there a succession in desires. 
 The nature of the desires that hold us through 
 life, that make us endure pain, that keep us 
 joyously at our tasks, varies with our develop- 
 ment. There is a constant conflict of different 
 desires. The boy wants to play, but he also 
 wants to eat. He wants to please his mother, 
 and he wants to please himself. The man wants 
 to hunt, but he also wants to succeed in business. 
 There is a conflict, and the nature of the man 
 will determine whether he shall leave his busi- 
 ness and go hunting, or give up hunting and 
 keep to his business. These purely egoistic de- 
 sires remain in some form throughout life. The 
 joy of skill in manual work belongs to this group 
 of pleasures. 
 
 This conflict is constantly renewed on a higher 
 plane. There is tremendous joy in competition; 
 the boy's whole life is poured out in the pas- 
 sionate desire to win. But certain forms of 
 fighting must injure boys who are friends of his. 
 The old desire to fight his chum may give way to 
 a new desire to stand by him. There is a higher 
 pleasure in self-sacrifice for those whom we love 
 
THE PURSUIT OF THE IDEAL 279 
 
 than there is in competition with them. If the 
 man grows wholesomely, he will come, at last, to 
 have a love for his city, his country; he will 
 work and sacrifice for it, not from a sense of 
 duty, in the unpleasant use of that word, but be- 
 cause he wants to, because he loves his city. He 
 has the same kind of feeling of satisfaction in 
 service that the little boy had in building block- 
 houses. He is doing it from an inner impulse, 
 from the stress of desire. 
 
 Desire is a greater word than duty. It is a 
 fine thing to do right when one does not wish to 
 do right; but it is a finer thing to desire the right. 
 It is a mother's duty to care for her child. But 
 the mother who stays awake at night, who sacri- 
 fices herself for her sick baby just because it is 
 her duty, is living on a low level compared 
 with the woman who does all this and more 
 because she wishes to do it, because she loves 
 the child. The man who "does his duty" to 
 his wife never does his whole duty. I knew a 
 man who noted in his pocket memorandum cer- 
 tain days when he would take flowers to his 
 wife. He regarded it as a married man's duty 
 to pay these attentions to his wife just as he 
 had done before marriage; so at stated and 
 regular intervals he purchased flowers. But 
 the highest expression of life loses its chief value 
 
280 A PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY 
 
 if it is done from a sense of duty; the highest 
 expression of life must be one of desire. 
 
 The growth of personality is shown by the 
 change in the things we desire. One day my 
 twelve-year-old daughter came to me for a 
 talk. She had noticed, she said, that the girls 
 of thirteen and fourteen in our neighborhood 
 had stopped playing with dolls, and had also 
 stopped "hitching" to grocer wagons and other 
 vehicles. She said: "I have made up my 
 mind that I am going to 'hitch' until I am eight- 
 een, and I am going to play with dolls until I 
 am twenty." She also fixed some other dates. 
 I replied: "Why do you make up your mind 
 about it? Why not just do it as long as you 
 want to?" She answered: "I want to until 
 then. I know I shall want to until then. But 
 it will be a little hard, because the other girls 
 will stop doing it, and I shall have to do it alone." 
 She was giving almost perfect expression of the 
 state of mind in which many of us face the 
 joys of life. We hold on to them; we are afraid 
 to let them go. We want the present main- 
 tained in the future, not realizing that the pres- 
 ent joy may be a stepping-stone to a larger one. 
 But just as the baby enjoys playing with his 
 toes, and that joy serves its turn and passes 
 into the background of consciousness to make 
 
THE PURSUIT OF THE IDEAL 281 
 
 room for greater joys made possible by greater 
 powers, so for adults this constant progression 
 is not only possible but necessary for the fullest 
 life. 
 
 We must go forward to new joys and new 
 activities as spontaneously and gladly as a child 
 goes forward to new plays. When we have 
 reached adult years, and have become self- 
 conscious in our joys, the new truth may hurt 
 at first. Even the small boy is hurt by the 
 discovery that there is no Santa Claus, unless 
 this discovery comes to him in connection with 
 a larger truth. The youth who learns that the 
 earth is not flat and that the world is merely a 
 speck in the universe, may feel miserably small 
 for a few days. The greater truth has not yet 
 made its way. And the world has ostracized 
 and killed those who brought new truth to it. 
 The fear of losing the present good is a natural 
 fear, but it may be overcome by the conscious 
 realization of the fact that the process of life is 
 continuous, that the new is built upon and per- 
 fects the old, that, as Browning has said in his 
 "Rabbi Ben Ezra," "The best is yet to be." 
 
INDEX 
 
 ADULT: 
 
 Play, 113 
 
 AESTHETICS : 
 
 Feeling, produced by smoke, 54 
 
 In house play, 73 
 
 ALTRUISM: 
 
 Man's, developed through tribe, 
 89,98 
 
 Team games, altruism from, 
 
 150, 194 
 
 Woman's, developed through 
 home, 93, 97 
 
 ANGLO-SAXON: 
 
 Play, xi, 147, 154, 162 
 
 ANIMAL: 
 
 Play, 99 
 
 ARITHMETIC: 
 
 Teaching of, 180 
 
 ART: 
 
 Play impulse in, 268 
 
 ASTRONOMY : 
 
 Interest in, 172 
 
 ATHLETICS: 
 
 Boy character shaped by, 91 
 
 Discipline of, for women, 97 
 
 Origin of, 28, 90 
 
 Track, interest in, 188 
 
 Womanliness and, 92 
 
 BABY: 
 
 Climbing attempts of, 243 
 
 Girls' love for, 79 
 
 Play of, 184 
 BASEBALL: 
 
 American game, 197 
 Interest in, 1, 3, 4, 171, 239 
 
 Money spent on, 114 
 
 Origin of, 198 
 
 Speed of, 163 
 
 BASKET-BALL: 
 
 Woman's reaction to, 
 
 84, 89, 93, 97 
 
 BEAR: 
 
 Hunt, in tribe play, 205 
 
 BEAUTY: 
 
 Desire for, 266 
 
 BERLIN: 
 
 Play of small children in, 14 
 
 BIRD: 
 
 Instincts, 104, 111, 200 
 
 Interest in birds, 172 
 
 "BLACK MAN": 16 
 
 BLACKBIRD: 
 
 Instinct to sing of, 200 
 
 BLOCK: 
 
 City, for play, 228 
 
 Play with blocks. 69, 225 
 
 BOAT: 
 
 Construction, 68 
 
 BODY: 
 
 Control in play, 149 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 Playgrounds, 7 
 
 BOXING: 22, 29 
 
 BOY: 
 
 Exercise of small, 156 
 
 Gangs, 194 
 
 Imitation of, 208 
 
 Initiation ceremonies of, 202 
 Subnormal, 128 
 
 Unrestrained, 207 
 
 BUILDING: 
 
 Blocks, 71 
 
 BULL FIGHT: 
 
 In Spain, 22 
 
 CAMP FIRE GIRLS: 
 Fire ceremonies of, 
 
 64 
 
284 
 
 INDEX 
 
 CAT: 
 
 Game of, 4 
 Play of, 100, 106 
 
 "CAT'S CRADLE": 
 
 In Borneo, 241 
 
 CENSUS: 
 
 Play, 113 
 
 CHARACTER: 
 
 Development from continued 
 
 abode, 43 
 
 CHICAGO: 
 
 Playgrounds, 7 
 
 CHICKEN: 
 
 Chirping of, in egg, 99 
 
 CHILD: 
 
 City, opportunities of, 229 
 
 Defective, in school, 168 
 
 Home life of, 220 
 
 Initiation of savage, 201 
 
 Institution, play of, 137 
 
 Life in play, 277 
 
 Older, play space for, 13 
 
 School life of, 217 
 
 Small, play space for, 13 
 
 Subnormal, 128 
 
 Work of, with parents, 214 
 
 CHURCH : 
 
 Grounds, use of, 227 
 
 CITY: 
 
 Craps, a city game, 238 
 Life, and the individual, 257 
 Life, and shelter feeling, 43 
 
 Modern industrial, 255 
 Play in modern, 224, 228 
 
 Populations, 212 
 
 CIVILIZATION: 
 
 And play, 211 
 
 CLUB: 
 
 Boys', 5 
 
 COMMUNITY: 
 
 Action, 264 
 Interdependence of communi- 
 ties, 256 
 Play, 222 
 Traditions carried by, 237 
 
 COMPETITION: 
 
 Boys' plays characterized by, 83 
 
 Early play and, 149 
 
 Middle life and, 188 
 
 Morals, effect of competition on, 
 
 189 
 
 Origin of, 90, 187 
 
 Women's, 97 
 
 CONCENTRATION: 
 
 Children's, in play, 12 
 
 CONFLICT: 
 
 Life a conflict of desires, 278 
 
 CONSCIENCE: 
 Civic, 258 
 
 CONSTRUCTION: 
 
 House, 38 
 
 Ownership and, 67 
 
 CONTINUITY: 
 Affected by city living, 43 
 
 CONTROL: 
 
 Body, in early play, 148, 185 
 Mutual consent, 
 
 206, 245, 247, 262 
 Play, 206, 232, 240 
 
 Playground, 230, 244 
 
 Self-, and democracy, 265 
 
 Self-, and obedience, 251 
 
 Social, 254 
 
 COOKING: 
 
 Fire play, 50 
 
 House play, 5, 39, 45 
 
 Social significance of, 46 
 
 CO-ORDINATION: 
 
 Feeble-minded, co-ordination of, 
 131, 133 
 
 Muscular, through rhythm, 136 
 Neural, in throwing, 84 
 
 Neuro-muscular, early in life, 185 
 Play, from simple to complex, 
 153, 165 
 
 COURAGE: 
 
 Fighting plays, and, 30 
 
 CRAPS: 
 A city game, 238 
 
 CRICKET: 
 
 English football, 197 
 
 Fighting, 21 
 
 CURRICULUM: 
 
 Kindergarten play, 182 
 
INDEX 
 
 285 
 
 Play, 175 
 
 School, 176 
 CUSTOM: 
 
 Social, from shelter feeling, 40 
 
 DANCE: 
 
 Folk, in America, 236, 242 
 
 Folk, for feeble-minded, 136 
 Folk, at play festival, 262 
 
 Hall, evils of, 121 
 
 Hall statistics, 115 
 
 DEMOCRACY: 
 
 Play and, 243 
 
 DESIRE: 
 
 Feeble-minded, lack of desire of, 
 128, 133, 135 
 
 Great achievements, desire pres- 
 ent in, 180 
 Knowledge, desire for, 183 
 Life motive, 266 
 Play characterized by, 127, 177 
 
 DOG: 
 
 Fighting feeling in, 201 
 
 Hunting feeling in, 111 
 
 Play, 102, 105, 106, 110 
 
 DOING: 
 
 Joy in, 274 
 
 DOLL: 
 
 Boy's reaction to, 83, 86 
 
 Girl's reaction to, 85 
 
 Play, 74 
 
 Social value of, 94 
 
 DULUTH: 
 
 Playgrounds of, 231 
 
 DUTY: 
 
 Desire greater than, 279 
 
 EATING: 
 
 Social, relations of, 46 
 
 EDUCATION: 
 
 Home, passing of, 217 
 Physical, of feeble-minded, 136 
 
 Play and, 171 
 
 Popular, 254 
 
 SLECTRICITY : 
 
 Interest in, 173 
 
 ENDURANCE: 
 
 Play, endurance learned in, 163 
 ENERGY: 
 
 Absence of, in feeble-minded, 132 
 EPOCH: 
 
 Culture, play theory, 141 
 
 ETHICS: 
 
 Freedom and, 249, 251 
 
 Modern, 258 
 
 Playground, 245 
 
 EXALTATION: 
 
 Play, 19 
 
 EXAMPLE: 
 
 Play, 234, 239 
 
 Power of, 219 
 
 EXERCISE: 
 
 Boy's, aged four, 156 
 
 Boy's, aged two and a hah*, 157 
 EXPERIENCE: 
 
 Learning by, 243 
 
 EXPLOITATION: 
 
 Present-day, 254, 256 
 
 FALLING: 
 
 Lessons in, 243 
 
 FAMILY: 
 
 Development of, from shelter 
 feeling, 41, 42 
 
 Life, change in, 215, 219 
 
 Relations through doll play, 78 
 FARM: 
 
 Work, 215 
 
 FATIGUE: 
 
 School, 176 
 
 FEAR: 
 
 Feeling of, in play, 16 
 
 Fire, 56, 58 
 
 FEEBLE-MINDED: 
 
 Play of, 129 
 
 FEELING: 
 
 Domestic, centred on doll, 69 
 
 Fire the symbol of, 63, 65 
 
 FESTIVAL: 
 
 Play, Chicago, 262 
 
 FIGHTING: 
 
 Instinct in terriers. 201 
 
 Interest in, 143 
 
286 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Literature, fighting in, 22 
 
 GENEALOGY: 
 
 
 Plays, 16, 29, 83 
 
 Interest in, 
 
 178 
 
 Prize, interest in, 1, 21, 23 
 
 GEOMETRY: 
 
 
 FIRE: 
 
 Study of, 
 
 175 
 
 Camp Fire Girls' use of, 64 
 
 GIRL: 
 
 
 Fear, 56, 58 
 
 Little sick, 
 
 266 
 
 Play, 49 
 
 Work of, in home, 
 
 216 
 
 Religious significance of, 60 
 
 GROWTH : 
 
 
 School fires, 248 
 
 City, 
 
 212 
 
 Social significance of, 61 
 
 Moral, and play, 
 
 184 
 
 Symbol of feeling, 63 
 
 Play an indicator of, 
 
 133 
 
 FISHING: 
 
 Play in relation to, 152, 
 
 155 
 
 Interest in, 6, 142 
 
 Time for, 
 
 181 
 
 FOLK DANCE: 
 
 GUIDANCE: 
 
 
 See Dance. 
 
 Play, 195, 
 
 199 
 
 FOOD: 
 
 GUINEA PIG: 
 
 
 Play. See Cooking. 
 
 Play of, 
 
 105 
 
 FOOTBALL: 
 
 GYMNASTICS: 
 
 
 Interest in, 2, 171, 188 
 
 Fatigue of, 
 
 157 
 
 Player, interest in, 208 
 
 Inadequacy of, 
 
 162 
 
 Soccer, 197 
 
 School, aim of, 
 
 168 
 
 FOURTH OF JULY: 
 
 Undue demand in, 
 
 176 
 
 Celebration, 116 
 
 
 
 Fox: 
 
 HABIT: 
 
 
 Play of, 106 
 
 Formation of, 
 
 182 
 
 FREEDOM: 
 
 HADDON, DR.: 
 
 
 Ethics of, 251 
 
 Cat's cradle in Borneo, 
 
 241 
 
 Play, 208, 245 
 
 HEREDITY: 
 
 
 Use of, 259 
 FRIENDSHIP: 
 
 Social, 
 
 202 
 
 Establishment of, 144 
 FROEBEL: 
 
 HOARDING: 
 Instinct of, 
 
 80 
 
 Play theory, vi, 182 
 
 HOLIDAYS: 
 Celebration of. 
 
 236 
 
 GAME: 
 
 HOME: 
 
 
 Carrying of game traditions, 
 
 Authority in, 
 
 249 
 
 204 
 
 Changes in, 
 
 216 
 
 Development of games, 235 
 Fascination of, 125 
 
 Development of, 
 Feeling, through fire, 
 
 92 
 53 
 
 "Playing the game," 195, 273 
 
 Feeling, in house play, 
 
 33 
 
 GANG: 
 
 Loyalty to the, 
 
 89 
 
 See also Tribe. 
 
 HOUSE: 
 
 
 Authority, 261 
 
 Building, with blocks, 
 
 73 
 
 Boys', origin of, 38 
 
 Doll houses, 75, 78, 
 
 274 
 
 Danger of, 245 
 
 Playing, 
 
 33 
 
 Instinct and development of, 
 
 HUDSON, W. H.: 
 
 
 90, 194 
 
 Play of pumas. 
 
 101 
 
INDEX 
 
 287 
 
 HUNTING: 
 
 Bear, in tribe play, 205 
 
 Feeling, 5, 20, 142, 145 
 
 Feeling, in animals, 111 
 
 Plays, 16, 83 
 
 Statistics, 20, 114 
 
 IDEAL: 
 
 Play, the pursuit of, 266 
 
 IMAGINATION: 
 
 Stimulation of, 72 
 
 IMITATION: 
 
 In education, 180 
 
 In play of feeble-minded, 134 
 Unconscious, 208 
 
 INDIAN: 
 Tribes of Mr. Seton, 205 
 
 INDIVIDUALISM : 
 
 In play of feeble-minded, 130 
 In play of young children, 148 
 
 INDUSTRIALISM: 
 
 Growth of, 212, 220 
 
 INDUSTRY: 
 
 Development of, in home, 92 
 
 INITIATIVE : 
 
 Play, lack of, in city children, 
 
 139 
 
 INSPECTION: 
 
 Medical, of school children, 168 
 
 INSTINCT: 
 
 Animal, 199 
 
 Animal, developed in play, 110 
 Blind, unreliable, 210 
 
 Domestic, development of, 94 
 Gang, 90 
 
 Maternal and paternal, 87 
 
 Play, 177, 197, 205 
 
 INSTITUTION: 
 
 Children, play of, 137 
 
 INTEREST: 
 
 Children's, significant for educa- 
 tion, 155 
 Development of, 171 
 Pulses of, in play, 145, 164, 175 
 Pulses of, in work, 174 
 
 JAMES, WILLIAM: 
 
 Flying instinct in birds, 104 
 JUSTICE: 
 
 In competitive period, 189 
 
 KINDERGARTEN: 
 
 Plays of Froebel, vi, 182 
 
 KIRK, ADRIAN: 
 
 Play attitude hi work, 125 
 
 KITE: 
 
 Play, 151 
 
 LADDER: 
 
 Play, 225 
 
 LAW: 
 
 Developed from shelter feeling, 
 40 
 
 LEADER: 
 
 See also Teacher. 
 
 Play, 140, 233, 239, 242 
 
 LEADERSHIP: 
 Play, 12 
 
 LEISURE: 
 Use of, 119 
 
 LIBERIA: 
 
 Failure of, 260 
 
 LIFE: 
 
 Modern changes in, 212 
 
 Play attitude in, 271, 274 
 
 Reality of, in play, 179 
 
 Social, through doll play, 76 
 Social, through eating together, 
 46 
 
 Social, and the individual, 257 
 Social, through ownership, 81 
 Social, through team games, 91 
 
 LOCALITY: 
 
 Feeling for, 43 
 
 LOVE: 
 
 In literature, 22 
 
 LOYALTY: 
 
 Group, 91, 190 
 
 Sex differences in respect to, 
 
 88, 97 
 Team, development of, 150 
 
 MANLINESS: 
 
 Athletics test of. 92 
 
288 
 
 INDEX 
 
 MARBLES: 
 
 Play, 140, 150, 162 
 
 MILLS, WESLEY: 
 
 Play life of animals, 102 
 
 ' ' MONKEY CHASE ' ' : 235 
 
 MORALITY: 
 
 Fighting plays developing, 30 
 Freedom and, 250 
 
 Home and, 217, 219 
 
 Play and, 184 
 
 MORGAN, LLOYD: 
 
 Chirping in eggs, 99 
 
 MOVING PICTURE: 
 
 Evils of, 122 
 
 Statistics, 115 
 
 MUSCLE: 
 Development of, in city, 167 
 
 MYSTERY: 
 
 Fire, 58 
 
 NATURE: 
 
 Interest in, 144 
 
 What is "natural," 209 
 
 NERVOUS SYSTEM: 
 
 Stress upon, in city, 166 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 Defective children in, 168 
 
 NEWBOLT, HENRY: 
 
 Poem by, 273 
 
 OBEDIENCE : 
 
 Absolute obedience, non-moral, 
 
 251 
 
 Necessity of, 247 
 
 OTTER : 
 
 Swimming of young, 201 
 
 OWNERSHIP: 
 
 Construction and, 67 
 
 Feeling, development of, 79 
 Feeling, in fire, 50 
 
 Feeling, in house, 39 
 
 PARIS: 
 
 Playgrounds, 
 PARK: 
 
 Grounds, use of* 
 
 232 
 
 227 
 
 PARTY: 
 
 Doll, social significance of, 78 
 
 PAWTUCKET: 
 
 Playgrounds, 231 
 
 PERSONALITY: 
 
 Desire and, 280 
 Development of, by doing, 74 
 
 Ownership and, 81 
 
 PHILANTHROPY: 
 
 Development of, 254 
 
 PLAY: 
 
 Adult, 113 
 
 Anglo-Saxon, 147, 154 
 
 Animal, 99 
 
 Attitude in life, 125, 271 
 
 City, 224 
 
 Civilization and, 211 
 
 Community, 222 
 
 Curriculum, 175 
 Definition of, 
 
 xii, 11, 99, 124, 125, 126, 179, 
 267, 269, 270, 277 
 Democracy and, 243 
 Direction and control, 230 
 Education in relation to, 171 
 Extent of, 1, 6 
 Fair, 190 
 Forms of, 9 
 "Free," 232 
 Froebel's theory of, vi, 182 
 Function of, 124, 169 
 Greek, "Ajax," 264 
 Leadership, 12 
 Life in relation to, 10 
 Masculine and feminine differ- 
 ences in, 83 
 Moral growth and, 184 
 Movement, 7, 8 
 Progression, 141 
 Pulse of, 70 
 "Pursuit of ideal," 266 
 Reason for, 116 
 Seasonal rotation of, 150 
 Subnormal children, play of, 128 
 Team, 191 
 Team, of girls, 89 
 
INDEX 
 
 289 
 
 Theories, 90, 116, 117, 182 
 
 Tradition, 235 
 
 PLAYGROUND AND RECREATION 
 ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA: 8 
 
 PLAYGROUNDS: 
 
 Boston, 7 
 
 City, 230 
 
 Chicago, . 7 
 
 Movement, 8, 9 
 
 New York, 123 
 
 Pawtucket, 231 
 
 Statistics. 8 
 
 Toledo, 230 
 
 Unsupervised, 122, 230 
 
 Well-managed, 244 
 
 Yard, 224 
 
 PLAYHOUSE: 
 
 Twenty-storied, 33, 227 
 
 PLEASURE: 
 
 Not life motive, 274 
 
 POPULATION: 
 
 City, 212 
 
 POWER: 
 
 Increased, source of enjoyment, 
 186 
 
 PROGRESSION: 
 
 Play, 142, 162 
 
 PROPERTY: 
 
 Development of, from shelter, 40 
 
 PULSE: 
 
 Play, 70 
 
 PUMA: 
 
 Play of, 101 
 
 RACE: 
 
 Habits, community, play re- 
 lated to, 110 
 
 Habits, play reverting to early, 
 118 
 REALITY: 
 
 Feeling of, in play, 179 
 
 RECREATION: 
 
 American, unorganized, 222 
 
 Different from play, 123 
 
 Necessity of, 119 
 
 REFLEX: 
 
 Acquiring of, early in life, 185 
 
 RELATIONSHIP: 
 
 Human, on playground, 249 
 RELIGION: 
 
 Fire used in, 59 
 
 Home, passing of, 217 
 
 RHYTHM: 
 
 Use of, for feeble-minded, 135 
 RIGHTEOUSNESS: 
 
 Social, establishing of, 193 
 
 Rus, JACOB: 
 
 Story by, 266 
 
 ROOSEVELT, PRESIDENT: 
 
 Statement about free play, 232 
 ROTATION: 
 
 Seasonal, of plays, 150 
 
 RUNNING: 
 
 Interest in, 26 
 
 49 
 
 14, 225 
 148 
 
 211 
 
 SAND: 
 
 Bank, for fire play, 
 
 Pile, 
 
 Play, of adults, 
 
 SAWING: 
 
 Wood, at Universi 
 
 SCHOOL: 
 
 Children, defective, in New 
 York schools, 168 
 
 Children's life in, 221 
 
 Curriculum, 176 
 
 Fires, 248 
 
 Growth of, 217 
 
 A monarchy, 248 
 
 SCIENCE: 
 
 Development of, 253 
 
 SELF-EXPRESSION : 
 
 In play, 170, 177 
 
 SELF-MASTERY : 
 
 In early play, 148, 185 
 
 SEPARATION: 
 
 Of children in play, 12 
 
 SETON, ERNEST THOMPSON: 
 
 Indian tribe, play of, 205 
 
 Play of foxes, 106 
 
 SEX: 
 
 Differences, in play, 45, 83 
 
 Differences, in shelter feeling, 
 
 34, 38 
 
290 
 
 INDEX 
 
 SHANTY: 
 
 In wood, 33 
 
 SHELTER: 
 
 Feeling, 34, 40, 143 
 
 Feeling, racial differences, 41 
 SKATING: 
 
 Roller, 228 
 
 SLAVERY: 
 
 And freedom, 260 
 
 SMOKE: 
 
 Aesthetic effects of, 54 
 
 Religious significance of, 60 
 SPECIALIZATION: 
 
 Growth of, 213, 255 
 
 SPEED: 
 
 Progression, in play, 163 
 
 SPELLING: 
 
 Teaching of, 180 
 
 SPONTANEITY: 
 
 Play, 130 
 
 STORY: 
 
 Ghost, effect of, in firelight, 58 
 STREET: 
 
 Play of children in, 221 
 
 STRIKING: 
 
 Origin of, 26 
 
 SUPERVISION: 
 
 Institution playgrounds lacking, 
 138 
 
 Necessity of, 230 
 
 Play, 206 
 
 SUPERVISOR: 
 
 See also Teacher. 
 
 Play, 233 
 
 SURVIVAL: 
 
 Theory of play, 90 
 
 SWIMMING: 
 
 Learning, 176 
 
 SWING: 
 
 Playground, 224 
 
 SYMBOL: 
 
 Doll used as, 77 
 
 Fire, 63 
 
 TAG: 
 
 See also Running. 
 Games, 
 
 1G 
 
 Origin of, 26, 28, 187 
 
 Small children's, 185 
 
 Universality of, 238 
 
 TEACHER: 
 
 Rdle of, in play, 
 
 71, 195, 222, 240 
 
 TEACHING: 
 
 Instinct of, 209 
 
 TEAM GAME: 
 
 Of feeble-minded, 130, 134 
 
 Origin of, 90 
 
 Social significance of, 91 
 
 In teens, 191 
 
 Woman's lack of team play, 93 
 
 TENNIS: 
 
 Interest in, 188 
 
 TERRIER: 
 
 Scotch, fighting instinct in, 201 
 
 THEORY: 
 
 Culture epoch, 141 
 
 Play, a balance for work, 116 
 Play, a return to the simple, 
 
 117 
 Play, survival, 90 
 
 THROWING : 
 
 Interest in, 23, 27 
 
 Learning of, 149, 174 
 
 A masculine interest, 84 
 
 TOLEDO: 
 
 Playgrounds, 230 
 
 TOOL-MAKER: 
 
 Ideal of, 269 
 
 TOYS: 67 
 
 TRADITION: 
 
 Animal play, 111 
 
 Feeble-minded play, 134 
 
 Gang, 204 
 
 School, 203 
 
 Social, in play, 
 
 89, 177, 189, 197 
 Social, passing on of, 
 
 202, 218, 237, 263 
 
 TRAINING: 
 
 Physical, in schools, 168 
 
 TRIBE: 
 
 See also Gang. 
 
INDEX 
 
 291 
 
 Gang, the modern tribe, 
 
 92 
 
 WOMANLINESS: 
 
 Loyalty to. 
 
 89 
 
 Athletics no test of, 
 
 TRUANCY: 
 
 
 WOOD: 
 
 Cause of, 
 
 178 
 
 Sawing at University, 
 
 TWAIN, MARK: 
 
 
 WOOD-SHED: 
 
 Play attitude of. 
 
 125 
 
 Need of, 
 
 
 
 WORK: 
 
 URBANIZATION: 
 
 
 Artistic, is play, 
 
 Increasing, 
 
 212 
 
 Children's, with parents, 
 
 VITALITY : 
 
 
 Joy in, 
 
 Developed by play, 
 
 166 
 
 Moral lessons of, 
 WRESTLING: 
 
 WILL: 
 
 
 
 Deficiency of, in feeble-minded, 
 
 YACHTING: 
 
 
 133 
 
 Statistics, 
 
 WOMAN: 
 
 
 YARD: 
 
 Work of, in home. 
 
 217 
 
 Playground, 
 
 92 
 
 211 
 
 67 
 
 268 
 214 
 272 
 179 
 29 
 
 114 
 224 
 

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