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 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED 
 PLAY IN CHILDHOOD
 
 SPONTANEOUS 
 
 AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 IN CHILDHOOD 
 
 BY 
 
 ALICE CORBIN SIES 
 
 Formerly Assistant Professor of Childhood Education, 
 
 University of Pittsburgh, and Supervisor of Playgrounds 
 
 for Small Children, City of Pittsburgh 
 
 £fom fork 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 1922 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 56634
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
 Copyright, 1922 
 By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published August, 1922
 
 S5' 
 
 \ \ 
 
 TO MY MOTHER, 
 MY FIRST PLAYFELLOW
 
 PREFACE 
 
 Most books on play have been concerned with the 
 
 ^ spontaneous activities of children in fortuitous en- 
 vironment, or with the description of the more formal 
 
 ^ games that children play. The author has not 
 described games nor has she discussed the informal 
 play of children as it may be observed ordinarily in 
 the home, schoolyard, and vacant lot, but has given 
 
 >-. a picture of children at play in a planned environment. 
 
 t If the main task of civilization is, as Wallas suggests, 
 to produce a new environment whose stimulation of 
 our existing dispositions shall tend toward a good 
 life, then the chief office of education is to provide an 
 environment whose stimulation of the predispositions 
 
 * , of children shall tend toward a good life. This is just 
 what the author has done. She planned an environ- 
 ment adapted to stimulate the play tendencies of 
 children toward right responses. The original nature 
 | of children is conceived by the author not as antagon- 
 
 J istic to but as favorable for the development of those 
 qualities, physical, mental, and moral, which we desire 
 for mankind generally. Human nature as exhibited 
 in children has nothing that is not available for the 
 good life, if only the sequence of conduct be started 
 in the right direction — it has no quality we can 
 afford entirely to lose. But it is in the wisely planned 
 environment alone that human nature and the good 
 life are wholly consistent. 
 
 Now education has all too commonly made this 
 mistake — it has been concerned over-much with the 
 adjustment of children to the existing environment.
 
 viii PREFACE 
 
 Emphasis has been placed upon what we hope our 
 children will become rather than upon what children 
 at the time may be. This is contrary to the method 
 of nature and to the actual line of progress of the 
 race as revealed in history. Man has continually 
 changed environment to suit his own needs, his own 
 nature, and not his nature to suit his environment. 
 The present trend in education toward a greater 
 recognition of human nature as manifested in child- 
 hood may be interpreted as an attempt to do prac- 
 tically what the author did, namely, to create an 
 environment that shall stimulate the predispositions 
 of children toward a good life, in the belief that 
 abundant life in the present is the best preparation 
 for abundant life in later years. Success in education, 
 not alone for individual efficiency but even more for 
 the rapidly enlarging social conceptions of the times, 
 depends upon our knowledge and appreciation of the 
 predispositions of children and our skill in providing 
 the environment adapted to stimulate to good acts. 
 Our schools are in much need of this skill. The 
 author has made a genuine contribution to education 
 in clarifying the philosophy underlying the spon- 
 taneous play of children in the various fields of human 
 endeavor and achievement and in showing how 
 environment may be adapted to tapping the deep 
 reservoirs of child nature, of human nature, in edu- 
 cational work. 
 
 George E. Johnson 
 
 Harvard University
 
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 
 
 My chief acknowledgements are to the children in 
 the playgrounds of Pittsburgh and to Mr. George E. 
 Johnson, who shared his vision of education through 
 play with all who were associated with him during 
 his superintendency of the Pittsburgh playgrounds. 
 It was while endeavoring to plan a rich, free play life 
 for the children under ten years of age in these play- 
 grounds that it occurred to me to jot down a memo- 
 randum of their spontaneous activities. After using 
 these records in connection with my courses in play 
 and in childhood education at the University of 
 Pittsburgh, I decided to publish these records in 
 book form along with my own interpretations of the 
 educational meaning and value of particular types of 
 play and games. Many of the records presented were 
 supplied by play leaders or by students in the play 
 courses. As far as is possible, I have mentioned the 
 names of contributors in connection with the records 
 which they supplied. The records kept by Miss 
 Mary T. Lutz were especially valuable. Miss Frances 
 McGough contributed a large number of photo- 
 graphs after I had left active work in the field : to her 
 I am especially indebted. To my late husband, whose 
 interest and sacrifices facilitated the completion of 
 this manuscript under difficult conditions and who 
 made valuable suggestions after reading the prelimi- 
 nary draft of this book, I wish to pay the tribute due to 
 loyal and discriminating cooperation. 
 
 Alice Corbin Sies
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Part I: Play and Work in Childhood 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I Introduction 
 
 II Play and Work: An Interpretation 
 
 PAGE 
 
 3 
 9 
 
 Part II: Dramatic Plays in Childhood 
 
 III Education through Dramatic Plays . . .27 
 
 IV Playing Doll and House 51 
 
 V Playing Store 77 
 
 VI Playing School 93 
 
 VII Hunting Plays 97 
 
 VIII Fighting Plays in 
 
 IX Playing Hospital and Funeral . . . .132 
 
 X Playing Fireman 141 
 
 XI Playing Animals 147 
 
 XII A Miscellaneous Collection of Dramatic Plays . 164 
 
 XIII The Dramatic Plays op One Child . . . .179 
 
 Part III: Movement Plays of Children 
 
 XIV The Meaning and Significance of Movement . 209 
 XV The Value of Games of Skill and of Play Appa- 
 ratus in Motor Education . . .229 
 
 XVI Movements of Gross Bodily Control: 
 
 Kicking, Creeping, Climbing, Walking, Running, 
 Skipping, Leaping, and Jumping Plays . .237 
 XVII Movements of Gross Bodily Control: 
 
 Swinging, Sliding, and Other Effortless Movement 
 
 Plays 257 
 
 XVIII Movement of Gross Bodily Control: 
 
 Dancing and Swimming 272
 
 xii CONTENTS 
 
 i II W'TER PAGE 
 
 NIN Movements of Gross Bodily Control: 
 
 Throwing, Rolling, and Spinning Plays . . 283 
 
 XX Tin Significance of Manipulation as a Pi. ay 
 
 Activity ....... 304 
 
 XXI SroNTAM .(H S Pi AY IX THK EARTH .... 313 
 
 XXII Spontaneous Play with Fire and Water . 341 
 
 Part IV: Plays Involving Movement. Impulse, and Curiosity 
 
 XXIII Visual Exploration 
 
 XXIV Experimentation with Sound .... 
 
 Appendix A: Topical References and Exercises for Textbook 
 Assignment 
 
 Appendix B: Bibliography of References concerning Play 
 Index 
 
 363 
 
 381 
 
 393 
 
 427 
 439
 
 PART I 
 PLAY AND WORK IN CHILDHOOD
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Introduction 
 
 Sources of Material. — The plays described in this 
 book are recorded just as they occurred in everyday 
 life on the playground and in the home. Most of 
 them are experiences vital to the growth and develop- 
 ment of children. To the seeing mind and the under- 
 standing heart these plays are throbbing with human 
 interest. They present in panoramic view a vast 
 throng of children playing out the great experiences 
 of life, "hunger and labor, seedtime and harvest, 
 life and death." The children pictured in these 
 records are not products of the imagination, nor 
 so-called "universal types." They are real creatures, 
 flesh and blood; moving among us; breathing vitally 
 of life at its best and worst; laughing and crying, 
 teasing and caressing, loving and hating, bullying and 
 protesting. 
 
 The result of this general survey of the field of 
 spontaneous play in childhood is not a system of play 
 representing a bird's-eye view of all human endeavors 
 and achievements as they are related to the home, 
 school, church, and state, but a string of play activities 
 touching life at every point. The arrangement is 
 psychological rather than logical. The logical classi- 
 fication exists for the adult mind alone. To the child,
 
 4 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 life is an unrolling and unraveling of tangled bits of 
 experience; a laugh, a look, a frown, a tree to climb, 
 a well to dig, a lesson to learn, a reward to win — all 
 these are part and parcel of the changing and varying 
 events which come from the constant adjustment to 
 other people and things. House, stoic, soldier, 
 carpenter, blacksmith, fireman, reindeer, chickens, 
 hospital, restaurant, wedding and funeral are all 
 shifting scenes in the panorama of life. The child 
 plays one as naturally as he does another. And as he 
 plays he discovers the meaning of things. No experi- 
 ence is too sordid, none too sacred to be represented 
 in play. Eating and sleeping, living and dying are 
 all experiences which the child plays out; testing and 
 proving, sifting and rejecting, according to standards 
 of his own. 
 
 The Arrangement and Classification of the Mate- 
 rial. - In reporting this exploration into the field of 
 spontaneous play the author has carefully avoided 
 any comprehensive classification, either from the 
 theoretical or the practical side. The problem of 
 interpreting children's play is a complex and difficult 
 one. While we can study only particular plays or 
 games, the clearer we keep in mind the original nature 
 of the child and the results he seeks in any particular 
 type of play, the surer we may feel that we are keeping 
 on the main highroad of children's interests. For 
 this reason it seems safer to arrange in one group 
 plays which are dominant]}- dramatic in significance; 
 in another group, plays which are concerned primarily 
 with movement; and in still another group, plays in- 
 volving experimentation and manipulation of natural
 
 INTRODUCTION 5 
 
 forces and materials than to attempt an elaborate 
 classification of plays and games. We thus deal with 
 large typical experiences indicating general interests 
 and avoid separate classifications of specialized inter- 
 ests. 
 
 The Aim of This Study. — The aim of this excursion 
 into the field of spontaneous play and work is to be 
 concrete and specific in the interpretation of both. 
 Work and play when considered theoretically have 
 been the subjects of much controversy among biolo- 
 gists, anthropologists, educators, and artists, who 
 have searched for a special cause for play as opposed 
 to work. In the popular mind we find play rather 
 in disrepute, because associated either with sugar- 
 coated methods of pedagogy or with amusement. 
 On the other hand we find work as popularly miscon- 
 ceived; it is often confused with labor, which is 
 economically valuable, and perhaps intrinsically dis- 
 tasteful. In order to clear up some of the popular 
 misconceptions regarding work and play, as well as 
 to approach the study scientifically, the author 
 proposes to study play and work as ways of acting, 
 modes of living, differentiating one from the other 
 through an examination of the conditions, social and 
 organic, which change action from one form of expres- 
 sion into another. There seems to be a real need to 
 approach play in a more nearly exact and measurable 
 way. This method involves, of necessity, a study of 
 the origin of play and of work in the original tenden- 
 cies of man, and takes into account the effects of the 
 psychological condition of children, as well as their 
 individual variations along the lines of hereditary
 
 6 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 instincts and capacities. It also involves a recogni- 
 tion of the social factors in the situations studied. 
 
 The Path of Study Leads Away from the Idea of 
 Play as an Instinct. — Whenever we embark on a 
 study of individual plays in concrete social situations 
 we realize we must depart from the time-worn custom 
 of considering play as a single instinct. When play 
 was so regarded, each type of play studied was viewed 
 as so much red tape of heredity to be unraveled and 
 disposed of before the real preparation for life could be 
 undertaken. The following method of analysis reveals 
 beyond the shadow of a doubt that play and work 
 are made up of the serious use of a large variety of 
 instincts and capacities, and are not due to the exercise 
 of single-track instincts like hunting and fighting 
 
 An Illustration of the Author's Method of Analyzing 
 Plays. — As an illustration of the complexity of the 
 problem of analyzing children's play, the writer pre- 
 sents a typical analysis. This single example of the 
 method of procedure ought to show the difficulties we 
 meet in studying play. Two seven-year-old boys are 
 playing policeman. They quarrel between them- 
 selves as to which shall be the traffic officer and finally 
 agree to take turns. One child stands on the crossing 
 of a quiet street, raises a warning hand to a switt 
 moving vehicle, signals some school children not to 
 cross the street, assists a small child to collect the 
 potatoes he has dropped from a bag, resists with blows 
 an attempt of the other policeman to take his turn 
 before the time agreed upon, leaves his post to chase a 
 stray cat, then forgets all about his duties to run after 
 a boy on a velocipede, hoping that he may secure
 
 INTRODUCTION 7 
 
 from him a much coveted ride. In this apparently 
 simple dramatic play we see many tendencies and 
 instincts manifested. There is the tendency to 
 dramatize striking events; there is spontaneous kind- 
 liness toward the weak and helpless; there is the 
 fighting instinct connected with self-interest; the 
 arousal of a specific hunting response; and an example 
 of the precedence of the claim of the new and novel. 
 
 Not all of the records presented show as complex an 
 array of tendencies, but few are as simple to analyze 
 as the old-time method of approach would indicate. 
 Many of the records collected in Pittsburgh reveal 
 great limitations of environment, physical and social. 
 Some of the children were literally starved for real 
 experiences out of which to construct plays and games 
 worthy of civilized society. While the enlarging of 
 the content of play is one of the great advantages of 
 play leadership in organized play centers, yet this can 
 not be accomplished in a day or a year. 
 
 The old-time method of injecting into spontaneous 
 play an entirely new content through the use of imita- 
 tion is a serious menace to spontaneous, sincere 
 expression. However, in playground centers so organ- 
 ized that children play in groups according to psy- 
 chological age, as in the Pittsburgh playgrounds, it is 
 easier to work toward that goal. 
 
 Limitations of This Study. — It would have been 
 interesting to the author to trace the development of 
 the play activities presented in this book into the field 
 of subject matter in the elementary school curriculum. 
 However, so many objectives enter into the making of 
 curricula that are not necessarily considered in a
 
 8 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 psychological analysis of spontaneous and supervised 
 play, that it is hardly practicable to combine the two 
 problems in one book. 
 
 How to Use This Book as a Textbook. -- For 
 kindergartners and primary teachers who wish to use 
 this book as a text in normal schools and colleges, the 
 author presents in the appendix at the end of the book 
 a list of books for collateral reading and exercises 
 related to the problems and principles stated in each 
 chapter.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 Play and Work: An Interpretation 
 
 Play and Work have the Same Origin. — In 
 
 attempting to discriminate between play and work we 
 may be certain of one thing: when the child plays and 
 when he works he relies upon the same original ten- 
 dencies, the inherited instincts and capacities to 
 initiate his efforts, to start things going. A few 
 examples from such original starting points as food 
 getting, teasing, fighting, ownership, collecting, moth- 
 erly behavior, rivalry, imitation, desire for approval or 
 display, gregariousness, and the like, will perhaps serve 
 to make clear how close in origin are work and play. 
 For example, let an adult take some children to a 
 wood for a happy playtime. Watch the children run 
 hither and thither collecting flowers, leaves, and nuts. 
 Notice their happy rivalry as they vie for advantage in 
 seeking their treasures; see their motherly behavior 
 toward the little ones in the group; watch the playful 
 fighting and the various appeals for adult approval. 
 Let us suppose the little group of children becomes 
 lost from its adult protectors, and that night sets in. 
 With the pangs of hunger comes the struggle among 
 members of the group for the remainder of the lunch. 
 Serious fighting takes the place of the former playful 
 combat and an unpleasant rivalry of ideas regarding 
 the best thing to do succeeds the former pleasantries 
 in conversation. 
 
 In both situations the mainsprings of action are the 
 same; in one situation, however, adult protection and
 
 10 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 a favorable environment permit a happy, casual, 
 almost accidental use of the instincts of food getting, 
 fighting, teasing, ownership, collecting, motherly 
 behavior, and the like; in the second situation, fear, 
 hunger, cold, and dark stimulate a serious, carefully 
 planned use of the same instinctive- tendencies. 
 
 Play and Work are Distinguished by the Conditions 
 Attending Them. — Play and work, then, having the 
 same origin are distinguishable by the conditions 
 which force changes in actions. In both situations 
 the children fight, tease, and manifest rivalry, owner- 
 ship, motherly behavior, and the like. In one case 
 reflection upon an end, the necessity to find protec- 
 tion, food, warmth, and light, checks spontaneous 
 activity and leads to a rearrangement of experience 
 to get desired results, in fact forces the children to 
 desist from a happy circumstantial, casual set of 
 actions and follow a course which prudence, fear, and 
 apprehension render necessary. The distinction is 
 between a set of actions free, spontaneous, and 
 intrinsically satisfying on the one hand, and a set 
 of actions forced, planned, and necessary on the other. 
 There was, it is true, thought upon means and ends 
 in the happy playtime; but the interest in the means 
 and ends involved in the play was sufficient to keep 
 the activity going by its own momentum. When 
 dark, hunger, and cold appeared, reflection had to 
 proceed along lines dictated by results, not by interest 
 in the means of accomplishing the results. 
 
 Examples. A simpler situation may serve to 
 clarify the main distinctions between work and play. 
 A little child is playing on the floor with his blocks.
 
 Play and Work Not Distinguished by External Results
 
 12 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 He builds a boat and pushes it about on the floor say- 
 ing, "Chu, Chu." Suddenly it occurs to him that 
 his boat should have a whistle. He looks among his 
 blocks for one of suitable shape, and places it toward 
 the front of his boat. But at the first movement 
 the whistle topples over. Now the little child angrily 
 pushes the blocks apart, thinking he is tired of boats. 
 But somehow an image of a successful boat persists in 
 his mind. Again he builds up the boat, this time 
 placing the whistle toward the rear. Again the boat 
 topples over. The boy sits still awhile contemplating 
 the wrecked boat. Something urges him on. He 
 patiently rebuilds the blocks, fastening the whistle in 
 the middle of the boat by using two blocks to support 
 it at each side. And behold, the boat proceeds 
 smoothly on its course. The boy has mastered a 
 necessary adjustment between work and play. He 
 has learned to plan how to reach a certain end, even 
 where the means devised are not intrinsically pleasant 
 and satisfying. 
 
 It would be folly, however, to conclude that when- 
 ever a break occurs in a smooth-running, spontaneous 
 activity the activity as a whole is work. With little 
 children this might be true if the break were not 
 happily and quickly bridged over. The ideas of little 
 children naturally flow immediately into action. 
 In building with blocks, for example, they are satisfied 
 to make an oblong block serve for a whistle, a man, 
 a track, or a bed, so long as the train of thought moves 
 on unchecked. Older children cluck up their own 
 play, imposing longer breaks in order to make their 
 results approximate more nearly the realities of things.
 
 PLAY AND WORK 1 3 
 
 A boy of ten years, for example, experiments perhaps 
 an hour in order to construct an adequate whistle for 
 a toy boat. He has some regard for the physical 
 properties of things — his boat must be of seasoned 
 lumber; his whistle must be cylindrical; his smoke 
 stacks must be proportioned to cabin and deck — in 
 fact, all the parts of the boat must be assembled to 
 approximate the proportions of real boats. In attain- 
 ing this result he carefully considers means and ends. 
 He may search for an hour to find a piece of seasoned 
 lumber, make a journey to a factory to get a piece of 
 wood suitable for a boat, or whittle patiently for an 
 hour to shape the prow or stern of the boat in lifelike 
 proportions. In other words, he may work or even 
 perform drudgery to attain a play purpose. Insofar, 
 however, as the activity of boat making as a whole 
 is enjoyed for its own sake, and is adapted to the boy's 
 powers and stage of development, even though it is 
 frequently interrupted by reflection on the means and 
 ends involved, it is or ought to be considered a play 
 activity. 
 
 Other examples may make more clear the fact that 
 the attitude used in performing an activity determines 
 some of the distinguishing factors between work and 
 play. 
 
 The Manner or Attitude in which an Activity is 
 Performed is one Means of Determining Whether it 
 is Work or Play. — A boy left alone with his new 
 canoe experiments joyfully in adapting his strength 
 and skill to the problem of moving his boat in the 
 water. If he is given certain directions which he must 
 follow explicitly, his activity becomes work because
 
 14 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 he can no longer yield himself to the accidental and 
 casual discovery of ways and means of moving the 
 canoe; he must subordinate experimentation to rules 
 which necessitate a fixed series of muscular move- 
 ments. 
 
 One more example will perhaps suffice to show that 
 work and play differ not so much in the external results 
 reached as in the manner of gaining the results. 
 Some little children in a playroom were making a doll's 
 bed. They had at their disposal a complete set of 
 bed clothes which they were adjusting over a sick doll. 
 Their movements were free and spontaneous, prompt- 
 ed by the interest in caring for the doll. Presently a 
 teacher appeared. She expressed surprise that the 
 bed was so poorly made, forthwith removed the sick 
 doll from the bed, and instructed the children how to 
 make a bed properly. The joy died out of the 
 children's faces; their hands did quick service, their 
 minds grasped the principles of bedmaking, but the 
 results partook of the nature of \vork. When the 
 teacher passed on, taking with her a sense of duty well 
 done, the children began again to play. "You poor 
 little thing!" said one child, hugging her doll close to 
 her, "your back must ache from lying on a bed 
 without a pad!" Straightway she whisked the bed 
 clothes off again and put them on the bed exactly as 
 the teacher had done, with this exception: her mind 
 was not bent on a successive order of acts connected 
 with bedmaking, but on the purpose of making her 
 doll comfortable and happy. The results partook of 
 the nature of play, because the child's attitude was 
 free and experimental, since the series of events
 
 PLAY AND WORK 
 
 15 
 
 connected with bedmaking was subordinated to the 
 child's happy solicitude and care for her doll. 
 
 Likewise in adult life, so long as any series of events 
 connected with a felt need are moving on progressively 
 and happily, bringing immediate satisfaction in the 
 performance, we may say the activity as a whole is 
 play. But where the series of events is constantly 
 interrupted, and has 
 to be checked up by a 
 set demand for a re- 
 sult not immediately 
 satisfying in itself, but 
 leading to some end 
 which will be satisfy- 
 ing later on, we say the 
 activity is preemi- 
 nently work. We say 
 that a philosopher 
 plays with ideas, an 
 artist with pigment 
 and color, a child with 
 blocks, sand, and clay, 
 not because the experi- 
 mentations of each are 
 entirely playful but because in each case the activity 
 as a whole moves joyfully forward along the line of 
 preference, obstacles and checks being met cheerfully 
 and constructively. 
 
 When Necessity of Better Adaptation to Life 
 Brings Breaks in a Smoothly Running Activity, 
 Work is Involved to Bridge the Difficulty. — Life 
 abounds in illustrations of this psychological difference 
 
 A Task for an Adult Is Play to 
 a Child
 
 1 6 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 between work and play. Take the aforementioned 
 philosopher as another example. Let us suppose he 
 has played his ideas into a certain system of thought. 
 With his whole being he delights to ponder over 
 subtleties in opinion. He builds up concepts of 
 relativity in thought values and he loves the thought- 
 product built up in his mind. A war looms on the 
 horizon; new values emerge, bringing the necessity of 
 new relationships among ideas. His sense of the 
 fitness of things is shocked. His thought building 
 halts and proceeds laboriously; his attention is no 
 longer spontaneous and joyous, but labored and 
 derived. Slowly he rearranges the contents of his 
 mind in the light of pressure from without. He no 
 longer plays with thought values; he works with 
 them, even performs mental drudgery to bridge over 
 the chasms of spiritual and economic necessity. 
 
 A last example of the difference in work and play 
 as attributable to differences in psychological attitude 
 may be taken from childhood. A little child likes to 
 throw. When out of doors he picks up pebbles and 
 stones, papers, pieces of wood or metal and thows 
 them about as whim and caprice suggest. His mother 
 appears and demands that he throw all these loose 
 materials into a refuse heap. At once the boy's 
 interest wanes, his movements lose their pristine 
 vigor; his throwing becomes aimless. And why.'' 
 Because there is no chance to experiment, to perform 
 a muscular act and get variations in result. But 
 suppose a wise educator appears upon the scene. 
 She demands exactly what the mother does, that these 
 different materials be thrown upon the refuse heap,
 
 PLAY AND WORK 1 7 
 
 but with this difference: she suggests that the child 
 watch carefully to see which he can throw faster, 
 wood, metal, paper, or stones. The boy's attention 
 becomes alert, his muscular movements vigorous, his 
 activity assumes the likeness of play. Why? Be- 
 cause he can create through throwing. He can be a 
 cause, experiment, watch results, and gloat over 
 achievements. And now the work is completed and 
 the refuse is set on fire. Again the boy and the 
 educator enter into the realm of play. They watch 
 the burning fragments of material; they poke about 
 with a stick to discriminate between ashes made by 
 paper and by wood; they marvel at the resistance 
 stone makes to fire; they watch the melting metal. 
 They are scientists playing with physical laws and 
 forces. They might have become mere toilers, col- 
 lecting a pile of refuse to be relegated to the dump 
 heap. 
 
 Variation in Capacities and Habits Makes the Same 
 Act Play for One Person and Work for Another. — In 
 considering play, we come face to face with the 
 problem of individual preferences due to differences in 
 inherited capacities. It is this difference in original 
 nature which makes it play for one child with an 
 artistic temperament to experiment continually with 
 color, pigment, and form, and converts another child's 
 experimentation along this line into work. If you 
 place a group of children in a playroom and allow 
 them free access to a large number of materials, one 
 child will sometimes seek the same material again and 
 again. In observing children in a certain playroom, 
 the writer noticed that one little child returned day
 
 18 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 after day to experimentation with color and f< rm. 
 She built tiles into rugs and carpets; she painted with 
 an abundance of color; she strung colored heads in a 
 variety of combinations of color and form ; she used 
 colored papers and cloth skillfully and artistically. 
 Another child with a strong bent toward mathematics 
 revealed the tendency in the pre-kindergarten period. 
 He used blocks with due rega~d for mathematical 
 proportions. It was play when he studied out the 
 proportions of a house and subjected the blocks to 
 tests and formulae of his own choosing; just as the little 
 girl was playing when she chose colors for a carpet 
 design. If the situation were reversed we should see 
 the little girl work at building a house from a mathe- 
 matical formula and the boy work to attain certain 
 color combinations. We see, then, that individual 
 differences in inherited abilities, or lack of abilities, 
 account for some of the distinctions in play and work in 
 the case of individual children. 
 
 Differences in Physiological Condition are Attended 
 by Changes in the Attitude of Work and Play. - 
 Physiological condition or variation in readiness to 
 act in certain ways at certain times, has to be con- 
 sidered in discriminating between work and play. 
 The law of readiness accounts for many of the differ- 
 ences between them. A little child plays busily and 
 happily at his blocks; suddenly his brain becomes 
 fatigued and thought ceases to How readily into 
 action. The blocks at once become distasteful to 
 him. With an impetuous gesture he pushes them 
 away and runs to the swing or climbing rope. Here 
 he assumes new postures, stretches himself, uses a
 
 PLAY AND WORK 1 9 
 
 different set of muscles. After a time his interest in 
 building reasserts itself. To compel him to continue 
 at the building when brain tracts are not rested and 
 ready to serve is to induce fatigue and force him 
 into work or drudgery. 
 
 An adult with literary talents sometimes sits down 
 to creative work attuned in body and mind to the 
 happy art of pouring forth his thoughts into channels 
 of literary production. Again, when he seats himself 
 at his desk, his brain seems set along other lines. 
 With great difficulty he forces his attention to the 
 task at hand. He may be able to overcome the lack 
 of facility by sheer will power; or the conditions of 
 fatigue may overcome him, and he may deem it wiser 
 to set aside the work until he can command the desire 
 and control the execution more readily. 
 
 Types of Play are Closely Related to Structural 
 Changes in the Body. — Writers advocating the 
 biological theory of play have made a valuable con- 
 tribution in that they have pointed out the close 
 correlation between somatic growth and the changing 
 types of play. One of the exponents of this theory 
 of play says: "Is it not significant that whatever the 
 type of play may be, it just keeps pace with the type 
 of somatic growth? And does not the impulse to 
 exercise these growing parts furnish all the explana- 
 tion that is needed for the existence of the play 
 activity?" 1 On the whole the attempt to account for 
 types of play through "biological necessity" has led 
 to the sanest effort yet made among investigators of 
 
 1 L. E. Appleton: A Comparative Study of the Play Activities of 
 Adult Savages and Civilized Children, p. 78.
 
 20 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 play. The biological theory of play accounts for 
 many of the common elements in the play of children 
 the world over and shows the relation of such big types 
 of play as running games, fighting plays, and con- 
 structive activities to the order of development of the 
 nervous system. 
 
 This theory of play has its implications in a con- 
 sideration of the relation of play to work. Work in 
 childhood should have almost as close a correlation 
 with somatic changes as does play. That the work of 
 children does not always answer the purpose of growth 
 is a sad commentary upon society. When adults 
 impose upon children tasks which are meaningless, 
 and which do not function in the child's needs, or 
 worse yet, tasks the performance of which violates 
 the nature of the doer, fatigue results from the 
 conflict between desire and necessity. Children tire 
 in play, of course, but only after the vital energy has 
 spent itself and brought a train of beneficial accompani- 
 ments. 
 
 When any given piece of work is as closely related 
 to its corresponding period of growth as is spontaneous 
 play; when, in fact, because of the close relation of the 
 work problems to the individual's inherited powers 
 and capacities, the transition of play into work is 
 accomplished almost unconsciously, then and then 
 only have we made work a method of social life which 
 brings not only efficiency but a full rich lift- in its train. 
 
 The Aims of a Desirable Schedule of Play and 
 Work. -- Yet even where play and work are so closely 
 related that both spring from the demands of growth, 
 and play passes insensibly into work, we still have the
 
 PLAY AND WORK 21 
 
 problem before us to see that both play and work in 
 childhood are of the kinds that function in the social 
 life and occupations of a people. It is of a tremendous 
 advantage to enable children through early play and 
 work habits to participate in the really productive 
 work of the community. The individual has to 
 acquire social efficiency, and if he accomplishes part 
 of this adjustment in the early activities of life he has 
 become initiated into society at a tremendously low 
 cost of effort, and has done so while engaging in 
 activities which enlist his own instincts, emotions, 
 and imagination. The foundation of social efficiency 
 is laid in the early activities of society. It is the part 
 of education to lay this foundation so firmly that 
 even the stress and strain of an unbalanced industrial 
 world may not entirely warp the original purpose of 
 work, and leave the individual in doubt as to the 
 value of life and effort. 
 
 Present Economic Conditions Make the Adjust- 
 ment of Work, Play, and Labor a Difficult One. — 
 But society is not at present so organized that each 
 individual can perform the bit of work related to his 
 powers and capacities. The specialization of indus- 
 try, so organized that industrial processes are broken 
 up into bits, often makes it necessary that each 
 worker perform an isolated piece of work in order to 
 bring about certain combined results. And so the 
 product of each individual's effort does not act as a 
 stimulus for something new and better, but is used as 
 a medium of exchange by which he buys desired things. 
 So we have the labor problem of the eight hour day 
 and the problem of recreation; for toilers experience
 
 22 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 an exhaustion of used powers, and seek recuperation 
 through calling into play the vast sources of unused 
 powers, a tremendously wasteful system, and one 
 which demands a national campaign for an enlight- 
 ened social conscience with accompanying social and 
 economic reforms. 
 
 The Place of Adult Occupations in Children's 
 Play. — Adult occupations naturally play a large 
 role in a repertoire of spontaneous play. This 
 apprenticeship in the world's work begins at home. 
 Under the tutelage of the mother and father, children 
 learn to play at bedmaking. dishwashing, and car- 
 pentering. When they go to school they continue to 
 participate in the industrial and economic work of 
 society, for the modern school has taken on the 
 various processes of world work under the guise of 
 industrial training, gardening, and household arts. 
 The activities appeal to the deep-seated instincts and 
 capacities involved in both play and work. Accord- 
 ing to the movement and direction of the activities 
 involved they become play or work. The proper use 
 of these adult activities in an educational program 
 is the big problem that confronts our modern schools. 
 It involves the necessity of acquiring real skill, not 
 by routine or dictation, but through reflection and 
 experimentation. In other words, these adult occupa- 
 tions must be performed in the play attitude, yet 
 involve work. Children must not be content with an 
 easy, smooth-running way of doing things. 'I hey 
 must accustom themselves to methods of scientific 
 inquiry which, if need be, lead them far afield from 
 momentary pleasure. In this way they acquire a
 
 PLAY AND WORK 23 
 
 scientific method and amass facts of practical impor- 
 tance. They become so identified with the piece of 
 work in which they are engaged that their thoughts 
 and imaginations play fruitfully with the problem. 
 This whole-hearted, spontaneous interest in a piece of 
 work is a means of rich living in types of experience 
 which the race has found most valuable. It is a 
 different thing from the blind participation in cultural 
 subjects which came from the old-time bookish study. 
 
 The pith and kernel of the play problem lies right 
 here. It is to help children to control their actions 
 more and more by intelligent reflection on a series 
 of means leading to a desired end. It is to make 
 play pass insensibly into work in order that action 
 may not be at the mercy of caprice but may be the 
 result of intelligent foresight. 
 
 Conclusion. — In conclusion, then, we may say 
 that play and work differ not in origin nor result, but 
 in the movement of the activity itself. When the 
 activity as a whole is smooth-running and is not 
 interrupted by breaks essential for progress, we have 
 an activity that is essentially playful. On the other 
 hand when the activity as a whole is frequently im- 
 peded by checks representing problems to be bridged 
 over we have an activity that is essentially work. 
 Both play and work have the same origin in deep- 
 seated instincts and capacities; each of them may or 
 may not satisfy some organic need, according to the 
 extent to which they utilize nerve tracks ripe for action 
 or violate the nature of the doer. Each may or may 
 not satisfy a felt social need according to whether the 
 activity functions in the life of the individual or is
 
 24 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 associated with results, imposed from without, which 
 have no place in growth. Most situations which are 
 legitimately called play in childhood are in reality 
 highly complex social situations resulting in a com- 
 bination of work and play. The problem is to keep 
 the play attitude dominant and to increase the work 
 element progressively with the age and development 
 of the individual.
 
 PART II 
 DRAMATIC PLAYS IN CHILDHOOD
 
 CHAPTER III 
 Education through Dramatic Plays 
 
 What Do We Mean by Dramatic Play? — Much has 
 been said and written of the so-called "dramatic 
 instinct." Often dramatic play has been character- 
 ized as the outpouring of this instinct. Yet now- 
 through the findings of experimental psychology we 
 have come to regard dramatic play in larger per- 
 spective. It is no longer thought of as the expression 
 of a single instinct, but r ather as the outgrowth o£ 
 several t endencies. It is a result of the tendency to- 
 wardgeneral physical activity and of the law of habit, 
 in which constructive images which have once led to 
 action tend to do so again. In childhood, both these 
 tendencies are stronger than among adults. Children 
 naturally think in terms of action. They have a 
 larger number of concrete mental images than adults. 
 It takes years to build up the meanings, feelings of 
 relationship, and judgments which gradually take the 
 place of the rich imagery of childhood. What more 
 natural than to visualize characters and events con- 
 cretely in dramatic play? What more artificial than 
 to reflect abstractly upon the meanings and signifi- 
 cance of these characters and events? 
 
 With this brief psychological background let us 
 proceed to examine the dramatic plays of children 
 concretely and to discuss their educational significance. 
 
 The Infant's First Dramatizations. — The infant 
 early imitates in his own way the events which impress 
 
 27
 
 28 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 themselves vividly upon him. "Before R was fourteen 
 months old I watched with interest the pleased ex- 
 pression on his face as he sat by the fire warming his 
 clothes. Somehow warming clothes by himself was 
 a more pleasurable experience than seeing me warm 
 clothes: the act was motor as well as sensory, tactual 
 as well as visual. Oftentimes he would scuttle over 
 the floor, a dust cloth in his hand, touching chairs in 
 imitation of dusting, or he would seize a brush and 
 scrub the carpet vigorously as he had seen the kitchen 
 floor scrubbed. Holding a newspaper as an adult 
 does when reading was another of his favorite plays." 1 
 Before a child is three years old a good part of his 
 waking hours is given to imitative dramatic plays. 
 Mr. George E. Freeland watched a baby two and a 
 half years old an entire day and discovered fifty-four 
 dramatizations. 2 
 
 Growth in the Mental Content of Early Dramatiza- 
 tion. — "Why," we ask, "does the child perform such 
 acts? Is he merely copying what goes on around him 
 by a mechanical reproduction of the striking features 
 of adult acts, or is he getting inside the act mentally 
 and thus discovering its meaning?" As adults we 
 can only interpret the meaning of these childish acts 
 by studying the results in the child. It is obvious 
 that such activities mean something to the child 
 because of his persistence in them and the accompany- 
 ing signs of pleasure. It is also possible to observe 
 changes in his actions due to his gaining new meanings 
 
 1 From the author's unpublished records. 
 
 2 American Institute of Chili 1 Life: The Dramatic Instinct in 
 Children, Monograph 352, 1014.
 
 Pittsburgh Bureau oj Recreation 
 
 Children Think as They Act
 
 30 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 by reproducing the acts of others. That is, if he 
 persists in warming clothes, scrubbing floors, and 
 dusting, there is a change and usually improvement 
 in his representation due to the laws of exercise and 
 effect. While to the adult the child may seem to be 
 merely copying, he has in fact attained his result by 
 attention, experimentation, and observation of results. 
 Many educators have believed that such acts as the 
 aforementioned are acquired as a result of the instinct 
 of imitation. In speaking of imitation, Thorndike 
 says: "I can find no evidence that any such tendency 
 is original in man. As will be stated later, certain 
 particular sorts of behavior do originally provoke in 
 the spectator behavior that resembles them, but, so 
 far as I can see, behavior in general does not." 1 
 And again, "The direct potency of behavior in creating 
 something like it in another human being's behavior is 
 not discoverable in any series of experiments in which 
 the effects of the laws of exercise and effect are pre- 
 cluded or allowed for." 1 
 
 What the Child Dramatizes and Why. — What the 
 child dramatizes is not due to circumstances alone. 
 ,He has different interests, physical and mental, at 
 different ages, and selects the part to play which 
 exercises the instincts and capacities already in action. 
 He sees scrubbing all his life, but he first reproduces 
 it, not only because the pattern is constantly acted 
 before him, but also because he has an innate ten- 
 dency to make many minor bodily movements and 
 scrubbing provides a satisfactory form of exercise. 
 
 1 E. L. Thorndike: "The < >riginal Nature of Man," Educational 
 Psychology, Vol. I, pp. no, in.
 
 EDUCATION THROUGH DRAMATIC PLAYS 3 1 
 
 He sees policemen and soldiers all his life, but he 
 dramatizes their activities at a time in life when he 
 admires physical prowess and when his physical 
 growth makes it possible for him to simulate the 
 external appearance of bravery. Back of dramatic 
 plays can be seen some tissue hunger of the developing 
 mind and body, some physical craving, some mental 
 need reaching out for expression. This gives the 
 child's reason for selecting particular types of play. 
 To some extent, however, the content of dramatic 
 plays is conditioned from without, patterned, as it 
 were, from the activities most frequently seen and 
 known. We have only to observe children closely in 
 their play to find out what their fathers do, how their 
 mothers conduct their homes, and the topics of daily 
 conversation among members of the family and 
 neighbors. If we are keen observers, it is possible to 
 tell what kind of discipline the home affords; tyran- 
 nical behavior is as sure to be copied as habits of 
 submission, while the coarse actions and rough 
 language of parents or servants are as likely to become 
 ingrained in the habits of children as the gentle 
 manners and refined speech of cultured parents. i\.ny 
 striking behavior is likely to be copied in play; in fact 
 this is how children grow to understand the meaning 
 and significance of manners and morals. 
 
 The Commonplace Activities of Life are a Source of 
 Valuable Dramatic Plays. — Some kindergartners 
 object to children's realistic dramatization of such 
 utilitarian occupations as washing, ironing, scrubbing, 
 and street cleaning. They prefer to have play centered 
 in symbolic material, and so have invented games
 
 32 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 in which the child is supposed to be interested not so 
 much in the overt activity as he plays carpenter, 
 blacksmith, or knight, but in a symbolic meaning 
 read into these plays by Froebel. In some mystic 
 way children are supposed to imbibe a sense of the 
 economic relationship the family bears to church and 
 state. Many regard this symbolism beyond the ken 
 of childish minds. There was at one time a difference 
 of opinion among kindergarten teachers as to whether 
 a child's play should deal with things within his 
 experience or types and symbols which may be outside 
 the realm of his experience. Should he dramatize the 
 policeman and the fireman as brave persons, or 
 plumed knights on horseback as a type of chivalry 
 and bravery? Again, experimental psychology has 
 clearly established the fact that symbols may be safely 
 used in childhood only after direct personal experience 
 with the tiling symbolized, and then only as an adjunct 
 to experience. 
 
 To a large number of kindergartners it has always 
 seemed that the healthy imagination deals with real 
 things as they appear to the eye. To the child, the 
 common household activities are not mere bits of 
 work necessary for the maintenance of the home; they 
 represent interesting ways of manipulating physical 
 objects and forces, and demand judgment and 
 imagination in using them. Pumping water, sweeping 
 the floor and washing dishes are activities tedious to 
 most grown-ups because such work fails to satisfy 
 any inner need. Nerve tracts not ready to act are 
 used; attention is forced, and fatigue comes rapidly. 
 1 low different with a child whose hands and arms crave
 
 34 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 such exercise! The nerve tracts are ready to act; 
 much energy is used with little fatigue; and the work 
 thoroughly satisfies the nature of the worker. Such 
 activities command the interest of children, who thus 
 imitate the actions of grown-ups with pleasure and 
 profit to themselves. To sum up, there seems to be 
 no psychological foundation for this discrimination 
 against so-called utilitarian play. It has been clearly 
 demonstrated that the roots of play and work are one 
 and the same, and that most of the original tendencies 
 leading to play initiate work as well. 
 
 A List of Spontaneous Dramatic Plays Gathered 
 from Playgrounds. — The records of dramatic plays 
 in some thirty playgrounds of Pittsburgh show no 
 work too common, no experience too sordid to be 
 dramatized. Playing house with dolls, having com- 
 pany for dinner, dramatizing the roles of various 
 members of the family; keeping hotels, restaurants, 
 banks, stores of all kinds; playing church and school; 
 cowboy, Indian, Robinson Crusoe; dramatizing such 
 historic events as the Boston Tea Party and the 
 events of the French and Indian Wars; playing 
 hospital and funeral ; taking on the work of the fireman, 
 cobbler, blacksmith, dressmaker, street-cleaner, livery- 
 man, etc.; playing telephone, train, fishing, diving, 
 circus, menagerie; imitating the life and movements of 
 butterflies, grasshoppers, rabbits, goats, reindeer, 
 birds, and chickens: all these, and more, the records 
 show to be subjects for spontaneous dramatic play. 
 
 Breadth of a Child's Interests as Seen in Dramatic 
 Play. -This breadth of children's interests in dra- 
 matic plays and games indicates more than a remark-
 
 EDUCATION THROUGH DRAMATIC PLAYS 35 
 
 able catholicity of taste. With lack of power to con- 
 centrate for long periods and a short span of attention 
 this would be a dull world for the child, could he not 
 overcome such limitations by breadth in play interests. 
 Parents often complain that the kindergarten inter- 
 feres with concentration by supplying so many and 
 varied types of activity. They aim to counteract 
 this training by supplying their own children with 
 only a few playthings and toys. In this way parents 
 limit children's development. It is impossible for 
 children of kindergarten age to give continuous 
 attention to any one thing. They need a breadth of 
 play interests. Let children of kindergarten age flit 
 from one play to another. The poverty of mental 
 content accounts for the fact that no one object 
 holds the center of attention for a long time. As soon 
 as experience adds new meaning to objects, and the 
 span of attention increases with age, the power to 
 concentrate will increase naturally. We forget the 
 characteristics of childhood when we endeavor to 
 limit the field of play; we need to remind ourselves 
 that adults necessarily narrow their interests to those 
 necessary for a livelihood and that childhood is the 
 time to give a broad foundation through play. 
 
 All through childhood there is a strong tendency to 
 imitate the striking features of the environment. 
 Anything unusual or picturesque appeals to children 
 and often leads to dramatizing the person, event, or 
 force which has made a new or unusual impression. 
 Other things being equal, children select people and 
 activities that are novel or that permit the display of 
 force, movement, and striking acts. Up to the sixth
 
 36 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 year firemen, policemen, Santa Claus, fairies, brown- 
 ies, carpenters, blacksmiths, and the like are favorite 
 copies because the things these characters do, the 
 feats they perform, give room for olenty of physical 
 
 Pittsburgh Bureau of A' 
 
 Children Like to Imitate Strong and Vigorous Types 
 in ( 'haracteb 
 
 exercise, permit manipulation of objects, and create 
 in the young imitators .1 feeling of importance. 
 
 The Tendency to Imitate Striking Activities and 
 Active or Picturesque Types of Personality. After 
 the seventh year there is a growing tendency to 
 imitate strong and vigorous types. Cowboys, 
 Indian-, soldiers are played over and over again 
 because these characters stimulate admiration at an
 
 EDUCATION THROUGH DRAMATIC PLAYS 37 
 
 age when the performance of physical feats seems 
 grand and heroic to children. The minister, teacher, 
 scholar, or clerk may be as worthy of admiration as 
 the more physically strenuous types, but at an age 
 where adventure and physical prowess appeal to the 
 wholesome activities of children's growing bodies such 
 characters are seldom copied in play. After the 
 tenth year there is seen a tendency to reach out 
 beyond the environment for subjects and events to 
 dramatize; especially is this true if familiarity with 
 history and good literature has been gained. 
 
 Illusion in Dramatic Play. — There is a tendency 
 to describe imaginative dramatic play as "make- 
 believe." Konrad Lange has shown that with the 
 higher animals especially there is the element of 
 illusion or conscious self-deception. Groos says that 
 the capacity for illusion is the most interesting 
 feature of imitative dramatic play, and adds: "On the 
 other hand, the waking consciousness seems to be 
 unshaken through it all." 1 How true this is, we see in 
 watching children make-believe. Playing that grass 
 is salad, a clothespin a doll, and sand sugar, does not 
 indicate that the child is making-believe except from 
 the adult viewpoint. He does not eat the grass or 
 taste the sand. His imagination gives him the 
 ability to substitute the qualities lacking in The"" 
 immediate objects. Again, when a child plays bear, 
 tiger, and reindeer, these animals are vividly present 
 in imagination. His mind overcomes limitations of 
 time and space; the bear stalks about, growls, and 
 pursues food; still more, the child identifies himself 
 
 1 K. Groos: The Play of Man, p. 307. 
 
 56634
 
 38 SPONTANEOUS AXD SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 with the bear by himself representing these hear-like 
 characteristics. The adult who does not see the 
 importance of this power of the mind to translate 
 things not present to sense into realities loses sight o\ 
 the most central thing in the intellectual life of the 
 child. 
 
 The Play Attitude in Early Childhood One of 
 Freedom. An attitude of mental freedom character- 
 izes the dramatic play of children from four to eight 
 years of age. A child does not demand that a thing 
 really resemble in physical appearance what he pre- 
 tends it represents; that is, there is no identity 
 between the physical traits of an object and the 
 mental images associated with it. A broomstick 
 becomes a horse not because it suggests the form and 
 outline of a horse, but because it lends itself to loco- 
 motion easily and use is more essential in play than 
 appearance. Likewise, as occasion demands, a board 
 becomes a sled, a boat, a train, or a slide, and to all 
 purposes becomes one as easily as another. The 
 essential thing is not the board, but the ideas clustered 
 about the use of it, the quality of the mental images 
 which call it into life as the objeel it represents. The 
 following quotation from Stevenson illustrates the 
 freedom with which a child uses objects to clothe his 
 ideas: "The chair hi- has just been besieging as a 
 « astle, or valiantly cutting to the ground as a dragon, 
 is taken away for the accommodation of a morning 
 visitor, and he is nothing abashed; he can skirmish by 
 the hour with a stationary coal-scuttle; in the midst 
 of the enchanted pleasance he can see, without a
 
 EDUCATION THROUGH DRAMATIC PLAYS 39 
 
 sensible shock, the gardener soberly digging potatoes 
 for the day's dinner." 1 
 
 In Later Childhood the Fanciful Element is Re- 
 placed by Interest in Reality. — There comes a time, 
 however, when the ideas which things suggest must 
 resemble realities; so also must the objects employed in 
 dramatic play represent in detail the ones they stand 
 for in life. This attitude begins after the seventh 
 year when, in school, training in facts is stressed and 
 memory work is considered important. This training 
 is accompanied by a corresponding interest in detail 
 and skill in workmanship. The child is no longer 
 satisfied to run and utter a war-whoop as an expres- 
 sion of Indians; he must make for himself an Indian 
 costume, construct a wigwam, and portray a series of 
 activities true to Indian history. 
 
 During this period the tendency among teachers of 
 dramatics to limit costume to a slight addition to the 
 ordinary dress seems to the author to be a violation 
 of the laws of mental life. While a cap, a shawl, 
 and an apron were sufficient for many parts in the 
 years before nine, the older child's imagination de- 
 mands the vivid portrayal of a mood. Care should 
 be taken, however, to keep a healthful balance 
 between the desire for material detail in costume and 
 the power of mental growth through a correspond- 
 ingly rich imagery. 
 
 Training of Imagination Through Dramatic Play. — 
 When children engage in spontaneous dramatizations 
 they not only reproduce the mental images that cluster 
 
 1 R. L. Stevenson: "Child's Play," in Virginibus Puerisque, pp. 
 218, 219.
 
 40 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 about the thing they are representing, but they 
 rearrange and reconstruct these images in a certain 
 perspective. Some details are rejected, others are 
 stressed, as thoughts flow out into action. For 
 example, in playing fireman or policeman a certain 
 plot is formed as ideas become clarified and settle in a 
 fairly permanent form. And because self becomes 
 identified with the play, the emotions enter in, adding 
 a richness and vividness to the thought. 
 
 Training in Productive Imagination. — One of the 
 present tendencies in education is to demand a great 
 deal of reproductive work, in which those pupils who 
 possess good memories shine. This tendency in 
 education bears directly upon the problem of dramatic 
 play. While dramatic play is dependent upon repro- 
 ductive imagination for the stuff with which it works, 
 the very nature of dramatic play makes for freedom 
 in the movement of imagery. The value of dramatics 
 as a field for training productive imagery is apparent 
 at once. If we wish children to do really creative 
 work in life, we must open up fields of practice in which 
 those possessing creative power can exercise it. And 
 as all children possess some degree of native ability in 
 productive imagination, all should have dramatic 
 games. Not everyone, it is true, can expect to invenl 
 new machinery, create new systems of philosophy, or 
 develop a new social era; but all can use what native 
 ability they have to construct for themselves the besl 
 kinds of environment their abilities permit. 
 
 Dramatizing Fact and Fancy. — Facts, fairy tale-, 
 and myths afford a child from four to eight years old 
 varied opportunities to use productive imagination.
 
 EDUCATION THROUGH DRAMATIC PLAYS 4 1 
 
 Children of this age dramatize facts as well as fiction. 
 They have no mental perspective by which they can 
 discriminate between fact and fancy, other than by 
 trying to make both work in life. Dramatic games 
 provide an opportunity to try out both fact and fancy, 
 and to make comparisons with similar events in life. 
 By the tenth year, training in sense perception has 
 straightened out much of the inevitable confusion 
 between fact and fancy. For example, children learn 
 that in fairyland, witches, goblins, dwarfs, and giants 
 perform miracles, but in actual life man awaits the 
 fulfillment of natural forces and laws. After the tenth 
 year, children are less susceptible to the fairy element. 
 They depend upon observation and memory, and look 
 to history and fiction for sources of dramatic play. 
 Stories for this age should include scenes from narra- 
 tive history and the lives of great men who conquered 
 natural forces and laws through invention and ex- 
 ploration. The records presented for the purpose of 
 study show the pitiable background in stories many 
 children in the playground possessed. When good 
 stories were presented as a basis for dramatization, 
 children found them as satisfying to portray as the 
 cheap stories seen in the movies or the happenings of 
 their own lives. 
 
 Training in Observation. — In representing their 
 own conceptions of things, say in playing doctor, 
 soldier, carpenter, or blacksmith, what enters into 
 the children's plot depends upon their observations of 
 the characteristics and activities of each. "Let's 
 play fire!" says one child. "I'll be the chief," says 
 another, and straightway proceeds to construct a
 
 w 
 
 <
 
 EDUCATION THROUGH DRAMATIC PLAYS 43 
 
 plot. If he proves resourceful, the other children 
 rally about him and respond to his suggestions, 
 applying their own knowledge of fact to the game. 
 As they become interested in a part, they become 
 stimulated to observe things related to in it real life. 
 The part played vitalizes the interest by providing a 
 social situation or background for the acquisition of 
 facts. 
 
 Likewise does observation grow in situations where 
 stress is laid on behavior of different kinds. In 
 representing people the child learns about good and 
 bad, about cause and effect, naturally, without 
 precept or admonition. Surely observation of good 
 and evil in human nature is as important as observa- 
 tion concerning the sense peculiarities of things. It 
 is easy enough to waste time in making unnecessary 
 sense discriminations, easy enough, also, to waste 
 time in character portrayal. Yet, certain standards or 
 types of human nature can be set forth with cameo- 
 like clearness. "In life," says Mrs. Herts, "youth 
 could hardly discern the miser, spendthrift, liar, 
 hypocrite, egoist, prodigal, swindler, gambler, patriot, 
 martyr, and all the rest. Each quality is disguised 
 and mixed with others. But the drama presents a 
 large repertory of such simplified, elemental human 
 qualities, admirably adjusted to the educative appren- 
 ticeship stage of life. The primitive traits of which 
 human nature is made up can be observed and studied 
 as a mechanic studies a machine, part by part, before 
 it is put together." 1 
 
 1 As quoted by the Literary Staff of the American Institute of 
 Child Life, in The Dramatic Instinct in Children, p. 11, Monograph 352.
 
 44 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 Should Children Portray Evil? — Children often 
 hunger to represent characters which they would 
 shrink from in actual life. A boy likes to play thief 
 and robber, even it delivered up to justice after a 
 period of outlawry. "Give the boy of fifteen his 
 chance to play a thief or a murderer on a stage in the 
 costume and environment of the part," says Mrs. 
 Herts; "he will usually experience all he wants of 
 stealing and killing." 1 The consensus of opinion 
 among educators seems to be that if children represent 
 evil, the results of the evil should follow, either 
 through portrayal of the suffering brought on by 
 conscience, or through penalties imposed by society, 
 and that evil characters which show neither result 
 are not fit to be impersonated by children. On the 
 whole this seems to the writer a commendable view- 
 point, yet it remains to point out a limitation in it. 
 It is quite possible to portray evil with such a lure and 
 glamor that its results are lost sight of. It is still 
 more important to keep the moral atmosphere clean 
 and wholesome. If this is done, good and evil 
 characters may come and go, each adding its impress 
 to the mind, which, denying no evil, yet retains an 
 enthusiasm for the good. 
 
 A current article on motion pictures and crime 2 
 speaks of the extreme suggestibility of tin- mentally 
 young or delinquent, who lack the ability to foresee 
 the consequences of different kinds of behavior and 
 lack the capacity and willingness to exercise self- 
 
 1 Ibid., p. i :. 
 
 2 A. T. PofTenberger : "Motion Pictures and Crime," The Scien- 
 tifii Monthly, Vol. XII, April, iQ2i.
 
 46 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 restraint. It mentions also the fact that delinquents 
 possess imaginations less controlled and (lucked Ir- 
 realities. For this reason the author of the article 
 favors eliminating reports of crime from the news- 
 papers, magazines, moving pictures, and advertising 
 posters. Another point remains to be made. Con- 
 stant association with trivial characters in dramatiza- 
 tion is almost as dangerous as with evil ones, for the 
 mind has no height nor depth of interpretation in 
 [< illi >\ving such characters. Neither should the thought 
 of the child be focussed entirely on ideal characters, 
 since the result would be to picture conditions con- 
 trary to facts in life. 
 
 Emotions in Dramatic Play. — It remains to point 
 out certain dangers in the line of emotional training 
 through dramatization. It is so easy to arouse the 
 emotions in dramatic play that there is always danger 
 of overstimulation, especially in artificial situations. 
 Most of us are familiar with an occasional person, at 
 least, who has somehow grown accustomed to lead 
 an emotional life apart from real persons and life situa- 
 tions. The function of emotion is to guide and inspire 
 conduct, not to act as a mere drug. It is possible to 
 promote real growth in emotional control through 
 tying up emotions with the right situations. This is 
 an important function of dramatic play. 
 
 Emotional growth through dramatic play is difficult 
 to observe. The child tries on various types o\ 
 emotional attitudes easily. He is stern and unrelent- 
 ing when he plays policeman; kind and tender when 
 nursing imaginary invalids; tryannical and cruel when 
 impersonating robbers and desperadoes. It such
 
 EDUCATION THROUGH DRAMATIC PLAYS 47 
 
 plays are supervised the child learns to know unde- 
 sirable emotions when he manifests them in dramatic 
 play just as he does in life. In a good home evil 
 deeds, selfish acts, and inconsiderate manners are 
 eliminated by their social results. Good behavior 
 meets with rewards; bad behavior is punished. 
 Whether the dramatizing of evil characters leads to a 
 repugnance or a toleration for evil depends upon the 
 wholesomeness of the atmosphere. It is doubtful 
 whether a child applies knowledge so gained to real 
 life. In a crisis children sometimes repress facts 
 which do not fall in with their desires. Many 
 youthful crimes are committed by those who foresee 
 results, but count on being clever enough to avoid 
 them. Yet on the whole good training in dramatics 
 cannot be entirely valueless. Children familiar with 
 real or fictitious characters who are rewarded for 
 suppressing undesirable fears, anger, self-feeling, and 
 the like, and are punished for undesirable responses, 
 have some advantage over children who have not had 
 this vicarious experience. 
 
 Dramatization and Habit. — So difficult is it to 
 remake habits on the stage, that a well-known actor- 
 manager has said, "Give me a gentleman and I'll 
 produce an actor." With children it is easy to create 
 such a vital interest in a part that they set out to 
 acquire the manners and customs required to portray 
 it. This plasticity with respect to new habits should 
 be made the most of educationally. 
 
 Many children have enlarged their vocabularies 
 through an appreciation of the language in dramatic 
 games, and through impersonating characters in a
 
 48 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 story. They lost.- self-consciousness and -peak out 
 the thoughts and ideas of the game or story with 
 oftentimes real dramatic interpretation. If the story 
 abounds in good dialogue they often repeat it ver- 
 batim, thus appropriating to themselves the author's 
 vocabulary. 
 
 Playing Before an Audience.- There comes a 
 time when the normal child enjoys playing be ton an 
 audience. When analyzed, the tendency appears to 
 parallel the growth in the social personality at 
 adolescence. The desire for attention and the love 
 of display accompany us throughout life and it is but 
 natural that these native tendencies should crop out 
 with the growth of the social personality. To be 
 the center of things brings an exhilaration, a sense of 
 personal elation. Even to be part of an organized 
 crowd participating in some concerted action is a 
 form of excitement common to mankind. A whole 
 range of human plays depend upon the reinforcement 
 of feeling through group action; playing before an 
 audience and participating in mass action in pageants 
 or festivals are representative of these. 
 
 What Part Should Imitation Play in Dramatic 
 Interpretation? Who has not seen the formalist 
 crystallize every spontaneous expression into an art 
 form." From the early kindergarten plays to the 
 dramatics of college days, we sometimes see action 
 artificially inspired in the players by outside inter- 
 preters. I low easy it is to change buoyant, spon- 
 taneous expression into that over-facile copy ol a 
 teacher's interpretation which lays the foundation for 
 insincerity of expression!
 
 EDUCATION THROUGH DRAMATIC PLAYS 49 
 
 Our experts in plays and games are realizing the 
 danger of excessive imitation in dramatic play, and are 
 striving for originality in expression. Kindergartners 
 are studying the spontaneous play responses of 
 children of different ages as they represent bears, 
 birds, fish, etc., to see what part the physiological 
 requirements of the body play in determining the 
 forms of dramatic art. When this is done, it becomes 
 clear why children of about four years of age play 
 bear on all fours, and why they assume an erect 
 position at an age when competition in running is 
 keen. It is clear, also, why children of kindergarten 
 age representing birds spontaneously hop and fly in 
 an erect position where the arms may aid in balancing 
 the movements of the body. They seldom assume the 
 conventional postures one used to see in kinde gartens 
 in which the child squatted on the floor with arms 
 pinned to his side to represent wings. To one who 
 understands the physiological and psychological rea- 
 sons for these forms of dramatic interpretation, each 
 type of expression is seen to have a function in the life 
 of the growing organism. 
 
 Cooperation the Result of Dramatic Play. — In 
 dramatic games there is much that looks like social 
 enjoyment. In this fellowship we see natural tenden- 
 cies toward mastering and submissive behavior in 
 different individuals of the group. In supervised 
 dramatic play one child is not permitted to be "it" 
 whenever he feels an overwhelming desire to display 
 his powers. Children who seek to dominate are led 
 to see the value of group cooperation. In the Chil- 
 dren's Educational Theatre, New York City, the
 
 50 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 children who play the leading r61es one night shift 
 scenery, hold the prompt-book, or act a minor part 
 another night. They learn that intelligence and 
 
 faithfulness are as much demanded in acting a minor 
 as a major role. 
 
 Imitative-dramatic Plays of Value in Supplementing 
 Instinct. Now that psychologists have discarded tin- 
 theory of a single-minded instinct of imitation or of 
 dramatization, we find imitative-dramatic plays much 
 more difficult to analyze. In playing store, for 
 example, a number of natural capacities and instincts 
 are called into play. The instinct to manipulate, 
 the desire for leadership, the enjoyment of playing a 
 part, the love of physical activity — all these tenden- 
 cies, and more, enter in and make the play a melting 
 pot of habits, instincts, and tendencies. Because of 
 the opportunity for interaction of all these tendencies, 
 imitative-dramatic plays have an important biological 
 significance. What the child can learn by practice 
 he is relieved from acquiring by heredity. Such seems 
 to be the plan of life. Imitative-dramatic plays not 
 only supplement instincts, but aid in the reorganiza- 
 tion of instincts. Unless we believe that "Nature 
 must be right," we cannot afford to miss the chance 
 such plays afford to help the child to learn new lessons 
 and thus weaken the power of disadvantageous inborn 
 tendencies. The hope of education during the play 
 period and beyond lies in the thoroughgoing recon- 
 struction of life through habits and reason. In 
 supervised dramatic plays we have a real opportunity 
 to tie up instinctive acts to good social habits.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 Playing Doll and House 
 
 Why Interest in House-plays is Universal. — There 
 are several reasons why house-plays are universal in 
 childhood. First, there is the frequency and famili- 
 arity of the sights, sounds, and activities of the home. 
 Secondly, and of more importance, many of the 
 house activities such as washing, ironing, sweeping, 
 and dusting commend themselves to a child because 
 they fit his tendencies for multiform physical and 
 mental activity of a simple, direct kind. Household 
 activities which do not lend themselves readily to 
 simple imitative acts are not so frequently dramatized ; 
 thus mending as a dramatic play is less popular than 
 scrubbing, and reading and writing are less frequently 
 dramatized than washing and ironing. Interest in 
 dolls accounts for a large number of house-plays. 
 The use of dolls involves a large number of original 
 tendencies, among which are nurturing or motherly 
 behavior, manipulation, desire for companionship, 
 delight in dramatization, fetishism, collecting, and 
 feelings of kindliness and sympathy. 
 
 Doll-play Involves a Number of Original Tenden- 
 cies. — The nurture of dolls, involving, as it does, 
 motherly behavior toward inanimate objects, is one 
 of the most interesting features of doll-play. What 
 child does not love his rag doll? Most girls and boys 
 
 5i
 
 52 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 of two and three years of age will play contentedly 
 for .1 long time with their dolls, hugging them close, 
 petting them, kissing them tenderly, and singing to 
 them. Soon the dramatic interest asserts itself. The 
 dolls are made to eat, sleep, work, talk, play with 
 other dolls, and. in fact, become personalities subject 
 always to the child's control. With children there is 
 an age when a favorite doll may become almost a 
 fetish. Some children sleep with their dolls, eat with 
 them, and drag them along wherever they go. 
 Pleasure in manipulation accounts for a large share 
 of interest in dolls; their household utensils and 
 clothes are objects calling this tendency into action. 
 
 Some sex difference in doll-play is noticed even as 
 early as the third year. As soon as the objects handled 
 cease to attract because of their manipulative possi- 
 bilities, many boys tire of household plays with dolls, 
 while girls show an ever-increasing interest in practic- 
 ing the arts and crafts of the home. It is possible to 
 account for some of this difference in interest through 
 the larger freedom usually given boys to roam about 
 at will and seek other interests, while girls are kept 
 more strictly at home, and thus often play with dolls 
 because of mere lack of other interests. 
 
 Habitation or desire lor shelter, is noticeable in 
 doll-play. The tendency to adopt cubby-holes for 
 homes is strong. Dolls and their youthful proprietors 
 frequently live and move and have their being under 
 the sheltering arms of tables or chairs; overturned 
 boxes make houses formidable to attack, and alcoves, 
 re< esses, or secluded clumps of trees are easily sug- 
 gesth c of domiciles.
 
 PLAYING DOLL AND HOUSE 53 
 
 Relative Frequency of Some Forms of Doll-play. — 
 
 In a study of dolls it was found that, in answer to 
 questions about the relative frequency of some forms 
 of doll plays, "266 children mention a fondness for 
 dressing dolls; 218 like to wash them; 189 have a 
 love of doll parties; 183 a love of sewing for them; 176 
 a love of playing school; 169 a love of putting to sleep; 
 137 a love of weddings; 93 of nursing; 82 mention 
 treating them as companions, telling secrets, etc.; 
 79 love to feed them; 49 to punish them; 36 to play 
 funerals." 1 
 
 Years in Which Children Show the Most Interest 
 in Dolls. — In the same study it was also found that 
 the years from four to fourteen were the ones in which 
 there was the most universal interest in dolls, with a 
 rapidly increasing interest at eight years. It was 
 discovered that boys play with dolls as eagerly as 
 girls, but for shorter periods, and that they show an 
 especial fondness for character dolls. 
 
 The Instinctive Basis for Nurturing or Mothering in 
 House-plays. — The writer includes the nurture of 
 dolls, pets, and babies in house-plays because the 
 records of playing house show few plays where some 
 form of nurture does not exist. There is possibly a 
 basis in instinct for some of the interest in such plays. 
 Of the mothering tendency Thorndike says: "Whether 
 the * * * holding, fondling, and petting babies, dolls, 
 pets, and toys by the young require such special 
 instincts or are explainable as the ' real ' instincts, 
 modified by complication or distortion of the situations 
 and by training, I shall not try to decide. In any 
 
 1 G. Stanley Hall and A. Caswell Ellis: A Study of Dolls, p. 40.
 
 54 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 case, in playful hunting, fighting, mothering, fleeing, 
 home-making, and the like, training early permeates 
 and overlays man's original nature." 
 
 Educative Possibilities in Nurturing-play. [t is 
 this modification of instinct through training which 
 concerns parents and educators. Whenever a group 
 of children gather together to play house, an educa- 
 tional situation presents itself in which the mothering 
 instinct oi little girls, and the tendency boys show to 
 make certain nurture responses, can he so guided that 
 the right attitudes and habit- toward the young and 
 helpless are developed. There is every reason to 
 believe that good example serves the same purpose in 
 play that it does in any other situation in life. 
 Groups of children learn to punish offenders and 
 reward those who lend themselves to group purposes. 
 In one house-play recorded a sister administering a 
 spanking to a child playing with her was duly repri- 
 manded and spanked by another child acting as the 
 mother. A point to be remembered is that in super- 
 vised play the teacher is near to see that good prevails 
 in the end. Often a teacher possessing real under- 
 standing of children can accomplish a good deal by 
 herself assuming some role. Without ostentation she 
 can depict a role which lends itself to valuable copy. 
 
 Do the Habits and Attitudes Gained in Doll-play 
 Carry Over Into Parenthood? — Doll-play affords 
 much opportunity for the display of native traits of 
 kindliness and sympathy, as well as their opposites, 
 teasing and bullying. Many parents prohibit cruel 
 
 ' E. L. Thorndike: "The Original Nature of Man," Educational 
 Psychology, Vol. I, p. 146.
 
 PLAYING DOLL AND HOUSE 55 
 
 treatment of dolls on the same humanitarian ground 
 as they would resent a similar treatment of pets. It 
 seems to the writer that parents should make a neces- 
 sary distinction between the treatment of dolls and 
 toys, involving experimentation, such as cutting off a 
 doll's arms and legs in an effort to operate, and such 
 treatment as beating a doll brutally when in a temper. 
 Many spankings are not administered in a cruel 
 spirit; they are rather experimental acts through 
 which the youthful imitator gets the "feel" of adult 
 acts. While we must allow for the importance of the 
 laws of exercise and effect, we can attach only as 
 much importance to harmless experimentation of this 
 sort as we can to experimentation in kindliness and 
 sympathy. Many youthful tyrants pet and fondle 
 dolls just to try out such acts. A fondness for dolls 
 does not necessarily indicate fondness for babies. 
 Habits and attitudes gained in doll-play have only the 
 same chance for later usefulness that habits of kindli- 
 ness in any situation have to become a permanent basis 
 for character. 
 
 Manipulation as Applied to Household Utensils and 
 Toys. — A little child, apart from training, pulls, pokes, 
 and touches all objects within reach. This original 
 tendency is of the utmost importance in understanding 
 house-plays. Such objects as dolls, dishes, beds, 
 chairs, washtubs, and stoves are much enjoyed by 
 children before put to their real uses in dramatic play. 
 This puttering of the fingers with objects and toys is 
 noticeable in several of the records presented. Babies 
 will sit for long periods fitting lids on pans, covers on 
 jelly glasses, and small boxes into larger ones. It is
 
 56 
 
 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 difficult to discover how much of form, size, and 
 dimension they learn from puttering with the hands, 
 but of this we may be sure, the end of finger play is 
 knowledge. It is through puttering with the hands 
 that children experiment with the things and forces of 
 nature. The skill of the craftsman, the technique of 
 
 
 
 
 • 
 
 M 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 JL, ; .w*£ 
 
 
 
 
 -& 
 
 
 Pittsburgh Playgrourui Association 
 
 The Handling of Household Utensils and Toys Is a 
 Means or Education to Children 
 
 the artist, and the training of the scientist are all 
 
 bound up in the use of the hands. When children first 
 handle such household utensils as spoons, tin pans, 
 cups, and the like their attention centers upon Mich 
 sense qualities as roughness, hardness, and sweetness. 
 Soon, however, they learn the uses to which objects 
 may be put; cups arc to drink from, -poons to eat
 
 PLAYING DOLL AND HOUSE 57 
 
 with. It is then that their play with household objects 
 is of the imitative sort. A little later, more freedom 
 in the use of these objects is noticeable. A pan be- 
 comes a drum, a tin can an engine bell, the clothesline 
 a hose. Still later, make-believe no longer satisfies. 
 The dolls must have a complete outfit; they must be 
 dressed as children are dressed; their bed linen is not 
 complete without the conventional sheets, blankets, 
 and quilts; the table service must include necessary 
 dishes, napkins, and tablecloth, while the cooking 
 utensils must approximate reality. Tea parties be- 
 come social affairs in which the children mimic the 
 actions, bearing, and conversation of adults, exchang- 
 ing greetings, inquiring after the health of sick babies, 
 and discussing the general work of the home. Great 
 ceremony attends the serving of meals, and woe be to 
 the unfortunate child who through lack of vision or 
 home training puts the skillet or kettle on the dining- 
 room table! 
 
 Can Specific Skills and Useful Habits be Taught 
 in House-plays? — As has been mentioned in the 
 discussion of the value of utilitarian play, the civilized 
 child sets the table, washes dishes, scrubs floors, or 
 performs the useful occupations of grown-ups, because 
 by doing so he defines the meaning of such activities. 
 That he may also acquire specific skill and useful 
 habits is often lost sight of. Surely the educator 
 would lose an opportunity did he not overlay with 
 training the spontaneous interest in playing house. 
 For example, there is no reason why children should 
 not wash dolls' clothes and dishes with real water and 
 thus learn the elementary facts about laundering and
 
 58 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 dishwashing. They may be shown, also, how to set 
 the tea table attractively, how to make beds properly, 
 how to scrub their dolls' houses well, how to greet 
 each other courteously; and shown spontaneously and 
 naturally, as a part of the play or game. 
 
 Pittsburgh Bureau of Recreation 
 
 Interest in House-Plays Is Universal to Children 
 
 Expansion of Plot Necessary to Meet More Complex 
 Mental Interests. -- Just as the physical equipment 
 used in simple house-plays must be enlarged to meet 
 the demand for increasing detail in dramatic play, so 
 the expanding mental horizon necessitates a more 
 complex plot. A house-play to a child seven or nine 
 years of age is no longer a play in which dolls are 
 merely nurtured and house furnishings manipulated. 
 Rather does it embody a complex plot in which 
 schools, churches, stores, industries, and commerce
 
 PLAYING DOLL AND HOUSE 59 
 
 are established. Often a play is no more than started 
 when some resourceful child says, "I'll be a nurse," 
 and another, " My baby must be sent to the hospital." 
 But of such development in plot the records bear the 
 best witness. 
 
 Records of Dramatic Plays 
 
 Playing Dolls and House 
 
 1. Doll-Play. School of Childhood, University of 
 Pittsburgh. — The play leader left two naked dolls on 
 the table without calling attention to them. A little 
 boy first discovered them and picked up the boy doll. 
 Apparently not noticing the fact that the doll was 
 undressed, he wheeled it proudly in a doll cab. His 
 movements were so rapid that the play leader said, 
 "Does Mother wheel babies so fast?" "No, nice 
 and easy," was the reply. In the meantime the girl 
 doll had been taken up by a little boy, who gave it up 
 readily when requested to do so by a little girl. 
 "Where are its shoes?" asked the little girl; "I 
 want to give her a bath." After washing the doll 
 carefully in a basin, the little girl asked for a towel. 
 The play leader then produced an outfit of clothes, 
 and the children put on each garment properly, 
 carefully buttoning and adjusting each one. A group 
 of children had gathered to watch the dressing of the 
 dolls, and some of them built out of chairs a house in 
 which the dolls could live. 
 
 This outfit of clothes was carefully prepared in order to give the 
 children skill in dressing and undressing and in buttoning and lacing 
 the clothes of these large dolls. Previous to this the children had 
 devised clothes for smaller dolls themselves.
 
 6o 
 
 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 2. Company for Dinner. Arsenal Park. -The 
 home selected was a small arched alcove in the play- 
 room. In the alcove was a bench made of hoards; 
 this served as a 
 shelf or table on 
 which stood a 
 washtub, an iron- 
 ing-board, and an 
 iron. Four little 
 girls, about six 
 years old, sat 
 cosily around a 
 tea table ; one girl 
 was drinking tea; 
 the three others 
 were nursing 
 their dolls. The 
 play leader 
 knocked on the 
 door to announce 
 her visit. One <>l 
 the children arose 
 
 to let her in, bowed, and shook hands, then placed a 
 chair at the table for the guest. "How arc you to-day?" 
 said the visitor. "Oh, very well," replied the little 
 girl, looking much pleased. Sin- went to the stove 
 and came back with two platters. "Have some meat 
 and potatoes," she said to the company. The visitor 
 ate an imaginary dinner while the other children 
 looked on with evident enjoyment. Soon the visitor 
 said "Good-bye," and went home. The mother put 
 the dishes in the little tub and washed them in water, 
 
 Pholoardphfil by Mary (J. \\ auc 
 
 A Doll's Birthday Party
 
 PLAYING DOLL AND HOUSE 
 
 61 
 
 drying them carefully on a small tea towel. She 
 arranged the dishes prettily on the shelf. The other 
 children continued to play with their dolls. 
 
 Such play affords opportunity to help the children form good 
 habits in table manners, assists them to gain skill and neatness in 
 setting a table and in washing dishes, and to gain courtesy and 
 politeness in serving meals. 
 
 Company for Dinner 
 
 3. Mother and Daughter. Arsenal Park. — Two 
 children chose an alcove for a house and fenced it in 
 with chairs to keep out intruders. Dolls, cup- 
 boards, beds, a doll carriage, stove, and a table com- 
 prised the house furnishings. ' You be the mother 
 and I'll be the daughter," said an older girl to a new 
 child, who was experiencing her first day in the 
 playroom. "All right," came the answer. The 
 mother then bent over the washbtub, rubbing out
 
 62 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 some doll sheets in imaginary water. "I'm washing 
 the bedclothes," she said to the daughter who had 
 been out wheeling her doll. The daughter then took 
 a cup and gave her doll a drink. This called the 
 mother's attention to the dishes. She left her 
 washing and gathered up the cups and saucers, saying, 
 "I'll wash them." But the daughter preferred to do 
 this herself. She laid her doll on the bed, saying out 
 loud to herself, "I must wash her face," then took 
 the dishes away from the mother. Without any 
 feeling of loss of authority the mother allowed the 
 daughter to take the dishes out of her hands and went 
 back to the tub to finish the washing. She rubbed 
 till the daughter had set away the dishes; then she 
 took the dishes out again and washed them all. She 
 next put an iron on the little stove. While it was 
 heating, she went back for the sheet, folded it, and put 
 it away. Just then her eyes lighted on the dolls. 
 She took one out of bed and placed it in the cab ready for 
 a ride. The daughter appeared and forced her mother 
 to give up the cab. The mother took the sheet she 
 had just folded and covered the other doll with it. 
 She rearranged the chairs, then took all the bedclothes 
 off one bed and made up the other for the doll. A 
 boy entered and began to arrange the saucers on the 
 shelf. He placed the plates together in groups of 
 three and set a cup between each group. "Who is 
 he?" the supervisor asked. " He's the pap," answered 
 the mother. The mother left the boy arranging the 
 saucers in geometrical patterns and went out for a 
 walk. She joined the daughter, who stood watching 
 a group of children play house. Soon they both came
 
 PLAYING DOLL AND HOUSE 63 
 
 home, bringing the doll in a cab. The "pap" had 
 gone. The daughter put the doll in the small bed 
 and tucked the clothes around it. The mother took 
 the doll up again and wheeled it around the room, 
 this time unmolested by the daughter, who was setting 
 the table. Suddenly the daughter turned around and 
 said to the mother, "Go over there to that house," 
 pointing to the children playing house. Before the 
 mother had time to start, the daughter ran on ahead, 
 getting there first. When the mother arrived, the 
 daughter said to the other children, "That's my 
 mother." The mother had wheeled her doll over. 
 As she took the doll out of the cab, the daughter 
 pointed to it and said, "She's had smallpox." The 
 children in the house went on with their play undis- 
 turbed by this announcement; one child was pressing 
 a sheet with a warm iron; another child was dressing 
 her dolls; still another sat on the floor, playing with a 
 toy stove, taking the lids out and fitting them in again. 
 The mother soon decided to go home. The first 
 thing she did on returning was to wash the dishes. 
 Then she stood a while and watched the daughter, 
 who had persuaded the children in the other house 
 to come out and play Ring Around the Rosy. After 
 a few minutes the mother set the table. The daughter 
 returned home with her doll and handed it to her 
 mother, then joined some children who were playing 
 on the slide. The mother wrapped the doll in a 
 sheet, and, still holding it, tried to clear the table; 
 this proved hard to do, so she put the doll to bed. 
 She became so absorbed in watching the children slide 
 that she stood doing nothing for some time. After a
 
 64 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 while she swept the floor. A big boy tried to break 
 in the house, and the mother called to the daughter 
 to put him out. Just then the play leader said, 
 "Time to put the toys away." 
 
 This play lasted forty minutes. The writer presents it in a full 
 narrative form just as she saw it work out, because il is a clear 
 example of a type of spontaneous, unsupervised house-play natural 
 to children under six where the play is left on the plane of instinct. 
 To the casual reader it may seem that no thread of purpose runs 
 through the play. The children's interest shifted rapidly from 
 the dolls to the dishes and to each other; yet each thing they did was 
 of absorbing interest to them. Every act partook of the nature of 
 work; yet to them it was play because they chose what to do and 
 how to do it. The mother was working out a new adjustment. 
 She recognized that the daughter possessed a knowledge of the 
 environment that she herself did not possess; hence she was glad to 
 be told what to do. The doing was absorbing enough in itself. 
 She liked to touch, to feel, and to handle the new playthings, dis- 
 covering various social uses to which they could be put. The 
 daughter had a clearer idea of what she wanted to do; chiefly, she 
 liked to exert power, to lead, control, and plan the actions of the 
 mother. Unconsciously she was developing leadership, for good 
 or evil, and was impressing upon another her own tastes and habits. 
 To the educator this play is teeming with values which need to be 
 sifted, and freighted with social meaning. When interest in manip- 
 ulation is at its height how much skill in handling objects can 
 reasonably be expected? What attitudes toward home m a kin g are 
 established in the undemocratic atmosphere this home depicts? 
 How far was the subservient attitude of the mother due to her 
 unfamiliarity with the new environment and how far to innate 
 docility in the presence of masterly behavior on another's part? 
 All these questions would interest a psychologist who aims to build 
 upon natural capacities in suggesting procedure of a higher order. 
 
 4. Vaccination. Lawrence Park. - Several girls 
 made individual houses by marking off a space on the 
 floor. They built tables, chairs, and beds of blocks,
 
 PLAYING DOLL AND HOUSE 65 
 
 then played that their dolls were ill. (There had 
 been a smallpox scare in the neighborhood and many 
 of the children had been vaccinated.) Some of the 
 boys played they were doctors. The girls carried the 
 dolls to the doctor's office and had them vaccinated. 
 Each doll came home with a mark on its arm. 
 
 See the development of this type of play in Hospital Play, No. 1. 
 
 5. Making Dolls' Houses. Washington Park. — 
 The younger children wanted to have a doll's house 
 that would "keep." The play leader provided a 
 large wooden box and the children suggested having a 
 downstairs and an upstairs, so a board was nailed 
 in to form a partition. The floors and walls were 
 scrubbed clean. A little girl suggested papering the 
 walls. The following day the children were given 
 manila paper and colored crayon with which to design 
 wall-paper. Those making the best patterns were 
 allowed to paper a room. The next day the children 
 were given blue cardboard and white strips of various 
 width to experiment with in making striped rugs. 
 The best rugs were placed on the two floors. Some 
 of the older girls sewed and tacked up white window 
 curtains. Because a kitchen and dining room were 
 needed downstairs the large room had to be partitioned 
 into two rooms. The upstairs was left as it was for a 
 bedroom. For the kitchen, the children suggested 
 having a small table, a cupboard, and one chair; for 
 the dining room a large table, a sideboard, and four 
 chairs. The bedroom was to have two beds and two 
 chairs. Uneeda biscuit boxes were brought out by 
 the play leader for the furniture. The children
 
 Pittsburgh Bureau of Recreation 
 
 Building Houses for Dolls
 
 PLAYING DOLL AND HOUSE 67 
 
 helped to plan and make each piece. When it was 
 done they wanted to varnish the furniture. It was 
 placed on a table which was covered with newspapers 
 and each child was allowed to put on one coat of 
 shellac. The next day the children arranged the 
 furniture in the three rooms, brought out the "Do 
 With Dolls," and played house all the afternoon. For 
 several weeks the dolls' house was the center of 
 interest. The dolls were taken for daily rides in the 
 doll buggies, and were put through many kinds of 
 housework. The father doll was usually taken away 
 to work at some occupation and brought home at 
 meal time. 
 
 6. Canning Fruit. Lawrence Park. — The children 
 of this playroom were often taken to a small farm 
 near the playground. Here they saw several kinds of 
 fruit trees. One day they played they were canning 
 fruit. Each child made a separate house by parti- 
 tioning off a space on the floor, and built a stove with 
 blocks. The girls played canning fruit and making 
 jelly, using large wooden cylinders for the jars; they 
 arranged the jars on a shelf. The boys offered to 
 carry the jars down cellar; this necessitated extending 
 the space of each house a little. Some of the girls 
 took jars of fruit to their neighbors. 
 
 There is no reason why children may not play as spontaneously 
 in making real jelly as in pretending to make jelly, and where 
 facilities permit this is often done in the playrooms. 
 
 7. Party. Lawrence Park. — One child announced 
 that it was her birthday. She wrote invitations 
 to a party and delivered them to her girl friends. 
 They came and played games. After the interest in
 
 68 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 games had worn out, the hostess suggested a boat ride. 
 She placed chairs on a table for a boat and the girls 
 jumped in. Two boys offered to be the crew. One 
 girl jumped overboard and was rescued by members 
 of the crew, who swam in after her and together 
 carried her to a hospital. The other girls went home, 
 forgetting to say good-bye to their hostess. 
 
 Note the opportunity for playful acquiring of habits of courtesy 
 and politeness. 
 
 8. House, School, and Hotel. Lawrence Park. — 
 One day the play leader introduced the thought of 
 promptness into the house-plays. She showed the 
 children how to make little clocks for their houses. 
 One group of children kept a hotel. Several children 
 came there to stay all night and asked to be called at 
 a certain time. They lay down to sleep and the clerk 
 got them up at the time they requested him to call 
 them. Another group of children played school. 
 The teacher told them to come at nine o'clock and 
 rang the bell at that time. At noon she sent the 
 children home to dinner. Some of them planned to 
 be late. When they came back to school the teacher 
 wrote their names on the board and kept them aft ti- 
 the other children had gone home. 
 
 9. A Sick Doll. Lawrence Park. — A house was 
 made at one end of the playroom by partitioning off a 
 space with chairs. In the house sat a little girl 
 holding a sick doll. Near by stood a tul) of water. 
 She wrung out a cloth in the water and carefully 
 washed the doll's face, then took a dry cloth and 
 bound around its wrist. "It takes every rag I can 
 get," she said aloud to herself.
 
 PLAYING DOLL AND HOUSE 
 
 6 9 
 
 Pittsburgh Bureau oj Recreation 
 
 "This Is the Way We Scrub Our Floor" 
 
 10. Getting Spanked. Lawrence Park. — A tea 
 
 table behind a screen represented the home. The 
 family were a mother, a young girl, and an older girl 
 who was ironing. The mother went away. The 
 young girl sat down at the table to drink some tea. 
 She spilled the water on the oilcloth, whereupon the 
 older girl left her ironing to give her a spanking. A 
 small boy was playing near by. He saw the spanking 
 and came over to comfort the girl, saying, "Never 
 mind!" Then he went back to his play. He was 
 George Washington chopping down a cherry tree! 
 But the mother had seen the disturbance. She came 
 running home and administered a spanking to the 
 older girl.
 
 70 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 Photographed by Mary G. Waite 
 
 Building Playhouses 
 
 This play shows the importance of imitation in discipline. It is 
 evident that the pattern had been set at home and that spilling 
 anything on the table was a punishable offense in at least one home. 
 The boy's protective instinct and the mother's higher sense of 
 justice are good examples of spontaneous kindliness and resistance 
 to injustice. In regard to a situation calculated to produce a 
 display of kindliness, Thorndike says: "The situation 'a living thing 
 displaying hungry, frightened, or pained behavior by wailing, cling- 
 ing, holding out its arms and the like' provokes attention and 
 discomfort, and may, if attendant circumstances do not shunt 
 behavior over to the hunting, avoiding, or triumphing responses, 
 provoke acts of relief." 1 
 
 ii. House and Restaurant. Lawrence Park. - 
 A group of ten girls and one boy, all about nine or 
 ten years old, started a restaurant. They arranged 
 
 'E. L. Thorndike: "The Original Nature of Man," Educational 
 Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 102-103.
 
 PLAYING DOLL AND HOUSE 7 1 
 
 tables in a long row and covered them with white 
 wrapping paper to represent a tablecloth. Two girls 
 washed and wiped the aluminum dishes and two 
 others set the table. The boy announced that he 
 would take in the money and seated himself at a table 
 near the entrance. When some of the cooks had 
 prepared an imaginary dinner on two toy stoves, they 
 put on white paper caps and aprons and stood behind 
 the long rows of tables. Then the clerk rang a bell 
 long and loudly. All the other children in the play- 
 room left their games to see what was going on. 
 From those entering the restaurant the clerk insisted 
 on advance payment for the dinner, so some of the 
 children ran home to get paper money. The clerk 
 gave each child the proper change after deducting the 
 price of a meal. The dinner proved exciting, for if 
 the boarders did not get waited on at once, they 
 shouted out what they wanted. So the play leader 
 stepped in and quietly supervised the ordering of 
 meals. One mother did not get served as soon as she 
 wished and left the restaurant in indignation, carrying 
 her doll in her arms. Another child ordered roast 
 beef and a cup of tea; still another ordered corned 
 beef. All ate the imaginary dinner with much satis- 
 faction. When they had finished and gone home the 
 waitresses cleared the table; the cooks washed the 
 dishes, and the clerk counted the money. Then the 
 same play started over again. 
 
 Interest in this play persisted for several days. It gave each 
 child some principal role to enact. The cooks, waitresses, and clerk 
 had interesting tasks to perform, tasks which permitted manipula- 
 tion of materials and adjustments to people. It was interesting
 
 /-' 
 
 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 to see how the children mimicked the manners of their elders. See 
 here also the rich opportunity for giving through imitation ideas of 
 politeness and good table manners and for teaching the processes 
 involved in making change and to emphasize essentials in a good diet. 
 
 12. A Community Play. Greenfield School Play- 
 ground. 1 - "Asa result of the summer's play my pro- 
 gram can be summed 
 up as a series of 
 plays which grew out 
 of the contact with 
 human nature. The 
 plays and games tell 
 the story of the hu- 
 man family in all its 
 relationships. 
 
 "The community 
 play began by several 
 children choosing for 
 a home a perfectly 
 natural alcove made 
 of bushes. The first 
 few days were spent in 
 organizing the family 
 and placing them in 
 Out of this grew man's 
 
 A Primitive Siii.i.i i k 
 
 their natural environment. 
 
 needs for the promotion of his physical welfare. Stones 
 were chosen out of which to construct a stove and an old 
 bucket was found for a cooking utensil. The materials 
 used for cooking were sand for cakes, daisies for 
 potatoes, grass for salad, and the yellow center of 
 
 1 This play was developed and described by Kathleen McSweeney 
 and is presented in her own words.
 
 PLAYING DOLL AND HOUSE 73 
 
 daisies for eggs. A box served as a table, milk-bottle 
 tops became dishes, and paper was cut into table- 
 clothes and napkins. Then dinner was served. The 
 next day's plan was similar except that everything 
 was worked out with more detail. The following day 
 a dominant note was struck in this living program 
 when another family was chosen, Auntie and 
 Cousin who lived next door, thus introducing man's 
 craving for social relationship. The Auntie and 
 Cousin visited the family and stayed for tea. When 
 one of the children said 'How do you do?' she shook 
 hands. This seemed a good opportunity to introduce 
 the visiting game, 'We Go Across the Street.' 
 
 "The following day came the idea of commercial 
 relationship. A group of boys started a store. The 
 next day more stores sprang up, a fruit store, a 
 grocery, and a meat market. This led to a division of 
 labor. Day by day the field of play widened until it 
 unfolded in the building of a city. Wheelbarrows 
 served as delivery wagons and suggested the need of 
 drivers and hucksters. The following day some one 
 spoke of the need for money, so a bank was incor- 
 porated. One of the boys chose to be a banker and 
 took a corps of assistants. Money was made from 
 milk-bottle tops. Each storekeeper and older citizen 
 was supplied with a bank book. When they came to 
 the bank they brought these books and deposited and 
 drew money. The clerk kept a careful record of all 
 the transactions. 
 
 "A new family was added the following day. The 
 other families called upon their new neighbors. As a 
 means of entertainment the hostess was invited to
 
 74 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 tell a story; this story hour was enjoyed and repeated 
 at the other houses, with singing. 
 
 "Now the mothers found a school absolutely neces- 
 sary. The children were dressed and sent to school. 
 At recess they went out in the schoolyard for games. 
 At noon the children were dismissed for luncheon and 
 at the sound of the bell returned to school. One day 
 some one suggested a holiday. Every one in the city 
 took Saturday afternoon off and went to the woods or 
 games. The next day was Sunday and all went to 
 church. Up to the tent they marched, seated them- 
 selves on the benches and sang 'America' ; then church 
 was considered over. Monday the stores reopened 
 and school commenced. 
 
 "One day a new note of interest was introduced by 
 the children suggesting the need of a telephone. The 
 following day a telephone was evolved from spool 
 boxes, cord, and a spool. The children took much 
 pleasure in telephoning to the stores, homes, etc. 
 A few days later the play broadened when imaginary 
 fue broke out in one of the stores. A volunteer fire 
 company was organized; the express wagon became a 
 hose cart, and a company of children with buckets 
 started to put out the lire. 
 
 "One of the most interesting parts of this play is in 
 connection with the selection of roles. The same 
 group of children continually played the same parts. 
 One little girl who was the first little mother in the 
 home played the same role every day until the end of 
 the season. This seems to indicate that to each and 
 every one of the children the experience was a vital 
 one. The following summer the children who had
 
 PLAYING DOLL AND HOUSE 75 
 
 taken part in this play the summer before requested 
 to play again the same drama and enact the same 
 roles." 
 
 Here again we see a social situation in which the enjoyment of 
 habitation, the instinct of manipulation, and the social instincts 
 were utilized in a neighborhood approaching a community center. 
 The children felt the need of stores, banks, and schools. This need 
 could have been made the basis for teaching skills in home-making, 
 in banking processes, and in businesslike procedure in the stores. 
 Arithmetic enters in as a factor in filling orders, while problems 
 in engineering engage the attention of those who plan and lay out 
 streets or install telephone systems. 
 
 13. A House Play. 1 — "The two play houses on 
 the porch came to be considered as an established part 
 of the playground. There were two complete families. 
 The little girl who took charge of the homes was very 
 capable. She ordered the daily events in the homes 
 much as her own mother must have done. The older 
 children were put to work while the younger ones were 
 sent to school. Meals were served regularly. At 
 first the children used stones, straws, and the like for 
 food, but in a short time they brought a few foods, 
 such as crackers and fruit from home. The play 
 went on daily, and although the members of each 
 family changed and the routine of management was 
 altered at times, there were very few days when the 
 play itself was neglected." 
 
 Play 13 is similar in content to several previously described, 
 but affords too good an example of children's growth in the use of 
 mental imagery to escape special mention. The play leader com- 
 ments on the fact that stones, straws, etc., were first used for food, 
 but that, later, real food supplanted imaginary supplies; that is, 
 
 1 Account by Louise Borland.
 
 76 
 
 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 there had come an inner necessity for the objects used to resemble 
 reality with some degree of fitness fiction failed to satisfy. As 
 we have said before, this interest in detail comes some time after 
 the seventh year, when the more definite working out of mental 
 images necessitates actual truth in representation. 
 
 The second point worthy of comment in both Play 13 and the 
 one preceding it is the permanence of the dramatic form. The little 
 homes and the activities connected with them had become a part 
 of the equipment of the playground, physical and social. A space 
 was reserved for the homes, and certain children were recognized as 
 responsible for certain roles. These facts seem significant in 
 showing how play interests carry over from day to day and become 
 habit-forming agencies in the lives of children. 
 
 Si hool of Childhood, University of Pittsburgh 
 
 Our House
 
 CHAPTER V 
 Playing Store 
 
 Why Children Like to Play Store. — Store as a 
 dramatic play demands the presence of other children 
 in a happy give and take of social amenities. Children 
 enjoy experimenting with the actions of people as well 
 as with the properties of things and the trade and 
 barter of merchandise afford an opportunity for much 
 human experimenting. 
 
 Two or three children cooperate for mutual advan- 
 tage, and native ability in leadership is sure to appear. 
 A child gifted with social graces and tact often prefers 
 to sell, while one whose interest is in motor activities 
 likes to become a driver or to perform the active 
 physical work about the store. 
 
 Manipulation. — Manipulation of materials is also 
 pleasurable and is partly responsible for the interest 
 children take in store-plays. Little children seem to 
 take a spontaneous delight in hoarding objects to use 
 in store-plays; partly for the joy of manipulating such 
 objects, but also because of a native tendency to hoard 
 and collect. 
 
 Collecting. — Interest in collecting accounts for 
 part of children's interest in store-plays. As early as 
 the last part of the second year the tendency to 
 collect sticks, stones, spools, bottles, and the like is 
 noticeable. The collecting of valueless objects con- 
 tinues all through childhood, indeed, throughout life. 
 
 77
 
 78 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 There is a good deal of variation in the objects collect- 
 ed. Objects of a certain kind are usually collected 
 because they are present in the immediate environ- 
 ment; thus children in the country collect acorns, 
 twigs, or stones, while those in the city collect cigar 
 boxes, medals, etc. Objects cherished dearly at one 
 moment are surrendered carelessly at another as 
 interests change. The sight of another person collect- 
 ing objects is enough to awaken a like desire to possess. 
 Children under four years of age are likely to collect 
 anything they can lay hands upon. I once observed 
 for a period of three days a play of a four-year-old 
 child involving collecting. It was a crude kind of 
 store play. On the store counter improvised from 
 several long boards were spread out the following 
 articles: a mouse trap, a toy ambulance, a bear, a 
 horse, a cart, a gun, an oleomargarine box, a baking- 
 powder can, paper cookies, blocks to represent sticks 
 of candy, a pencil, a buttonhook, a wheel, castors, a 
 knife, toy dishes, and celluloid animals. A few of 
 these various articles were at first arranged in rows to 
 represent sticks of candy or rows of cookies. But as 
 the range of objects grew, the articles were displayed 
 without system. Doubtless this last was because of 
 lack of space. The objects were still classified in the 
 boy's mind, however, for whenever I inquired about 
 some article, such as coffee or sugar, which none of his 
 articles resembled, he promptly gave some such reply 
 as " I haven't any, but doesn't your little boy want a 
 gun or some bread?" It seemed that the basis of 
 classification in the boy's mind was size and shape. 
 I had noticed this tendency in other children. Record
 
 PLAYING STORE 79 
 
 2 shows children's use of wooden beads, cubes, spheres, 
 and cylinders to represent objects in a grocery store. 
 When customers asked for a particular kind of fruit or 
 vegetable the children selected beads most nearly 
 resembling the shape of the article demanded. This 
 was their way of classifying for shape. 
 
 Children of kindergarten age show some interest in 
 arranging and classifying the objects they collect. 
 In playing store, for example, sugar is kept in one 
 place, bread in another, and potatoes in another. All 
 things are not sold in one store; one child keeps a 
 grocery store, another a meat market, and another a 
 bakery. 
 
 Progression in the Collecting Interest is Due to 
 Age. — Miss Burk found the collecting interest to be 
 present at six years of age, and to continue through the 
 seventeenth year. She states that the time of greatest 
 interest in collecting is between nine and ten years, 
 when the average number of collections per child is 
 4.4. She places the first classifications appearing 
 after nine or ten years of age on the basis of color 
 and size, while classifications of kind come a little 
 later. What a child collects, according to Burk, 
 depends largely on the environment. When rivalry 
 enters into collecting the aim seems to be to outstrip 
 others in numbers. 1 This kind of collecting is less 
 common to store play than is that in which arrange- 
 ment or order becomes the important feature. Thus 
 store plays may become a source of really scientific 
 training in the use of objects. 
 
 1 C. F. Burk: "The Collecting Instinct," Pedagogical Seminary. 
 Vol. VII, pp. 205-6.
 
 **%>* ^ * 
 
 S" 
 
 
 
 Si 
 
 jk ^1^. 
 
 
 9 
 
 
 
 • »■..,** . i 
 
 Collecting 
 
 80 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 Collecting as Related to the Hunting Interest.— 
 
 Probably one reason 
 why interest in col- 
 lecting is greatest in 
 the pre-adolescent 
 period is the fact that 
 the desire to roam 
 about, to find, and to 
 hunt is strong in this 
 period. In succeeding 
 years the interest 
 wanes or becomes a 
 fad, such as the col- 
 lect ing of souvenir 
 spoons or dance pro- 
 grams. 
 Information Gained in Playing Store. — A great 
 deal of information about materials and processes of 
 manufacturing is picked up in connection with store 
 plays. The child who has a dry-goods store learns 
 about such materials as silk, linen, cotton, and wool. 
 By means of pictures and stories he may be shown 
 interesting facts about raw products and about the 
 machinery converting these products into material 
 for clothing. If he keeps a grocery store he learns 
 about food stuffs. His interest is easily enlisted in 
 sources and processes by which meat, butter, milk, 
 cereals, and vegetables come to us. Or he may become 
 a hardware merchant and learn about tin, iron, and 
 copper, and about the processes each undergoes before 
 it reaches the consumer.
 
 PLAYING STORE 8 1 
 
 Scrap-books a Source of Information. — In con- 
 nection with store plays children can be stimulated 
 to make scrap-books illustrating food products and 
 the changes these products undergo before they reach 
 the consumer, also to make scrap-books illustrating 
 clothing materials and the corresponding processes 
 of manufacture. Current magazines and advertising 
 catalogs abound in such pictures. Other kinds of 
 scrap-books which are related to the collecting interest 
 are travel books which appeal to the child's love of 
 adventure, machinery scrap-books, bird and animal 
 scrap-books, and "Who, When, and What" scrap- 
 books. Children's librarians make use of the collect- 
 ing instinct by telling stories which the children 
 illustrate in scrap-books. The children cut out of 
 magazines pictures of scenes, people, and activities 
 described in a story and paste these pictures into a 
 scrap-book. Nature-study teachers make use of 
 interest in collecting by stimulating children to make 
 their own collections of plants and animals. 
 
 Information Regarding Money Values and Stand- 
 ard Weights and Measures. — With interest in detail 
 of various kinds comes the demand for money and 
 standard weights and measures. Many schools are 
 utilizing store plays in thrift instruction to teach the 
 value of money and to give real experiences in weigh- 
 ing and measuring. The school children are also 
 taken to the stores; are required to buy with real 
 money, and to report on the weight and measure of the 
 articles purchased. On the playground the children 
 often use milk-bottle tops for money. These tops 
 can be purchased in quantity. When the children
 
 82 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 demand different sizes of coin, cardboard can be used 
 to make the smaller coins and milk-bottle tops to 
 represent dollars. 
 
 Records of Store-Plays 
 
 i. Store — A Home Play. —One day R built a 
 hollow square counter and arranged on it a collection 
 of blocks of different sizes. "What are these?" I 
 asked. "These are sticks of candy," he said, pointing 
 to pillar-shaped blocks. "There are margarine" 
 showing me a pile of oblong blocks, and "Here are 
 eggs," pointing to a row of small wooden wheels. 1 
 suspect the classification and arrangement of blocks 
 would have gone further, but for the diversity in size 
 of the blocks he had collected. At any rate, selling 
 now interested him more than collecting and 1 was 
 forced to be a customer, ordering by telephone groceries 
 which were delivered promptly to the chair where I 
 sat reading. Play money was furnished me, and I 
 was expected to pay for each article received. 
 
 The following day I assisted R to build a long 
 counter out of boards. We placed the supports 
 under the counter. R, not finding a suitable place 
 on the counter in which to arrange classified material, 
 exclaimed, "It won't do!" Then, seeing the drawers 
 underneath, he began to arrange his playthings and 
 blocks in sections. When I asked for candy or 
 cookies he weighed his materials on the kitchen scales 
 and wrapped them in paper which he had rolled around 
 a stick to imitate a grocer's roll. 1 
 
 1 From the author's unpublished records.
 
 PLAYING STORE 83 
 
 2. Store. Washington Park Playroom. - - Three 
 four-year-old children enjoyed playing a simple game 
 of store. They asked the play leader for a box of large 
 wooden beads containing spheres, cubes, and cylinders. 
 When anyone came to the store, these children said, 
 "What do you want?" then searched in the box for a 
 bead the shape of which resembled the object named. 
 One day they asked for the scales and weighed each 
 object before selling it. 
 
 3. Grocery Store. Andrews School Playground. — 
 One boy kept a grocery store. Another boy played 
 farmer. The farmer molded wet sand into all kinds 
 of shapes, naming each shape after some vegetable. 
 He then brought his vegetables to the storekeeper, 
 who sold them to other children. 
 
 4. Lumber Yard. — Near the grocery just de- 
 scribed a group of boys piled up blocks to represent a 
 lumber yard. They sold lumber to customers. 
 
 5. Drug Store. A Home Play. -Two little girls 
 selected a box to represent a counter for their store. 
 They collected bottles of various sizes and filled them 
 with colored water. Red and pink were made from 
 cinnamon candy, and blue and black from ink. 
 Then, as interest in mixing colors grew, the girls 
 experimented with paints until they had mixed almost 
 every imaginable color. They showed the collection 
 of filled bottles to all the people in the neighborhood, 
 but never thought of selling. 
 
 It is clear that to those eight-year-old girls the joy of collecting 
 and experimenting with color was stronger than interest in trade and 
 barter.
 
 84 
 
 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 Playing Store 
 
 6. Farm and Store. Sullivan Playground. - - Two 
 boys started a store. Other boys in the group volun- 
 teered to be farmers. A group of girls offered to 
 cooperate. The boys planted vegetables, then called 
 upon the girls to assist in gathering the crops. One 
 farmer loaded an express wagon with tin buckets full 
 of vegetables (grass, stones, and sand) and took them 
 to the store. The storekeeper bought the vegetables, 
 then closed his store, saying it was night. After a 
 short rest he set out the baskets of vegetables on the 
 counter and said it was morning. A number of 
 children then came to buy. 
 
 7. Millinery Store. Washington Park. — A group 
 of girls eight or nine years old started a millinery store. 
 They set to work making hats out of tissue paper of 
 various colors. They cut and sewed the hats, then
 
 PLAYING STORE 85 
 
 trimmed them with tissue-paper bows, flowers, and 
 feathers. They hung up a sign and several girls came 
 to the store to buy. The older customers found it 
 great fun to try on the hats; usually a selection was 
 made only after trying on several hats. The six-year- 
 old children often took the first hats they saw. 
 
 With the girls from eight to nine, the point of the play was the 
 constructive interest, although the dramatic interest ran almost as 
 high. With the younger children, buying was the point of interest. 
 
 8. Grocery Store. South Side Playground. - 
 
 Some boys and girls, eight and ten years old, had great 
 fun collecting objects for their store. They brought 
 from home sample boxes of cocoa, chocolate, and 
 cream of wheat, arranging the articles quite artistically 
 on the counter. Each purchaser was shown every- 
 thing in the store before he was permitted to tell what 
 he wanted to buy. When he made his choice, the 
 package was wrapped in brown paper, tied with string, 
 and handed to him by a clerk who invariably assumed 
 an air of importance. 
 
 9. Store. O'Hara School Playground. — Two 
 large dry-goods boxes served as a counter. An elabo- 
 rate cash box was constructed out of a tin can and a 
 piece of string. Whenever a customer paid for goods 
 the clerk put the paper money in the cash box and 
 pulled a string which carried the box up to a wire; he 
 then slid the box over to the cashier, who examined the 
 money and sent the change back to the clerk. In this 
 store the buckets, hoops, sand tines, shovels, balls, 
 jacks, and other toys were sold to children in exchange 
 for paper money. At the close of each morning's 
 session these playthings were returned by the children
 
 86 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 using them to the storekeeper, who put them away 
 until the next day. This proved a good way to 
 distribute the playthings. 
 
 Educational Possibilities in Playing Store 
 
 Store-Play in Connection With School Work. — 
 Store-plays are becoming an integral part of a liberal 
 primary school education; indeed, we might almost 
 say of the elementary school as well ; and yet the real 
 possibilities of such play represent almost an un- 
 touched field. The subject seems worthy of a fuller 
 discussion than was given in connection with spon- 
 taneous play. 
 
 Sense Education, Memory Work, Drill, and Atten- 
 tion as Used in Playing Store. — Public school 
 education places stress on situations in which training 
 in sense perception, memory, and attention can be 
 directed toward educational cuds. Store-plays afford 
 an opportunity for such training through providing 
 social situations in which the native tendencies to 
 collect, to manipulate, and to act in social ways aid 
 and abet the teacher's efforts to secure the result 
 desired. For example, after children have collected 
 objects with which to play store, they can be helped 
 to improve the collections and to arrange them with 
 some regard for scientific method or aesthetic appre- 
 ciation. The quality of the collections is thus im- 
 proved and sense education can proceed on a higher 
 plane. Attention to the objects collected and arranged 
 is of the spontaneous kind, and the wide range of 
 most children's collections tends to bring a breadth of 
 interest. Memory drill and review concerning the
 
 PLAYING STORE 87 
 
 objects collected and their place in relation to some 
 social, economic, or scientific system is a matter of 
 spontaneous attention. It takes effort to stand the 
 strain of drill where no play interest is present, and 
 the social store-play helps to bridge the chasm between 
 spontaneous and sustained attention. 
 
 These points can best be made clear through con- 
 crete examples accompanied by illustrations con- 
 cerning the part the thinking processes play in such 
 dramatic games as store-play. 
 
 Grocery Store 
 
 Sense Education Through Playing Store. — The 
 
 study of foods and of textiles, also the training for 
 some degree of efficiency in the use of both, are a part 
 of industrial education in the elementary school. 
 What better opportunity to learn about foods than 
 through actual manipulation of real objects in a 
 dramatic game? Time should be allowed, especially 
 with smaller children, to touch, look at, lift, and 
 perhaps smell and taste the objects handled. The 
 power to observe can be improved steadily up to the 
 fifteenth year. Children can be urged to take another 
 look where first impressions have been inadequate, 
 and then required to verify the second observation. 
 Let them combine muscle sense with tactual experience 
 and in this way get larger sense data. Memory drill 
 can be utilized, too, when interest is high. 
 
 Knowledge of Production of Food Stuffs. — In 
 progressive schools children are taken on excursions 
 to visit farms where produce is raised, factories where 
 it is preserved and canned, and shipping houses and
 
 88 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 freight depots through which it is brought to the 
 consumer. Children's native curiosity naturally leads 
 to their gaining information from books concerning 
 each place visited. Our libraries abound in good 
 children's literature regarding farm life and the trans- 
 portation industry, and interesting facts can be gained 
 in supplementary reading lessons. 
 
 How to Develop Arithmetic Through Playing 
 Store. — Children in both urban and rural com- 
 munities have a close acquaintance with grocery stores. 
 They are sent there to purchase a quart of this, and 
 a pint of that; a peck of this, and a bushel of that; 
 three of this, a dozen of that. They know sonic- 
 thing about the qualities of the objects purchased; at 
 least, they can be taught to be discriminative buyers 
 and to count their change after paying for things. 
 In spontaneous play children often fail to develop 
 exactness in measuring, accuracy in distinguishing 
 good objects from poor ones, and correctness in 
 making change. But where store games are made 
 the centers of correlation for arithmetic work, chil- 
 dren's attention can be directed toward these ends and 
 instruction can become an integral part of play. To 
 carry on such instruction the school equipment should 
 include standard scales and measures, also a toy 
 currency system. Children can contribute other 
 necessary materials. It is easy to collect a bushel of 
 potatoes, a peck of apples, bran, oatmeal, or other 
 materials required tor experience in weighing. The 
 teacher or a committee can have charge of the care of 
 all such materials; and a group of children can plan 
 the store, select its personnel, and simulate the social
 
 PLAYING STORE 89 
 
 and economic background of a real store. The 
 responsibility for correct weighing and measuring 
 should vary according to the ages of the children. 
 Even children of kindergarten age can bear some 
 responsibility for counting and measuring. With 
 older children a system of bookkeeping can be estab- 
 lished and the pupils held strictly responsible for errors 
 in slips and entries in the ledger. Forfeiture of the 
 right to play a role is usually sufficient penalty for 
 carelessness in manipulating money and figures; for 
 at the ages when a system of accounting can be intro- 
 duced children have so developed the sense of re- 
 sponsibility that social disapproval is a punishment in 
 itself. 
 
 Reading and Writing. — Many children learn to 
 read by spontaneous attention to signs on grocery 
 wagons or to labels on boxes. A printing equipment 
 makes it possible for children to label articles in their 
 stores, price them, and thus gradually associate objects 
 with their printed symbols. This can be done even 
 in the kindergarten, although such material and the 
 use of it is more properly a part of the primary school 
 equipment. 
 
 Buying as a Means of Learning About Sources of 
 Food Supply. — Children can learn a great deal about 
 sources of food supply by taking excursions in groups 
 to examine supplies. With little children the middle 
 man can be dispensed with. They can make a visit 
 to a farm, if they live in an agricultural community; 
 if not, they can see a community garden and examine 
 at first hand the produce which is being grown for the 
 markets. Where no visits of this kind can be ar-
 
 90 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 ranged, something can be gained through a study of 
 catalogs. Many factories advertise their products 
 through pictures showing the processes which food 
 undergoes in being transformed from a raw state to 
 marketable commodities. Children like to make 
 scrap-books showing the history of the foods they use 
 on the table; they acquire much information from 
 such collections of pictures. 
 
 Dry-Goods Store 
 
 Knowledge Concerning Textiles and Industrial 
 Processes Connected With Them. — Clothing repre- 
 sents another vital interest in childhood. As the 
 elementary schools endeavor to give children some 
 knowledge of textiles and the processes involved in 
 transforming raw materials into clothing and house 
 furnishings, so store plays dealing with textiles have 
 an important function in the industrial program. I 
 do not refer alone to such plays as were listed in the 
 examples of spontaneous play, but also to games of 
 store in which children share somewhat in the proc- 
 esses through which raw materials are changed into 
 usable commodities. Children no longer spin and 
 weave in the home, but they can be shown the essentials 
 of these processes through the use of hand looms and 
 through visits to factories where machine processes 
 are in operation. Let the children collect linen, 
 cotton, silk, and wool to use in playing store. Give 
 information which is simple and practical so that they 
 can detect cotton, wool, silk, and mixed goods by 
 muscular and tactual tests. Help them to see the 
 practical considerations of buying clothing materials
 
 PLAYING STORE . 9 1 
 
 for hygienic and utilitarian purposes as well as for 
 attractiveness. This can be done by providing a large 
 variety of samples to be used in making doll clothes, 
 airplane wings, and sails for boats. 
 
 Training in Arithmetic. — Still other types of 
 arithmetical work enter into the dramatization of 
 dry-goods stores. The children estimate the amount 
 of material needed for dolls' garments as they measure 
 for curtains or rugs in a doll's house. Children acting 
 as clerks are expected to measure the goods ordered, 
 and to compute the price of the amount purchased. 
 For equipment the school should furnish scissors, tape 
 measures, thimbles, wrapping paper, etc., while the 
 children should contribute pieces of linen, wool, silk, 
 and cotton to be sold and to be converted into dolls' 
 clothes or furnishings for the dolls' house. 
 
 Sense Training. — In the same way that children 
 playing grocery store are taught the sense-properties 
 of foods through observing and feeling these foods, so 
 in the use of textiles they learn the differences in 
 appearance and texture by testing with eyes and 
 hands. Reports of poor sense observations can be 
 eliminated by new sense experiences. Gradually the 
 eye can be trained to act for hand, or hand for eye. 
 
 Training in the Three R's. — The relation of the 
 three R's to store plays was discussed in connection 
 with dramatizing a grocery store. In playing dry- 
 goods store new systems of measuring, new combina- 
 tions of figures, and new words have to be learned 
 and practised, but the methodology of instruction 
 through the spontaneous use of drill and memory work 
 is the same.
 
 92 SPONTANEOUS A.\I) SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 Other Store-Plays 
 As revealed in the records of spontaneous activities, 
 children enjoy playing other types of store than 
 grocery and clothing stores; millinery shops, drug 
 stores, bakeries, five and ten cent stores, department 
 stoics, and hardware stores are among those which 
 have the greatest appeal. Besides the educational 
 possibilities already mentioned in connection with 
 grocery and clothing stores, each type presents special 
 opportunities. For example, in millinery shops chil- 
 dren can learn something of color and of aesthetic 
 values in combinations, besides gaining a crude 
 manipulative skill. In playing drug store si »me simple 
 chemical laws can be taught through experimenting 
 with simple dyes or acids and through observing the 
 action of these on materials. In playing hardware 
 store, something of the processes necessary to produce 
 iron, steel, and other metals can be learned through 
 excursions to foundries or to manufacturing plants. 
 In supervising the dramatizing of department store-, 
 the teacher can work for arrangement and classifica- 
 tion of materials. It is true that such arrangement is 
 on a strictly utilitarian basis, with little regard for 
 form, shape, or color; but use appeals to children, and 
 much information can be picked up in these first 
 efforts to classify on a commercial basis.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 Playing School 
 
 School-Plays Usually Depict Conflicts with Author- 
 ity. — In their school-plays children dramatize all the 
 new contacts the school environment affords; especi- 
 ally is this true where unpleasant forms of discipline 
 have attracted attention to contrasts in behavior. 
 It seems to be a native tendency in most of us to 
 recount the human woes that befall us in our adjust- 
 ments to the demands of group life. Even when we 
 become so well disciplined that we no longer expose 
 our personal struggles and achievements to the cold 
 glare of public opinion, we often delight in a purely 
 imaginary airing of our wrongs, and also derive keen 
 satisfaction from mentally rehearsing our triumphs. 
 Children, on the contrary, are not yet disciplined to 
 test experiences in this subjective way. Their ideas 
 carry over almost immediately into overt action; 
 pantomime and imitative-dramatic play afford them 
 one means to test the meaning of their conflicts with 
 society. And since a large number of their conflicts 
 or adjustments come in school, where instincts and 
 capacities are translated in social terms, it is but 
 natural that school-plays should abound in examples 
 of misdemeanors and mastering and submissive be- 
 havior. Children derive a sense of satisfaction from 
 dramatizing the roles of so-called bad children even 
 when they themselves have no tendencies actually to 
 commit such misdemeanors. By so doing they gain 
 
 93
 
 94 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 some sort of emotional satisfaction and some intel- 
 lectual appraisement of facts. This tendency to 
 contrast other lives with our own is not confined to 
 childhood and youth; it persists throughout life, and 
 seeks outlets through gossip or undue curiosity con- 
 cerning the personal details of other persons' lives, or, 
 on a higher level, through fiction and the drama. 
 
 What Constitutes the Appeal of School-Plays? — 
 Playing school thus becomes a game in which reading, 
 writing, and arithmetic are subsidiary features. The 
 real point of the game is social interaction, in which 
 we see vaiious degrees of mastering and submissive 
 behavior and display with its social results — either 
 smiles and stares of approval or scowls and expres- 
 sions of scorn and disapproval. Attention-getting 
 and the display of oppositional force are among the 
 keenest sources of satisfaction such plays afford, as 
 the records fully testify. 
 
 Favorite Roles. — Playing teacher is the favorite 
 role because it affords the largest opportunity for 
 display and for such physical activities as distributing 
 papers and writing on the board. Could teachers 
 only be present to study their youthful imitators, 
 they would smile at the tricks of gesture, tones of 
 voice, and methods of discipline so facilely displayed 
 to groups of admiring pupils. 
 
 The Three R's. - In the records of spontaneous 
 school-plays the three R's are seen to come in for 
 their share of attention. Drawing and spelling lessons 
 become delightful pastimes while self-initiated mock 
 examinations provoke much merriment. Surely this 
 is one example of play as a psychological attitude.
 
 PLAYING SCHOOL 95 
 
 Records of School-Plays 
 
 i. School. Ormsby Park Playroom. — Four girls 
 about eight years old seat themselves at a long, low 
 table facing a blackboard. A fifth girl is the teacher. 
 The teacher rings a bell, then cleans the blackboard. 
 Two children come in late. "You got to stay five 
 minutes after school," says the teacher, pointing a 
 ruler at the late comers. She gives each child a 
 paper, then writes on the board, " Exsmination in 
 Arithmetic." With great hilarity the children set 
 about working the problems. There are frequent 
 interruptions as they poke each other, crawl under 
 the table, or jump up and down in their chairs. Of 
 course, they are sharply reproved by the teacher. 
 After about five minutes, she collects the papers and 
 stands facing the pupils. "One," she says sternly; 
 all the children sit up straight. "Two"; all stand. 
 "Three," and the children face her. "Now we'll 
 have our physical culture." The children stiffen and 
 appear attentive. "One, two, three, four," the teacher 
 calls out, as she extends her arms sideward four times. 
 Then she repeats the calls for movements downward 
 and upward. "Pay attention!" she says to a child 
 who forgets to do this. "Now we'll play 'I Say'," 
 announces the teacher. The children relax. " I say 
 hands up, hands down." "There! I caught you." 
 The child caught comes forward and becomes the 
 teacher. And so on through various movements the 
 children follow different leaders with evident satis- 
 faction. Then to the same counts, one, two, and three, 
 the children turn, march, and sit down in their seats.
 
 96 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 " Now we'll make something," says the teacher. She 
 gives each child a sheet of paper and colored crayon. 
 Then, looking very important, she steps to the hoard 
 and draws a tree, using quick, broad strokes. But the 
 children are busy coloring their sheets of paper. 
 Only when each child has succeeded in making a 
 bright surface does he turn to the board and imitate 
 the drawing of a tree. All this time a supervisor of 
 writing stands anxiously outside, waiting her turn. 
 At last she rebels at being kept waiting so long, stalks 
 angrily into the school, and takes possession of the 
 board. The teacher deliberately collects the papers. 
 2. School, House, and Cowboy. Lawrence Park 
 Playroom. — Some of the girls have houses; they are 
 mothers working at home. Others are children 
 going to school. At school they sing, draw, cut, and 
 take physical exercises. When school is out they go 
 homv for dinner, which is prepared by their mothers. 
 Soon the bell rings and they return to school. At 
 recess they play games. The parents then come to 
 visit the school and inquire how the children are 
 doing. By and by the doctor comes and examines 
 each child. A group of boys are playing cowboy 
 near by. They have stacked chairs to represent 
 houses. These boys look with interest at the school 
 play. Some of them gallop over to the school on 
 imaginary horses and make the school children a visit.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 Hunting Plays 
 
 Hunting as Related to Food-getting. — Thorndike 
 lists hunting among food-getting protective responses, 
 and says: "The presence of this tendency in man's 
 nature under the conditions of civilized life gets him 
 little food and much trouble. * * * Teaching, 
 bullying, cruelty are thus in part the results of one of 
 nature's means of providing self and family with food ; 
 and what grew up as a pillar of human self-support 
 has become so extravagant a luxury as to be almost a 
 vice. 1 
 
 Persistence of the Hunting Response in Modern 
 Life. — In speaking of the persistence of the hunting 
 response, Thorndike says: " For example, the readiness 
 of the hunting response persists even in spite of the 
 inadequate stimuli and absence of rewards of a modern 
 village or town, so that, if habitual restraints are 
 removed, men will gladly leave their work to chase an 
 escaped cat. They will, with slight encouragement, 
 undergo notable privations and expense to spend a few 
 days in tracking game and possessing themselves of 
 animal carcasses got by so near an approach as is 
 possible to man's original naked-handed pursuit." 2 
 
 The Culture-epoch Theory Applied to Hunting 
 Plays. — Many teachers attempt to apply the culture- 
 
 1 E. L. Thorndike: "The Original Nature of Man," Educational 
 Psychology, Vol. I, p. 53. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 267.
 
 98 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 epoch theory. They approach the formal subjects of 
 the school through the epoch of culture in which 
 children are supposedly living. For example, at a 
 certain time children's minds are filled by teachers 
 with literary and institutional products of the hunting 
 epoch. Likewise children are encouraged to make 
 implements used in the hunt. Modern psychologists 
 regard the effort to postulate more than a general cor- 
 respondence between the development of the child 
 and that of the race as unscientific procedure. They 
 consider that children like stories of Hiawatha and 
 other boys living in a hunting epoch only because the 
 life described is simple and attractive. That children 
 are as interested in the hunting exploits of modern 
 soldiers was evidenced during the late war. Children 
 like stories and games of any kind dealing with 
 hunting, flight, and pursuit. It is not necessary that 
 the stories or experiences should exist as a part of 
 racial inheritance to be attractive. 
 
 Playful Manifestations of the Hunting Instinct. 
 Children's play abounds in examples of spontaneous 
 flight and pursuit. The baby pursues his mother 
 with outstretched arms, and hides his face in her lap 
 when hi' is captured and held. Children seldom lose 
 an opportunity to chase small escaping creatures, 
 birds or butterflies, field mice, or fleeing cats and 
 timid dogs. Entirely apart from training, they show 
 a tendency to pounce upon and grasp these resisting 
 creatures, exhibiting annoyance if they lo>e a catch 
 .mil lunce tail to investigate the nature of the escaping 
 object. Some children are not satisfied to examine 
 their prey, but torment and tease until disciplined for
 
 HUNTING PLAYS 
 
 99 
 
 Camp Quanset, South Orleans, Mass. 
 
 The Passing of the Quanset Tribe (Indian Pageant) 
 
 cruelty. In rural communities with what patience 
 the young archer perfects his shot and tirelessly 
 pursues his game, bringing down birds and small 
 animals with his missiles! Children seldom care for 
 the birds' eggs they plunder, the fish they strive so 
 hard to catch, the bettles and bugs they collect and 
 sometimes dismember. They do, however, show a 
 tendency to exhibit their treasures to some approving 
 person. When the hunting responses are called 
 forth by human beings we have the pursuit, capture, 
 and holding of the victim, with either teasing and 
 bullying as the result, or fighting if the one pursued 
 is ready to defend himself. 
 
 Many hunting activities are carried on in groups or 
 gangs. In some of our large cities every corner has its 
 young with a plan of defiance of law and order, its
 
 IOO SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 group rules for the hum. And woe to the coward or 
 hero who defies the law of the pack! 
 
 Predatory Organizations Among Gangs. Sheldon 
 found 034 different societies or clubs among ii.v» 
 boys, and 911 societies to which I 145 girls belonged. 
 Puffer says that three out of every tour boys belong to 
 a gang. Sheldon's study of the institutional activities 
 of American children shows that the typical plays of 
 boys of twelve years include robbers, clubs for hunting 
 and fishing, play armies, and organized fighting bands 
 between separate districts. The progression in this 
 interest is shown by the following table, as is also the 
 fact that such plays seem to culminate from eleven to 
 fifteen years of age. 1 
 
 Table No. i 
 
 Age 
 
 8 
 
 9 
 
 10 
 
 1 1 
 
 12 
 
 13 
 
 14 
 
 15 
 
 16 
 
 17 
 
 Total 
 
 Number of pred- 
 atory societies 
 
 4 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 17 
 
 
 .31 
 
 7 
 18 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 1 1 
 
 3 
 
 7 
 
 1 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 Girls, 25 
 Boys, 1 13 
 
 Something Difficult and Dangerous to Do. 
 "Something difficult and dangerous. That I think is 
 the first requisite in boy life. Whether or not the 
 thing accomplished shall also be lawless is a matter 
 upon which the boy will show a laudable catholicity of 
 taste. * * * A.s to the precise form <>t diffi- 
 culty and danger required, that is a secondary con- 
 sideration. Certain preferences, nevertheless, are 
 constant and of great ^niticance. In almost all 
 
 1 H. 1). Sheldon: "The tnstitutiona] Activities of American 
 Children." American Journal of Psychology, Vol. IX, pp. 425-48.
 
 HUNTING PLAYS 101 
 
 children's games after the age of six, there is either the 
 element of hiding and finding, flight and pursuit, or 
 that of contest. After the age of eleven or there- 
 abouts, there is predominant in the most important 
 boys' games the element of team play. " * * * And 
 again, "The sort of life toward which the boy is aimed 
 is evidently a mixture of hunting, of individual 
 rivalry, and of tribal war. * * * Taking all the 
 evidence together, I think the genius of boyhood and 
 adolescence centers somewhere on or near the raid — 
 in some combination of stalking, chasing, absconding, 
 all united in the form of team play against another 
 gang - - those other fellows * * * whom one 
 can also threaten, harry, and despise, with much 
 opportunity for intertribal wit and repartee." 1 
 
 Many Hide-and-Seek Games Involve the Hunting 
 Responses. — It remains to discuss the part played by 
 the hunting instinct in more formal games involving 
 chase, flight, and hiding. Hide and seek is played 
 by children the world over. The playful infant hides 
 his face against his mother's arm in order to get a 
 sense of alienation and return, and children play 
 hide and seek games in rural communities or in 
 crowded city streets. In many chasing games such 
 as in Fox Chasing and in Hare and Hounds, 
 certain handicaps placed upon the chasers protect 
 the fugitive and give point to the game. Com- 
 plexity is added to certain games by the invention 
 of safety zones; that is, the pursued is safe when 
 touching wood or a goal, by squatting, or the like. 
 
 !J. E. Lee: "Play as an Antidote to Civilization," The Play- 
 ground, Vol. V, p. no.
 
 102 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 Organized ball games partake of the nature of the 
 hunt in that there is attempted mastery over an 
 escaping object. Baseball, football, and cricket can be 
 utilized to afford social situations in which the hunting 
 responses are trained and organized for social group 
 purposes. These games are sometimes classed as 
 hunting plays, although they show more of the 
 characteristics of fighting plays. A wide range of 
 children's games involves hunting for hidden ob- 
 jects; such games are Button, Button and Hide the 
 Thimble. A large number represent a chase for the 
 possession of a vacant chair or a vacant place in the 
 ring; such games are Going to Jerusalem, Stage 
 Coach, and Flower Basket. 
 
 The Educational Significance of Hunting Plays. - 
 This collection of spontaneous plays contains a goodly 
 proportion of hunting plays. Hunting plays are 
 found in the repertoire of children's play the world 
 over because the hunting responses are ingrained in 
 original nature. Hunting plays persist throughout 
 childhood and the pre-adolescent period because they 
 function in the organization of impulses, instincts, 
 and habits. They provide an outlet for vigorous 
 activity and give opportunities for the gregarious 
 tendencies, for mastering behavior, for cooperation, 
 ingenuity, strategy, and leadership. It depends upon 
 supervision whether these plays degenerate into teasing 
 and bullying contests in which oppression of the weak 
 and defiance of law and order become the rules of the 
 game, or whether kindness, a sense of justice, and fair 
 play are evolved as means of control. Under wise 
 supervision, such as the Boy Scouts' and Campfire
 
 HUNTING PLAYS 103 
 
 Girls' organizations afford, we see the normal use of 
 the hunting instinct. The records of these organiza- 
 tions show that our American youths are as willing to 
 undertake difficult and hazardous undertakings for 
 the benefit of society as to play bandits and robbers. 
 
 The Hunting Type of Mind in Relation to the 
 Drama. — The following quotation shows the possible 
 relation of the hunting type of mind to art. "The 
 interest of the game, the alternate suspense and move- 
 ment, the strained and alert attention to stimuli, 
 always changing, always demanding graceful, prompt, 
 strategic, and forceful response; the play of emotions 
 along the scale of want, effort, success, or failure — 
 this is the very type, psychologically speaking, of the 
 drama. The breathless interest with which we hang 
 upon the movements of play or novel are reflexes of 
 the mental attitudes evoked in the hunting vocation." 1 
 
 Cowboy and Indian Plays Involve Hunting Re- 
 sponses. — Both Indian and cowboy plays include 
 hunting responses. The dramatization of Indians 
 appeals to children chiefly because of the human inter- 
 est their lives and characters afford. Indians rep- 
 resent vigorous, active types of persons who react to 
 environment on a level the child can understand. A 
 child of six years likes to imitate Indian children riding 
 their ponies and learning to shoot with crude bows and 
 arrows. He enjoys building imaginary fires, cooking 
 food, and caring for the Indian papooses. Gradually 
 his interest shifts to more adventurous sports and 
 activities. With children from seven to nine or ten 
 
 1 J. Dewey: "Interpretation of the Savage Mind," Psycholog- 
 ical Review, Vol. IX, pp. 217-230.
 
 104 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 Playing Indian 
 
 years of age hunting becomes a game involving compe- 
 tition in play marksmanship. The child imitates 
 Indians pursuing and capturing wild animals. About 
 the same age interest in const ruction is high; building 
 wigwams, laying campfires, and making crude suits 
 out of paper or cloth arc keenly enjoyed. As soon as 
 the historical interest begins to develop children 
 like to read stories of Indian wars and often spend 
 hours at a time dramatizing the thrilling tales of 
 adventure found in both history and fiction. 
 
 Cowboy Plays. -The cowboy interest is less vital, 
 but still runs high with boys from six to nine years. 
 The preference for stories of frontier life and for 
 moving-picture shows depicting thrilling adventures 
 of cowboys testifies to this interest. The manufacture 
 and sale of cowboy suits for children has become a 
 profitable industry. The cowboy appeals chiefly to
 
 HUNTING PLAYS 1 05 
 
 the growing boy because the boy loves adventure and 
 because cowboy stories tell of things that are difficult 
 and dangerous to do. 
 
 Records of Hunting Plays 
 
 1. White Men and Indians. Washington Park. — 
 
 The children play they are white men hunting in an 
 Indian forest. An Indian brave sees them and reports 
 the news to the chief, who summons all his braves. 
 After much gesturing the braves mount their horses 
 and gallop off in wild pursuit of the intruders, captur- 
 ing all the white men. The Indians then dance 
 around their captives, exhibiting in their dance the 
 movements of the hunt. 
 
 This dance was most interesting because constructed from spon- 
 taneous movements interpreting the children's own conception of 
 the hunt. Of course, Indian pictures and music were supplied as an 
 incentive. 
 
 2. Little Red Feather. Lawrence Park. — An 
 
 Indian camp is constructed. The children select 
 braves and squaws to live in the camp. A small 
 child is named Little Red Feather after a hero in a 
 story. The braves tell Little Red Feather to ride 
 off to the woods on his pony; then they depart for the 
 hunt. When they return from the hunt and sit down 
 to a meal prepared by the squaws, they discover that 
 Little Red Feather is not among them. The braves 
 jump up and ride away on their horses. The search 
 proves vain and the braves ride back to camp, shaking 
 their heads at the anxious squaws, who stand outside 
 the wigwams shading their eyes as they gaze far off in 
 the distance. The chief then points to the cowboy
 
 106 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 ranch. All the braves ride off in that direction. On 
 the way they meet and capture a group of cowboys; 
 not finding Little Red Feather with these cowboys, 
 they release the cowboys and ask their aid in the 
 search. All ride off in different directions. At 
 last little Red Feather, fast asleep under a tree, is 
 found by one of the cowboys and is brought back to 
 the Indian camp. With loud shouts the Indians place 
 Little Red Feather in their midst. Both the cow- 
 boys and the Indian braves dance merrily around 
 him while the squaws hop up and down near by, 
 grunting their satisfaction as they dance. 
 
 In plays of this type note the enjoyment of flight and pursuit, of 
 imitation of the outward symbols of Indian dress and life, of manipu- 
 lative activities, and, most of all, of large, free, unrestricted move- 
 ment. 
 
 A Pilgrim Thanksgiving. Lawrence Park. — About 
 Thanksgiving time when the play leader told stories 
 about the Indians she found that the children associ- 
 ated Indians chiefly with cowboys. Gradually, how- 
 ever, as the result of listening to stories, the children 
 began to take interest in historic events and to 
 dramatize scenes connected with these events. One 
 day they made Indian caps; later the interest in 
 Pilgrims led to the making of Quaker caps. Both 
 Pilgrims and Indians hunted and cooked food. 
 Girls and boys played these roles; some were Indian 
 squaws, others Indian braves, and still others were 
 Pilgrims — men, women, and children. One day a 
 Pilgrim went to an Indian's tent. The Indian gave 
 him food while all the braves danced their hunting
 
 HUNTING PLAYS 107 
 
 dance. Each day something new was added to the 
 play until the following plot grew up: 
 
 Event I. Indian camp. Braves and squaws are 
 seated around the fire; the squaws are making baskets; 
 the braves are smoking pipes; the Indian chief walks 
 up and down. 
 
 Event II. Pilgrim home. Mother and children sit 
 down to a table but find no food. 
 
 Event III. Indian camp. The chief drops his ear 
 to the ground. He hears the sound of deer and 
 makes a sign to his braves, who jump up and down for 
 joy. All get bows and arrows and run to the woods. 
 Soon they return, place the captured deer on the 
 ground, and perform a dance around it to show their 
 satisfaction. After this ceremony, the squaws cook 
 the deer and partake of the meat. One of the braves 
 steals away to the Pilgrims' home, carrying some corn 
 he hopes to trade for trinkets. When he finds the 
 Pilgrims have nothing to eat he goes back and tells 
 his chief. All the braves go over with the remains of 
 their deer. The Pilgrims rejoice and invite their 
 neighbors in for a feast. 
 
 Event IV. Pilgrim home. The Indians come over 
 with corn and show the Pilgrims how to plant. The 
 little children work with their mothers and fathers. 
 
 4. Robinson Crusoe : A Play of Adventure. Law- 
 rence Park Playroom. — In the playroom hung a 
 picture of Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday. One 
 seven-year-old boy noticed the picture and began to 
 talk about it. It seemed he had heard the story at 
 school. This boy said to his companion, "You be 
 Friday, and I'll be Robinson Crusoe." Then, to
 
 108 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 himself, "First, I'll need a boat." He thought a 
 while, then turned a table upside down to represent 
 the boat and found two brooms for oars. He dis- 
 covered he could make the boat rock by pushing his 
 feet against the table legs. After a while he jumped 
 on to a raft (a large piece of cardboard) and floated to 
 the shore. Here he built a fire (selecting a gas grate 
 for the fire) and put up a cloth tent. Soon he found 
 footprints and followed the imaginary tracks carefully 
 until he discovered Friday, whom he brought back to 
 the tent. Both went fishing and shooting. They 
 brought home fish and wild animals; they skinned the 
 animals and cooked the food. 
 
 This play lasted four days. Both boys loved adventure. 
 Robinson Crusoe was the same child who played he was George 
 Washington cutting down the cherry tree, in one of the house-plays 
 previously recorded. The author includes this play under Cowboy 
 and Indian Plays because it appeals to the love of adventure and 
 involves chasing and hunting activities. 
 
 5. House and Robbers. Andrews School. — One 
 rainy day the children were playing in the hall. Four 
 girls had built houses, outlining rooms with blocks. 
 The houses contained porches and rooms of various 
 sizes; in one a telephone was installed. The dolls 
 living in these houses visited each other and went to 
 market. A group of boys began to tease the girls and 
 annoyed them so much that the girls' play was broken 
 up. The boys were dramatizing burglars. One boy 
 said he was a policeman; the other boys said they were 
 the burglars, and would give the policeman a chase. 
 The girls, seeing their chances tor house play thwarted, 
 now entered into the boys' play. It was supposed to
 
 HUNTING PLAYS 1 09 
 
 be night ; some of the girls went to bed ; others started 
 away for a visit, but came home unexpectedly in 
 order to chase the robbers. Sometimes they caught 
 the robbers, sometimes not. They always telephoned 
 the police, who usually caught the robbers and took 
 them to court. One boy acted as the judge and 
 decided what to do with the prisoners. 
 
 Is not this an example of how teasing often originates in boys' 
 love of adventure? The boys teased the girls because there was 
 nothing else for them to do; it was raining and all the children were 
 crowded into a narrow space in the main hall of the schoolhouse. 
 The instant a boy suggested dramatizing a policeman the idea of 
 robbers sprang up. This play appealed because it gave them a 
 game of chance and hazard, involving chasing, hiding, and catching, 
 with a dramatic courthouse scene at the close. Observe how easy 
 it was for the play leader to turn this love of adventure into a 
 better channel in the Boston Tea Party play, which is next de- 
 scribed. 
 
 The Boston Tea Party. Andrews School Play- 
 ground. — The same boys who had been robbers and 
 policemen began to build forts out of some blocks left 
 by the girls. The play leader suggested that the 
 group dramatize the Boston Tea Party. Most of 
 the boys seemed to know the story fairly well. Find- 
 ing a large box for a boat, they rowed it over to the 
 American fort. The captain of the British boat, 
 accompanied by soldiers, came to the American fort 
 with a written message telling about the tax on tea. 
 The Americans tore up this note. The British re- 
 turned to their boat. That night the Americans held 
 a meeting; they dressed up as Indians and while the 
 British slept they dumped the tea overboard. When 
 the British found out that the tea had been thrown
 
 IIO SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 out, they started a battle. The Americans won and 
 had a parade. 
 
 Both House and Robbers and the Boston Tea Party belong to 
 the type of plays included under Cowboys and Indians; they appeal 
 to love of adventure.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Fighting Plays 
 
 The Fighting Instinct. — During the World War 
 much was said and written concerning the fighting 
 instinct; current educational beliefs were assailed by 
 contending theorists and a clearer formulation of some 
 of the psychological aspects of the fighting instinct 
 was the result. Several of these viewpoints will be 
 touched upon in our discussion of the individual and 
 group aspects of pugnaciousness. The fighting in- 
 stinct is a secondary instinct in that it presupposes the 
 presence of other instincts. McDougall assumes that 
 the general tendency to angry behavior of some sort 
 at the persistent thwarting of any instinctive response 
 is an original tendency; in the main Kirkpatrick and 
 Thorndike also agree with this view. Many instincts, 
 very different in character, if thwarted in their natural 
 expression give rise to the fighting responses. Thus 
 we see babies push and scream when held tightly 
 because the instinct for physical activity is thwarted; 
 children giving rein to the hunting instinct, chasing a 
 dog or a fleeing comrade, show irritation and exhibit 
 fighting movements if checked in the course of their 
 chase; boys or girls interested in collecting chafe if 
 their treasures are despoiled, while the thwarting of 
 other instincts, such as self-display, mastery, and sex, 
 also leads to fighting responses. 
 
 Discarded is the viewpoint which considers fighting 
 as a single instinct, aroused and called into action by 
 fairly definite and well recognized situations. Experi- 
 
 iii
 
 112 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 mental studies of the fighting instinct have shown it 
 to consist of a large number of specific responses 
 involving personal encounter in the form of scuffling, 
 crowding, pushing, wrestling, and the like, accom- 
 panied by temper and anger. Fighting plays are 
 thus seen to be difficult to analyze on account of their 
 complexity and the variety of situations in which they 
 occur. 
 
 The Evolution of Pugnacious Behavior. Before a 
 child has passed the hrst year most parents have 
 observed signs of the fighting instinct. In tracing 
 the appearances and development of the fighting re- 
 sponses we notice', it we observe carefully, that children 
 of three years do not fight with their playmates or 
 exhibit fighting movements when in opposition to 
 adults from the sheer joy of the combat, but because 
 some instinctive activity is thwarted, or because they 
 need to redress an injury. From the third year 
 onward there is rapid growth in the tendency to coin- 
 bat anyone who occasions discomfort, or thwarts 
 cherished rights and wishes. A mother often meets 
 resistance when she attempts to put a child to bed; 
 likewise her efforts to withdraw objects which incite 
 her child's curiosity sometimes occasion tits of temper 
 or fighting. If a boy is hit by another boy he instantly 
 hits back, unless the motor response is inhibited by 
 fear or will power. Until approaching adolescence 
 he prefers to settle difficulties in a direct physical way. 
 Might is right until a new code of settling disputes is 
 agreed upon by the group. 
 
 Toleration and Justice Originate in Force. 
 Adults show a regrettable lack of understanding of
 
 FIGHTING PLAYS 113 
 
 children's combative behavior from the first immediate 
 physical responses of this kind to the later reasoned 
 intellectual and moral acts which take permanent root 
 in habit and character. Usually both boys and girls 
 are forbidden to fight, and are severely punished if 
 they do so. But the instinct is so strong that many 
 boys and girls either fight without thinking of conse- 
 quences or look the punishment full in the face and 
 fight anyhow. Punishment seldom eradicates the 
 tendency to fight, except in the cases where children 
 have weak wills and can easily be coerced. Parents 
 seem to loose sight of the fact that toleration and 
 justice originate in force, and have a permanent basis 
 in force, not in moral feeling or in the conscious 
 calculation of what is best from the standpoint of 
 expediency. 
 
 The Sociological Significance of Combativeness. — 
 McDougall says: "The instinct of pugnacity has 
 played a part second to none in the evolution of social 
 organization, and in the present age it operates more 
 powerfully than any other in producing demonstrations 
 of collective emotions and action on a great scale." 1 
 A prominent authority on the psychology of childhood 
 says: "The trouble with parents and teachers often is 
 that they want to omit the first crude stage of the 
 tendency and come at once to its higher levels; but on 
 logical grounds alone it is hard to see how, if a boy 
 has been required to inhibit such pugnacious ten- 
 dencies on the physical level, he can later on fight for 
 country or friends or principles. He has not known 
 what it means, when thwarted, to stand for his wishes 
 
 1 W. McDougall: Social Psychology, p. 279.
 
 114 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 and rights; he has not known the sweets of success 
 or the shame of defeat; he has not known what it 
 means to suffer for the sake of gaining something that 
 seems worth while. The door has been shut on all 
 this opportunity when first the instinct was strong; 
 how then can we expect him later on to fight his 
 difficulties, take his stand for the right, to suffer for it 
 if need be?" ' 
 
 Ellwood says that the view is erroneous which holds 
 that the instinct of pugnacity in man must have been 
 stronger in primitive life than now, and adds: "It is 
 not improbable, therefore, that in the whole course of 
 human evolution the fighting instinct has greatly 
 increased in strength." He gives the following sug- 
 gestions in regard to the scope and use of the fighting 
 instinct: "Whether or not the fighting instinct 
 needs to be exercised against human beings in order 
 to maintain it at normal strength is an open question. 
 There seems to be but little danger of the fighting 
 instinct in any race dying out, and the more reasonable 
 view is that its legitimate exercise in civilized society 
 is in combating the moral and social evils which 
 prevent humanity from realizing its ideals, rather than 
 in actual physical conflict between individuals and 
 groups of individuals."- McDougall stresses the 
 part pugnacity has played in the evolution of social 
 organization. He emphasizes the use of collective 
 
 1 X. Xorsworthy and M. T. Whitley: The Psychology of Child- 
 hood, p. 56. 
 
 2 C. A. Ellwood: Sociology in lis Psychological Aspects, pp. 
 217-18.
 
 FIGHTING PLAYS 115 
 
 combat in communities and the more refined forms of 
 combat within communities. 1 
 
 George E. Johnson believes in organized training 
 for combative activities. "What this pugnacity 
 needs now," he says, "is to be directed, to be enlight- 
 ened, to be tempered with the will to endure so that 
 consecrated to some ideal it will know no yielding 
 power while life remains." 2 
 
 Should Girls Engage in Fighting Plays? — Although 
 the fighting instinct is stronger in boys than in girls, 
 it is present in both sexes and needs exercise. If this 
 instinct has proved as valuable in race development 
 as some sociologists would have us believe, it seems a 
 lamentable lack of foresight to leave our girls out of 
 calculation in planning for training the combative 
 instinct. There is no reason why women should be 
 patient and long-suffering in the face of opposition, 
 why they should train themselves to be subordinate 
 in matters other than those demanded for group 
 welfare. One psychologist throws out the query: 
 " Is it possible women would not be so open to the 
 criticism of being 'lacking in honor,' of 'not under- 
 standing fair play,' or of being sneaky and under- 
 handed if this tendency had received proper treatment 
 in childhood?" 3 
 
 Educational Procedure in Using the Instinct of 
 Combativeness. — If the foregoing discussion has 
 
 1 W. McDougall: Social Psychology, p. 279. 
 
 2 G. E. Johnson: "Play as Moral Equivalent of War," The Play- 
 ground, July, 191 2. 
 
 3 N. Norsworthy and M. T. Whitley: The Psychology of Child- 
 hood, p. 56.
 
 Il6 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 accomplished what the writer had in mind, it has 
 pointed toward the conclusion that the fighting 
 responses are so intimate a part of our original 
 equipment that it is impossible to eradicate them. 
 Substitution is the only course. This does not mean, 
 however, that we commit ourselves to the viewpoint 
 heard so often in connection with criticism of the 
 League of Nations, namely, that fighting is so deeply 
 implanted in original nature that we can never settle 
 disputes by arbitration. Even the biologist admits 
 the fact that human nature can be changed to a certain 
 extent. That is, situations can be so altered that 
 original tendencies to action have no chance to 
 function harmfully. 
 
 A practical consideration of educational procedure 
 in working with combative behavior would be some- 
 what as follows: 
 
 On the physical plane we should endeavor to avoid 
 as far as possible situations which bring undesirable 
 fighting responses. Likewise we should refuse to 
 eliminate situations in which fighting can be used to 
 teach fair play, protection of others' rights, and the 
 substitution of unselfish aims for personal gain. 
 We should eliminate the bullying and teasing of those 
 who are unable to resist. Where teasing is between 
 equals it has some value in that it develops resource- 
 fulness and enables the child teased to set up barriers 
 of defense. All plays involving personal encounter 
 should proceed according to rules, but so far as is 
 possible, the children or the group involved should feel 
 the necessity and urgency of the rules. Self-control 
 and inhibition should be demanded and enforced.
 
 FIGHTING PLAYS 117 
 
 On the intellectual plane we must recognize the 
 value of oppositional force. The impulse to opposi- 
 tion should not be regarded as an undesirable quality 
 or disposition of mind. It is a valuable asset in 
 modern life. Rivalry or opposition in connection 
 with the imitative impulse is the very leaven of life. 
 The child who opposes the existing order of things 
 may have something to contribute. At least the 
 teacher and children should consider his suggestion, 
 be it an appeal for new rules to a game or an effort to 
 champion some desire of the gang. If the opposition 
 is unreasonable and the child needs to be swung back 
 into line, strong social pressure can be brought by the 
 group to induce cooperation even where intellectual 
 opposition exists. It is only thus that the rights of 
 the majority can be protected. 
 
 Training in Combativeness Through Debates. — 
 In connection with school work many situations occur 
 which permit training in intellectual combativeness. 
 Intellectual opposition can thrive only in a situation 
 of social freedom. Children should feel free to 
 express differences of opinion; they should also be 
 trained to respect other children's views. Just as 
 they must learn what is fair in a fight by fighting, 
 they must learn how to argue by arguing. They 
 acquire these moral values not by precepts or ad- 
 monitions but by practice in intellectual combative- 
 ness. Teachers need to learn the laws governing 
 intellectual combativeness as well as the rules govern- 
 ing sports and games. 
 
 Through Sports and Games. — It is a well-known 
 fact that a better physical development results from
 
 Il8 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 playing foot-hall and base-hall, from swimming, 
 dancing, and track games than can be gained through 
 formal gymnastics. This is not only because the 
 recreational advantages are superior in group games 
 and sports, but also because the situations affording 
 combativeness in strength, speed, and daring are life 
 situations in which the training that is gained is of 
 the practical sort. The writer has selected eight well- 
 known games for the purpose of analyzing the social 
 situations such games afford for the training of com- 
 bativeness. 
 
 i. Cat and Mouse. — In this game, children with 
 clasped hands wrestle in circle form to assist the 
 passage of a child called "mouse" and hinder the 
 chase of the one impersonating a cat. The dodging 
 and wrestling movements are valuable for muscular 
 development, and the group contest affords training in 
 unanimity of purpose. 
 
 2. Circle Ball, a game popular with both boys and 
 girls, is also played in circle form with a child in the 
 center endeavoring to intercept the passage of a 
 basket ball tossed from one member of the outside 
 circle to another. Here fighting is involved in 
 reaching and jumping movements. 
 
 3. In Dodge Ball half of the players stand in a 
 circle attempting to hit with a basket ball the other 
 half inside the circle. Those in the center seek to 
 avoid the ball by dodging and jumping. 
 
 4. Straddle Ball is another game in which protec- 
 tive movements of the feet are required. The children 
 stand in a circle astride and touching each others' 
 feet. One child in the center of the circle tries to
 
 FIGHTING PLAYS 119 
 
 throw the basket ball between the feet of some child or 
 between two players' feet. 
 
 5. Pass Ball. — A game in which children in two 
 concentric circles facing each other strive to pass balls 
 around so rapidly to members of their own circle that 
 they can overtake the balls moving in the opposite 
 circle. In this game we see the development of rapid 
 movements, and devotion to the group's interests. 
 
 6. Bombardment. — In this game two teams line 
 up on opposing sides from fifteen to twenty-five feet 
 back of the line on their own territory. Each player 
 guards an Indian club which stands on the floor 
 beside him. If this club is knocked down by one of 
 the balls of the opponents, several of whom play at 
 the same time, the player whose club is hit must 
 replace the club before returning the ball. Points are 
 scored by opposite sides when a club is hit or accident- 
 ally falls. In this team game we see righting for 
 points which are scored not as individual gains but for 
 the group. 
 
 7. Human Target. — One child as a Human Target 
 tries to avoid being hit by a basket ball which others 
 are passing among themselves and throwing at him. 
 Here we see individual fighting movements in the 
 form of jumping and dodging. 
 
 8. Kick Ball. — In this game we see fighting by 
 means of kicking movements. Both sides line up in 
 sitting position four feet apart and fight to score points 
 by kicking the ball over the heads of opponents. The 
 kicking must be done with the feet while both hands 
 are placed on the floor.
 
 120 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 Through Manual Projects. — To train in com- 
 bativeness by manual work, orie must study the skills 
 prevalent at different ages, and learn to understand 
 the use of these skills for personal emulation as well 
 as for group advantage. In the kindergarten there is 
 less interest in competing for manual skill than in the 
 grades following. Still the desire to build the best 
 house, paint the best furniture weave the prettiest 
 rug, etc., <an be utilized. Even in the kindergarten, 
 children can learn the fair way to excel and can be 
 taught to share with the group sonic of the results «»t 
 individual gain. Through the primary grades, skill 
 is acquired more and more through competing with 
 others. School gardens, school fairs, spelling bees, and 
 grammatical contests can be so socialized that the 
 group always shares a little in the personal advantage 
 of some of its members. Children cannot learn too 
 early that all do not start even in the race for honor.-, 
 and that the rules of fair play demand sharing with 
 the group. 
 
 Records of Fighting Plavs 
 
 i. Soldiers. Lawrence Park. — Seven soldiers 
 march away, waxing flags to the beat of a drum; 
 behind them trails an express wagon containing a 
 load of brooms to be used for guns. Some little girls 
 playing house step out and wave good-bye to the 
 soldiers. The soldiers hold a hurried consultation 
 and decide upon a place for their camp. Two boys 
 bring a screen to the spot selected and, using it for 
 sid,-,, erect a tent. Then they build a tire and gel 
 ready for bed. Tin- play leader suggests the need of a
 
 FIGHTING PLAYS 
 
 121 
 
 Soldiers 
 
 sentinel. A seven-year-old boy volunteers to play 
 the part. He walks up and down, swinging a club 
 as he walks. A new child stands near watching the 
 play. "What are you doing around here?" asks the 
 sentinel shaking his stick at the new child. (The play 
 leader makes a movement as if to interrupt but 
 checks it and stands thinking.) Then the sentinel 
 goes into a girls' playhouse near by and threatens the 
 children there. Morning comes and the watchman 
 blows his bugle. All the soldiers scramble to their 
 feet, wash their faces, and grab their guns. Following 
 a boy who seems to have some plan of action, the 
 children leave their camp and dash madly into the 
 adjoining locker room. "Here they are!" shouts the 
 leader, as he shakes the locker doors. "Break in!"
 
 122 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 All rattle the doors. One boy lies down and points a 
 broom at an imaginary enemy, while the others shout 
 "Bang! Bang!" as they shake the doors. "All 
 killed!" says the leader, whereupon the other children 
 seem satisfied and run back to the camp. They 
 take up the tent and go back to the house where the 
 girls live. All eat an imaginary dinner. 
 
 The children dramatizing this play were six or seven years old. 
 The elements in the plot are so characteristic that they alone reveal 
 to careful observers the psychological ages of the children. What 
 interested the children primarily was movement and simple imita- 
 tive-dramatic play — shooting, building a camp, and imitating overt 
 acts of soldiers. Shooting occurs first because it is the most striking 
 thing soldiers do. The children had evidently seen pictures of 
 camps, for they knew how to dramatize ''.he simple essentials of 
 camp life. In all the dramatization we see that activity is pleasur- 
 able as an end in itself, while noise as the result of activity gives 
 spontaneous pleasure. Rattling doors and shouting " Hang! Bang!" 
 are a source of original satisfaction. While the lighting and hunting 
 responses are used, and the instinct of habitation is noticeable, the 
 dramatic responses are the center and core of the game. Another 
 point of interest in the analysis of this play is the threatening 
 attitude displayed on the part of the sentinel. It is quite evident 
 that a surly policeman was his copy. The fact that he had never 
 been to the playroom before accounts for the play leader's non- 
 interference on the first day. 
 
 2. A Soldier Camp. Andrews School Play- 
 ground. — The children became so much interested 
 in soldier plays that they wanted a tent. They 
 planned how one could be made and selected three 
 stakes. The play leader provided some unbleached 
 muslin; this the children attached t<> an upright pole 
 and fastened down with stakes. Then they put a 
 flag on top ot the tent and stacked some brooms out-
 
 FIGHTING PLAYS 
 
 123 
 
 Pittsburgh Bureau of Recreation 
 
 Soldiers' Camp 
 
 side for guns. The girls put up a clothesline and hungi 
 some washing on it. Outside the tent they built a 
 fire, making a tripod with sand shovels and hanging a 
 pail on it. Then they set the table, using twigs for 
 knives, forks, and spoons, and sand molds for dishes. 
 The boys formed a company, selected their captain, 
 and drilled. The girls prepared the meals and served 
 the soldiers. 
 
 This play was repeated intermittently for several weeks, and 
 shows the type of dramatic fighting play characteristic of children 
 from seven to nine years old. While a child of kindergarten age 
 plays soldier largely for the joy involved in the overt activity, such 
 as the beating of drums, the waving of flags, and the gay tramping 
 march, children in the first primary grades need to construct more 
 varied plots. There must be something for soldiers to do besides 
 shoot and march, somewhere for them to go, other soldiers to
 
 124 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 fight, and a camp equipped for outdoor .life. On this account 
 formal games such as "Soldier Boy, Soldier Boy, Where Are You 
 Going?" which appeal to kindergarten children because of the 
 activity involved, fail to interest older children. They need to 
 build plots full of details and variety. Play 2 is an illustration of 
 spontaneously constructed plays of this sort. 
 
 One other fact deserves mention. Note the roles played by the 
 girls. I think their lack of active participation in the roles of 
 soldiers is accounted for by the fact that the boys naturally took it 
 for granted girls couldn't be soldiers, rather than that the girls 
 preferred minor roles. Environment has had a great influence in 
 depriving girls of legitimate play experiences. 
 
 3. War. Washington Park Playground. — For a 
 period of several years the author observed the spon- 
 taneous play of a particular group of boys of many 
 nationalities. These boys were between seven and 
 ten years of age, full of life, and with a strong ten- 
 dency to combat. There were days when they would 
 display a restlessness and combativeness toward other 
 children that made it hazardous for other children to 
 play peacefully near by. This group of boys would 
 rove about the playroom annoying other children and 
 seeking a destructive outlet for their activities. One 
 day when the restlessness was worse than usual, the 
 play leader suggested that the boys choose sides for a 
 battle. This was done with great alacrity, natural 
 leaders springing up on both sides. One leader said 
 his side was British; the other shouted, "We're 
 Americans." The Americans built a tort by bracing a 
 gymnasium mattress against a swing frame; the British 
 (, imped in the open just opposite. The captains 
 of both sides drilled their men, 1 >vi t then seemed at a 
 loss what to do. At last the American commander
 
 FIGHTING PLAYS 1 25 
 
 said, "Let's fight!" "What will you fight for?" 
 asked the play leader. He looked puzzled for a while, 
 then replied, "They've stole some of our land and we 
 want the money." The play leader thought a minute. 
 She saw the plot was on a low level, yet determined 
 to use it to get material out of which to develop a 
 better plot. "All right!" she answered. "Hadn't 
 you better go over there and ask them for the money, 
 so they will know what they are fighting for?" The 
 American commander went over and made his demand, 
 which was refused by the British. It was plain that 
 both sides wanted war. Again both sides lined up 
 their men, the British standing behind a row of 
 chairs. "Forward, march!" said the American com- 
 mander. The soldiers shouldered brooms and marched 
 several times around the room to the beat of the 
 drum. When the third round was made a spon- 
 taneous battle took place in which both sides rushed 
 pell mell at each other, shouting "Bang! Bang!" and 
 pushing each other down in great confusion. This 
 lasted only a minute or two and soon the play leader 
 heard shouts of, "I pushed him down and he won't 
 stay there!" or "Never touched me!" Then the 
 boys turned to her as the final court of appeal. She 
 helped to eliminate the unfair pushing by suggesting 
 that every man fall as soon as the broom touched him. 
 She also helped to reconstruct the plot, and two or 
 three days later substituted an historic plot. An 
 interesting result was that these unmanageable boys 
 learned to utilize the combative instinct for group 
 purposes. The pushing, crowding, and wrestling 
 movements were not eliminated, but were governed
 
 126 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 by rules. Some direct fighting was permitted, but it 
 was carefully supervised, and the children themselves 
 were trained to judge and to act as umpires. The 
 result was that other children played unmolested 
 near by. For a period of several months the boys 
 continued to develop interest and good habits through 
 the use of fighting plays. 
 
 The first thought occurring to one in examining this record is the 
 low type of intelligence which prevailed in the boys' social adjust- 
 ments. One would be interested to know as a result of tests whether 
 this was the result of poor native ability or of the immigrants' 
 condition of life in a crowded city. To the writer the play leader's 
 suggestion that the children invent an end to fight for was unneces- 
 sary. The direct output of energy was the children's immediate 
 interest; the imposition of an end by the teacher was premature. 
 Later plots constructed by the children after conscious deliberation, 
 showed a commendable growth in the group's conception of fair 
 play, in loyalty to group ends, and in a willingness to refrain from 
 unfair advantage. 
 
 4. Soldiers and Indians. Washington Park Play- 
 ground. -The boys chose sides — Americans and 
 Indians. The Americans had their fort behind a 
 bench on one side of the room; the Indians camped 
 on the other side. The American captain drilled and 
 marched his troops. The Indian chief led a war 
 dance, then crouched down, put his hand to his ton- 
 head, and searched for the enemy. When he saw the 
 enemy he gave a loud war-whoop. All the braves 
 rallied to him and crept stealthily toward the American 
 camp. When near, the- Indians tired imaginary guns, 
 shouting "Bang! Bang!" The fighting became so 
 rough that the play was stopped by the play leader. 
 
 This is an exampU of the need of constructive suggestion to con- 
 vert the play into ri^ht channels of expression.
 
 FIGHTING PLAYS 1 27 
 
 5. Indians and Cowboys. Arsenal Park. — One 
 day after school, two boys, one in a cowboy suit and 
 another in an Indian suit, came into the playroom. 
 Both boys strolled listlessly around the room, their 
 eyes resting nowhere for more than a moment. 
 Plainly there was nothing in sight which appealed to 
 them. At length the Indian said, "Let's get guns!" 
 Both boys seized toy brooms and started to shoot 
 with them. The cowboy called another boy to him 
 and the two hovered near a screened gas fire, pointing 
 the guns toward the blaze and shouting "Bang! 
 Bang!" The Indian found another boy to play with 
 and crouched behind a table. Soon the Indians 
 attacked the cowboys. When asked by the play 
 leader why they were fighting, the Indian chief said, 
 "For a horse." Then he added, "You be our horse." 
 The play leader consented. The Indians tied her to a 
 table. Soon the cowboys came over to get the horse 
 and in the ensuing battle the play became rough. 
 The play leader took away the brooms and stopped 
 the game. The Indian said, "Let's go home; she 
 won't let us have the guns!" Then he drew off the 
 cowboy and both sulked for a while. The play leader 
 rallied the other children and together they played 
 cowboy. But the play lacked vitality. It did ac- 
 complish a purpose, however; it showed the boys the 
 necessity of fair play. They watched furtively and 
 with interest. Finally the Indian and cowboy played 
 chase, hiding behind chairs and sliding down the slide. 
 
 Again we see a play on a very low social and intellectual plane. 
 It is included as an illustration of the part the fighting instinct plays 
 in causing restlessness. Evidently these boys appeared in the
 
 128 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED l'LAY 
 
 playroom after a day in school in which many normal instincts 
 ■toward activity had been thwarted. Many children arc unfairly 
 blamed for fighting on their way home from school. This fighting 
 is sometimes a natural read ion from a day of repression. A study 
 of fighting responses shows how naturally they appear v. 
 instincts are refused normal functioning. Unfortunately the 
 playground cannot handle such cases alone. Until the school, 
 also, learns to handle the instincts properly, much of the play- 
 ground training is only palliative. 
 
 6. Battles of the French and Indian War. Mt. 
 Washington Playground. 1 
 
 a. Braddock's Defeat. "Indians under Big" Chief 
 Pratt hide behind trees. English, all armed with 
 brooms, parade out in stiff military fashion, and 
 stubbornly maintain their ground, while the tiring, 
 which begins immediately, goes on. Almost all of the 
 English fall to the ground, either dead or wounded. 
 Two soldiers half carry, half drag the dying com- 
 mander from the scene of battle. In the barracks 
 the general revives and then the roll call is taken. A 
 volunteer consents to go out immediately to spy on 
 the enemy, which is still in the vicinity. A cry oi lire 
 is raised at this instant. Great confusion. Onegroup 
 lights the fire; the other group attacks the Indians and 
 the French who have committed the outrage. More 
 killing; some captures. I All the soldiers and the Indians 
 in the play have nine lives.) A lull in hostilities ensues 
 while efforts are made to arrange for a peaceful council. 
 English messenger i- attacked in Indian camp and his 
 scalp <a piece of swamp grass on a stick) thrown into 
 British camp. Fighting i^ renewed with increased 
 intensity. British have now learned the Indian 
 
 1 Describ d by Miss Soi hia M. Lewis.
 
 FIGHTING PLAYS 1 29 
 
 method of lighting and use the same. Fighting 
 continues until both sides are exhausted. 
 
 b. Fall of Quebec. — A lumber pile represents the 
 Heights and its surface the Plains of Abraham. 
 French and Indians lie sleeping on the Plains. Sen- 
 tinel, on guard, walks back and forth. (Indians in 
 this game use guns.) British creep up under cover of 
 darkness in the snow, through the trackless forests. 
 Guard is surprised and killed. The Heights are 
 scaled and the fight commences. The battle, which 
 lasts a long time, is followed by negotiations of 
 interesting character." 
 
 This play, though historically inaccurate in some details, repre- 
 sents an interesting combination of the dramatic and combative 
 instincts. Miss Lewis states in her notes that the boy who played 
 the part of commander-in-chief had been one of the hardest on the 
 playground to manage; that after the fighting games began he 
 became a helper instead of a menace to the group. 
 
 7. A Snow Battle. Washington Park. — A heavy 
 snow brought to the boys' minds the idea of having a 
 snow fight. All hastened to put on caps and coats 
 and ran quickly out-of-doors to the spot where the 
 snow was deepest. A fort was speedily built; sides 
 were chosen and arrayed against each other; then the 
 battle was begun amidst wild shouts of glee. Vigorous 
 hand-to-hand conflict resulted in clouds of flying snow. 
 It was soon evident that the demolished fort had been 
 captured by the invaders, who immediately led a 
 triumphant march about the field of battle. 
 
 Snow fights afford splendid opportunities for the training of the 
 combative instinct, along with training in manipulation of plastic 
 material. Such plays may include team wrestling, pushing, and
 
 130 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 throwing, all under strict rules enforced by group leaders. Tumbling 
 about in soft snow is much enjoyed by children, as is the making 
 of snowballs and forts. 
 
 8. Fighting Play. 1 — "A most interesting house-play 
 of a boy six years old. This child for several days had 
 been observed closely by the play leader. He seemed 
 abnormal in his conduct. He would often rush wildly 
 about the playground with a big stick for a gun, 
 shooting everyone he met and punching the other 
 children. One day, however, he found some loose 
 boards, stood them up to form a sort of wigwam, and 
 announced that he had built himself a house. He 
 furnished it in the crudest manner possible, using 
 large stones for furniture. After a while he went 
 over to a spot where some other children were keeping 
 a store, bought some provisions, and took them to his 
 home. He stayed there a few minutes until the play- 
 ground closed. 
 
 This was the first time the child had shown any 
 interest in anything except rushing about, knocking 
 others down, and shooting. A few days later, while 
 shooting someone, he was evidently attracted by 
 some handwork the children were doing, for he got a 
 piece of paper and made a wigwam, calling it an 
 Eskimo house. After a while he discovered a habita- 
 tion — a place — where some boards projected from 
 a little bank of sand. He crawled under this shelter, 
 saying that he was an Eskimo and that this was his 
 home. When next observed he had placed boards 
 on the ground and had enclosed his home with a roof 
 and sides. A large stone was the table and smaller 
 
 1 Described by Helene Reed.
 
 FIGHTING PLAYS 131 
 
 round stones served as food. Little dishes filled with 
 sand stood in a row along the front of his house. He 
 himself sat contentedly inside, talking to everyone who 
 came along and shooting at anyone who molested 
 him. He said, "I'm the father; that fellow is my 
 mother. He brings the pies from the store." This 
 play continued for some little time, the father doing 
 the ordering, the mother baking the cakes in the store 
 and bringing them home. After a while it was 
 noticed that both boys sat in the house. On being 
 questioned the father said, "The mother's shot" 
 (pointing to a child who had previously been the 
 mother). "He's my fellow; he's the fellow that shot 
 the guy that shot my mother. We're brave, we're 
 awful brave." In a few minutes he left another boy 
 in charge of his house; it was a hospital now, and he 
 started out again to fight. 
 
 In this play one is struck at once with evidences of a low type of 
 intelligence ; pleasure in mere manipulating of household furnishings, 
 enjoyment of mere pushing unrelated to purposive play, quiescence 
 in dramatizing a role — all these indicate arrested development in 
 boys of this age. It would be interesting to know the intelligence 
 quotient of these boys who, surrounded by a wholesome play 
 environment, yet choose to sit under cover and live out a drama of 
 this low order. The murder depicted orally shows again immature 
 judgment acting upon chance experience.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 Playing Hospital and Funeral 
 
 Many Traditional Games Represent Death and 
 Burial. — In the childhood of the race we find many 
 traditional games originating in funeral services or in 
 magic rites performed for the healing of the sick and 
 wounded; such games are Green Grass, Green Gravel, 
 Jenn v Jones, Old Roger, Wallflower, and Booman. Main- 
 folk dances, also, represent in dance pantomime moods 
 of grief and sorrow; such is Lot is Tod. Children 
 play these games without a knowledge of their 
 content. After the meaning lias been lost the words 
 are repeated as nonsense jingles, and the games are 
 enjoyed because they abound in movement, rhythm, 
 and repetition ; and because they usually appeal to the 
 social instincts. 
 
 The Child Does not Dramatize Grief and Sorrow 
 but the Situations in Which They Occur. — Children 
 show the same primitive tendency to incorporate in 
 dramatic play experiences representing joy or sorrow 
 as does primitive man. They do not repeat the 
 experience in play for the purpose of intensifying a 
 mood of joy or sorrow, as adults sometimes do when 
 they relive such experiences in memory or when they 
 record events in works of art. Children's joys and 
 sorrows are short-lived and their dramatic enactments 
 of adult grief and sorrow are a representation not of the 
 emotions of adults, but of the striking features in the 
 situations which call forth the display of emotions. 
 
 13-*
 
 PLAYING HOSPITAL AND FUNERAL 1 33 
 
 Why Such Plays Appeal to the Child. — There is 
 scarcely a household that is untouched by the ravages 
 of sickness and death; scarcely a child that does not 
 reproduce such experiences in play. If this seems 
 strange to the adult it is because he does not put him- 
 self in the child's place, and recall the mystery and 
 awe with which in his own childhood he contemplated 
 the slowly moving funeral procession; the strange 
 majesty of the bowed people veiled in black, the busy 
 coming and going of folk to the homes; the crape, the 
 flowers, the music, and numerous other interesting 
 sights and sounds which attend the last rites of the 
 dead. Similar to a child's fondness for playing 
 funeral is his desire to ride in the patrol wagon. A 
 child in the Pittsburgh playgrounds once remarked, 
 "When I get big, I'm going to ride in the patrol 
 wagon; my father has gone in it twice." 
 
 The Child's Attitude toward Sickness and Death 
 Different from the Adult's. — A young training-school 
 critic once visited a kindergarten where some practice 
 students were anxiously awaiting her help. One of 
 these students tried vainly to interest some four-year- 
 old children in the Third Gift building lesson, but to 
 no avail; in desperation she gave the children some 
 penny dolls* with which to play. One little girl said 
 her doll had died and should be buried. From that 
 moment the children became interested and the play 
 took care of itself. The young teacher entered spon- 
 taneously into the game and several funerals and 
 burials were dramatized with great interest. The 
 young critic teacher was horrified to see an example 
 of a "negative" play. She did not seem to see the
 
 134 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 matter-of-fact way with which the children reproduced 
 the common occurrence i >l death; nor did she recognize 
 that their attitude toward sickness and death was 
 different from the adult's attitude. To her, (hath 
 was associated with grief and the breaking of ties, and 
 to play a game about it was sacrilegious. 
 
 Pittsburgh Bureau •' Recreation 
 
 Playing Hospital 
 
 Educational Possibilities in Playing Hospital and 
 Funeral. - Dramatizing sickness and death is neither 
 more nor less important than the enactment of any 
 other human experience. It affords an opportunity 
 for a glimpse of the fleeting panorama of human life. 
 It calls into play the instincts of emulation, coopera- 
 tion, and kindliness. It is easy for the play leader 
 to explain facts of hygiene in connection with hospital 
 plays. The children delight to dramatize "first aid." 
 In preparing bandages and dressing wounds they can 
 easily learn the first elements of hygiene. Hospital
 
 PLAYING HOSPITAL AND FUNERAL 
 
 135 
 
 work affords endless opportunities to perform interest- 
 ing acts. There are meals to serve, beds to make, 
 patients to care for, and operations to perform; in 
 the performance of all these tasks one may display 
 personal qualities which win social approval. 
 
 Pittsburgh Bureau of Recreation 
 
 Red Cross Workers 
 
 Records of Hospital and Funeral Plays 
 
 1. Dr. Smith's Hospital. Lawrence Park Play- 
 room. — Dr. Smith sat at a long table rolling tissue- 
 paper bandages. By his side was his medicine 
 closet, containing several cups filled with water. 
 The play began when Dr. Smith announced he had no 
 babies to care for. Some little girls who were giving 
 their dolls a tea party jumped up and made prepara- 
 tions to visit the hospital. One girl brought her 
 doll over in a go-cart. Dr. Smith looked at the doll,
 
 136 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 then carried it behind the screen which marked <>ft 
 the hospital and handed the doll to the vaccinating 
 doctor. This doctor pushed up the doll's sleeve and 
 found a round pencil mark which he said was yester- 
 day's vaccination. Dr. Smith supervised the putting 
 on of a new bandage, then returned to his work cutting 
 bandages and rolling them up. Soon another doll 
 appeared and was said by Dr. Smith to have its arm 
 hurt. He took it out to the ward and laid it carefully 
 on the mattress. " Now 1 want a nurse." he said. 
 Straight way a girl of nine years appeared. Dr. 
 Smith looked her over, then said abruptly, "Get a 
 cap!" She disappeared and came back wearing a 
 tissue-paper cap and apron. "Stay in the ward!" 
 said Dr. Smith. She went back of the screen and 
 bent over the sleeping doll, covering it with a small 
 blanket. Another doll appeared. "Croup!" said 
 Dr. Smith, and ordered the doll to be put into the 
 white iron bed. Presently two mothers came to 
 inquire about one of the babies. Dr. Smith waved 
 his hand and said. "Show them the one with the lace 
 on its dress." The vaccinating doctor came into the 
 office and announced. "Two 1 abies .ire dead." This 
 remark occasioned no surprise or regret to either 
 doctor. Shortly afterward Dr. Smith called to the 
 play leader and said, " I want a knife to operate with." 
 Just then another doll appeared. "Typhoid!" said 
 I )r. Smith, as he handed her to the nurse. " Measles!" 
 he said to the mother who had just brought in another 
 baby. These dolls were put in separate beds and their 
 mothers told to come back at two o'clock. Two other 
 mothers were also sent home to await that hour.
 
 PLAYING HOSPITAL AND FUNERAL 1 37 
 
 "We need an ambulance," said Dr. Smith, and a boy 
 with an express wagon was called into service. The 
 boy clanged an imaginary bell, shouting "Ding! 
 Ding!", and dashed from house to house until he 
 finally persuaded a mother to send her child to the 
 hospital. The vaccinating doctor had wandered out 
 to watch some boys at play. He was called back 
 sharply by Dr. Smith, who said, "Come on ! You ain't 
 got no time to watch that!" The piano signalled it 
 was time to put the toys away. " Oh ! " said the nurse 
 with regret. "I'll use these rolls tomorrow," said 
 Dr. Smith, putting the bandages in the box. "And 
 I'll be the nurse," said the little girl. 
 
 The spirit and zest with which this play was conducted reveal 
 the real character of dramatic play. These children played with 
 the same singleness of aim and sincerity of purpose that character- 
 ize the work of the adult doctor and nurse. Dr. Smith's attitude 
 became solicitous, his bearing important, and his manner to the 
 nurses curt and authoritative. 
 
 2. Hospital. Washington Park Playroom. -- The 
 
 hospital consisted of a row of beds made from large 
 wooden blocks. A doll covered with a white paper 
 sheet lay in each bed. A head nurse and two assis- 
 tants bent over the dolls, feeling their pulses and tuck- 
 ing the clothes closer around the dolls. A special 
 chair by the beds was reserved for the doctor, who 
 presently appeared to examine the dolls. With 
 nothing but a gesture of "All's well," the doctor left. 
 
 3. War and Hospital. Ormsby Park Playroom. - 
 A war had taken place between Indians and cowboys. 
 Six-year-old B, a favorite among the children, played 
 he was hurt. He lay very still on the floor, the
 
 138 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 cowboy suit and red bandanna handkerchief he wore 
 adding to the picturesqueness of the part he was play- 
 ing. "We need a hospital," said one child. Quickly 
 the other children arranged two tables to represent a 
 hospital ward, then bent over B. He stiffened and 
 let them carry him to a table, where he lay very 
 quietly, without once opening his eyes. A self- 
 installed nurse folded a tissue-paper bandage and 
 pinned it around his forehead. Still B did not stir. 
 "Time for your medicine," said the nurse, as she 
 lifted his head gently and poured two teaspoonfuls of 
 water down his throat. At this B slightly opened his 
 eyes, then closed them again. The other children had 
 resumed the war game, so the nurse and B were alone, 
 except for one boy who now made his appearance 
 carrying a doctor's satchel. He felt the patient's 
 pulse, looked at his tongue, then ordered him up. 
 The nurse helped B into a chair and brought him a 
 broom for a crutch. B put it under one arm and 
 hobbled off to the scene of war, where he soon forgot 
 all about being sick and joined the cowboys fighting 
 the Indians. 
 
 This play was most interesting to watch. It was quite evident 
 
 that the make-believe sympathy of the nurse and the attention of 
 
 r children were the objects H soughl in playing the part. When 
 
 the writer visited the playroom after an interval of a week B was 
 
 still playing this rdle. 
 
 4. Hospital Play. -Some children who were 
 thrown together for a few days in a detention home 
 became much interested in playing hospital. The 
 following verbal descriptions wire given by various 
 children. "We take tin- babies down to the hospital,
 
 PLAYING HOSPITAL AND FUNERAL 139 
 
 take the tonsils out, vaccinate, feel her hands, and 
 feel her heart. On another baby, put vaccination on 
 her foot. When they got headache we put cloth on 
 their head; when they got earache we should put a 
 hot water bag on it. Doctor comes in and feels 
 baby's hands and heart and opens her mouth and 
 gives her some medicine. We need keys (real ones) 
 to open the bathroom doors. When another baby 
 comes, put it in stretcher and give it a bath. When 
 their eyes hurt, put something like water in it. If 
 their foot hurts, put white stuff and a rag on it. Put 
 glass thing under their tongues. When they ain't 
 got no arm put new arm on it. Ambulance goes to 
 house if they got a baby sick and bring it to hospital. 
 Take it to bed on stretcher. When we (nurses) go 
 home we go on car, and lady sets the table and lady 
 gives us good things to eat — coffee, oranges, apples, 
 cake. Can't all go at once ■ — only one by one so some 
 one can take care of the babies. When the babies 
 want something to eat they got to ring bell by bed. 
 We clean the babies up." 
 
 Here we see the crude content of children's minds. 
 
 5. Cemetery. A Home Play. — A small boy bent 
 eagerly over his task of arranging rows of sticks in the 
 soft sand; when asked what he was doing, the boy 
 looked up with a smile and answered, "Oh! making 
 graves in a cemetery." 
 
 6. A Kitten's Funeral. Sullivan Playground. — 
 One day a kitten was killed on the playground by a 
 stray dog. .The children said the kitten should be 
 buried. At once some of them began to dig a grave
 
 140 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 while others gathered around the dead body to guard 
 it. A few children showed evidence of grief, but 
 most of them were absorbed in the ceremony of burial. 
 They buried the kitten and covered the grave with 
 roses. A stone was selected and placed at the head of 
 the grave. When the play leader went home that 
 night two negro boys volunteered to watch the grave 
 until supper time. 
 
 7. Funeral. Soho Playground. -- Two dead birds 
 were found on the playground. The boys buried 
 them and put tombstones on the graves. They also 
 made a fence around both graves.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 Playing Fireman 
 
 Why Children Play Fireman. — Probably no single 
 role is so frequently dramatized among groups of 
 young children as that of fireman. Spontaneous 
 attention naturally goes out to intense stimuli such as 
 loud noises coming in the midst of quiet, to that 
 which is unusual and novel in its appeal, to moving 
 objects, and the like. Just as the tramping of 
 soldiers' feet and the parade of the town band entice 
 children into the street, so the fire-engine dashing 
 by, clanging its bells and sounding its shrill 
 whistle, stirs up interest in dramatizing that event. 
 "Let's play fire!" is the cry. The boy or girl of four 
 years becomes the ringing bell, the prancing steed, the 
 courageous fireman all in one. To the child of five or 
 six years of age the plot unfolds larger possibilities and 
 demands a differentiation of parts. "I'm the bell," 
 shouts one child. " I'm the hook and ladder," declares 
 another. The child having the clearest vision becomes 
 the leader and assigns the parts. If his observations 
 have been good and his interest in details keen, he 
 becomes "chief" and organizes a fire department; 
 selects horses or motor trucks and firemen to man 
 them; decides where the fire is to be and directs 
 putting it out. Often his images are not clear, his 
 knowledge not complete, then other children help him 
 out in constructing the plot and dramatizing it. 
 
 141
 
 142 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 Records of Fireman Play 
 
 i. A Three-Year-Old Child's Fire-Plays. 1 — R began 
 to play fire-engine shortly after moving to a neighbor- 
 hood where a large fire department was located. 
 Because his fire-plays throw some interesting light on 
 the psychology of play, the enactment of a series of 
 fire dramas is presented in this chapter. The first 
 plays consisted of swiftly moving flights in an ex- 
 press wagon. "Fire! Fire! Ding! Dong!" shouted 
 the fireman as he sped along. This simple interest 
 in movement soon gave way to a more varied plot. 
 The front door steps were pressed into service as a 
 burning house, a long board became the hook and 
 ladder for rapid ascent into the realms above, a coiled 
 rope served as hose, and imaginary sprinkling of the 
 burning house gave rise to imitative sounds such as 
 "Cz! Cz!" The active features of the play, rapid 
 movement in a wheeled vehicle, climbing and manip- 
 ulating such objects as hose and ladders, was the 
 center of interest for some time. Fire-plays occupied 
 at least two hours of this boy's time every day during 
 that fall, and when the winter months made- indoor 
 play more prolonged, the center of interest shifted 
 from activity in a wheeled vehicle to activity on all 
 fours as the boy pushed a toy fire-engine about. The 
 use of this fire-engine, a present to R on his fourth 
 birthday, affords some striking examples of growth in 
 mental imagery. For several days he was content 
 to push about this attractive fire-engine drawn by 
 three prancing steeds. The automatic clanging of 
 
 1 Records from mother's notes.
 
 PLAYING FIREMAN 1 43 
 
 the bell, the race to the fire on all fours, satisfied 
 temporarily the boy's desire for activity, while interest 
 in the mechanism of the new toy for the time being 
 stifled the creative play he had been wont to engage in 
 out-of-doors. Soon, however, houses appeared, built 
 of blocks; long pillar-shaped blocks served as hose; 
 while wooden rings represented coils of rope. Other 
 blocks served as firemen who manipulated the new 
 equipment. The boy would look carefully through 
 his cupboards of toys, selecting new equipment suit- 
 able for use in putting out fires. He would sometimes 
 play for an hour with the toy, piling the truck full of 
 objects representing pails, ladders, and the like; for 
 each time the department passed the house he ob- 
 served new objects in its equipment, while one big 
 fire in the neighborhood revealed the uses to which 
 the equipment could be put. Then this creation of 
 his imagination was abandoned for a new fire toy 
 constructed out of blocks from all the plastic materials 
 he could lay hands upon. The properties of the new 
 fire department were much more numerous. True, 
 the new motor truck could not be moved about, the 
 horn did not blow, and the driver was less realistically 
 garbed; but the life it portrayed was more real, for 
 it was the creation of the boy's imagination. He him- 
 self blew the horn, moved the wooden firemen here 
 and there, coiled and uncoiled hose, and rescued 
 people from the burning houses. His mind planned 
 the fires, his voice sounded the whistle, his hands put 
 out the fire. The mental imagery thus initiated was 
 more satisfying than the physical activity he had used 
 in operating the gilded toy.
 
 144 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 2. Fireman. Andrews School Playground. - A 
 large fire near the school suggested this play. Some 
 boys built a house of blocks. One boy said, "Let's 
 have a fire!" Two other boys produced a wagon 
 filled with buckets of water; this was the hosecart. 
 The boys in the house rang a bell and the firemen and 
 hosecart came rushing to the burning house. The 
 firemen knocked down the house while pouring water 
 on it. The next day the play was repealed. A small 
 boy built a stable near the house and placed a block 
 inside to represent a horse. Although the firemen 
 arrived very quickly the horse had burned and had to 
 be buried. 
 
 3. Fireman. Lawrence Park Playroom. — A cor- 
 ner of the room was screened off for the engine house. 
 Blocks indicated the horses' stalls. Two children 
 were harnessed in rope and stood awaiting the call. 
 A fireman wearing a cap stood with a bell in his hand 
 ready to ring it the minute an alarm of fire came in. 
 At last some one shouted, " Fire! Fire!" The fireman 
 rang the bell long and loudly while two other boys 
 took out the horses and dashed wildly off to the fire, 
 followed by another fireman pulling an express wagon. 
 As if by common consent all rushed to the furnace 
 room, where the gas fire was burning brightly. One 
 fireman jumped over the railing and climbed a few 
 steps up a ladder, which happened to be against the 
 wall. He then pointed an imaginary hose at the top 
 of the boiler, sayi'ng, "Sz, Sz!" Xext he ran down the 
 ladder and called for an ax, which was handed to him 
 by the fireman in the hosecart. The other fireman 
 ran over to the furnace door and played he was
 
 PLAYING FIREMAN 1 45 
 
 pouring a stream of water through the crack, where 
 the fire was seen to be burning brightly. "Get my ax 
 from under the seat," he cried excitedly. As an 
 imaginary ax was handed him, he chopped vigorously 
 at the wall. After this the fire was considered to be 
 put out, and the firemen went home. In a few minutes 
 the same children played it all over again. This time 
 after the fire was put out one of the firemen went to 
 his house and slept. He got up, drank a cup of 
 water, and returned to the engine house. Here he 
 harnessed his horse and dashed around the room two 
 or three times. When he came back he said, "See 
 the new shoes I got him." 
 
 As interest in this play grew, all the girls and boys 
 in the playroom became a part of it. The plot 
 increased in complexity from day to day as different 
 children suggested new ideas. More stalls were 
 made, ropes were coiled to represent hose; the firemen 
 slept when not called out; a policeman walked up and 
 down near by and gave the alarm. It became 
 necessary to make the house-play a permanent part 
 of each fire in order that the fire department could 
 control the time and place of each fire. So some of 
 the family agreed to go to bed and let a policeman 
 discover a fire in their dwelling. This policeman 
 broke the door, aroused the sleepers, and gave out the 
 alarm. The firemen jumped out of their beds and 
 the horses began to prance and were quickly harnessed 
 to an express wagon into which a fireman threw a coil 
 of rope. The remaining firemen followed in the hose- 
 cart, one of them clanging a bell. The members of 
 the family stood in the second story of their house and
 
 146 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 were rescued by a brave fireman who threw them 
 ropes from which to slide to the ground below. The 
 other firemen poured water on the house. One fire- 
 man was hurt and had to be taken to a hospital 
 managed by some girls. Then the firemen and hose- 
 cart returned home and prepared for another fire. 
 
 This play lasted for two weeks. It is interesting to see how 
 natural it was to select a real fire as the scene of the conflagration. 
 And when this place was given up in favor of a site where a family 
 lived, how realistically other details were worked out! The steps 
 of the slide became the second story of a house and real rope was used 
 as hose. A bell and whistle also added greatly to the reality of the 
 play. All these points are of significance to one who watches the 
 development of the plot. 
 
 4. Fire and Hospital. Andrew School Play- 
 ground. — A large number of children who were play- 
 ing ring games wanted to play fire. One group used 
 the circle of playmates to represent a house. Another 
 group did likewise. Someone suggested having some 
 people sleep in each house, so the two children who 
 had claimed the houses selected families. One boy 
 wanted to be a policeman. The members of each 
 family lay down to sleep and then the policeman 
 shouted, "Fire! Fire!" In the meantime, several 
 firemen had found children who were willing to be 
 fire horses and had harnessed them up in ropes. The 
 fireman now drove to the two houses and worked 
 vigorously to put out the fires. One member of a 
 family was hurt in making his escape from the burn- 
 ing house and was rushed off to a hospital. Here his 
 leg was pronounced broken. 
 
 It is quite evidenl that these children were accustomed to the 
 kindergarten gesture plays; in perfectly spontaneous play, a ring is 
 not usually suggested to represent a house.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 Playing Animals 
 
 Children Imitate the Movements and Character- 
 istics of Animals. — The world is full of the wonder of 
 things to a growing boy or girl. Butterflies, bees, 
 caterpillars, birds, frogs, fish, horses, cows, sheep, and 
 chickens are a child's natural playmates. He feels a 
 kinship with these living things, not because he 
 possesses by instinct a presentiment of the common 
 source of life, but because living, moving things 
 challenge his attention; worms crawl across his 
 path; squirrels scamper away at his approach; ants 
 build their homes under his feet; birds twitter above 
 his head; butterflies challenge him to a chase. While 
 he can neither fly like a bird nor swim like a fish, the 
 child's imagination soars aloft with the swallow 
 poised on high and penetrates again to the haunts 
 where the darting minnow lives. "I'm a bird!" he 
 cries, as he skims over the ground with outstretched 
 arms, flying now fast, now slowly; hovering near the 
 leafy trees, hopping in the green grass; in fact, reliving 
 and reinterpreting the great panorama of life spread 
 out before his searching eyes. 
 
 What Children Copy. — What children copy in their 
 dramatic representation of animals is directly related 
 to what interests them and claims their attention. 
 And since the child's attention varies with age, sex, 
 and experience, his play is never the same. There 
 are, however, certain significant things about a child's 
 
 147
 
 14* SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 capacity for attention which apply to his manner of 
 
 playing animals, and certain changes can with a fair 
 degree of certainty be predicted to occur with age 
 and experience. Little children notice animals he- 
 cause of their motion and their novel and unexpected 
 behavior. The sharp, quick contrasts in their move- 
 ments, some in water and some on land, call forth 
 interest and attention. A fly buzzing by, horses 
 prancing and running, birds flying, — all these chal- 
 lenge the attention. And in all imitative-dramatic 
 play these striking or characteristic acts of animals 
 are seized upon and copied; dogs bark at cats; lions 
 stalk and roar; tigers crouch and spring; and so on 
 through the cycle of actions portraying the behavior 
 of animals. 
 
 After children have become acquainted with animal 
 life through watching the movements and behavior of 
 animals, their attention spreads out to embrace the 
 series of acts which are characteristic of each creature 
 in its particular environment. How a bird lives, 
 what it eats, how it gets its food, where it finds it, are 
 points of contact which develop naturally from 
 excursions. Kindergarten games are made up of 
 simple contrasts of the events in bird and animal life. 
 Birds fly and hop, eat, bathe, lay eggs, and rear their 
 young. House dogs bark at cats and strangers, bury 
 bones, and beg for food. Caterpillars crawl and spin, 
 rest in cocoons, then emerge as butterflies. Ponies 
 prance and gallop, are rubbed down, fed, and put in 
 barns for the night. Lambs graze and gambol. 
 Circus horses dance and race and perform various 
 tricks.
 
 PLAYING ANIMALS 1 49 
 
 Why Some Kindergarten Games Violate the Mind's 
 Laws of Attention. — Many of the traditional kinder- 
 garten songs and games violate the principles of 
 attention as exemplified in the child's interest in 
 motion and change and his continuance of attention 
 to one subject. These games are so constructed that 
 they represent dull, monotonous behavior of animals 
 with few contrasts in movement and are continued to 
 the point where interest dwindles entirely away. 
 Children of kindergarten age are not interested in 
 learning "all" about birds, or squirrels, - or horses. 
 They approach these creatures from the standpoint of 
 expression; squirrels run briskly and hunt nuts; birds 
 fly, hop, and dig for worms or insects. In helping 
 children to understand animals, kindergartners have 
 never emphasized structure at the expense of function 
 as some primary schools have shown a tendency to do. 
 Holding true to the expression type of play, the 
 kindergarten has emphasized the function of animals; 
 it has shown what these creatures do as they come in 
 contact with the world. It has, however, as has just 
 been indicated, built up plays and games revealing a 
 whole cycle of animal behavior, forgetful of the fact 
 that an adult can hold in the focus of attention a 
 whole series of thoughts, but that a child centers his 
 attention on one characteristic of that object. The 
 kindergarten game, song, or rhythm should be short, 
 and reveal only sharp contrasts in movements and 
 acts. With age and development of thinking capa- 
 city, relationships in thought are built up. Even 
 before the kindergarten period has passed, however, 
 some games can be constructed which contain a series
 
 Play Animals
 
 PLAYING ANIMALS 151 
 
 of acts arranged in a certain perspective around some 
 point of dominant interest. 
 
 Appreciation of the Value of Life. — Having ap- 
 proached animal life from the standpoint of expres- 
 sion, the child readily takes the step to the why, what, 
 and how. Children see animal behavior in relation to 
 their own social contacts and only gradually come to 
 understand the kinship of all living things through 
 observing their mutual dependence and their individ- 
 ual functions. Only when children see the usefulness 
 of each creature will they learn to respect its life and 
 pursue it with eyes and camera rather than with 
 destroying hands. We expect too much from children 
 when we think they see themselves as a part of one 
 great living universe. It requires years to build up 
 this conception. 
 
 Ethical Training Through Play With Animals. — 
 The ethical values arising from contact with animals 
 develop along with the appreciational values. Kindli- 
 ness may be developed and brutality restrained. In 
 playing with animals, as well as in dramatic repre- 
 sentation of their habits and activities, children 
 display native kindliness, sympathy, or cruelty. 
 Just as with most of us kindliness predominates over 
 cruelty, so in children's relationships with animals we 
 see kind actions imitated most frequently in childish 
 play. On the whole, animals are petted and indulged 
 by children. However, there are times when children 
 lack sympathy and kindliness because for the time 
 being other instincts are stronger. For example, boys 
 tie tin cans to a stray dog's tail in order to indulge in 
 merriment. For the time being, the excitement and
 
 152 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 fun so till their minds that their imaginations remain 
 inactive; they fail to put themselves in the place of the 
 creature they are tormenting. Children often kill 
 birds and small moving creatures unthinkingly because 
 the impulse to throw operates, before imagination 
 pictures the physical distress of the life to be de- 
 stroyed. The boys described in the playground 
 record as chasing and killing a chicken which they 
 found scratching up their garden were acting upon the 
 impulse operating most strongly at the time (p. 162). 
 It is within the possibilities of supervised play to 
 build up right habits of sympathy and kindliness by 
 working for appreciation through observation and 
 the care of pets. For example, as soon as children 
 learn what ants do for us they are eager to protect the 
 tiny creatures. The following illustration of training 
 in sympathy is taken from the writer's records. One 
 day a mother and child spied a young robin panting 
 in a hedge near their home. The mother robin 
 hovered near, protecting her young by threatening 
 and warning cries. The boy and his mother decided 
 to leave the robins alone for a time, thinking the 
 young robin might recover enough to fly back to the 
 tree. The mother supposed her child was looking at 
 some books. Presently he appeared, saying excitedly, 
 "The robin is dead! A giant came into the yard and 
 killed him! Xo! a bad boy did it." A visit to the 
 hedge revealed two of the boy's Indian clubs lying in 
 close proximity to the dead robin. Without com- 
 ment the mother went back into the house with her 
 four-and-a-half-year-old boy. Presently she said, "I 
 should be so happy to know what really happened
 
 PLAYING ANIMALS 
 
 153 
 
 to the robin." Feeling her sympathy, the boy 
 exclaimed enthusiastically, "I hit the robin with my 
 Indian club! I petted him. The first club rolled 
 away so I threw another!" Realizing that the 
 throwing propensity had been the strongest impulse 
 operating, the mother set to work to build up sym- 
 pathy through imagination. She pictured the poor 
 mother robin looking for her young bird and finding it 
 dead. She took her boy to the door where they 
 listened to the call of the mother robin. Then the 
 boy's mother talked about the useful work robins do 
 and spoke of their charming songs. Because contact 
 with birds was likely to recur again and again in the 
 
 Learning through Observation
 
 154 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 boy's life, the mother decided to associate punishment 
 with the boy's first act of cruelty to birds. The boy 
 was sent tipstairs after lunch to remain until his 
 supper time, "lest other young robins should be 
 harmed." When the boy came down stairs to supper 
 he said, "The poor mother robin is looking for her 
 little bird!" The tones of the boy's voice were but a 
 reflex imitation of the ones the mother had used in 
 speaking sympathetically of the dead bird. The 
 mother realized there was no basis for permanent 
 sympathy between the child and birds, and set to work 
 to build up in her child's mind an appreciation of 
 bird life through feeding the birds in the yard and 
 observing their habits. 
 
 Parents can take even little children to near-by parks 
 where birds of many varieties can be seen; where 
 squirrels will feed from the children's hands and fish 
 sport in the fountains. Much can be accomplished in 
 these early contacts with living things to establish by 
 example a sympathetic approach. True, a child's 
 first sympathetic acts are purely reflex imitation, but 
 accompanied by training in observation, native kind- 
 liness gradually asserts itself. Both kindliness and 
 sympathy operate in the midst of many individualistic 
 tendencies and require parental nurturing to wax and 
 grow strong. They are not very definite tendencies at 
 best and are easily choked by selfish ones. To retain 
 them and adjust them to useful purposes is an impor- 
 tant duty of educators. 
 
 Scientific Values. As soon as children arrive at 
 the age when they can observe the characteristic 
 features of an animal's habitat, its manner of securing
 
 Friends
 
 156 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 food and rearing its young, and even its structure, 
 "nature hikes" are of great advantage. In the Pitts- 
 burgh playgrounds these hikes were conducted by 
 nature-study teachers and became purposeful excur- 
 sions in which observation and the camera took the 
 place of chasing, throwing, and killing. Many speci- 
 mens, were brought home alive to be nurtured in a 
 park zoo. It was noticed that as soon as the children's 
 imaginations were trained so that they could put them- 
 selves in the place of the animal studied, killing and 
 wanton chasing occurred less frequently. The scien- 
 tific value of these nature hikes lies almost entirely in 
 the habits of mind the child forms. Mere getting 
 acquainted with animals and pets should lead to the 
 habit of identification and comparison with other 
 similar animals. 
 
 Symbolism not Common in Children's Portrayal of 
 Animal Life. — Because play is life and life is play, no 
 separation is made in the records between plays with 
 real animals and dramatic representations depicting 
 their lives and habits. The records show little 
 symbolism. Whatever premonitions of kinship with 
 animal life occur are hidden from the eyes of even the 
 trained observer. The last dramatic play described 
 in the records happened to be the only dramatic repre- 
 sentation of the home life of birds which was recorded 
 in the program notes of thirty playgrounds for a 
 period of four years. A perusal of the records of 
 dramatic represerutations of animals reveals the pre- 
 ponderant part physical activity plays in animal 
 games, and the fact that most dramatic representations 
 of animals end in chasing games.
 
 PLAYING ANIMALS 1 57 
 
 The Place and Significance of Constructive Activi- 
 ties in Connection With Dramatic Plays of Animals.— 
 
 One has but to watch the spontaneous play of children 
 to see how intimate a part constructive or manip- 
 ulative activities assume in dramatic plays. Especi- 
 ally in plays with toy or real animals, or in impersona- 
 tions of animals, we see the hands try to work out 
 through plastic materials the images the mind 
 supplies. Even a three-year-old devises some kind of 
 shelter for his toy animals and pets. The records 
 show how spontaneously children invent crude cos- 
 tumes and accessories to make the role they are 
 enacting more realistic. 
 
 Constructive Activities Which may be Used to 
 Assist Kindergarten Children in the Observation and 
 Care of Animals. — For children of kindergarten age, 
 clay, wood, cardboard, and paper are the best plastic 
 materials to use for constructive work related to the 
 care of domestic pets and animals. In connection 
 with bird observation, children of kindergarten age 
 like to make nests and eggs and birds of clay, to build 
 bird houses of cardboard, to make feeders and foun- 
 tains, and to play out dramas describing bird life. In 
 this way they find out about the habits of birds in the 
 neighborhood and learn to identify a few birds and to 
 see their manner of securing food, shelter, and pro- 
 tection. 
 
 Animal Life. — Nearly every kindergarten is sup- 
 plied with a menagerie made of cardboard or rubberoid 
 and with a set of toy animals. The children build 
 shelter for these animals, in this way learning a few 
 facts about the homes of the wild animals, how they
 
 158 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 prepare for cold weather, how domestic animals are 
 pastured, and how domestic pets are cared for, as 
 well as how animals arc cared for in the zoo. Clay, 
 cardboard, paper, and paint are also used in expression 
 work to depict the habits and habitats of the birds and 
 animals observed. 
 
 Constructive Activities Assist Children of the 
 Primary Grades in the Observation of Animals. — As 
 soon as children can be taken on walks or excursions 
 by their teachers, they plan and execute many proj- 
 ects which assist them in the pursuit and capture of 
 animals. The following is a list of toy models made 
 by children from seven to ten years of age in connec- 
 tion with supervised hikes planned by the nature-study 
 department of the Pittsburgh Playground Association: 
 fish nets, polliwog nets, butterfly nets, ants' nests, 
 aquaria, vivaria, developing cages, mounting boards, 
 bird houses, pigeon houses, squirrel cages, bird cages, 
 cages for white mice, dog houses, rabbit pens, traps, 
 fishing tackle, bait cages, and box traps. 
 
 An Outline of Study Relative to the Use of Such 
 Play Models. — In a recent publication are offered 
 some very complete outlines for the study of animal 
 life. The author has followed the functional point of 
 view. For the teacher who knows how to use the 
 suggestions in a spontaneous way the outline may be 
 most helpful, and is for this reason referred to in this 
 study of spontaneous play. 1 
 
 1 A. M. Krackowizer: Projects in the Primary Grades, pp. 120-154.
 
 PLAYING ANIMALS 1 59 
 
 Records of Animal Plays 
 
 i. Fish. Outdoor Playroom, New York City. — 
 A child stood on some steps and threw a rope out 
 toward several children who were "fish swimming" 
 on the floor. Two fish came up to bite and the 
 fisherman tugged with all his might to pull them in. 
 "I'm a shark," said one child as he fastened himself 
 on to the rope; "catch me!" 
 
 Although this game was one of great physical activity, the 
 dramatic interest was none the less keen. 
 
 2. The Duck's Swimming Lesson. Ralston School 
 Playground. — A little boy brought his pet duck to 
 the playground and put it in a tank used for water 
 plays. He proceeded to give it a swimming lesson 
 regardless of the fact that the duck profited nothing 
 by the instructions, but reacted to the water in typical 
 duck fashion. 
 
 3. Rabbits. Junction Hollow Playground. — A 
 woman living just opposite the playground had a 
 pair of rabbits in her back yard. Every day the 
 children watched the rabbits and became more and 
 more interested. One day the rabbits escaped from 
 the cage. The children chased them and brought 
 them back. Then they wanted to play rabbit. The 
 natural thing, of course, was to construct a game tell- 
 ing the story of the playground rabbits. First the 
 children were satisfied to sit up on two feet and to 
 hop, run, and eat. Then they wanted a cage; several 
 children made one by joining hands. This at once 
 gave a new incentive to the rabbits, who began to 
 try to climb out over and under the children's arms.
 
 160 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 One of the rabbits broke through and the children 
 forming a cage ran after it. This freed the other 
 rabbits and a general chase ensued. Each child who 
 caught a rabbit brought it back, and then the children 
 discovered there was no cage. One boy said that 
 those who made the cage ought to keep in their 
 places, while the others chased. This worked very 
 well. The play leader suggested that each child 
 capturing a rabbit should take this rabbit's place in 
 the next game, while the rabbit caught should take 
 the place of some child who was part of the cage. 
 
 One day the play leader added zest to the game by 
 changing the words of Rabbit In the Hollow to follow 
 the game the children had constructed. The children 
 made rabbit caps with long ears and played with 
 great interest the following chasing game: 
 
 Rabbits in the yard sit and sleep; 
 Children in the playground nearer creep. 
 Little Rabbit, have a care. 
 Far away out there- 
 Quickly to your homes 
 You must run., run, run. 
 
 This play is an interesting example of the evolution of a game of 
 skill. Many of our traditional games of skill were originally dra- 
 matic games which have now lost their content and meaning. 
 
 4. Butterflies and Grasshoppers. Greenfield 
 School Playground. These children played on a 
 wide stretch of grass at the top of a hill. Here they 
 had a chance to sit under the trees, where occasionally 
 they observed ants and bees, butterflies and grass- 
 hoppers. One day some children began to hop like 
 grasshoppers and to chase each other around and
 
 PLAYING ANIMALS l6l 
 
 around. The play leader suggested that some be 
 butterflies and chase the grasshoppers. This idea 
 was greeted with great delight. At first the chase was 
 aimless. Then someone said, "Let's pair off." So 
 each butterfly chose a grasshopper and at a given 
 signal the butterfly flew and the grasshopper leapt 
 toward a goal. Generally the butterflies won, be- 
 cause of the difficulties of locomotion in hopping; so a 
 handicap became necessary. 
 
 This game grew in interest and was finally used at 
 a "game-fest." Butterfly and grasshopper caps were 
 made of colored crepe paper and added much to the 
 dramatic interest of the game. 
 
 5. Reindeer. Ormsby Park Playroom. — A rein- 
 deer, a boy of five, was running about the playroom. 
 A little girl reached out her hand to pet him and 
 straightway four other reindeer appeared. A boy 
 arranged a cave out of chairs and called out, "Here, 
 here, come and live here!" "We ain't bears, we're 
 reindeer," replied one child. He allowed himself to 
 be enticed into the cave, however, and lay down 
 there. Soon he ran out and joined the other reindeer, 
 who were grazing near by. Again the boy of the 
 cave called, "Come on, Father Reindeer!" "We 
 ain't Father Reindeer," said a boy of seven, "we're 
 just reindeer." Then the reindeer began to scramble 
 around widely and knock into some little girls who 
 were watching them. "Let's be goats," suggested 
 one boy; "then we can horn and butt." So all 
 dashed madly around the room, trying to butt the 
 little girls, who hid behind each other screaming 
 and laughing. After the fun had subsided, the play
 
 1 62 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 leader made a chalk mark across the room and sug- 
 gested that the reindeer live on one side and the goats 
 on the other. This led to a great scrambling and 
 chasing. Whenever either ventured on the other's 
 territory, the one getting caught had to help the 
 other side. The sides kept about even. 
 
 Here is an example of spontaneous dramatic play. Butting and 
 chasing were the points of the game; that dramatic interest was 
 subservient to the use of oppositional force is indicated by, "Let's 
 be goats, then we can horn and butt." 
 
 6. Chicken. Junction Hollow Playground. — One 
 day the boys had worked hard to make a garden on the 
 playground. That night a chicken got in and 
 scratched up the seed. Some boys living near by saw 
 the disaster and, running after the chicken, killed it. 
 Then the woman who owned the chicken came out 
 and scolded the boys. The next day this story was 
 related to the play leader with great excitement. 
 She reprimanded the boys for killing the chicken but 
 encouraged them to watch the garden. She then set 
 the boys to work making a fence out of sticks and a 
 string. That day the children constructed a chicken 
 game. One piece of ground was marked out for the 
 garden, another for the woman's house, and still 
 another for the boys' house. A boy became the 
 chicken ; he ran into the garden and started to scratch 
 up the earth. This was a sign for the boys to begin 
 their chasing, which continued until the chicken was 
 caught. The boy who succeeded in catching the 
 chicken became chicken, but if any boy was caught by 
 the woman he had to help her chase the other boys.
 
 PLAYING ANIMALS 1 63 
 
 Another example of the spontaneous development of a game of 
 skill from a dramatic event. 
 
 7. Birds. Ormsby Park Playground. — The chil- 
 dren became much interested in watching a family of 
 young birds living just outside the playground. 
 Every day they saw the father and mother birds 
 feeding and caring for their young. One day the 
 children played birds. Four of them were baby 
 birds, while two more were mother and father." 
 They flew around getting worms, which they dropped 
 into the open mouths of the baby birds. Since the 
 children had not seen the birds learn to fly, the play 
 leader brought pictures the next day to supply this 
 experience. After that it seemed natural and easy 
 to introduce the game "One Little Birdie Learned to 
 Fly."
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 A Miscellaneous Collection of Dramatic Plays 
 
 i. Shoemaker. Lawrence Park Playroom. - 
 Two boys wanted to be shoemakers. They enclosed 
 a space with chairs and brought in a table to use as a 
 work-bench. They made shoe soles out of paper. 
 Some little girls who were playing house near by came 
 over to order some shoes for their dolls; they left the 
 dolls to be measured. The shoemaker stood the dolls 
 up on a piece of paper and traced on paper some 
 shoes to fit the dolls' feet. With the tapping of a 
 little hammer the shoes were put on the dolls' feet, a 
 little paste serving to fasten them on securely. Soon 
 the mother came back, inspected the shoes, and paid 
 for them in paper money. The shoemakers now 
 added a shoe-shining department to their -tore. After 
 a while, two more mothers appeared with dolls to be 
 fitted to shoes. At noon, the shoemakers closed their 
 shop by placing a chair in front of the open door. 
 They went home and ate an imaginary dinner served 
 by three .uirls. In the meantime some one broke into 
 the store. The elder shoemaker caught and put out 
 the roDber; then both the shoemakers returned to 
 their work. 
 
 This play continued for forty minutes, although the two boys 
 serving as shoemakers were left entirely alone for the last twenty 
 minutes. They seldom looked up from their occupations, although 
 all the other children. a1 1 racted by a new slide, were playing noisily 
 near by. This record shows the type of play characteristic of a 
 child of kindergarten age who is allowed to construct his plot with 
 very little suggestion. 
 
 164
 
 A COLLECTION OF DRAMATIC PLAYS 1 65 
 
 2. The Elves and the Shoemaker. Lawrence 
 Park Playroom. l — This play grew out of the 
 children's interest in the shoemaker and his work and 
 activities, and was the culminating and artistic 
 expression of that interest. 
 
 Previous to the development of the play the chil- 
 dren had visited a shoemaker's shop and through con- 
 versation, pictures, and play had gained some real 
 idea and appreciation of the life and activities of the 
 shoemaker and his importance in the community. 
 It was about this time that the children became very 
 fond of the story of the Shoemaker and the Elves, 
 or the Brownies and the Shoemaker, as they called it, 
 a story which I told them several times and then let 
 them tell me, one child telling as much as he cared to, 
 or could remember, the next child continuing from 
 where the last narrator left off. Thus the children 
 became very familiar with the story and there was 
 enthusiastic acquiescence in my suggestion that we 
 play it out. 
 
 A shoemaker and his wife were chosen. They im- 
 mediately set about arranging their shop. The piano 
 stool was used for the shoemaker's bench, a small 
 kindergarten chair served for his stool, and a kindly 
 janitor was importuned into lending his hammer. 
 The brownies departed to brownie land, which was a 
 room opening out of the playroom, and the door was 
 immediately metamorphosed into a window through 
 which the brownies entered the home of the shoe- 
 maker. 
 
 1 This play was developed and written up by Catherine Swartz.
 
 1 66 SPONTANEOUS AXO SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 When we began playing, the children seemed to 
 experience surprisingly little difficulty in rinding 
 words to express what they wished to say. This was 
 probably partly due to the fact that they knew the 
 story so well, and that rather than make our story 
 merely descriptive we had incorporated the conversa- 
 tion of the elves, the shoemaker, and his wife into it. 
 With the action it was different; for though spon- 
 taneous, it was often awkward. But the children as 
 a group were quick to see where improvements might 
 be made and to offer suggestions. Such questions 
 from myself as, "What do you suppose the shoe- 
 maker's wife would be doing while the shoemaker was 
 working at his bench?" or "How does your father 
 work when he is tired?" would bring a response from 
 every child and the one we as a group thought best 
 would almost unconsciously be incorporated into our 
 little play. So from a crude little dramatization it 
 grew into quite a playlet, of which the children never 
 seemed to weary. 
 
 We were especially fortunate in obtaining from the 
 children's library a set of large, beautifully conceived 
 pictures depicting a party given by the elves to the 
 fairies. These pictures, better than any verbal de- 
 scription could possibly do, gave the children a clear 
 image of what funny, fun-loving, mischievous little 
 people brownies are conceived to be. 
 
 The play as it was finally dramatized was in three 
 parts, the shoemaker's shop being the scene of them 
 all: 
 
 a. The husband works at his bench while the wife 
 sweep- and dusts. The husband says he is tired and
 
 A COLLECTION OF DRAMATIC PLAYS 167 
 
 doesn't see any use in working so hard when no one 
 buys his shoes anyhow; the wife, putting her arm 
 around him, tries to cheer him up, predicts better 
 fortune for the morrow, and goes out to prepare 
 supper, to which she soon calls her husband. Re- 
 turning to the shop they decide that as it is getting 
 dark and late they will go to bed. This they do. 
 Just as the clock finishes striking twelve, the brownies 
 come leaping through the window and dance about the 
 room, poking their fingers and noses into everything 
 they see. One finds the shoemaker's hammer and an 
 unmade pair of shoes, and, thinking it great fun, glee- 
 fully calls the others to come and help him play shoe- 
 maker. At cockcrow, when they are forced to depart, 
 they leave behind a finished pair of shoes of exquisite 
 workmanship. 
 
 b. The next morning the shoemaker enters his 
 workshop and is delighted to find in the place of the 
 cut leather he had left the previous night, a pair of 
 exquisitely made shoes. He calls his wife, who is 
 equally pleased, and predicts an early purchaser. 
 The shoes have scarcely been placed in the show 
 window when a customer enters the shop and buys the 
 shoes, paying a good price for them. The shoemaker 
 and his wife are in great glee and hurry off to town ; he, 
 to buy leather for more shoes; she, provisions for the 
 house. On their return he says that he will cut out 
 leather while she prepares supper. As on the previous 
 night, supper over, they retire to bed, having decided 
 before going that they would sleep with one eye open 
 in the hope of seeing their mysterious friend, should 
 he come again. The brownies return and this time
 
 1 68 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 make all the shoes for which the shoemaker has cut 
 leather, departing as before at cockcrow. 
 
 c. The shoemaker and his wife talk over the 
 situation the next morning and as a mark of gratitude 
 decide to make a little suit and pair of shoes for each 
 of their little naked friends. They finish the suits by 
 nightfall and spread them about the workshop before 
 retiring. The brownies, who come back to play shoe- 
 maker, find the suits and have a glorious time arraying 
 themselves in them. When they have all put them 
 on, they join hands and dance about the shoemaker's 
 bench, and as a final expression of joy perform the shoe- 
 makers' dance, the traditional dance which, through 
 pantomime, shows the activities of the shoemaker. 
 Just as they finish, the cock crows and the brownies 
 disappear through the window, never to return. 
 
 The repetition of situation, action, and speech, the great amount 
 of activity, and the fact that all the children of a group can take 
 part make this story ideal for use with a large group. 
 
 3. Blacksmith. Lewis Playground. — After a visit 
 to the blacksmith shop the children asked to play 
 blacksmith. Some girls assumed the role of mothers 
 of families living in different homes. Two boys kept 
 the blacksmith shop. Another boy had a livery 
 stable and took care of the horses belonging to all the 
 families. Other children took the part of horses. 
 The mothers went after the horses and took their 
 children for a drive. Something always happened to 
 the horses' hoofs; this occasioned a visit tc the black- 
 smith shop, whore new shoes were put on. The black- 
 smith took each hoof between his legs and nailed on a 
 new shoe.
 
 A COLLECTION OF DRAMATIC PLAYS 1 69 
 
 4. Street Cleaners. Washington Park Play- 
 ground. — Two boys swept and cleaned the play- 
 ground every day. Each time they demanded pay 
 and were given paper money. They took this to the 
 store and with it purchased sand cakes, pies, or bread. 
 
 5. Livery Stable. Homewood School Play- 
 ground. — One child was the liveryman. He induced 
 other children to be horses in his stable. Every few 
 minutes he fed them, then drove them out to a water- 
 ing trough to drink. One of the horses kicked and 
 jumped, so had to be broken in. The liveryman tried 
 out the other horses in teams of twos and threes. A 
 man came to the livery stable to buy a horse. The 
 liveryman showed off all the horses until the purchaser 
 found one that suited him. 
 
 6. A Telephone Play. Arsenal Park Play- 
 ground. — Some little girls were playing house. A 
 pay telephone happened to be located in one of their 
 houses, but of course the children were not allowed 
 to take down the receiver. So they planned to have a 
 telephone of their own. By placing a chair under- 
 neath the telephone the children could reach the 
 mouthpiece. A receiver was constructed from a 
 ribbon bolt and string, and the telephone was then 
 connected with other houses. Then each member of 
 the family took turns using the line. They called up 
 members of the other household, inquired after the 
 babies, discussed the housework, and invited each 
 other to call. 
 
 7. Telephone Play. A Home Play — The desk 
 telephone was elaborate. It was made by sewing two 
 cardboard rolls together and attaching a funnel-shaped
 
 I JO SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 mouthpiece. The telephone was pinned to a table 
 and a small cardboard roll attached for a receiver. A 
 eon! connected the receiver with a similar telephone in 
 another part of the room. One day the following play 
 occurred. A seated herself at the desk and called 
 central. B answered. "Let's have the line busy 
 before we begin," said A. "All right!" answered B. 
 After several calls and reports of "line busy," A 
 succeeded in getting her number. B then took the 
 place of the person called. "Hello!" said B and 
 waited. "Is this L's grocery?" asked A. "Yes," 
 came the answer. Then A replied, "This is Mrs. A's 
 residence. Won't you send me a pound of butter 
 and a loaf of bread? How much are bananas?" 
 "Fifteen cents a dozen." "You may send me half a 
 dozen." "Yes, that is all for to-day." "All right, 
 Airs. A," B replied, "I'll send them right over." 
 
 A learned to use the telephone by playing this game. Previous 
 to this time she had been timid about using the telephone. Con- 
 versing with the other children also helped to sharpen her mind for 
 ready answers to questions. 
 
 8. Fishing. Lawrence Park Playroom. One day 
 the children began spontaneously to play boating. 
 Some put tin- seats of two chairs together and sat on 
 one chair with their feet on another. Other children 
 played that the tables were boats. They used toy 
 brooms for oars and rowed vigorously. Each child 
 had a rope which he played was a fishline. He tied 
 this line to his arm or to the boat and threw it out 
 into the water toward blocks scattered here and 
 there on tlie floor to represent fish. Whenever a 
 rope touched a fish it was considered caught. If a
 
 A COLLECTION OF DRAMATIC PLAYS 171 
 
 child wanted to land, the fish line became a rope and 
 was used to tie the boat to the dock. Some children 
 took the fish to their houses and cooked them for 
 dinner. 
 
 9. Boats and Diving. Lewis Playground. — Three 
 boys found a broad board near the playground and 
 used it for a boat. With brooms for oars they rowed 
 long and vigorously. After a while they took some of 
 the girls out rowing. The girls sang ''Lightly Row" 
 while the boys worked at the oars. Another day the 
 boys used the board as a skiff, carrying it on their 
 shoulders around rapids and across narrow passes. 
 After a while it became a diving board from which 
 the boys jumped into an imaginary lake and then 
 swam around. About a week afterward the same 
 board was placed on a stump and converted into a 
 merry-go-round . 
 
 10. Ship Play. Washington Park Playroom. — 
 The smooth inclined plane belonging to the children's 
 slide happened to be moved temporarily to the boys' 
 playroom. It had never been there before and the 
 boys were having great fun rolling balls up and down 
 its smooth surface. By and by six children got astride 
 the slide and said they were on a boat. Brooms were 
 pressed into service as oars and the rowing was ac- 
 companied by a spontaneous chorus of "Ah!" One 
 boy jumped out, seized a flag, and waved it at those 
 still rowing. Then all got out, but the self-imposed 
 leader, still waving the flag, made them get back into 
 the boat. Someone suggested that water was all 
 around them. One of the rowers immediately fell 
 out of the boat and began to swim ; the others followed
 
 \-2 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 his example. ( )ne hoy got into a large box which stood 
 near and pushed it along the floor; immediately the 
 rowers' oars became guns and all shot " Bang! Bang!" 
 at the boy in the skiff. Then the swimming began 
 
 again. 
 
 This play lasted about half an hour. It was arranged by a 
 group of Italian and colored boys about seven to nine years old 
 and was a very spontaneous play. It does not show a high level of 
 intelligence. The primitive "Ah! Ah!" of the rowers was a most 
 interesting example of spontaneous rhythm accompanying an 
 enjoyable activity. 
 
 ii. Dressmaking. Washington Park Play- 
 room.' - It took a long time to invent a sewing 
 machine, but when it stood complete it was certainly a 
 glorious achievement from the children's point of view. 
 A large chair made a good framework. Two blocks 
 for pedals were tipped upon a low front rung of the 
 chair in such a way that the little seamstress could 
 really make them go. A couple ot spools placed 
 upright a little distance apart on the chair seat and 
 connected by a piece of heavy wire stood for upright 
 and horizontal shafts. To the right, on one end of the 
 spool, hung a circle ot rope for a wheel, while a piece ot 
 heavy twine suspended below suggested a belt. As 
 fast as the seamstress sewed, the cutter and fitter 
 supplied her with newspaper and tissue-paper dresses 
 for both children and dolls. 
 
 By way of variety, the trade room changed one day 
 to a home scene where sat a sewing party. In the 
 kitchen near by the food was prepared and cooked on 
 tiny stoves. A table was soon put in readiness. 
 
 1 Described by Hazel Meanor.
 
 A COLLECTION OF DRAMATIC PLAYS 1 73 
 
 Spool candlesticks with lavender shades stood in the 
 center of the table, while beside each of their places a 
 miniature candle was placed as a favor. The guests 
 stopped sewing when luncheon was announced. The 
 hostess and guests seated themselves with due 
 ceremony. A waitress in cap and apron served in 
 proper style. But alas! when it was time for dessert, 
 the ice cream had not come. The hostess telephoned, 
 but to no avail. There was nothing to do but pass 
 the cookies, which was done by the hostess herself. 
 Then the serving began all over again. When the 
 guests went home, one was heard to remark, "Let's 
 have another sewing party tomorrow." 
 
 Real cookies were served; the ice cream was imaginary. 
 
 12. Train. Lawrence Park Playroom. — Two 
 
 kindergarten tables with long sides placed together 
 made an excellent car. Chairs arranged in rows of two 
 were placed on top the tables. A small stand in front 
 of the car became the coal car. The engineer sat in 
 front of the coal car and manipulated the piano stool 
 as a brake. The fireman shoveled coal into the 
 engine, using a broom for a shovel. In the meantime, 
 the station at the other end of the room was filling up 
 with people. The steps of the slide became a ticket 
 office, where an agent was kept busy preparing paper 
 tickets for the long line of passengers. Every 
 passenger was asked where he wished to go and was 
 requested to show money before a ticket was given 
 him. When all had secured tickets, the caller 
 announced the train. Most of the passengers de- 
 posited their baggage, consisting largely of dolls'
 
 174 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 raits, in the baggage car under the table. After the 
 passengers had seated themselves the conductor 
 walked down the aisle and collected the tickets. The 
 engineer sat in his cab and applied the brakes. The 
 brakeman stood in the rear of the car and signaled 
 with a flag and lantern to a switchman near by. 
 Whenever the train was supposed to change tracks a 
 chair was moved from one place to another to repre- 
 sent the switch. By and by the brakeman called, 
 •'Mexico." All the passengers got off and stood in 
 a line waiting for their baggage. The train crew 
 went to the station to draw their pay. 
 
 Suggestions for Promoting Manual Activities in 
 Connection with the Plays Recorded 
 
 Dramatic Plays Involve Constructive Activities. — 
 It is almost impossible to separate the construct ive 
 plays from the dramatic, so intimately does one type 
 of expression weave itself into the other. When a 
 spontaneous dramatic play springs up the tendency is 
 to use some static object in the environment as a 
 background; to convert a chair into a boat, a sofa into 
 an island, a hall closet into the retreat of bears. The 
 attention is likely first to be centered upon the dra- 
 matic. Interest, however, often turns to the details of 
 the objects or events represented. Then is the 
 teacher's opportunity to assisl in constructive proj- 
 ects; to supply suggestive materials and pictures lor 
 these projects, leaving to the children the initiative 
 as to ways and means and the uses of materials. 
 
 In the shoemaker play the children att< mpt to make 
 the shoes they wish to sell. The blacksmith play
 
 A COLLECTION OF DRAMATIC PLAYS 1 75 
 
 involved the construction of a shop equipment with 
 the necessary tools to carry on the work of the black- 
 smith. The telephone play involved some construc- 
 tive skill in planning and making a telephone; fishing 
 required the building of boats; dressmaking involved 
 making a sewing machine; and the other plays re- 
 corded could easily develop manual projects. It is 
 almost impossible to conceive a dramatic play which 
 does not involve some use of manual activities to 
 embellish the mental imagery. 
 
 1. Shoemaker. — In this play the boys, who were 
 about six or seven years of age, could have been 
 stimulated to build out of blocks or boxes a little 
 store, and to equip it with tools resembling those 
 used by the shoemaker. Shoes in the form of sandals 
 could have been cut from cardboard to fit the chil- 
 dren's feet, then sewed into permanent form. Not 
 only would the children acquire a fair degree of skill, 
 but they would enjoy making shoes for customers. 
 The making of shoes for real people involves a larger 
 social purpose than the mere cutting and pasting of 
 dolls' shoes. Shoe-polishing could have been of the 
 commercial type instead of being mere make-believe 
 play. The making of toy money could have been 
 incorporated into the play. This involves skill in 
 tracing and cutting and could have been done by a 
 group outside the store. The cardboard coins must re- 
 semble real quarters, fifty-cent pieces, and dollars 
 if the real value of money is to be taught through 
 spontaneous play. 
 
 2. The Shoemaker and the Elves began as a 
 spontaneous dramatic play and finally crystallized
 
 176 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 into an art form involving dialogue and the dance. 
 The constructive interest could have been utilized, 
 however, in helping the children to make simple 
 brownie suits and caps for the final performance of 
 their drama at a playground festival. 
 
 3. Blacksmith. -- The play recorded is typical of 
 the rough-and-ready dramatizations that spring up 
 spontaneously on a summer playground. The chil- 
 dren had visited a blacksmith's shop and had gained 
 some knowledge of his activities. What more natural 
 than to build the anvil, construct a crude bellows, and 
 make horseshoes and nails out of clay or paper? The 
 dramatic play described involves social cooperation of 
 an unusual degree, which should not be lost in an 
 effort to embellish the drama by means of manual 
 skill. The groups could take turns in impersonating 
 families and dramatizing the work which goes on in a 
 livery stable and a blacksmith's shop, in order that 
 all might relive the experiences of each unit in the 
 play. 
 
 4. Street Cleaners. — In the section of the city in 
 which this play occurred, it is especially necessary to 
 stress personal and group hygiene. The children of 
 the entire playground could have been organized into 
 a street-cleaners' brigade and could have cleaned the 
 playground or the street. Small shovels could have 
 been constructed. Instruction in the hygiene of the 
 street could have been given through pictures and 
 simple facts related to the dramatic play. 
 
 6, 7. The telephone plays afford unusual oppor- 
 tunities for the manipulation of blocks, wood, and 
 other plastic materials. Children of kindergarten
 
 A COLLECTION OF DRAMATIC PLAYS 1 77 
 
 age are easily satisfied with constructing a receiver 
 and mouthpiece through which they can carry on 
 conversations with their neighbors, order groceries 
 for their tea parties, and telephone a doctor when their 
 dolls are ill. Children from seven to ten years of age 
 can learn by experimentation the simple physical laws 
 involved in telephoning and can work out play 
 projects illustrating the application of these laws. 
 
 8, 9, io, 12. Dramatic plays in which ships and 
 trains are used afford splendid opportunity for con- 
 structive activities. A set of rough floor blocks is 
 useful in building large boats and trains possessing 
 strength and capacity to hold several children. Long 
 boards or tables can be used as a foundation, while 
 wheels, cars, sails ; and machinery can be added as 
 needed. 
 
 Sometimes children prefer to make small models 
 and to play out the dramatic events individually by 
 making the boat or train go through certain move- 
 ments and .by supplying verbally the descriptions of 
 these movements. 
 
 ii. Dressmaking. — Many play projects involv- 
 ing the use of manual activities arise in connection 
 with dressmaking plays. There is the opportunity to 
 create toy models of sewing machines, or to invent 
 crude looms and toy knitters on which real sweaters 
 may be knitted for dolls and attractive rugs woven 
 for the dolls' house. Children from seven to ten 
 years of age show an omnivorous appetite for building 
 crude machines. They often study sewing machines 
 and get information concerning how these may be 
 made. In this way children acquire considerable
 
 1 78 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 skill in manual activities and obtain valuable mechan- 
 ical information. 
 
 Dressmaking projects also afford opportunities to 
 teach children some knowledge of textiles. Color 
 training can be made an integral part of this work. 
 Skill in sewing by hand can be acquired as a means of 
 working out some play project, such as making a cape 
 for Little Red Riding Hood or a crude Quaker garb 
 for a Thanksgiving festival. 
 
 lliooJ, University of Pittsburgh 
 
 Playing Boat
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 The Dramatic Plays of One Child 1 
 
 The Importance of Studying the First Dramatic 
 Expression. — So few of the dramatic plays recorded 
 in the playground records have to do with the child 
 under five years of age, and so important are these 
 early efforts at dramatic representation, that it seems 
 advisable to present the records of one child's dra- 
 matic plays with notes on their psychological sig- 
 nificance. In the case of each play activity presented 
 for study it is possible to see why and how it arose 
 in experience; thus we have a background for the 
 interpretation of dramatic plays which it is impossible 
 to supply in connection with the playground records. 
 
 The First Dramatic Plays Have Their Roots in 
 Reflex Imitation. — The infant's first dramatic plays 
 have their roots in reflex imitation. The child laughs 
 with his mother; bursts out crying if she startles him 
 by loud cries; imitates her gestures and tones of 
 voice. Many times he does these things uncon- 
 sciously, but gradually he does them with intention. 
 When memory is developed so that he can retain in 
 his mind two possible choices of action, a mental state 
 arises which permits real freedom in play. It is 
 hard to predict with any degree of certainty what the 
 child's first dramatizations are likely to be, for he 
 shows an almost uncontrolled tendency to respond to 
 
 1 From a mother's notes on her child's spontaneous play up to the 
 fifth year. 
 
 179
 
 [80 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 his environment, both physically and socially, by 
 imitating the things which challenge his attention. 
 Thus R, broughl up in a civilized community, natur- 
 ally reproduces the mode of action common to his 
 home and neighborhood, while a child reared in a 
 savage tribe responds to the savage type of life. R's 
 repertoire of dramatic plays includes washing clothes, 
 scrubbing floors, dusting chairs, pouring tea, etc. A 
 child of the savage type of life builds fires, chases wild 
 animals, imitates the acts of killing wild beasts, and 
 engages in mimic warfare. 
 
 The Outstanding Characteristics of the Dramatic 
 Plays of Infancy are Activity and the Sensations Re- 
 sulting Therefrom. - The outstanding characteristics 
 of children's early dramatic plays arc enjoyment of 
 physical activity and the resulting sense impressions. 
 The subjective attitude is of more importance to the 
 child than the objective result. This fact is important 
 in interpreting the play of children under six year-- < f 
 age. The record of the boy who was blissfully content 
 to use a turkey roaster as Santa ("laus'> sleigh i^ one 
 case in point; it is an example of the four-year-old's 
 satisfaction in activity for its own sake and in the 
 sensations resulting therefrom. The turkey roaster 
 permitted active locomotion over the floor and also 
 served as a vehicle for toys; these wen- the sole 
 requirements of a sleigh to this boy. 
 
 Progression in Early Dramatic Plays. In the 
 early dramatic plays we see progression and increased 
 complexity in both movement and ideas. Progression 
 in movement comes through adjusting the mechanics 
 ot the large bodily movements to the purpose they are
 
 THE DRAMATIC PLAYS OF ONE CHILD l8l 
 
 supposed to serve in play. For example, hopping 
 like frogs involves adaptations from mere hopping. 
 New sensations and ideas become tied up with the 
 movements and produce modifications in hopping. 
 Conversely, ideas grow in complexity as they find 
 expression in movement. The action reacts on the 
 idea back of it, modifies it, and brings suggestions of 
 new ideas connected with movement. 
 
 Looking through the following records of dramatic 
 plays, we observe that the movements involved are 
 reaching, pulling, hauling, pushing, running, walking, 
 hopping, and jumping. During the second and third 
 years the coordinations connected with these move- 
 ments are rapidly improving, for the fundamental 
 movements become reflex during the first three years 
 of childhood. Studies of the neuro-muscular system 
 indicate that the first three years are the ones in 
 which the movements connected with the spinal cord 
 and the lower brain centers come into arlmost complete 
 activity. 
 
 After this development is completed, we see more 
 freedom in the use of gross bodily movements. The 
 child's mind is then free to develop skill in using the 
 movements for increasingly difficult acts. 
 
 Progression in Ideas. — The infant's first dramatic 
 movements are usually gestures. Thus in the early 
 part of the second year we see R playing that he 
 reads, eats, warms diapers; in fact, performs the acts 
 most closely associated with his physical welfare or the 
 habits of those closest to him. Later he washes, irons, 
 scrubs, makes beds, dresses up like adults, and in fact 
 relives all the events connected with the household.
 
 isj SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 As soon as he gains wider access to the sights and 
 sounds of the street, park, or country, we sec him 
 taking imaginary journeys on trains, boats, and 
 automobiles. I le delights to deliver ice and groceries, 
 
 dine at restaurants, play the role ot woodpecker, cat, 
 dog, bear, frog, and alligator. Nor does he tire of 
 representing household activities; he continues to 
 wash, scrub, and cook. Pictures, stories, and excur- 
 sions initiate him into the world of trade; he pounds 
 like a blacksmith; works in a factory, builds airplanes, 
 and runs a moving-picture show. He progresses not 
 only in the type of dramatic acts he performs, but in 
 the number of events he incorporates in one play. 
 Thus at fourteen months he merely gestures to repre- 
 sent eating or reading; at three years ot age he relates 
 eating to cooking and to feeding dolls, and relates 
 reading to other acts of his father or mother. His 
 plays show relations between ideas, in fact take on 
 the nature of a plot. 
 
 By the time he is five years of age, his dramatic 
 representations reveal considerable complexity of 
 idea and plot, as a perusal of the records will show. 
 For example, R built a bridge under which he ran an 
 engine; this in representation of a railroad scene he had 
 recently observed. In an instant his play changed. 
 Some chance association revived memory images of 
 an experience he had heard about four months before. 
 He brought out his motor truck. Placing a female 
 doll on the seat, he said, "Here is Mrs. H taking a 
 ride. Where is the cat?" A block became the cat; 
 it jumped on Mrs. H's lap, to be removed and thrown 
 down by her son. Then a dog chased tin- cat up a
 
 THE DRAMATIC PLAYS OF ONE CHILD 1 83 
 
 tree. Here we see a series of dramatic events showing 
 sequence. There was a beginning, a middle, and an 
 end to the plot, and the arrangement of events in the 
 plot varied only slightly from the relation of the events 
 in the incident he had once heard. 
 
 The Role of Adult Suggestion in Connection With 
 Early Dramatic Plays. - - The mother or teacher plays 
 an important role in training her child's imagination 
 through dramatic play. There is a growing recogni- 
 tion among parents of the power of suggestion. How- 
 ever, where parents interfere and interrupt there is 
 always the danger of breaking abruptly into the 
 child's mental life and of hindering growth by im- 
 planting adult ideas. When the child begins to 
 weave familiar incidents into a dramatic plot, it is 
 best to allow him to organize his own ideas spon- 
 taneously, since he alone knows the relationships 
 which exist among the facts he is seeking to express. 
 It is best always to let these ideas take natural form, 
 and then to make suggestions through questioning, 
 stories, pictures, and statements of related facts which 
 help to clarify and to organize his ideas. Even then, 
 the child must do his own selecting and rearranging of 
 facts in accordance with the natural growth which 
 results from the suggestions. It is difficult for an 
 adult to play the role of happy playfellow and teacher 
 in one. To acquire the ability properly to supervise a 
 little child's play requires real sympathy and a 
 training commensurate with the seriousness and 
 importance of the task.
 
 184 SPONTANEOUS A>*D SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 Records 
 
 Imitative -Dramatic Acts of the First Year 
 
 10 Mouths. People sometimes entertain R by 
 trotting their ringers across the tray of his high chair. 
 R tried to do the same. He succeeded only in opening 
 and shutting his fingers on the tray. A month later 
 he scraped his tiny fingers across the tray, producing 
 some semblance of the movement and noise he was 
 trying to copy. 
 
 u Months. -- R's mother pretended to bite R's 
 finger when he placed it on her lips. R thought this 
 great fun and laughingly continued the game. 
 
 R sneezed. His mother did the same, laughing. 
 R laughed almost hysterically every time she imitated 
 his act. 
 
 R sat behind a curtain and occasionally drew the 
 curtain aside, laughing as his mother said, "Peek-a- 
 boo." 
 
 In these simple imitative acts which occurred at the 
 close of the first year we see the beginnings of dramatic 
 play. We notice the first crude efforts consciously to 
 reproduce the acts of another. A sense of the tun of 
 pretence is found in the tinier-biting play. A realiza- 
 tion of the comic is found in the reflex merriment 
 resulting from the sneezing episode. 
 
 I uiitative-Dramatic Plays of the Second Year 
 
 i / ! _. Mouths. R was standing in his pen. His 
 father jumped up and down outside, laughing merrily. 
 R attempted to jump up and down. As he could not 
 walk, he succeeded only in Hexing his knees and
 
 THE DRAMATIC PLAYS OF ONE CHILD 1 85 
 
 bobbing up and down. He showed unmistakable 
 signs of pleasure from the kinesthetic effects of the 
 imitative act. 
 
 One day R's mother playfully donned a silver bread 
 dish as a hat. Later R laughingly slipped his doll's 
 hat to his head. At the time, this appeared to be an 
 act of mere manipulative activity; however, he 
 followed it up in a few days by placing other hat-like 
 objects on his head — a box and an embroidery hoop. 
 
 That social imitation occurs at an early age is seen 
 in the following playful acts. R's mother pressed her 
 first ringer on a rubber doll to make it squeak; R tried 
 to produce the same squeaking noise by pressing his 
 first finger on the doll. She rang a bell; he did the 
 same. She waved a buttonhook in a circle; R waved 
 it horizontally. She rattled a buttonhook about in a 
 glass jar; R did the same. She tapped a buttonhook 
 on her chair; R waved it horizontally. 
 
 75 Months. — R always watched with interest 
 when people lighted a fire in the gas grate with a wax 
 taper. One day he found a broom straw; picking it 
 up he attempted to light a fire in the grate. When 
 supplied with a wax taper, he touched it to the grate 
 several times and seemed disappointed that no flames 
 sprang out. 
 
 R warmed a diaper by holding it before the gas 
 grate. It was a playful but serious attempt to 
 reproduce an act connected with his own welfare. 
 
 R read a newspaper. 
 
 R ate from an empty dish and spoon. 
 
 R dusted the floor with a diaper and scrubbed 
 it with a brush.
 
 1 86 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 iy Months. When his mother lay down in the 
 library, R walked along the edge of the couch, pulled 
 her nose, played "peek," and laughed loudly at the 
 slightest exchange of sociability. 
 
 iq Months. -Hiding play. "Where is Chine?" 
 said his mother. R looked under furniture, saying, 
 "Gone!" 
 
 21 Months. — Ironing. Using a warm iron R 
 pressed out pads, sheets, and diapers. This activity 
 lasted fully a half hour. 
 
 Hide-and-seek. R's mother hid in a corner. He 
 ran to find her, laughing and falling into her arms 
 when he discovered her. 
 
 23 Months. -Playing with his shadow. R ran 
 about, looking at his shadow as it preceded or followed 
 him. 
 
 24 Months.-- Tea party. R had a new tea set. 
 He filled each cup with water and drank, or emptied 
 the water from one cup to another. 
 
 Imitative-Dramatic /'lays of the Third Year 
 
 Sprinkled sail on a cloth and proceeded to powder 
 his tact'. 
 
 Swept the floor with a broom 
 
 Squeezed an orange and strained the juice through a 
 tea strainer. 
 
 Held toast to his doll's mouth. 
 
 Applied a can opener with point down. 
 
 Attempted to open a (-rate with the fork end of a 
 hammer. 
 
 Tried to mash vegetables through a sieve. 
 
 Imitated a postman by carrying a bag and umbrella.
 
 THE DRAMATIC PLAYS OF ONE CHILD 1 87 
 
 Played he cut bread by sawing a can with a stick. 
 
 Poured water out of a coffee pot into cups. 
 
 Cleaned a stove with newspapers. 
 
 Attempted to stir food which was cooking on the 
 range. 
 
 Made his own bed fairly well, adjusting pad, sheets, 
 and pillows; sometimes he pinned his doll in the bed. 
 
 Shoveled snow, imitating both the digging and the 
 throwing movements. 
 
 Brushed his hair, imitating the downward sweeping 
 motion. 
 
 Held a curling iron to his head. 
 
 In playing with a silver neck chain, he adjusted it 
 across the front of his dress in imitation of his father's 
 watch chain. 
 
 Tried to expectorate, making a queer little noise in 
 his throat. 
 
 23 Months. — R was taken to visit a friend in a 
 hospital. He had been there but a short time when 
 he began to cry, "Bye-bye" and "Gar-Gar!" Grasp- 
 ing a small valise he made several trips to the door, 
 saying, "Bye-Bye!" each time he started on a trip. 
 Later he put a newspaper on his head for a cap and 
 with an increased sense of the fitness of things he 
 went through the formalities of leave taking with 
 added enjoyment. 
 
 R indicated by means of gestures that he wished his 
 cuffs turned up in imitation of those of a guest. Thus 
 are trivial customs and acts acquired through social 
 imitation. 
 
 Doll Play. R attempted to pin a diaper on a small 
 rubber doll. When his mother supplied a doll bed and
 
 1 88 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 some extra materials for bedding, R derived consider- 
 able pleasure from putting the doll in this bed and 
 covering it carefully with a sheet. 
 
 Mock sympathy. R threw a rubber doll to the floor 
 several times, saying "Oh! dear!" This effort to 
 reproduce a situation in which he himself had ex- 
 perienced sympathy is indicative of a growth in 
 imaginative ability. 
 
 Bathing his doll. R likes to bathe his rubber doll or 
 celluloid duck while he himself is being bathed. He 
 goes through the acts necessary for cleanliness. 
 
 Imitating acts of companionship, R takes his doll 
 to bed with him and asks for his Teddy bear. 
 
 Simulating sleep. R plays he is going to sleep, 
 covers himself with a blanket, and shuts his eyes. 
 Here is another example of pleasure in pretending an 
 experience which is distasteful in actual life. 
 
 ji Months. - Ride a cock horse. Sitting on the 
 foot piece of the sewing machine R rocked back and 
 forth calling, "Get up 'orses!" 
 
 Playing Pilgrim. R watched a pageant rehearsal. 
 In a church scene R knealt down to pray and stood to 
 sing with the Pilgrims. 
 
 Playing stake driver. R watched some men drive a 
 stake. He did the same, imitating their acts of digging 
 and planting 
 
 Engine. R enjoyed pushing two or three camp 
 chairs across the floor of the camp dining room, saying 
 "Choo-choo!" 
 
 32 Months. — Playing boat. R sat in a tent on a 
 low chair, pulling on a rope attached to the tent. 
 "Here comes a boat!'' he called out.
 
 THE DRAMATIC PLAYS OF ONE CHILD 1 89 
 
 Playing soldiers. R placed a closed umbrella over 
 his shoulder for a gun and marched like a soldier. 
 "Hip-one-two-three!" he called out. 
 
 Mock discipline. During mealtime R is sometimes 
 admonished for talking. One morning he admonished 
 his mother, who was singing softly. "Sh!" he said, 
 his finger on his lips. She stopped singing, whereupon 
 he said, "Sing again," then reiterated, "Sh! Sh!" 
 
 Imitative-Dramatic Plays of the Fourth Year 
 
 Frog and Alligator. — R hopped vigorously on all 
 
 fours to represent a frog; then he became an alligator, 
 
 slowing down his movements considerably. By and 
 
 by he said, "Here come a frog and an alligator!" 
 
 He himself impersonated both by hopping like a frog 
 
 and pushing a block of wood before him to represent 
 
 the slower movements of an alligator. 
 
 A little child invariably imitates the striking characteristics in 
 the things about him. It is the characteristic movements or 
 gestures of frogs, alligators, and most other animals that are first 
 imitated in play. 
 
 Washing Clothes. — On the day the laundress 
 
 appeared, R invariably helped himself to soap, water, 
 
 and a small bathtub, and proceeded to rub out bibs. 
 
 He would play thus for fully fifteen minutes, wringing 
 
 the bibs dry, hanging them up, and washing them 
 
 again. 
 
 The coming of the laundress merely suggested an enjoyable 
 manipulative activity which consisted of vigorous movements in 
 imitation of an act connected with the home. 
 
 Automobile. — Whenever an automobile stopped 
 at the house R observed it intently. His first dramat- 
 ic representation occurred shortly after his third
 
 190 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 birthday. He sat perched in a fireside chair, his dolls 
 arranged in a stiff row back of him. Between his 
 knees rested a coffee can used as a steering wheel. 
 Soon he was seen to jump out to crank up the machine; 
 his little body moved rhythmically up and down as he 
 performed this imaginary work. "Ride in my auto- 
 mobile with me, Mother," he said, in a matter-of-fact 
 tone which took her acceptance for granted. As she 
 climbed into the seat at his side, he jumped out again 
 to crank up, then seated himself beside her and turned 
 the can around several times to produce the effect of a 
 steering wheel. 
 
 This play is typical of a three-year-old child's conception of 
 locomotion in an automobile. The striking features were the 
 steering wheel and the cranking up preliminary to starting. His 
 native tendency toward sociability demanded that he find someone 
 to share the ride with him. 
 
 Santa Claus Plays. — i. The Christmas spirit had 
 lived on into February in this boy's vivid memory of 
 Santa Claus. One day he fastened a waste-paper 
 basket on his back for a pack and implored his mother 
 to lie down and sleep. She complied with his request. 
 He watched closely lest she open her eyes while he 
 trudged about with his basket of toys, and finally 
 deposited his pack at her feet. She jumped up in 
 mimic glee and began to examine the toys. "Here is 
 a music box," he said, handing her a paper, feeling 
 not in the least its inadequacy as a music-box. She 
 cranked up the music box, at the same time singing a 
 tune, and R stood by entranced. 
 
 The characteristic feature connected with this three-year-old's 
 entation of Santa Claus was his trudging about with a pack of
 
 THE DRAMATIC PLAYS OF ONE CHILD 19I 
 
 toys after the children were "snug in their beds." The fact that a 
 paper was picked up to represent a music box is characteristic of a 
 three-year-old's ready acceptance of almost any object to represent 
 the thing he has in mind. 
 
 2. One day when R was restless, his mother gave 
 him the top of a large roaster to play with. It became 
 a boat for a while, then a sleigh. Soon she noticed 
 that he had filled his sleigh with toys and was pushing 
 it toward her. "Lie down!" he demanded. Quite 
 by chance R sat down on the sleigh and conceived 
 the idea of driving his load of toys "o'er the snow." 
 "I want to take my sleigh out-doors!" he called out. 
 His mother replied, "But I can't have my turkey 
 roaster taken out-doors!" "It is not a turkey 
 roaster," he explained, "it's a sleigh!" A little later 
 he returned to the sleigh and slid over the floor toward 
 her. Sing, "Clap, clap your hands!" he demanded, 
 and from that time on he usually asked for this song 
 to describe his Santa Claus activities. 
 
 3. As a substitute for the roaster, R's mother sug- 
 gested that he use his low coaster wagon. R seated 
 himself in the front of the wagon with the waste-paper 
 basket full of toys on the back of the sleigh, as he had 
 seen Santa do in " 'Twas the Night Before Christmas." 
 A stocking cap perched on the top of his head gave 
 more feeling for the part, and some reins with sleigh 
 bells attached rang merrily in unison with his move- 
 ments over the floor. Slapping the reins he urged his 
 imaginary reindeer on. After joy in the purely 
 locomotive features of this play had subsided, he 
 asked for the song and the go-to-sleep features again.
 
 192 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 R's protest that the turkey roaster was a sleigh is an example 
 of the vividness of his imagery. His mind clothed the roaster with 
 sleigh-like characteristics such as he had observed in the Santa 
 Claus books. The incorporation of a Santa Claus song into the 
 play was natural enough. Less action occurred when the song was 
 used. Evidently the words describing 
 
 Now swift o're the snow the tiny reindeer 
 Are trotting and bringing old Santa Claus here 
 
 were a satisfactory substitute for the action, for he would often sit 
 perfectly still while his mother sang. His interest shifted from 
 joy in propelling himself about on the sleigh to pleasure in dramatiz- 
 ing Santa's visit inside the house. 
 
 4. R asked his mother to play Santa Claus with 
 him. "How?" she inquired. "Be Santa Claus," he 
 replied, giving her a street hat. Then he adjusted 
 his own stocking cap, strapped a pack over his back, 
 and began to strut about. His mother sat on a low 
 stool. "I want it!" he said, trying to push her off 
 the stool. "This is my sleigh!" she replied. He then 
 seated himself on his low coaster wagon. Presently 
 the mother harnessed a chair to her sleigh, saying to 
 R, "See my reindeer!" " I want some!" said R, doing 
 likewise. "On Dasher! On Prancer!" she cried, 
 slapping the reins. Presently she loaded her pack. R 
 did the same. Once in a while she got out of the 
 sleigh to leave some toys at the houses. Always R 
 got out and loaded these toys back on to his own 
 sleigh. 
 
 This is an example of adult leadership in play. True, it was 
 about the series of dramatic events the child would soon stumble 
 upon, but the initiative came from the mother, not from the child; 
 for when she stopped, he started to play something else.
 
 THE DRAMATIC PLAYS OF ONE CHILD 1 93 
 
 5. Interest in playing Santa Claus continued high. 
 Often when strangers inquired R's name, he said, 
 "I'm Santa Claus!" He was indeed Santa Claus a 
 good part of the day. Each room in the house had 
 certain chimneys for him to climb, certain sleighs or 
 packs to use. He not only felt the part of Santa Claus 
 continually, but he would not permit the objects he 
 used in this play to be interfered with. 
 
 One day someone started to take a chair which he 
 had customarily used for a reindeer. R cried out, 
 "Oh, no, don't! It's my tiny reindeer." In reality, 
 he was not using the chair at all, but it was still a 
 reindeer to him. 
 
 6. A new picture of Santa Claus driving his rein- 
 deer up to the moon made a vivid appeal to R. After 
 this whenever he played Santa Claus he was fre- 
 quently heard to say, "I'm way up in the sky!" 
 Another new feature was added when he was told a 
 story about Santa bringing little Philip a velocipede 
 made by the brownies. His mother had put into her 
 story Santa's words, "Everybody asleep ! " as he neared 
 Philip's house. These new features considerably 
 altered his Santa Claus play. He sat on a pillow 
 loaded with toys, pushing a carpet-sweeper back and 
 forth to represent the movement of reindeer. He was 
 heard to say, " I have to get a velocipede!" Going to 
 a sofa near by, he began to imitate a carpenter at 
 work. "I'm making a wheel ! " he exclaimed. " Now 
 the velocipede is done," he added, at the same time 
 placing a toy motor truck in his sleigh. "Now, 
 dash away, dash away, dash away!" he cried, hitting 
 the carpet-sweeper with a stick; "I'm up in the sky
 
 [94 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 now, and I'm never coming down." Then in a 
 moment he said to his mother, "You be Philip 
 asleep!" "Everybody asleep!" he called out; then 
 he got back into his sleigh and enacted the drama all 
 over again. 
 
 Here the stuff with which imagination works is seen very clearly. 
 The new plot came from experience and from events pictured in 
 books. The making of toys had been suggested by the mention of 
 the brownies as Santa's helpers. 
 
 Valentines. A little girl rang the bell and gave R 
 a valentine. As soon as R had examined the card, he 
 said, "I want to be Betsy and bring valentines." 
 Evidently the envelope suggested the postman's 
 bag, for he became a postman. Collecting some 
 envelopes, he brought his mother several valentines 
 on different trips. 
 
 Here we see the enjoyment of manipulating objects and of enact- 
 ing the role of the postman, and pleasure in physical activity. 
 
 Grocery. — R's mother sat by the fire writing. 
 Beside her was a delivery man. Taking blocks from 
 his wagon, he deposited them one by one on the arm 
 of her chair, naming each article. "Here's soap, 
 sugar, potatoes, prunes," he would say. Without 
 demanding any cooperation in the play, he removed 
 the- blocks from the arm of the chair to his delivery 
 wagon and made another trip from the store to his 
 mother. 
 
 Pleasure in physical activity, in imitation, and in manipulation 
 explains the enjoyment in this play. 
 
 Writing. - R asked for ink. lie was given a bottle 
 of water. He dipped his pencil in the water and
 
 THE DRAMATIC PLAYS OF ONE CHILD 1 95 
 
 wrote several lines. When his mother started to 
 write a letter to a friend he said, "Oh, don't, I wrote 
 her!" 
 
 Imitating an adult activity is the chief pleasure here. 
 
 Iceman. — R was playing iceman. In order to 
 get the effect of a high, heavy wagon he had pulled 
 out the top drawer of a chest. This was the ice 
 wagon. There he sat in this perilous position in an 
 open drawer, with a whip in his hands urging on a 
 horse — a kitchen stool harnessed to the drawer. 
 
 Miner. — R had seen pictures of miners working 
 underground. He played miner out-of-doors by pick- 
 ing with a stick in the snow. Indoors he laid blocks 
 on the floor to represent coal. With the small end of 
 his gun he picked and hewed the blocks, shoveling 
 them into a coal wagon. One day he donned a cap 
 and said, " I need a lamp on my cap." 
 
 "Pockets In My Trousers." — In one of R's books 
 was a picture of a small boy with hands in his pockets 
 and a hat on the back of his head. A little verse 
 described the boy's first trousers. One day R stood 
 with feet astride and gloves dangling from his pockets, 
 a hat perched on the back of his head. "I've got 
 pockets in my trousers!" he exclaimed. He con- 
 tinued to play thus for about ten minutes. 
 
 This is a good example of an imitative-dramatic play of a three- 
 year-old. Here the posture of the small boy had so impressed R 
 that he reproduced it dramatically. 
 
 Sailing. — "I want a boat," said R, and forthwith 
 produced a wheelbarrow to serve as a boat. "Now I 
 need oars," and he placed a board on each side of the
 
 196 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 boat. Sitting in the boat accompanied by his sailor 
 doll and toy animals, he dipped the oars in the water, 
 with some pretence of regularity. To add zest to the 
 play his mother dropped a doll in the water, calling, 
 "Help, help!" R merely looked at the doll until his 
 mother added, "Aren't you going to help the man 
 out?" Then R jumped out of the boat and rescued 
 the man. "I'm Captain - — ," he said, giving her 
 
 the doll. Captain had taken them for many 
 
 sails in the summer and had lived on in R's memory. 
 "Are you in his sailboat or in a rowboat?" asked his 
 mother. "The sailboat," replied R. "I see no sail," 
 she commented. Since R seemed unable to produce 
 a sail, she made one out of a newspaper and a toy 
 broom. R now felt the need of a steering wheel. 
 In the summer, the working of this wheel had greatly 
 interested him. He found a broken pulley and used it 
 for steering. "I turn the wheel to make my boat go 
 fast," he commented. " I'll close the doors so I can't 
 fall out," he said, evidently thinking this time of an 
 automobile. "I turn the sail this way. I go this 
 way," said R, moving the sail to one side. 
 
 'Die confusion of imagery noticed in this play is characteristic 
 of a three-year-old. He can hold no set of images in his mind 
 long time, and rides in a boat one minute and in an automobile the 
 next. In looking at a boat or an automobile he observes only strik- 
 ing things such as sails or wheels, and has little knowledge of their 
 real uses. 
 
 The boat play continued for some time. R so 
 completely felt the part of the captain that while 
 interest in this play lasted he requested his mother to 
 say "Captain " whenever she called him.
 
 THE DRAMATIC PLAYS OF ONE CHILD 1 97 
 
 Woodpecker. — R noticed a picture of a woodpecker 
 boring a hole in a tree. One day he played he was a 
 woodpecker and pecked at a stool. His mother asked, 
 "What does a woodpecker use for pecking?" R 
 pointed to his mouth, saying, "His bill." Evidently 
 he felt the inadequacy of his mouth as a bill, for he 
 soon appeared with a clothespin in his mouth and 
 proceeded to peck the chair with the clothespin. As 
 very often happened with R in his dramatizations, his 
 interest was sustained over night. When he awaken- 
 ed the next morning, he said, "I'm a woodpecker!" 
 Climbing out of bed he ran for the clothespin and 
 began to peck at the chair and stools. "What does 
 the woodpecker do when he pecks?" he asked. His 
 mother replied, "Dig food from the tree." R 
 asked, "Does he talk?" She answered, "Soon the 
 birds will return and you'll hear them chattering and 
 singing." In a moment his interest flitted away 
 from the thing he was playing; "I'm not a wood- 
 pecker now; I'm a miner," he commented. 
 
 Restaurant. — In one of R's books there was a 
 picture of a little girl getting into an elevator. The 
 accompanying story related the little girl's experiences 
 in a store, where, accompanied by her father, she was 
 permitted to purchase a dress and to lunch in the store 
 restaurant. After hearing the story, R said, "Where 
 is a tray?" He carried a tray to his toy closet and 
 arranged carefully upon it a varied assortment of 
 dishes. Returning with the tray he fed his Teddy 
 bear. Then, turning to his mother, he said, " Do you 
 want lamb chop and baked potato?" It afforded 
 him considerable pleasure to see her eat. Soon he
 
 IQ8 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 said, "I'll get you some ice cream and cake." After 
 serving her with dessert, he said. "Now eat your ice 
 cream and jelly cake." 
 
 Having disposed of the meal in the restaurant, R 
 turned a stool upside down to represent an elevator; 
 sitting on a low stool beside it, he said, " Down, down, 
 down," or "Up, up, up." To his mother he said, 
 "You ride!" She managed to get within the narrow 
 compass of the elevator and was given his Teddy bear 
 to hold. Later she showed him how to make an 
 elevator door which would slide open and shut. 
 
 It is an interesting fact that the little girl dining with her father 
 was permitted to eat only the articles of diet prescribed for R's own 
 noonday meal. The admonition to his mother, "Now eat your ice 
 cream and jelly cake!" was given in the same solicitous tone with 
 which she urged him to eat his food. 
 
 The Little King. — Someone must have told R 
 about a little king, for all during breakfast he made 
 remarks like these: "Does a little king eat this way?" 
 "Does he like oatmeal?" Later he played he was a 
 little king and donned a hat for a crown. 
 
 His idea of kingship did not extend beyond the 
 crown. 
 
 This play grew out of the natural tendency to dramatize 
 anything that interests for the moment. The story did not become 
 a permanent part of R's story repertoire. 
 
 Popping Corn. With much interest R watched 
 his mother pop corn in a skillet. Then he said, "I'm 
 going to get me a popper." He returned with a pan 
 containing a few blocks to represent pop corn. Cover- 
 ing the pan he shook it back and forth on the floor in 
 imitation of corn-popping.
 
 THE DRAMATIC PLAYS OF ONE CHILD 1 99 
 
 Susie and Danny. — One day R came to his mother, 
 saying, "I'm a little girl." Entering into his playful 
 mood, she replied, "Yes, little Susie." From that time 
 on he was Susie. At night his mother chanced to 
 open a magazine on the page of which was a picture 
 of a boy and girl under an umbrella. She made up a 
 little story about Susie and Danny going to school in 
 the rain. R was fascinated with the picture and 
 asked her to repeat the story again and again. When 
 he was undressed for bed he told his mother that he 
 was Susie going to bed and asked her to put Danny to 
 bed. In the morning when she entered his room, he 
 said, "Call Susie," then added, "Take Danny out of 
 bed!" All day it was "Susie this" and "Susie that." 
 If his mother called him by his own name, he cor- 
 rected her. 
 
 This imaginative play lasted several days. Finally R's mother 
 began to feel that her recognition of the Susie personality as her 
 child was interfering with her personal relations with R. So she 
 said, "I have no Susie, you are R. You may have a Susie of your 
 own." And R did have a Susie as an imaginary companion for 
 several days. 
 
 Train. — 1. R's first train consisted of a washboard, a 
 rocking chair, a dump cart, and a procession of other 
 objects. He invited his mother to ride in his train 
 and then volunteered to be a big black porter. The 
 big black porter said to the mother, "It is time for 
 you to go to bed." She suggested that the big black 
 porter make up the beds. Of his own initiative he 
 •covered her up with a bib, saying, "Here is a blanket." 
 Later he fetched a throw from the sofa. By and by 
 she sat up in bed to see the sights from the window.
 
 200 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 1 [e came to her and said, " I'll shut the window!" He 
 hovered constantly near her to see if she was all right. 
 
 R remembered several nights spent on a sleeping car and took 
 real pleasure in impersonating the porter, about whom clustered 
 many pleasant memories connected with tram. 
 
 2. This train was constructed by connecting a 
 child's rocker, representing an engine, to a low 
 coaster wagon, representing a car. A can was placed 
 on the seat of the rocker to serve as a smokestack and 
 a box became the engine bell. R made no effort to 
 propel the engine. He merely sat within the train 
 and enacted a drama in his own mind. He said, 
 "Engine go!" When his mother approached, he 
 cried out, "Big black porter will help you in!" Yet 
 he made no effort to assist her. So she made no 
 attempt to get in the train. "Toot, toot!" she said. 
 "Make the cars go!" replied R. 
 
 R's favorite train plays consisted of propelling something over 
 the ground, and this play is reported in contrast to the usual type of 
 play a child of pre-kindergarten age delights in. There arc times 
 with almost any child when the drama is enacted mentally instead 
 of physically. 
 
 Fishing. — R was given a tub of water in which to 
 play. He found a long twig which served as a 
 fishing pole. He then placed a spoon, a fork, and a 
 nailbrush in the water t<» represent fish and pulled 
 them out on the bent twig, lie kepi saying, "I 
 caught a swnlish! I caught a cattish!" 
 
 Cat and Dog. — R started to dramatize a story of a 
 mother i :a1 running away from a dog who constantly 
 bothered her little kittens. "I'm the little kitten!" 
 said R, cuddling up to his mother; "tell me to come."
 
 THE DRAMATIC PLAYS OF ONE CHILD 201 
 
 She became the mother cat warning her kitten to creep 
 closer. "But who will be the dog?" asked the 
 mother. "Let me be the dog," said R, whereupon his 
 mother fetched a toy bear to represent the kitten. R 
 got down and crawled about simulating a dog barking 
 at the kitten. The mother cat hissed and scratched 
 at the dog; then, taking her kitten, ran away on all 
 fours. This play was repeated several times. 
 
 Here is a characteristic impersonation of animals. R preferred 
 being the dog because he had a more interesting part to play. He 
 felt a sense of power in being able to frighten the cat. 
 
 Factory. — R said, "Let's build a factory." He 
 made a poor building and had to be assisted to con- 
 struct a better one. "Let's have the men go to 
 work," said R; yet he suggested no way in which to 
 do so. "You could use your paper dolls for men," 
 his mother suggested. R looked pleased at the sug- 
 gestion. Placing the dolls in an automobile he 
 wheeled them to the factory. "Now the whistle will 
 blow for them to go home!" he said. By and by he 
 added a wheel to the factory. "See the wheel go in 
 the factory!" he said as he turned it round and 
 round. 
 
 This play is a four-year-old's dramatic description of a factory. 
 Not far from R's home is a furniture factory at which men begin 
 and cease work at the blast of a whistle. R had seen pictures of 
 machinery and somehow connected wheels with factories. The 
 use of paper dolls as men did not suggest itself to R, because he 
 had not yet reached the stage where he required exact representa- 
 tion of facts. He was satisfied to convert blocks of wood into 
 firemen. His mother's suggestion was not of much value, therefore. 
 
 Shadows. — R had frequently heard Stevenson's 
 poem about shadows. He had often noticed his own
 
 202 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 shadow. To-day he held a toy over his head to give 
 an elongated effect and played it was a shadow chasing 
 him about. 
 
 Picture Show. After R had been taken to a 
 moving-picture theater he built one with his blocks. 
 Ushers were stationed at the aisles. "They have 
 flashlights," said R. Musicians sat in front of a 
 cardboard box which served as a screen. A colored 
 picture book was placed against this box. and the 
 leaves turned occasionally to represent changes in 
 pictures. Cubes and pillars were used for the con- 
 struction of everything in the theater; and cubes were 
 seats, while the pillars served as ushers, violins, and 
 flashlights. The dramatic play was purely imaginative. 
 R merely conversed about the happenings in the 
 theater. "It's dark now." "Here are the flash- 
 lights." "More musicians are coming in." "Here 
 are the pictures." "More people are coming in and 
 I'm showing them where to sit." "I have a flash- 
 light; see it!" "Hen' is a dog trying to get in." 
 'The door is shut." 'The picture is 'most over." 
 "No! I was just fooling." "I got a flashlight." 
 
 In the beginning of this play the interest centered in laying out a 
 moving-picture house. After that, it changed to interest in the 
 events: the going and coming of people, the showing of pictures, the 
 flashing of lights, and the music. The play, then, represents a 
 union of the dramatic and the constructive interests. 
 
 Airplanes. - As a result of several hours' effort R 
 evolved some airplanes which showed the character- 
 istic features. Then his interest shifted to dramatic 
 events. "Watch the airplane fall down and burn 
 up!" "Set! the man fell out!" He deliberately
 
 THE DRAMATIC PLAYS OF ONE CHILD 203 
 
 destroyed the airplane as he brought it to the ground, 
 pulling it apart to represent its broken condition. 
 "Now it's on fire!" A hastily improvised fire engine 
 came to the rescue. It was in reality nothing but a 
 cardboard box, yet it possessed the requirements of a 
 complete fire brigade. In each oval depression of 
 an egg container sat a tiny wooden block to represent a 
 fireman. The engine was a cylindrical thing, a mere 
 tin can, yet it assumed dignity and importance as an 
 instrument useful for the boy's purposes. When the 
 position of the burning airplane was reached, the fire- 
 men jumped out to extinguish the fire. There were 
 so many of them that they surrounded the airplane. 
 "Do you know why there are so many firemen?" 
 asked R; "I need them to work." In a flash the trend 
 of thought changed. "Watch the firecracker shoot!" 
 he said, vibrating a rubber band which had formerly 
 held the various parts of the airplane together. As 
 quickly his thought returned to the fire. "See! the 
 firemen have a net." 
 
 This dramatic play was the culmination of interest in building 
 airplanes. The easy satisfaction afforded by using oblong blocks 
 to represent firemen is characteristic of the use of objects at three 
 and four years of age. The essential thing in the play is the flow of 
 imagery connected with airplanes and fire engines. 
 
 Blacksmith. — R had never visited a blacksmith's 
 shop, but he had seen pictures of the blacksmith at 
 work, and was familiar with songs and stories de- 
 scribing the work of the blacksmith. He built a 
 shop out of wooden blocks with an anvil in the center 
 of the shop. A man stood beside the anvil. "See 
 his. big arm!" said R, pointing to a streak in the
 
 204 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 wooden block which he had chosen to represent the 
 blacksmith. His mother pretended not to see the 
 blacksmith's arm. " I'll cut an arm," R said, and slit 
 off a piece of paper, which he added for an arm. 
 "The blacksmith needs a hammer," he said. 
 
 This fragmentary knowledge of a blacksmith is rather character- 
 istic of the content of a four-year-old's mind on a subject of which he 
 has only superficial knowledge. 
 
 Warships. — i. R had become interested in pic- 
 tures of warships, and listened eagerly while he was 
 told a story of one which was fired upon by a sub- 
 marine. He examined the pictures of the small life- 
 boats which were launched to hold the crew and 
 passengers saved by the enemy before the boat was 
 sunk. That day he built a big boat to represent a 
 warship and a smaller one to serve as a submarine. 
 On the submarine was a tower (a candle), guns 
 (spools), and cannon (paper wads). The submarine 
 fired cannon at the warship. "Boat on fire!" cried 
 R. "See the fire engines put the fire out!" Three 
 fire engines appeared on the scene to assist the burning 
 boat. To an inquiry concerning the probability of 
 fire engines being used at sea, R paid no attention. 
 He took the crew off the warship and placed them on 
 the submarine. 
 
 R felt no sense of incongruity in this representation. Into the 
 construction of the plot went the ideas he had concerning boal 
 fires. The content of children's minds at four years reveals many 
 inadequate bits of information picked up in a hit-or-miss way. 
 
 2. Eighl warships were tied loosely together to 
 represent a convoy of boats which R had seen pictured. 
 "In case the Germans come, they are ready to
 
 THE DRAMATIC PLAYS OF ONE CHILD 205 
 
 fight," said he. One lone German confronted this 
 array of boats. The German fired a shot at the 
 boats. "He broke a boat!" said R. "A bad 
 German!" 
 
 Here again we see a four-year-old's confused ideas concerning 
 war, and his attempt to picture only the striking features. Boats 
 and a German were the forces to be reckoned with. 
 
 Engines. — With his mother's help, R cut from 
 paper the parts of an engine and mounted them on 
 cardboard. He then cut the engine free from the 
 mount and assembled a train which when completed 
 consisted of an engine with bell, whistle, wheels, and 
 smokestack, and six cars constructed out of old 
 envelopes. "You forgot to cut a cowcatcher," said 
 his mother. The engine underwent repairs and 
 emerged with a cowcatcher added to the front. As 
 it ran under a bridge the paper train overturned. 
 " Fix it ! " he said. "You are the engineer," his mother 
 replied; "repair it yourself." "I'm going to cut out 
 a fireman," said R, and soon returned with a paper 
 fireman. Cutting two slits in a paper car, he inserted 
 the fireman in the car, saying, "This is the one that 
 shovels the coal." Then, pointing to a place where 
 two other firemen were supposed to stand, he said, 
 "These two firemen tell the train where to go." 
 Throwing two blocks on the floor to represent men, 
 he exclaimed, "See these men tumble! They are 
 going to get run over. We'll catch them on the 
 cowcatcher." "Chu-chu-chu," puffed the train, run- 
 ning over the two men. No attempt was made to 
 rescue these unfortunates. Pointing to another man, 
 R explained, "He is the one who oils the wheels."
 
 2()6 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 Then an iron engine appeared. "Why do engines 
 switch on another track?" he asked. His mother 
 explained this to him. I [e soon applied the knowledge 
 gained. "This track leads to - — ," he said. "See 
 this other track. It leads in a different direction. 
 My engine is switching on this track now." Then his 
 imagination led him far afield. "These men knocked 
 over the train! They are naughty men! Two police- 
 men are coming to lock them in jail. See the police- 
 men taking the men to jail." He carried the two 
 men off and whacked them violently over their heads 
 with a stick. His mother protested, saying, "The 
 policemen would put them in jail." He next drama- 
 tized the policeman taking these two men to jail. 
 
 R's chief point of interest in this play lay in the manipulation of 
 objects with which he enacted the scenes and events he had con- 
 nected with trains. He displayed the kind of information usual in 
 the case of a four-year-old who has observed trains only casually.
 
 PART III 
 MOVEMENT PLAYS OF CHILDREN
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 The Meaning and Significance of Movement 
 
 Movement a Pleasurable and Necessary Accom- 
 paniment of Organic Life. — Movement is "the cry 
 of the being to be," the I AM of the human organism. 
 From birth until death, life goes on in terms of move- 
 ment. Even in sleep, when the body seems in 
 perfect repose, the motor processes of the internal 
 organs keep up a rhythmic flow of movements. 
 These are reflex and automatic acts, initiated entirely 
 within the nervous system; they are not directly 
 connected with consciousness. Children's enjoyment 
 of movement is seen in their spontaneous expressions 
 of joy in even common forms of motor activity. 
 They like to run in the open with the rush of the 
 wind against their cheeks; they enjoy the "feel" of 
 the water as they wade, swim, or row, and they 
 respond to the rhythmic flow of uniform movement 
 so exhilarating in group games. When we see 
 children running, skipping, and dancing, we see 
 pleasure in movement. Happy laughter accompanies 
 the spinning of tops, rolling of hoops, and throwing of 
 balls. The delight of adolescents in sports of all 
 kinds, ball, croquet, golf, swimming, and dancing, 
 testifies to the continuance of pleasure in movement. 
 Enjoyment in passive motion such as is experienced 
 in swiftly moving automobiles and in sailing, and even 
 in the more active forms like horseback riding, canoe- 
 
 209
 
 210 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 ing, and rowing lead to commercialized amusements. 
 Even old age cherishes its mild satisfaction in such 
 motor responses as knitting, rocking, and smoking. 
 
 The Physical Basis of Movement. It is natural 
 for the human organism to move when refreshed, 
 finding pleasure and growth in movement; and as 
 natural for it to be annoyed when obstacles interfere 
 with the direct output of motor energy. This 
 pleasure and annoyance arc part and parcel of man's 
 original nature; for the physical basis of movement is 
 instinctive. From birth on the instinct of physical 
 activity shows itself in numerous spontaneous and 
 involuntary movements which involve all parts of the 
 body. That these movements are unlearned, psy- 
 chologists are practically agreed. Fond parents some- 
 times speak of teaching a child to walk. They are 
 led to believe that they do so because of tin- im- 
 perfections of the child's first eftorts to walk and the 
 gradualness with which walking is established as a 
 habit. What the parents really do is to add social 
 approval to an act initiated from within and accomp- 
 lished by practice. And so with other motor acts of 
 children: nature sets the time for the act to appear 
 and practice establishes the habit. Without the 
 readiness of the nerves to act, teaching accomplishes 
 nothing. 
 
 A Four-Fold Classification of Movement. Psy- 
 chologists classify the native tendency toward move- 
 ment in various ways. The author selects the 
 ( lassification of Norsworthy and Whitley, 1 because it 
 
 1 X. Xorsworthy and M. T. Whitley: The Psychology of Child- 
 hood, p. 42.
 
 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF MOVEMENT 211 
 
 affords a practical basis for the consideration of 
 movement plays. This classification involves: (i) 
 movements of gross bodily control; (2) vocalization; 
 (3) visual exploration; (4) manipulation — all of 
 which admit of separate classifications of the move- 
 ment plays recorded and discussed in succeeding 
 chapters. Examples of (1) would be sitting, standing, 
 walking, running, stooping, jumping, leaping, and 
 crouching; of (2), the babbling of infants and other 
 vocal manifestations out of which language is de- 
 veloped; of (3), which includes among its many 
 phenomena perception of color, form, and brightness, 
 also passive enjoyment in watching movement; of (4), 
 manipulation with such plastic materials as sand and 
 clay. 
 
 Is the Need of General Physical Activity Recog- 
 nized? — Although children under ten years of age 
 are in almost perpetual motion, little allowance seems 
 to be made by parents or by public schools, except in 
 the kindergarten, for a progressive use of activity. 
 One investigator found that the very young child 
 cannot sit motionless more than thirty seconds, nor 
 children from five to ten years for more than one 
 minute and a half. It is difficult for a young child to 
 repress movement, because the nerves which bring on 
 movement ripen before those which control and 
 inhibit movement. Adults, because their nervous 
 systems are adapted to inhibit movement, find it 
 difficult to understand how much energy children 
 consume if compelled to sit still. So important are 
 posture and movement as indicative of nervous 
 condition, that child specialists can read the fatigue or
 
 212 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 strength of the nervous system from the gestures, 
 movements, and postures o\ the body. 
 
 Opportunity Should be Supplied for a Rich, Free 
 Motor Development. What society needs is able- 
 bodied, physically developed children, yet it has never 
 been willing to pay the price for them. Playgrounds 
 are far from universally accessible to children; 
 kindergartens are supplied for only a favored few and 
 many elementary school teachers lack the insight, the 
 equipment, and the flexible program which permit a 
 proper emphasis on physical welfare. Even could the 
 school control entirely the conditions of stimuli, 
 other factors not under the direction of the school 
 might militate against the development of able-bodied 
 children. Heredity and environment are responsible 
 for the kind of nerves and muscles with which the 
 teacher has to deal. 
 
 Places for Motor Education: Home, Playground, 
 School. — However, much can be done through a 
 broad motor education in the home, the playground, 
 and the school. It is a commonplace to suggest that 
 every child needs a rich supply of accurate automa- 
 tisms, but not a commonplace to place the responsi- 
 bility for acquiring these upon the home until the sixth 
 year. The child learns to walk, run, jump, reach. 
 grasp, and pull, at home; that is, he gains gross control 
 ol the large bodily acts involving movements of the 
 trunk, large joints, neek. back, hips, shoulders, knees, 
 and elbows before he comes in contact with public 
 school education. 
 
 The nutrition clinics have done much to help 
 provide for child welfare through campaigns enlisting
 
 214 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 the support of the home. Much could be done to 
 enrich the motor activities of children by a similar 
 campaign to promote their play activities in the home. 
 The work of community play leaders under the 
 direction of the National Playground Association is 
 an attempt to accomplish this end through enlisting 
 the aid of mothers. Mothers, as the natural con- 
 servers and defenders of childhood, should be taught 
 the fundamental facts regarding the nervous and 
 muscular systems of children. Just a little ele- 
 mentary knowledge would do away with the "sit 
 still" menace. Demonstrations of playground games 
 with or without apparatus would also help. 
 
 Household activities afford splendid opportunities 
 for physical development, if used by parents as play 
 activities. Scrubbing, sweeping, and dishwashing 
 are not necessarily irksome tasks to be quick'y dis- 
 patched. Like woodchopping, milking, churning, and 
 other common chores of country boys, such activities 
 grow tiresome because of the routine, monotony, and 
 repetition which enter into their performance. With 
 little children these acts often partake of the nature ot 
 play. It is a well-known fact that the same type of 
 motor energy- called into use by these chores could be 
 expended in games and sports with no loss of energy. 
 Nay more, the energy used thus brings exhilaration. 
 zest, and joy to the performers. 
 
 Every home should have some kind of crude play- 
 ground for summer use and indoor apparatus for the 
 winter. Twenty or thirty dollars a year spent on 
 play apparatus proves of more lasting benefit than if
 
 
 A Playground in the Back Yard
 
 216 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLA7 
 
 expended on the forms of commercial recreation for 
 which the same amount of monej is often spent. 
 
 The playground movement has passed through a 
 rapid and extensive development, but even at the 
 present time few cities provide supervision and 
 special teachers for children under ten years of age. 
 Sometime, perhaps, we may arrive at a realization of 
 the fact that it is more important and also more 
 economical to provide for the fundamental needs of 
 young children than to do corrective and preventive 
 work later on. 
 
 That the primary school still falls far short of mak- 
 ing adequate provision for the physical side of child 
 development is revealed by the long periods spent at 
 the desks, by lack of workshop equipment, and by the 
 scarcity of play apparatus in a vast majority of schools. 
 If the home and school were to cooperate to their 
 fullest extent in physical welfare work, many a child 
 might be spared the handicap of going through life 
 awkward and ill at ease, or lacking those specific 
 skills which adapt him to his environment. 
 
 All Motor Education is First Concerned With 
 Inherited Tendencies.- The child's original ten- 
 dencies to movement come through reflexes, instincts, 
 and inborn capacities. These inherited tendencies to 
 movement are the first concern of teachers of physical 
 education. At first, many of the motor acts resulting 
 from the ripening of inborn connections seem aimless. 
 Bui they are most significant to him who reads in 
 terms of movements. He who would understand the 
 significance of movement must study the neurological 
 basis for the automatic, reflex, and instinctive acts.
 
 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF MOVEMENT 21 7 
 
 The tendency of modern theory is to depart from the 
 cataloging of instincts as magic potencies which pro- 
 duce certain results in behavior. Instead it recognizes 
 that what were formerly considered instincts are 
 merely more or less specialized responses to certain 
 actual situations, and that educational psychology is 
 concerned with finding out the associations between 
 actual situations and their corresponding thoughts, 
 feelings, and acts. 
 
 Is There a Set Order of Muscular Development? — 
 That the fundamental movements dealing with gross 
 bodily control are unlearned has been previously 
 stated as the consensus of opinion of experts. There 
 must, then, be a rough order of development, since 
 no movements can appear until the nerves which 
 initiate them function. As one authority states in 
 substance, these movements must be "blind" and 
 "involuntary" before they can be voluntary, for 
 control is dependent upon the maturing of connections 
 between neurones whose action results in these various 
 movements. 1 
 
 The Doctrine of From Fundamental to Accessory 
 Muscles. — It has been generally accepted that the 
 rough order of muscular development is from funda- 
 mental to accessory. This theory, however, has been 
 the subject of much controversy for many years and 
 has been variously interpreted. The writer accepts 
 Shepardson's theory 2 that the voluntary purposive 
 
 1 N. Norsworthy and M. J. Whitley: The Psychology of Child- 
 hood, p. 43. 
 
 2 Shepardson: A Critique of the Doctrine of From Fundamental 
 to Accessory.
 
 218 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 control of muscles is from those thai are oldest in 
 the race to those that arc youngest. This theory is 
 strengthened by an examination of children's play. 
 Kindergartners were among the first to recognize the 
 probability that the order of controlled muscular de- 
 velopment is from those muscles that arc oldest in tin- 
 race to those that are youngest and to adapt their 
 materials and plays and games to its practical appli- 
 cation. In all children's spontaneous play the larger 
 muscles are the ones used first and most frequently, 
 while the smaller muscles come into action later. And 
 as Shepardson has pointed out, when movements are 
 voluntary, those involving the smaller muscles re- 
 quire more effort than the movements depending upon 
 the larger muscles. 
 
 Both Bryan and Hancock have given us some experi- 
 mental evidence to prove that within a coordinated 
 series (^ muscles and their movements the progress 
 is from large to small muscles. Bryan's tests of the 
 voluntary control of the muscles <>! the shoulder- 
 finger series in children from six to sixteen years ot 
 age showed that the shoulder muscles have reached 
 the best development and the finger muscles are leasl 
 coordinated in the sixth year. He found also that the 
 linger muscles gain in rapidity and precision ot action 
 after nine or ten years of age. 1 Hancock's tests 
 emphasi/ed the same findings. 1 This evidence is not 
 
 1 Bryan, W. L.: "On the Development of Voluntary Motor 
 Ability," American Journal oj Pedagogy, Vol. V, pp. [25-204. 
 
 2 Hancock, J. A.: "A Preliminary Study of Motor Ability": 
 Pedagogical Seminary, Vol. III. pp. 2-29.
 
 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF MOVEMENT 219 
 
 conclusive, because there is no definite period of 
 maturing for the shoulder muscles, which develop 
 rather uniformly up to the sixteenth year with a 
 slightly slower rate than the finger muscles. 
 
 The Practical Application of This Doctrine. — The 
 most important practical applications of this theory 
 are probably: (1) the need of providing for the spon- 
 taneous practice of all bodily movements before 
 attempting to bring them under voluntary control, 
 and (2) the postponement of movements requiring 
 finer coordinations until they can be most economic- 
 ally used. In regard to the first point we may say with 
 certainty that it is an advantage to allow children to 
 use a new series of movements in spontaneous play, 
 time and time again, before requiring them to make 
 these movements voluntarily. This means an atti- 
 tude of watchful waiting on the teacher's part. Since 
 she does not know what anatomical concords arc 
 present, nor what psychological associations have been 
 built up, she must find out by observation what a 
 child's motor associations are and what experiences 
 lie back of his motor ideas. In regard to the second 
 point, concerning the postponement of movements 
 requirmg finer coordinations until they can best be 
 accomplished, it is well to remember that there is an 
 opportune time to teach writing, drawing, clay 
 modeling, sewing, and weaving, as well as an oppor- 
 tune time to teach dancing and swimming. However, 
 that there are exceptions to the rough order of develop- 
 ment from fundamental to accessory is borne out by 
 the fact that a few precocious children ex st who at 
 an early age perform intricate movements with a
 
 220 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 maximum degree of dexterity, and l>y the fact that 
 infants pick up small objects before they can sit up. 
 
 Experimentation Needed to Establish Reliable 
 Theories. — Thorndike has pointed out that the best 
 attitude that the teacher of children from six to 
 twelve years of age can take is to find out, by trying, 
 the most economical time to teach the movements she 
 wishes the child to learn and to make sure, again by 
 trying, that the child's health is not impaired. He 
 believes that whether the acquisition of these move- 
 ments will injure the child cannot be foretold by any 
 theory about the development of the brain by virtue 
 of the inner growth, but must be learned by evidences 
 of brain exhaustion. 1 
 
 Motor and Psycho-motor Tests as a Guide to Motor 
 Development. — Another means of obtaining informa- 
 tion in regard to the times in which certain sets of 
 muscles have their intensive period of growth is by 
 motor and psycho-motor tests on selected groups of 
 children. From the motor tests we can find out what 
 children's neuro-muscular, or motor, strength, speed, 
 or steadiness is. From the psycho-motor tests we 
 can discover children's capacity for sensory dis- 
 crimination and for rapid and accurate intellectual 
 analysis, also their power of adaptation to a novel 
 situation of considerable complexity. 2 The various 
 standard tests used in clinical laboratories are in- 
 
 >E. L. Thorndike: "The Active Side of Child Life," Notes on 
 Child Study, Columbia University Contributions to Psychology, 
 Philosophy and Education, Vol. VIII, No. 24, p. 104. 
 
 '-' J. E. W. Wallin: "Age Norms of Psycho-motor Capacity," 
 Journal of Educational Psychology, Jan., toi6.
 
 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF MOVEMENT 221 
 
 valuable in determining norms or standards for sane 
 and safe procedure. Few tests have been made of 
 motor ability having to do with such muscular acts as 
 the tossing of balls or rolling of hoops. It would be 
 necessary to test several hundred children in order to 
 discover at what age these movements occur most 
 spontaneously. Moreover, if education is to deal 
 with shortening the process of learning in any par- 
 ticular skill the tests would have to show essential 
 movements necessary in any given skill, so that 
 teachers could help in the elimination of useless 
 movements. 
 
 Known Facts concerning the Order of Development 
 of Muscles and of Movements. — How the different 
 parts of the neuro-muscular system grow and mature 
 is seen roughly through an examination of facts of 
 growth from infancy to maturity. Dearborn's rec- 
 ords of L show that her reflex movements on the first 
 day were respiration, sneezing, yawning, grasping 
 with the fingers, pursing of the mouth, sucking, 
 blinking from touch stimulation, and the inhibition 
 of crying through touch stimulation. 1 Warner says 
 that the child at birth may resent an attempt to 
 straighten the flexed elbow. He also points out that 
 when an infant of seven days moves his limbs, fingers, 
 and toes, the movements are slower and more spon- 
 taneous than an adult's; that they are uncontrolled 
 by external stimulation, and are not directly useful to 
 the child. 
 
 Progress in Babyhood. — We realize that the 
 child's muscular system evidently craves exercise 
 
 1 G. V. N. Dearborn: Motor-Sensory Development, p. 2.
 
 222 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 sooner than we suspect, for the infant kicks, writhes, 
 and wriggles to an astonishing degree. This is not 
 surprising, since his muscles comprise approximately 
 one fourth the weight of his body. 
 
 The writer has condensed a few facts from Warner's 
 account of the further development of muscular 
 movements. 1 When a child is a month old, move- 
 ments appear in the face, first about the mouth, later 
 in the forehead. The limbs move with more force and 
 begin to effect some mechanical result; that is, an 
 object placed in the hand is grasped by the fingers, and 
 movements of the elbow carry the object to the 
 mouth. When the infant is three months old, we 
 observe some control of his movements through the 
 senses. The head turns toward a bright light, but the 
 hand does not yet move straight toward an object held 
 before it. Later the child transfers an object from 
 one hand to another; as the muscles grow stronger, he 
 holds his head up when the body is supported, and 
 moves his eyes about. At the fourth or fifth month 
 an object seen or heard brings some control to the 
 >pontaneous movements. The sight of a ball may 
 stop such movements and lead to the turning of the 
 head and eyes toward the object. Gradually move- 
 ments follow the external agencies of light and 
 sound, and special combination- of movements lead to 
 voluntary actions. 
 
 In regard to the beginnings <>t volitional control <>l 
 movements, Vierordt has the following to say: "All 
 indications point to the aim a- firsl becoming obedient 
 to volition, and the sucking movements, too, seem 
 
 • p. Warner: The Study oj Children, pp. 41-46.
 
 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF MOVEMENT 223 
 
 early to lose their reflex character. Then follow inten- 
 tional movements of the head and neck and some 
 groups of face muscles, and finally those of the lower 
 limbs, which as late as the sixth month still move in 
 the most haphazard manner." 1 
 
 Progress in Early Childhood. — By the time a child 
 is three years old he runs and talks and chatters. 
 Spontaneous movement continues but action con- 
 trolled through the senses is established. The child 
 accomplishes the movements necessary for gross 
 bodily control with little training. As soon as the 
 nerves and muscles of the leg are mature he walks. 
 Bor the child possesses by original nature the tendency 
 to sit, walk, run, and climb, and will perfect these 
 acts through experience. The early movements con- 
 nected with these acts become reflex through practice 
 and form the basis of the complex actions of adult life. 
 We know little about the order of development of the 
 muscles of the trunk, arms, and legs, but Tyler says 
 that the muscles of the trunk are most advanced at 
 birth; that the arms are in advance of the legs, but 
 that the latter grow more rapidly during childhood. 
 At about four years of age the muscles of the legs begin 
 to gain considerably. According to Tyler we are still 
 much in the dark as to increase of muscular girth, 
 yet it seems probable that the girth of the upper leg 
 increases more rapidly during the first four years, and 
 after this the calf. 2 
 
 1 K. Vierordt: "Physiologie des Kindesalters, " Gerhardt's 
 Handbiich der Kinderkrankheiten, Vol. I, p. 181. 
 
 2 J. W. Tyler: Growth and Education, chaoter ix.
 
 224 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED l'LAY 
 
 Because each period of pure muscular growth is 
 followed by a craving for exercise, the child walks, 
 runs, climbs, tugs, and pulls when the muscles of the 
 arms, trunk, and legs crave activity. Besides the 
 wide range of spontaneous movements noticeable at 
 thnc years, we observe many acts which are con- 
 trolled to a large extent through the senses. The 
 power to carry over into action some considerable 
 time later the impressions gained previously is 
 noticeable before the third year. Every thoughtful 
 mother observes with interest the child's motor re- 
 productions of her own acts at some interval after 
 her own action. In some way the child has secured 
 vivid sensory impressions of her acts and reproduces 
 later the striking motor characteristics of her actions. 
 
 Progress in Later Childhood. — Some interesting 
 facts concerning muscular development after the sixth 
 year have been emphasized by observers and experts 
 in childhood education. While the period from seven 
 to nine years is in general a period of slow physical 
 development, called by some authorities a period oi 
 regression, by others a period of adjustment, motor 
 activity is even greater than before. Muscular 
 activity is increasing rapidly and must readapl it-ell 
 to new needs. The muscles tire rapidly and with 
 boys especially the strength of the muscles of the 
 fore-arm increases more rapidly than the cross-section 
 of the muscles warrant-. Movements of the fingers 
 become more skilled during this period, but it i- on 
 the whole one of adjustment tor the higher motor 
 centers. As Johnson says, "The interest in motor 
 activity i> now shifting, as mentioned above, from
 
 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF MOVEMENT 225 
 
 interest in activity to interest in result. 
 Details of motor activity are coming into prominence, 
 and interest in skill is developing. With the child's 
 consciousness of increasing power and skill awakens 
 interest in competition. Therefore he begins to play 
 games, that is, to play according to form and rule 
 with other children, whereas, before, his play was 
 largely free, informal, unorganized activity. The 
 child is not yet able to coordinate his activity with 
 that of others, and there are as yet no truly cooperative 
 games. * * * The child's ambition is often quite 
 beyond his skill, but his efforts are worthy of respect 
 and encouragement." 1 
 
 Tyler speaks of the relative decrease in muscular 
 weight and power during this period and mentions 
 that it comes at a time when the muscles are beginning 
 to crave strenuous exercise which makes far greater 
 demands on the heart than mere rapid growth could 
 cause. 2 
 
 Tyler's measurements of muscular girths of arm and 
 leg were taken by different observers from different 
 groups of individuals and are, as he says, hardly 
 comparable. "The arm grows less rapidly than the 
 leg up to about the eighth or ninth year; afterwards 
 the reverse is true. The running period is followed by 
 one of greater use of the arms. During these years 
 the child's greatest interest lies in plays calling into 
 use the muscles of arms and legs. The accelerations 
 in increase of girth of arm and leg occur at fourteen 
 
 1 G. E. Johnson: Education by Plays and Games, p. 73. 
 
 2 J. M. Tyler: Growth and Education, pp. 140-143.
 
 226 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 and sixteen in the boy. But at ten the increase is 
 usually more rapid than we suspect." 1 
 
 These tacts concerning motor development up to 
 the truth yen- have their significance in motor educa- 
 tion in the home, school, and playground. The play- 
 ground affords perhaps the best opportunity to 
 improve the child's readiness to act, quickness of 
 movement, accuracy, force, persistence, and ability to 
 apply force in proportion to the amount ol energy 
 required. But since some of the causes of defectiv< 
 motor ability are disease, uncleanliness, fatigue, and 
 unhygienic conditions, as well as repression, the 
 home has a big task before it in building up a strong 
 neuro-muscular system. The school must cease its 
 old-time policy of repression. Some authorities say 
 that less than one-fourth of the child's school time 
 should be spent in the seat. To neglect to provide 
 the child with free opportunity to run, jump, slide, 
 handle, and investigate during the first ten years of 
 his life is to stunt his development. It is poor 
 economy to neglect his motor education in an attempt 
 to force intellectual growth before the time is ripe for 
 the natural blossoming of the intellectual powers. 
 
 The Question of Method in Movement Plays. 
 Some of the best experts upon the question oi method 
 have pointed out the utter futility of explaining to 
 children how to make certain movements they have 
 never chanced to coordinate spontaneously. Only 
 after a child has performed a muscular act can he 
 understand instructions concerning it. The signifi- 
 cance of this is that the trial and error method must 
 Ibid., p. 70.
 
 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF MOVEMENT 227 
 
 largely be used in teaching movements, especially 
 with little children, and in the beginning stages of any 
 new muscular development, even with adults. The 
 best procedure is to get the pupil to attempt some 
 movements, experiment a while, and then give sug- 
 gestions. If left to experiment alone too long, he is 
 in danger of forming bad habits; hence a teacher 
 must be on the alert to detect good variations in 
 experimentation. Trial and error with emphasis on 
 the best variation is the only method which can be 
 relied upon to bring permanent improvement in 
 movements. Ruger says that improvement in habit 
 formation comes through cross-cuts which appear by 
 chance, but should get into attentive consciousness 
 at once. 1 Imitation plays an important part in 
 perfecting the movements, but not in initiating them. 
 At the proper moment the good teacher calls out, 
 "There! you have the right swimming position!" or 
 "That is the best way to bat!", and straightway the 
 performers repeat this chance variation which might 
 have passed unnoticed among many others. Once a 
 performer starts out to acquire skill along a given line, 
 he must be left largely to himself, except for some 
 slight suggestion. A good play leader and a skillful 
 coach never fail to follow up improvement with praise 
 and encouragement. Neuman says in substance that 
 improvement must be a conscious aim of the pupil 
 himself; that the arousal of the will to improve is of 
 fundamental significance in all mental and bodily 
 
 1 H. A. Ruger: "The Psychology of Efficiency," Archives of Psy- 
 chology, No. 15, 19 10.
 
 228 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 improvement. 1 The change- in the attainment of 
 children is marked when their attention is focused on 
 strategic mileposts along the way. 
 
 Progress in Learning Not Continuous. — In all 
 attempts to modify movement through instruction 
 it is necessary to bear in mind that progress is not 
 continuous. Growth and improvement are irregular 
 and gradual. The child proceeds for a while in a 
 condition of mental uncertainty until suddenly almost 
 by jumps he arrives at a stage where the desired 
 movements become automatic. These periods of no 
 progress, or "plateaus," are considered by Book to be 
 due to lengthy periods of "lapses in attention, relaxa- 
 tions of interest and effort," and should be overcome. 2 
 
 1 E. Meuman: The Psychology of Learning, p. 362. 
 
 2 W. F. Book: The Psychology of Skill, p. 148.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 The Value of Games of Skill and of Play 
 Apparatus in Motor Education 
 
 Plays and Games of Skill Differentiated from 
 Dramatic Plays. — The significance of dramatic plays 
 in motor education has been fully considered in Part I. 
 In dramatic plays the muscular exercise furnishes only 
 a small part of the pleasure, while perceptual or imagin- 
 ative or constructive interests furnish the larger part. 
 In plays and games of skill the chief pleasure derived 
 is in voluntary motor achievement. 
 
 In a broad classification such as "Movement 
 Plays" it is important to discriminate between a 
 play and a game. Children run, leap, jump, throw, 
 and catch, singly or in pairs, and much of their playful 
 experimentation is not guided by rules, but proceeds 
 according to chance and interest. Whenever their 
 plays are guided by set rules, we have a game as 
 distinguished from a play. It is thus seen that 
 games of skill may occur with or without apparatus 
 and play accessories such as bats, balls, and marbles. 
 
 The Genesis of Games of Skill. — A survey of the 
 classification of games of skill discloses the. important 
 fact that traditional games of skill as well as traditional 
 dramatic games reveal customs that have come down 
 to us from times when practices were in vogue which 
 had nothing to do with games. Playing at games for 
 stakes involving life or death to the winner or the 
 possession of the loser's property is found to be a 
 
 229
 
 230 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 common custom of peoples in widely different environ- 
 ment. The cathedrals, churches, and monastic build- 
 ings of the Middle Ages reveal diagrams and plans 
 carved on the walls or floors which show that the boys 
 of the Middle Ages, and probably the monks and 
 shepherds too, indulged in games of skill in which 
 diagrams or plans were used. There is evidence to 
 show that some of the games of handball are out- 
 growths of divination, and that the ball games played 
 by two opposite parties with bats and sticks have 
 developed from early contests in towns. 1 All play 
 among savages is as close to actual life experience as 
 is the ease with children. In the ordeal and the 
 religious plays, and in the gambling games, there is no 
 separation at all. It thus seems evident that games 
 of skill as well as dramatic plays were in origin 
 directly connected with experience, and became un- 
 related only when conventionalized and handed down 
 by one generation to another as traditional games. 
 
 Beginning with simple movement plays character- 
 ized by moderate motor activity and little or no 
 organization, such as hoop-rolling, tossing and catch- 
 ing a ball in repetitive fashion, juggling objects on the 
 hands and feet, and balancing objects on the head, we 
 can trace development in organization up to games in 
 which tossing, rolling, and throwing are carried on in 
 an undefined group. Usually one person is a chief 
 performer while others react to his actions. There is 
 often some cooperation from others and some social 
 feeling from the participants. 
 
 1 A. B. Gomjne: Dictionary of British Folk-Lore, Vol. II, Part I. 
 pp. 47075.
 
 THE VALUE OF GAMES OF SKILL 23 1 
 
 Progression in the Organization of Games of Skill. — 
 Gradually the group action becomes defined. Every- 
 one playing does the same thing as the others, either 
 simultaneously or successively. And more, each 
 person tries not only to repeat the act, but to perform 
 it more skillfully than it has previously been done. 
 This last type of organization is a real game of skill, 
 for each player is training himself by repetition and 
 effort to compete satisfactorily with others. The 
 method of accomplishing the act has become more 
 important than the act itself. Examples of such 
 games will be found in the records; they include tossing 
 a ball from one to another, throwing at a mark, foot 
 races, contests of strength in carrying and lifting, 
 arching games, ring toss, and many others. A 
 higher type of organization in the games recorded 
 involves games in which two undefined groups play 
 against each other. Here each player must not only 
 govern his own actions by the rules of the games, but 
 he must cooperate with others in so doing. Examples 
 of such games are found in tug-of-war contests and 
 in the various tag games played in pairs. This type 
 of organization is about as high a type as we see 
 develop in the plays of children under ten years of age. 
 
 Games of Skill Correlated With Intelligence. - 
 Miss L. Estelle Appleton, 1 in a comparative study of 
 the play activities of adult savages and civilized 
 children, finds that advanced types of games of skill 
 are entirely lacking among the adult Veddahs; that 
 they are almost wholly so among the Central Austral- 
 
 1 L. E. Appleton: A Comparative Study of the Play Activities of 
 Adult Savages and Civilized Children, pp. 40-41.
 
 232 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 ians; that they are somewhat developed among the 
 Yahgans, more developed among the Bushmen, and 
 comparatively well developed among the Eskimos. 
 She thus draws the conclusion that games of skill 
 occur in increasing numbers among the more highly 
 civilized tribes. She points out the fact that games 
 of skill are really games of practical judgment based 
 upon concrete conditions. They are. therefore, direct- 
 ly correlated with intelligence. Miss Appleton also 
 points out that the general and specialized use of the 
 muscles has a much larger place in the life of the 
 Eskimo than in the other groups. The Eskimo, like 
 civilized children, voluntarily subjects himself to 
 muscular drill and exercise. 
 
 Sense Education Through Plays and Games and 
 Experimentation on Apparatus.- Rousseau was one 
 of the first educators to observe that the senses are 
 directly connected with motor activities, with the use 
 of the hands and legs. He stated emphatically that 
 it is nut enough to use the senses in order to train 
 them, but that we must learn to judge 1 >y their use. 
 He placed great stress on the quality of thinking con- 
 nected with sense observation, thus making the 
 senses primarily active motor organs. Educators ol 
 the present day realize that most of this active sense 
 experimentation goes on through movement plays 
 with or without apparatus. We talk a great deal 
 about the important motor tasks a child must accomp- 
 lish in early childhood, but we sometimes lose sight of 
 the ways and means he unconsciously adopts i) to 
 accomplish the reflex movements connected with the 
 spinal cord; (2) to coordinate the muscles oi the
 
 THE VALUE OF GAMES OF SKILL 233 
 
 trunk, shoulders, and legs as a result of the growth of 
 the cerebellum; and (3) to mature the motor and 
 sensory centers in the cerebrum controlling the 
 heavier and finer muscular adjustments. A child 
 accomplishes these tasks by games of skill and move- 
 ment plays on such apparatus as swings, slides, and 
 parallel bars. These movement plays stimulate the 
 physical development of the growing body. Many 
 plays afford stimulation for the use of the entire body, 
 while others affect only specialized motor organs such 
 as the hands and legs. The specific skills attained are 
 connected with useful life activities such as reaching, 
 pulling, grasping, walking, hopping, and climbing. 
 The motor tasks set by the children are children's 
 tasks, not adults'. And the situations in which motor 
 education goes on are social situations preeminently 
 suited for development and education. 
 
 It is Difficult to Separate Plays and Games Involving 
 the Muscles of the Whole Body from Those Involving 
 only Parts of It. — It would be difficult to separate 
 the plays of skill and competition involving the whole 
 muscular system from the plays involving parts of it. 
 In the first place, only a specialist can know accurately 
 just what parts of the neuro-muscular system are 
 involved in each play. In the second place, even 
 where the chief activity may be located in the arms, 
 hands, or limbs, the muscles of the entire body are 
 often tense and are found to be cooperating through 
 resistance. For example, even the games and con- 
 tests demanding specialized muscular control such as 
 marbles, juggling, jackstraws, tossing balls, cats' 
 cradle, parchesi, bean bags, roller skates, and bicycling
 
 234 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 demand cooperation from other series <>t muscles than 
 those directly involved. The most important thing 
 to keep in mind is that it has been established beyond 
 question that, when children are left alone to find 
 amusemenl and exercise as their impulses direct, by 
 far the greater part of their games involve activity ol 
 the whole body. 1 
 
 Play Apparatus as a Means of Motor Education. 
 The value of play apparatus for children under ten 
 years of age is less commonly recognized than the 
 benefit to be derived from plays and games. We are 
 just beginning to realize that play apparatus affords 
 an excellent opportunity for motor education in a 
 social environment. Sometimes the child plays aim- 
 lessly and the main benefits derived are improved 
 (ire ulation and respiration. More often he plays to 
 accomplish some objective, such as to slide down the 
 slide backward, or to climb high on the parallel 
 bar fence. In attaining his ends the body is brought 
 into positions and situations that present obstacles, 
 and to overcome these obstacles requires as much 
 thought involving foresight of consequences, com- 
 parison, and judgment as is called into play in solving 
 problems in arithmetic or in the study of history and 
 geography. 
 
 Practical Judgments Involved in Play with Ap- 
 paratus. Main adults lose sight of the fact that 
 the child has consciously to build up the neuro-mus- 
 cular coordinations involved in reaching, pulling, 
 walking, and running. For example, when he learns 
 
 1 L. 1-:. Appleton: .1 Comparative Study of the Play Activitl 
 Adult Savages and Civilized Children, p. 44.
 
 THE VALUE OF GAMES OF SKILL 235 
 
 to walk, hfe attention is fixed for 'a while upon the 
 details of the movements. Soon the nerve centers 
 take over the control of the required movements and 
 he is able to make them automatically. He thinks 
 only of the end to be attained, which may be some 
 object to reach, some place at which to arrive. To 
 make the arms and legs move together properly in 
 situations required of him is his chief problem for a 
 number of years. Motor education centers about the 
 acts which make this possible. Play apparatus 
 involves such a wide range of muscular activities that 
 the child experiences no difficulty in constructing 
 plays suitable to his particular needs at a particular 
 time. He plays on the slide one way at three years 
 and another way at six, because even the intervening 
 three years bring marked changes in the needs of his 
 rapidly developing body. To those who feel that 
 apparatus for play is purposeless, the following ex- 
 ample may bring a realization of the type of thinking 
 required in bringing about the necessary neuro- 
 muscular coordinations. 
 
 A little boy of five years made his first perilous 
 journey down the slide. Clinging to the side railing 
 he let himself be swept downward by the force of 
 gravitation. His little face was all puckered up with 
 anxiety, but this expression changed to delight as he 
 landed safely on the gymnasium mat with only a 
 slight shock. Quickly running back he repeated the 
 feat over and over again, changing the rapidity of 
 his descent by strength of grip. At last he dared to 
 make the journey downward without holding on. 
 Having mastered this problem, he began to experi-
 
 236 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 ment in other ways. One day he noticed another boy 
 sliding downward in a swimming position, without 
 touching his hands or feet to the side railing. The 
 first time he tried to imitate this act, he failed to get 
 the right position, and, not trusting himself, caught 
 hold of the side railing several times. After much 
 selection of means and ends, a process in which mind 
 and muscle worked out the problem, he made the 
 descent much as the other boy had made it, then 
 repeated the act several times with evident enjoy- 
 ment. To a careful observer the thinking process 
 involved in these acts was none the less important 
 because the end was reached by means of the whole 
 body. 
 
 Summary of the Values of Plays and Games of 
 Skill and Experimentation with Play Apparatus. — It 
 is apparent, then, that both plays and games of skill 
 and experimentation with play apparatus bring the 
 body into positions and situations presenting obstacles 
 the overcoming of which brings progressive control of 
 the neuro-muscular system; that the method of 
 gaining control involves foresight of consequences, 
 and practical judgment; that these plays afford 
 stimulation for the use of the whole body as well as 
 for parts of it; that the specific skills attained are 
 connected with useful movements such as reaching, 
 pulling walking, running, and climbing; that the 
 situation in which motor education goes on is a 
 social situation, especially suited for the development 
 of small children.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 Movements of Gross Bodily Control: Kicking, 
 
 Creeping, Climbing, Walking, Running, Skipping, 
 
 Leaping, and Jumping Plays 
 
 Movements Preparatory to Creeping and Hitch- 
 ing. — This group of movement plays is one of the 
 first to develop in early infancy, inasmuch as through 
 combinations of kicking, rolling, hitching, creeping, 
 and walking the child soon learns to propel himself 
 toward coveted objects and places. The infant's 
 spontaneous kicking plays an important part in 
 strengthening his muscles of the trunk and limbs for 
 the later activities of creeping and walking. Froebel 
 points out the part a wise and loving mother can take 
 in the motor education of her child by playfully 
 responding to his spontaneous kicking movements. 
 Raising the body and learning to sit upright is usually 
 accomplished by the child at about six months. That 
 this is a pleasurable achievement is evidenced by the 
 signs of exhilaration accompanying its performance. 
 Not many months later, a child seated on the floor 
 rolls, tips, or hitches toward an object he desires. 
 Mrs. Tilley's records show the development of these 
 spontaneous movements. (i82d day.) "This after- 
 noon he (the first child) was sitting on the floor, and 
 when his plaything rolled away from him, he rolled 
 over on his stomach and crept after it." (199th 
 day.) "The second child, when lying down, rolls 
 
 237
 
 238 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 vigorously toward an object near by. If sitting up, 
 he will reach, topple over, and reach till he gets the 
 object."' 
 
 A study of 150 children, males and females equally 
 divided, showed that 60 per cent, crept, 30 per cent. 
 moved along by hitching, 7 per cent, moved by rolling, 
 and 3 per cent, moved by crawling, "swimming." or 
 some other means peculiar to the individual. 2 01 the 
 development of creeping, the following description by 
 Sigismund gives an illuminating account: 
 
 Creeping. — " It is a treat to watch a creeping child. 
 The tiny creature, seated on the floor, longs for some- 
 thing beyond his reach; straining to get it he loses his 
 balance and falls over. In that position he still 
 reaches out his hand, and notices that he is nearer 
 the object of his desire, and that a few more such 
 forward movements would attain it. Soon he be- 
 comes more active, sure, and courageous, and learns to 
 maintain his center of gravity on three supports while 
 he lifts the fourth member for his next step forward; 
 for at first the child raises but one limb at a time, 
 though he soon learns to use the right hand and left 
 foot together. I have never seen one so use the hand 
 and foot on the same side. Sometimes the child 
 crawls backward like a crab, even when there is 
 nothing before him which he wishes to shun." 3 
 
 1 L. R. Tilley: "The Development of Two Baby Boys," Associa- 
 tion of Collegiate Alumnae Publications, 1910-11, p. 54- 
 
 A. W. Trettien: "Creeping and Walking," American Journal of 
 Psychology, Vol. XII, p. 31. 
 
 3 K. I ! roo The Play of Man, p. 70.
 
 MOVEMENTS OF BODILY CONTROL 239 
 
 Hitching. — I once observed closely for a period of 
 several days the efforts of one child learning to hitch. 
 The child reached out for an object just beyond his 
 grasp; failing to get it, he rolled over accidentally and 
 found himself in a position to reach the coveted ob- 
 ject. A couple of days later, he stretched his arms 
 out toward an object and tipped over several times in 
 succession, finding himself three feet away from the 
 place in which he had started. Ten days after this 
 he had acquired a uniform position for these excur- 
 sions toward objects; placing both hands together on 
 the floor he raised his trunk up and forward, pushing 
 in oar-like fashion with his right leg. Soon he had 
 acquired considerable skill in scuttling frog-like over 
 the floor, often choosing favorite places to journey 
 toward, or foil-owing the various members of the- 
 family about. 
 
 Learning to Walk. — With the same child, walking 
 was accidentally and mechanically induced when a 
 low taboret beside which he was standing slid several 
 feet on a waxed floor, pulling him along with it. 
 Frightened, but holding on to the taboret, he went 
 mechanically through the semblance of walking. A 
 few days later he voluntarily took several steps from 
 a chair to a near-by table. Walking proper, however, 
 appeared quite suddenly and unexpectedly. Standing 
 beside a chair R walked confidently across the room, 
 crept back to his starting point, and walked across 
 again, turning to walk in another direction. Soon he 
 was heard walking in the next room. Following, I 
 saw him creep back to the window-seat and make 
 several futile attempts to cross the room. His entire
 
 24" SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 being revealed signs of exhilaration and excitement; 
 his face was pink and glowing with pride, his arms 
 slightly outstretched, and his legs spread far apart 
 to aid in balancing his trunk, while his breathing was 
 rapid and slightly labored. The following day he 
 
 •;. 
 
 
 f 
 
 
 ' *__ Afl^-i 
 
 % 
 
 
 r " v ^ 
 
 Walking Is a Mechanical Problem at First 
 
 started the same experimentation in the same room, 
 going over and over the identical course where he had 
 achieved a victory the preceding day. 1 
 
 Walking a Mechanical Problem Until the Third 
 Year. — Walking remains a mechanical problem until 
 1 From the author's unpublished records.
 
 MOVEMENTS OF BODILY CONTROL 24 1 
 
 about the third year. Until the seventh year the 
 torso is heavy in proportion to the legs; because of 
 this the legs tire from supporting it. The child quite 
 unconsciously throws himself down flat and rolls and 
 tumbles about, recuperating for further effort. 
 
 The Parallel Bar Fence. --To protect the child 
 from undue strain, Montessori advocates the use of 
 several pieces of apparatus, the spontaneous use of 
 which exercises the limbs while allowing some support 
 of the weight of the torso to fall upon the arms. One 
 of these pieces of apparatus, a parallel bar fence, 
 deserves special mention in connection with walking 
 plays. The writer has tried an adaptation of this 
 fence with good results. It consists of two hardwood 
 poles, eight feet long, which fit into a series of holes 
 in two upright posts supported by a heavy base four 
 inches wide. Little tots walk sideways along this base 
 while clinging to the pole above. In this way they 
 exercise the muscles of the legs, trunk, and arms, 
 without throwing the entire weight of the torso on the 
 legs, where constant strain of this kind should be 
 avoided. The older children enjoy performing feats 
 on the upper bars over a gymnasium mat and use it in 
 games of skill and dramatic games which they invent. 
 
 Walking Boards. — To meet children's tendency 
 to walk on curbings, fences, and, in unguarded 
 moments, along precipices or railroad tracks, several 
 types of walking boards were introduced into the 
 Pittsburgh playrooms and playgrounds for small 
 children. For children under four years, the boards 
 used were twelve feet long and five inches wide. 
 They were elevated from the floor by three-inch blocks
 
 2-p SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 nailed securely underneath. Narrower boards, more 
 highly elevated, were used for children up to seven 
 years old, while joists wen- found suitable for the use 
 of children above seven years. 
 
 Walking on Stilts, Snow Shoes, or Skis. Any 
 careful student of spontaneous play can observe a large 
 number of walking plays in which children invent 
 mechanical obstacles to add zest to walking. ( >ne 
 -mall hoy when only two years of age delighted to 
 strut about in his father's bath slippers. At another 
 time he was seen paddling about with his feet encased 
 in coffee cans. After watching boys ski, he was 
 observed to slide about on some smooth boards with 
 considerable enjoyment. He soon acquired skill in 
 skating on these boards without losing the hold of his 
 feet on the boards. Walking on stilts is an experience 
 every boy or girl enjoys sometime during childhood. 
 With the increased height stilts afford it is pleasant 
 to strut about, reveling in the power to control the 
 new instrument of locomotion. Walking on snow- 
 shoes and skiing are delightful sports in childhood; 
 and justly so, for to exhilaration from the effort ol 
 movement is added pleasure in swift gliding motion. 
 
 Hopping and Skipping are Natural Variations of 
 Walking Plays. - Hopping and skipping are as much 
 a part of the walking plays of children as leaping and 
 galloping are native to young animals. The writer 
 has seen children, ju-t learning to walk, take a sudden 
 leap or several running steps. It i> almost as it for 
 sheer joy of living their bodies bounded forward and 
 upward. In these movements the body is suspended 
 in the aii- for an instant. In ihe skipping and hopping
 
 MOVEMENTS OF BODILY CONTROL 243 
 
 movements so common to children, one foot at a 
 time is thrust forward and is sustained by a hop on the 
 same foot. Some children find it difficult at first to 
 alternate the feet in skipping, and drag one foot back 
 of the one they thrust forward. The skip gives us 
 the beginning of a gallop and the principle of the waltz. 
 There are games in which children skip or hop to 
 accomplish some end, such as in Skip Tag or Hop 
 Scotch. A few games demand a forfeit if the skip 
 step is lost during the performance of some feat. 
 
 Running. — From the second year on, the child 
 takes great pleasure in running. Left on his own 
 devices out-of-doors, a normal child of two or three 
 years spends much of his time running actively about 
 from place to place. While these journeys are largely 
 induced by curiosity about new sights or sounds, a 
 large part of the pleasure results from joy in the 
 exercise itself. 
 
 Running Plays and Games. — Running plays and 
 games appear just after the time of acceleration in 
 growth of the muscles of the legs. The period from 
 seven to nine years is regarded by most authorities as 
 the time for the greatest interest in running games. 
 Boys' interest in such games continues high and 
 reaches its greatest development at the age of ten to 
 twelve, while girls' interest in running games is far 
 below that of boys and declines rapidly after the 
 eighth year. When running becomes no longer an 
 end in itself but a means to the accomplishment of an 
 end, we have the beginning of a game of skill. Such 
 games are Puss in the Corner, Follow the Leader, 
 Going to Jerusalem, Ruth and Jacob, How Many
 
 ^44 
 
 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 Miles to Babylon, Hill Dill, Drop the Handkerchief, 
 Black and White, Bull in the Ring, one- and three- 
 legged races, and wheelbarrow races. 
 
 Climbing. Although climbing has been mentioned 
 with creeping and jumping plays in connection with 
 
 which it first appears, 
 other aspects of it 
 deserve special men- 
 tion. Groos asserts 
 that climbing is prob- 
 ably the outcome of 
 a special instinct. 1 
 Thorndike lists climb- 
 ing and sitting, run- 
 ning, stooping, jump- 
 ing, leaping, dodging, 
 and other movements 
 a s o n e s t h a t h e 
 considers unlearned. 
 Opinions can be cited 
 to support the opposite 
 view also in the case of 
 climbing. 1 1 is outside 
 the province of this 
 book to enter into .1 
 discussit >n of this point. 
 However, the writer's observations of children's spon- 
 taneous play seem to indicate the unlearnedness of this 
 tendency. Whichever viewpoinl we subscribe to, the 
 1 K. Groos: The Play of Man, p. 87. 
 
 - E. L. Thorndike: "The Original Nature of Man," Educational 
 Psychology, Vol. II, pp. 47-4'). 
 
 Sl'llN lAMuls I
 
 MOVEMENTS OF BODILY CONTROL 
 
 245 
 
 practical considerations as to the place and value 
 of climbing in motor education remain of paramount 
 significance. We do not need to be culture-epoch 
 theorists to believe in the value of climbing to stim- 
 ulate good circulation and to improve lung capacity, 
 as well as to build up 
 the muscles of the trunk 
 and limbs. 
 
 Robinson called our 
 attention to the fact 
 that a newborn infant 
 was able to cling by his 
 hands, sustaining his 
 weight. Even casual 
 observers note the way 
 a baby in arms climbs 
 upon his mother's 
 breast and pulls himself 
 
 up to her lap from the floor. As soon as he learns 
 to creep, climbing upon low boxes and upstairs is a 
 daily pastime. 
 
 When the time comes in which a boy braves danger 
 to climb high trees, or scale low buildings, rocks, and 
 cliffs, parents and teachers should know what to 
 substitute for these hazardous undertakings. 
 
 Realizing from an exhibition of such adventurous 
 climbing that the youth longs for an opportunity to 
 measure his strength against something, we may devise 
 play apparatus which will call forth from the boy the 
 spirit of adventure and desire for prowess. The 
 climbing rope affords children under ten years of age 
 abundant opportunity to gain skill in climbing and 
 
 Spontaneous Climbing
 
 24" SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 subjects them to none of the hazards they inert in 
 promiscuous climbing on fire-escapes and dangerous 
 buildings. A climbing rope may be purchased from 
 any dealer in athletic supplies or made by suspending 
 a strong rope knotted at the bottom from a strong, 
 closed iron hook. The children like to pull them- 
 selves up and down the rope and to swing hack and 
 forth. As they gain power in prehension they try new 
 stunts by swinging from the rope to a low trapeze 
 which can he placed near by, or by swinging and 
 jumping to the ground. Main' dramatic games Mich 
 as fireman and life saver are enacted on these two 
 pieces of apparatus. 
 
 Boys from eight to ten years of age enjoy playing 
 part of the time on the boys' separate playground 
 where teeter ladders and high apparatus permit more 
 venturesome climbing and sliding. Many common 
 types of climbing apparatus would be too dangerous 
 for a small playground for small children. 
 
 Jumping. Pleasure in jumping comes not only 
 from the free and swift movemenl downward, but 
 from a certain glory in achievement. Jumping and 
 climbing plays appear almost simultaneously. Chil- 
 dren learn to jump in connection with early efforts in 
 dim] »ing. 
 
 One child two years old considered jumping from a 
 footstool a great achievement. He would run to his 
 parents before each jump exclaiming, "l)umi) down, 
 dump down!" He also enjoyed jumping downstair-, 
 step by -tip. Soon the window seat was the scene of 
 new conquests, lie also climbed upon a three-foot 
 embankment, then half slid, half jumped, down it-
 
 MOVEMENTS OF BODILY CONTROL 247 
 
 grassy slope. Anyone who observes children's spon- 
 taneous play notes how early competition enters into 
 their climbing and jumping activities. "I can jump 
 farther than you!" is a common boast. The kinder- 
 garten has utilized leaping and running and jumping 
 in many of its plays and games. Circus horses leap, 
 run, and jump over brooms held higher and higher. 
 Trick dogs and ponies perform many familiar opera- 
 tions. Later these movements are utilized in rhythms. 
 Montessori invented a piece of apparatus adapted 
 for the broad jump. 1 It consists of a low wooden 
 platform painted with various lines by means of which 
 the distance jumped may be gauged. There is a small 
 flight of stairs which may be used in connection with 
 the platform, making it possible to practice and to 
 measure the high jump. The writer has found the 
 adjustable stairs belonging to the playroom slides 
 fully as satisfactory as the Montessori apparatus. 
 The children mark off distances on the ground and 
 derive much pleasure from measuring one another's 
 jumps. The springboard used in gymnasiums can 
 be built specially for little children's play. It should 
 be lighter and more flexible and should have a longer 
 slope. If it is placed in the middle of the room the 
 children run and jump various distances from it on to 
 the gymnasium mat. They like also to stand on the 
 highest point of the springboard and jump up and 
 down. Various dramatic games such as train and life 
 savers and boat plays take place on this piece of 
 apparatus. 
 
 1 M. Montessori: The Montessori Method, p. 143.
 
 248 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 Records of Kicking, Creeping, Walking, Skip- 
 pin*., Running, Leaping, and Jumping Plays 
 
 1. Sliding Over the Floor. In the playroom, 
 knotted ropes suspended from the ceiling stimulate 
 babies, not yet able to walk, to propel themselves over 
 the floor. They hold on to the rope and slide gaily 
 baek and forth. 
 
 2. Creeping and Pushing Plays. - ( Creeping or 
 hitching, while holding on to chairs which are pushed 
 along the floor, is a locomotive play which all babies 
 enjoy and one which leads to creeping. Babies also 
 creep along the floor while pushing toys on wheels. 1 
 
 3. Pushing and Walking Plays. In the play- 
 room, children just learning to walk support part of 
 their weight on chairs, go-carts, or wagons and thus 
 practise walking. Grasping the ledge of the sand bin 
 with their hands, they take first steps along it, often 
 pushing the weight of the body along with their arm-. 
 
 4. Walking in Water.- In the city playgrounds 
 tin- children derive great pleasure in wading, running, 
 and leaping about in the shallow water of the wading- 
 pools. The water resists their efforts slightly, tlm- 
 giving them a sense of power which, coupled with the 
 exhilaration produced by contact with the water, 
 makes wading an agreeable pa-time. 
 
 5. Experimentation on the Walking Board or the 
 Ledges of the Sand-box. Little tots straddle the 
 board, walking forward and backward, sometimes 
 racing. 
 
 sliding plays.
 
 MOVEMENTS OF BODILY CONTROL 249 
 
 6. Walking on Paths or Chalk Lines. — Walking 
 contests take place on the chalk lines of the tennis 
 court. The children collect blocks or stones and 
 arrange them in straight or circular paths, sometimes 
 in concentric circles. They walk cautiously on these 
 paths of blocks, endeavoring not to make a misstep. 
 Some children invent paths showing contrasts of long 
 and short steps on which they play leaping and 
 running games. 
 
 7. Walking Races. — Children from seven to nine 
 years of age enjoy walking and running contests in 
 which they race for goals, carrying empty buckets on 
 their heads or pushing wheelbarrows. They also 
 enjoy potato races, three-legged races, and flag relay 
 races. 
 
 8. Running Games. — Children from two and a 
 half to four years old enjoy such simple running games 
 as Hill Dill, Tag, and Pussy Wants a Corner. Chil- 
 dren of kindergarten age enjoy more complex running 
 games, examples of which are Ruth and Jacob, Skip- 
 ping or Running Tag, Follow the Leader, and Going to 
 Jerusalem. From the seventh to the ninth year the 
 running games are especially interesting because of 
 problems of skill which they present. Japanese Tag, 
 Double Tag, Fox and Chickens, Three Deep, and 
 Chariot Race are examples of games involving increas- 
 ing problems of skill. 
 
 9. Jumping Plays. — Babies two and a half years 
 old enjoy jumping from boxes or low chairs. Jumping 
 soon becomes diversified even with small children. 
 On the playground the steps of the slide become the 
 scene for various jumping contests. There are the
 
 250 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 high jump forward, the long jump forward, the long 
 jump backward, and other variations. In spon- 
 taneous home play children practice jumping over 
 boxes, fences, puddles of water, and logs. On the 
 playground they run and jump over piles oi blocks or 
 a pole held at various heights. They practice also 
 jumping on one foot or on both feet, and enjoy the 
 squatting and leaping jump. 
 
 10. Leaping and Jumping Games. - Leap Frog 
 and Hop Scotch are familiar examples ot this type oi 
 game. 
 
 ii. Climbing Plays. — Climbing upstairs proved 
 an engaging occupation the first day it occurred in one 
 child's life, as the following record shows: "One day 
 R climbed up two stairs and. looking slightly fright- 
 ened, stepped slowly down, one step at a time. 
 Nothing daunted, he repeated the climbing, reaching 
 a higher place on the stairs, but tumbling down with 
 some force. However, he continued to climb again 
 and again, twent} times in all, until by dint of perse- 
 verance he reached the top of the stairs. By this time 
 he had acquired a method of getting down; seated on 
 one step he slid down to the next, falling with a slight 
 jar on each step." "During house cleaning, a step- 
 ladder offered the boy, then two and a half years old. 
 an opportunity to climb and look down on his sur- 
 roundings. Joyously he repeated his journey again 
 and again, accompanying each trip with the words, 
 ' 'Imb up the ladder!' "' 
 
 When the writer was about eight years old she 
 remembers distinctly paying a visit to a logging 
 
 1 From the author's unpubli ords.
 
 MOVEMENTS OF BODILY CONTROL 25 1 
 
 community where it was her delight to walk and run 
 along the piles of logs, jumping from log to log and 
 climbing as high as she dared. Boys and girls in the 
 city climb high fences and walk along them with great 
 agility. On the playgrounds, children climb up the 
 ladders of the slides, pull themselves up the knotted 
 climbing rope, and if allowed in the older girls' 
 playground, pull themselves up on the traveling rings, 
 teeter ladder, parallel bars, and other pieces of 
 apparatus. 
 
 School of Childhood, University of Pittsburgh 
 
 The Parallel-Bar Fence
 
 -'r>- 
 
 SI'OXTAXEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 An Analysis of Selected Games oi Skill In- 
 volving Kicking, Running, Skipping, Leaping, 
 
 and jlmimnc movkmknts 
 
 The following games represent only a few of the best 
 known games of skill. They are presented rather for 
 the purpose of illustrative analysis than as a list to be 
 used. 1 
 
 1. Iron Gates. — Children in a eirele elasp hands 
 firmly and resist the efforts of one in the center who 
 tries to break through their " Iron Gates." The chief 
 enjoyment consists of efforts at resistance. 
 
 2. Cat and Mouse. A eirele is formed and the 
 child selected to be the mouse stands within it. 
 Another player, the cat, stands outside. The object 
 of the game is for the cat to catch the mouse. The 
 children in the circle assist the mouse by letting her 
 out or in the circle at any time, but the cat is hindered 
 as much as possible by the children's tightly clasped 
 hands. The game can be made a more difficult game 
 of skill by selecting two slow runners for cats and one 
 swift runner for the mouse. The chief interest is in 
 making movements of strategy and in cooperation, 
 force, and agility. 
 
 3. Jump the Shot. A rope with a bag of shot 
 attached to one end is swung under the feet of a circle 
 of players by one player who stand- in the center of 
 the circle, the players jumping as it approaches. 
 Whenever a player fails to jump over the rapidly 
 moving rope, he is dropped out of the circle. The 
 
 1 See Zach McGhee's analysis of games: "A Study in the Play 
 Life of Some South Carolina Children," Pedagogical Seminary, 
 Vol. VII, pp. 469-478.
 
 MOVEMENTS OF BODILY CONTROL 253 
 
 center player can vary the game by increasing the 
 speed of his movements and by raising the rope higher 
 and higher as he swings it. The chief interest is in 
 agility in jumping, in surprise, and in rivalry. 
 
 4. Rabbit's Nest. — Groups of four children form 
 rabbits' nests with an additional child as a rabbit in 
 the center of each nest. Two other children are 
 selected, one to be an extra rabbit, the other the 
 farmer's dog. Whenever the extra rabbit invades a 
 nest the rabbit there is forced to leave and find 
 another nest. When the rabbit is caught the dog 
 becomes a rabbit and the rabbit a dog. This game is 
 very popular with children between seven and nine 
 years of age. The chief interest is in gaining skill in 
 running and chasing, in suspense, and in cooperation. 
 
 5. Skip Tag. — One child skips around a circle and 
 tags another child's outstretched hands; the child 
 tagged skips after the first child, endeavoring to over- 
 take and tag him before he reaches the place of the 
 one tagged. The chief interest lies in the activity of 
 skipping and the added enjoyment of being chosen. 
 
 6. Dodge Ball. — Half of the players form a large 
 circle and the other half stand within it. The players 
 forming the circle have a basket ball and try to hit the 
 "Dodgers" within. When one is hit he drops out. 
 When the last one is hit those in the circle take the 
 place of the "Dodgers." The chief interest is in 
 gaining skill and agility in throwing and dodging and 
 in rivalry and competition. 
 
 7. Walking to Jerusalem. — Chairs are placed in a 
 row facing alternately right and left, the number of 
 chairs being one less than the number of children. All
 
 254 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 the children march around until the music stops; then 
 they try to get a seat. One is left out each time, and 
 must stop playing, and remove a chair. The child 
 who succeeds in securing the last seat has "walked to 
 Jerusalem." This game is greatly enjoyed because 
 of the strategy of walking for the purpose of seizing a 
 chair. Suspense and surprise also give point and 
 zest to the game. 
 
 8. Goosie, Goosie, Gander. — The geese are placed 
 at one goal and a fox at another. After the rhyme 
 is repeated the geese leave their base for the other, 
 endeavoring not to be caught. Idle first one caught 
 becomes the fox. The chief enjoyment is in chasing 
 and running. Enjoyment in rhythmic repetition of 
 the rhyme is noticeable, as is the development of 
 agility through rivalry. 
 
 9. Pig in the Pen. — One child is a pig in a pen 
 made by the other children joining hands around him. 
 The pig tries to escape under the hands. The chief 
 enjoyment is in physical strength, agility gained in 
 opposition, and cooperation. 
 
 10. Wheelbarrow Race.- The racers stand in 
 twos at the starting line. One, the wheelbarrow, puts 
 his hands on the floor, and the other lifts the wheel- 
 barrow's feet. At the signal "Co," the nam- race 
 for an opposite goal. The first crossing the line win-. 
 The chief interest is in competition in running; 
 emulation, pride in achievement, and cooperation in 
 pairs are also important elements. 
 
 11. Pussy Wants a Corner. — Each child has a corner 
 except the "kitty." The ones occupying corners ex- 
 change places. Kitty trie- to get thecorner temporarily
 
 MOVEMENTS OF BODILY CONTROL 255 
 
 unoccupied. The child left out becomes "kitty." 
 The chief enjoyment is in running, rivalry, and surprise. 
 
 12. I Spy. — One child, a "spyer," stands at a 
 base and closes his eyes while the others run and hide. 
 Then the spyer tries to spy the other children, who 
 try to return and touch base without being spied. 
 The chief enjoyment is in running and chasing, in 
 surprise, and in being "it." 
 
 13. Tag. — One child tags another, and then runs 
 to avoid being tagged in return. The chief interest 
 is in running and chasing, in agility, and in rivalry. 
 
 14. Wrestling. - - The chief enjoyment lies in the 
 consciousness of physical strength and in acquiring 
 agility through opposition. 
 
 15. Drop the Handkerchief. — Players stand in a 
 circle. One runs behind the others' backs and sur- 
 reptitiously drops a handkerchief behind a child. That 
 child picks it up quickly and then chases to his place 
 the one dropping it, endeavoring by strategy to get 
 there first. The chief interest is in running, surprise, 
 strategy, and favoritism. 
 
 16. Baseball. — Played by rule. Chief interest in 
 running, unusual activity, dexterity, rivalry, and 
 cooperation. 
 
 17. Hop Scotch. — Played on a court marked off in 
 rectangular spaces. A block or chip is thrown into the 
 spaces in regular order and kicked out by a player who 
 hops on one foot. Chief interest is in hopping in this 
 unusual fashion, in dexterity, and in rivalry. 
 
 18. Bull in the Ring. — A circle is formed about the 
 bull by all the children hand in hand. The bull 
 stands in the center and tries to break through the
 
 256 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 ring. If he is successful, all give chase, the one 
 
 catching him becoming the next bull. Sometimes the 
 bull, before attempting to break through, asks of 
 each pair holding hands, "What is this?", to which 
 various answers are given, as " iron, " "silver," "gold." 
 ( "hief interest is in physical force, running, and chasing. 
 
 19. Leap Frog. — One child stoops and each of the 
 others in turn vaults over him. The first one vaulting 
 stops and stoops; the third does the same, and so on 
 until a row is formed. The first who stooped starts 
 the game all over again. Chief interest is in leaping 
 and running. 
 
 20. Ruth and Jacob. —Jacob is blindfolded in 
 the middle of the ring. He points to someone, who 
 becomes Ruth. "Where are you, Ruth?" says Jacob. 
 Ruth answers, and guided by her voice he chases her 
 until she is caught or time is called. When caught 
 and recognized, Ruth becomes Jacob. Chief enjoy- 
 ment is in running and chasing, in repeating the words, 
 in agility, and in chance. 
 
 21. Hill Dill or Pom Pom, Pull Away. Children 
 stand against a wall in a row or on a line marked on the 
 floor, facing another wall or line. One player stands half 
 way between the two lines and (-alls out "Hill Dill, come 
 over my hill," and the players try to run across to the 
 other wall or line. If they reach it without being 
 touched they are safe, but all who are tagged remain 
 in the icntcr, and as the captain calls out "Hill Dill" 
 they assist in catching the rest of the players. The game 
 continues until all are caught, and the firsl one cap 
 
 t tired is the one to remain in the center next time. Chief 
 interest is in running and chasing, and in strategy.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 Movements of Gross Bodily Control: Swinging, 
 Sliding, and Other Effortless Movement Plays 
 
 Effortless Motion Accompanied by Pleasurable 
 Effects in Swinging, Skating, Sliding, and Sailing. — 
 That effortless motion is accompanied by pleasurable 
 results seems apparent from even a cursory investiga- 
 tion into the sports of mankind and the play activities 
 of childhood. Peoples of many races enjoy sailing, 
 driving, horseback riding, motorcycling, automobiling, 
 and aviation, all of which involve a swift gliding or jog- 
 ging movement. In most wheeled vehicles, also in boats 
 and in airplanes, the forward motion in a lofty seat 
 doubtless enhances the pleasure in each new and 
 delightful sensation felt. We are agreeably sensitive 
 also to changes in the swiftness of the motion, acquir- 
 ing such a passion for speeding that racing boats, 
 planes, and automobiles have become a commercial 
 necessity. While horseback riding and bicycling 
 partake of the nature of both passive and active 
 enjoyment in movement, the pleasure experienced is 
 distinctly of the passive type. In bicycling as con- 
 trasted with walking, we find little or no hindrance to 
 swift gliding motion, while in horseback riding the 
 horse overcomes most of the mechanical resistance. 
 
 In sailing and in driving a motor boat or automo- 
 bile, the satisfaction in movement is doubtless en- 
 hanced by a sense of power in producing the effect. 
 
 257
 
 MOVEMENTS OF BODILY CONTROL 259 
 
 Sliding and Swinging the Most Common Forms of 
 Passive Movement in Childhood. — With children of 
 civilized races as with the peoples of savage or primi- 
 tive ancestry, swinging and sliding are the most 
 common movement plays. The infant responds 
 almost at birth to the soothing effects of rocking in his 
 mother's arms or in the cradle. And what tiny tot 
 does not invent some kind of rocking-horse, be it only 
 father's foot or the arm of a chair ! What pleasure he 
 finds a few years later in swinging on the limb of a tree 
 or on the seat of a swing! There is in swinging an ex- 
 hilaration and a push of the imagination which enlarges 
 the mental as well as the physical horizon. One writer 
 goes so far as to say. " I suspect that there is a specific 
 stimulation of the brain-cells that only the swing can 
 give, and that the child who has not had this emo- 
 tional arousement may be the poorer intellectually all 
 the rest of his life." 1 
 
 What a thrill of delight accompanies a child's first 
 perilous descent down the cellar door or the banisters 
 of a staircase! In sliding, the swift downward motion 
 brings a thrill of joy heightened perhaps by a sense of 
 the hazardous nature of the descent. 
 
 The Use and Value of Swinging Plays in Motor 
 Education. — Skating is one of the oldest and most 
 pleasurable movement plays in the history of the race. 
 Ice skating and roller skating are common pastimes 
 of children in civilized communities, both urban and 
 rural. They appeal to both active and passive 
 enjoyment of movement. Swings are expensive to 
 buy and difficult to install, and bring some hazards. 
 1 Curtis, H.: The Playground, Vol. VII, p. 318.
 
 260 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 Unless they arc set on an elevated piece of land, 
 children arc frequently knocked down by running in 
 front of others who are swinging. There is also some 
 danger of the swing frames collapsing unless the iron 
 frames are carefully set in cement blocks. However, 
 the benefits to be derived cannot be dismissed lightly 
 as due to mild emotional stimulus. The child needs 
 exercise other than in the erect position. At three- 
 years his limbs are very short as compared with his 
 stature, being about 38 per cent of his height, while 
 even at six years they are but 44 per cent. For this 
 reason swinging and sliding are of inestimable value. 
 Both activities exercise the legs while relieving them 
 of the entire support of the torso. 
 
 Lawn and Hammock Swings. — Babies like to lie 
 or swing gently in hammocks. Many playgrounds 
 supply hammock swings for babies, in order that the 
 "little mothers" may play with older children near by. 
 For children from two to six years of age, chair swings 
 suspended by ropes or chains from a strong wooden or 
 steel frame are very satisfactory. Montessori advo- 
 cates a wide-seated chair swing which may be set in 
 motion by pushing with the feet against a wall. Chair 
 swings so suspended that the majority of children can 
 swing in them by barely touching their feet to the 
 ground provide for more vigorous exercise than the 
 wide-seated swings. 
 
 A Single Rope Swing and Trapeze Swing. - The 
 orchard swing so common in rural communities finds 
 it- city counterpart in the rope swing commonly 
 suspended from trees or unused doorways. Children 
 find the climbing and swinging rope almost as satis-
 
 MOVEMENTS OF BODILY CONTROL 261 
 
 factory as the seat swing. A low trapeze swing can 
 be secured from an athletic supply house or made 
 from an old broom handle and a strong rope. This 
 piece of apparatus can well be combined with the 
 swinging rope, since many games can be played by 
 swinging from one to another. 
 
 The Giant Stride. — The writer remembers the 
 great delight she experienced as a child when swinging 
 on a revolving clothes-rack in a neighbor's back yard. 
 This device consisted of a large wheel which revolved 
 on the top of a wooden pole. In the country it is a 
 common practice for youthful experimenters to mount 
 a wagon wheel on a pole and to swing from knotted 
 ropes attached to the spokes. The giant stride, as 
 bought in an athletic supply house, consists of a tall 
 pole about fourteen feet high, to the revolving head of 
 which are attached six ropes or chains forming ladders. 
 The children hold on to the different rungs of the 
 ladders and run about the pole, swinging on the rope 
 and touching their feet to the ground every five or six 
 yards. This piece of apparatus does not belong on a 
 small children's playground. For children to play 
 safely upon it they must be taught to jump off and 
 dodge quickly out of reach of the other children 
 swinging rapidly near by. 
 
 The See-Saw. -- The see-saw has proved to be a 
 dangerous piece of apparatus. Children have a 
 tendency to jump off when down, and thus throw 
 their partners off with a thump. They often stand in 
 the middle and work the see-saw, falling off or 
 occasioning those at the ends to fall to the ground. 
 If see-saws are used in the playground they should
 
 262 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 have handles and should not be more than two and 
 one-half feet high. Other sec-saws, built still lower, 
 will be found useful for the younger children. The 
 use of see-saws on the playground demands constant 
 care and supervision. The rocking boat is a piece of 
 apparatus which, while more expensive to install than 
 see-saws, is similar to the see-saw in the motion 
 produced and rather more valuable. 
 
 Photographed fur the Pittsburgh Playground Association 
 
 A Slide for Small Children 
 
 Teeter Ladder. Children enjoy swinging on a 
 teeter ladder, a piece of apparatus which may be 
 purchased from any athletic supply house. It consists 
 of a horizontal ladder balanced in the middle on an
 
 MOVEMENTS OF BODILY CONTROL 263 
 
 iron pole. The children take hold of the ends of the 
 ladder with their hands and swing as on the see-saw. 
 It is not a very safe piece of apparatus, for the children 
 tend to jump off at unexpected times and throw their 
 opponents down. It is not usually found on a 
 children's playground. 
 
 The Merry-Go-Round. — There are several types of 
 merry-go-round. One consists of a circular platform 
 on which children sit while other children revolve the 
 platform, running along beside it, then jumping on 
 while it is in motion. The movement produced is 
 capable of making the children dizzy and seasick. 
 Even those who push may be affected. Another type 
 of merry-go-round is built with wheels and runs 
 around an iron track. The children operate it by a 
 lever arrangement and derive considerable exercise 
 in so doing. 
 
 Sliding Plays : Their Use and Value. — Sliding is 
 enjoyed by children chiefly because of the pleasure in 
 swift, gliding motion, unchecked by the difficulties 
 which usually accompany movement. A baby learn- 
 ing to creep derives enjoyment from sliding over a 
 slippery floor, pushing chairs and toys about with 
 him. "Before R was two years old he begged to be 
 lifted upon a smooth, inclined board from which he 
 slid down to the floor again and again. About the 
 same time he derived much pleasure from riding on a 
 small kiddie-car. The sliding motion, coupled with 
 the pleasure he found in propelling his own vehicle, 
 easily accounts for the enjoyment he experienced. 
 Being fortunate enough to possess a cellar door out-of-
 
 264 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 doors, he soon learned to make good use of it." 1 
 Sliding down cellar doors is no longer a common 
 pastime with city children. Yet what growing boy or 
 girl does not invent some kind of slide! Usually it is 
 a smooth board inclined against a fence. The play- 
 ground in its early days recognized sliding as a play 
 interest and has never ceased to improve upon the 
 sliding apparatus. The first slides were planks sup- 
 ported in an inclined position by upright poles with 
 ladders attached. Pine and cedar planks were soon 
 found unsatisfactory and maple was substituted. 
 The maple slide comes in three sizes. A kindergarten 
 slide should be secured for the use of small children, 
 while the ordinary playground slide, fifteen and 
 one-half feet long and eight feet wide, is more suitable 
 for children over kindergarten age. Where space is 
 limited a slide with adjustable incline is an advantage. 
 It can be detached from the steps and leaned against 
 the wall. An important feature in a slide for little 
 children is a series of steps broad enough to prevent 
 the child's falling through, and a slide railing to 
 grasp in making the ascent. Many casual observers 
 note the long line of children who take turns in the use 
 of the slide in the busy hours of a crowded playground 
 and conclude that the slide is a mere stimulus for 
 relaxation. Others see the value of climbing for the 
 muscles of legs and arms, note the apparent relaxation 
 from strain which follows the sitting position, and 
 draw the inference that such play is valuable from the 
 physical standpoint only. It is well to remember that 
 to make the arms and legs move effectively in early 
 1 From the author's unpublished records
 
 MOVEMENTS OF BODILY CONTROL 265 
 
 childhood is a problem which requires all the thinking 
 a child is capable of. Sliding plays present many 
 obstacles in which the body must be adjusted to the 
 handicap imposed, and in this adjustment reason and 
 judgment play an important part. 
 
 The Sliding Pole. — The sliding pole is used in most 
 gymnasiums to pass from the second story to the first. 
 These poles are placed on the ends of a gymnasium 
 frame and are steeper and shorter than the gymnasium 
 slide. Boys of ten or over take great pleasure in 
 sliding down these poles. The sliding poles are not 
 included, however, in the playground equipment for 
 children under ten. 
 
 The Kiddie-car. — Before passing on to sled-riding, 
 tobogganing, and skiing, it seems best to mention 
 again the kiddie-car, a favorite American toy. The 
 writer heartily recommends the use of the kiddie-car 
 in home and playground. In many cities, where hills 
 abound, children use these cars for coasting downhill 
 on the side-walk; the three-year-olds guide the car 
 by an occasional touch of their feet to the ground; 
 the older ones steer with the handle. 
 
 Other Wheeled Vehicles. — The toy market is 
 overcrowded with wheeled vehicles which can be 
 propelled by pushing, wheeling, rolling, and sliding, 
 and by foot movements. Wagons, velocipedes, tri- 
 cycles, bicycles, and toy automobiles and airplanes 
 on wheels are the delight of city children. They are 
 enjoyed not only for the pleasure in rolling and sliding 
 motion, but also because of the muscular effort 
 necessary to produce motion.
 
 266 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 Coasting has always been a favorite pastime of both 
 city and country children. In many city playgrounds 
 there are put up each winter toboggan slides down 
 which children slide to artificial lakes of ice. In 
 Pittsburgh, where hills abound, children of many 
 neighborhoods do not have to come to the playground 
 in winter to coast, as this is the most common home 
 and neighborhood sport. 
 
 Skiing. — Skiing is a common sport with children 
 in the northern states where the winter brings per- 
 petual ice and snow. Little children who cannot 
 purchase skis often use home-constructed ones and 
 make their own snowshoes. 
 
 Spontaneous Pleasure in Swinging and Sliding 
 Toys. — Children derive a certain pleasure in swinging 
 balls, tin cans, or other objects attached to strings. 
 They like also to swing dumb-bells or weights and to 
 move to and fro the various members of the body. 
 Some of their pleasure experienced in such plays is 
 derived from the repetition and contrast in the 
 movements, also from the sense of power in making 
 things happen. Many games and folk dances give 
 expression to this spontaneous enjoyment of swinging 
 rhythms. "Looby-Loo" is an example of a game 
 involving simple swinging movements of the feet, 
 arms, and head, while "Hickory, Dickory, Dock" 
 and "How Would You Like to Go Up in a Swing?" 
 are examples of the use of the more complex swinging 
 rhythms in the folk dance. Almost equal to the 
 interest in sliding is the child's interest in pushing toys 
 over smooth surfaces and sliding them down inclined 
 planes. A visit to the toy shop reveals many games in
 
 MOVEMENTS OF BODILY CONTROL 267 
 
 which marbles slide down a loop-the-loop arrange- 
 ment, or a spiral staircase, and many other types in 
 which weighted tumblers perform their part on a score 
 board or slide down inclined planes and score below. 
 
 Records of Swinging and Slid t ng Plays 
 
 Swinging Plays 
 
 1. Hammock Swings.- "Little mothers" stand 
 in line on the playground to place their charges in 
 the hammock swings. Older children play "sail 
 ship" in these swings. Sometimes they use brooms 
 for oars and play rowing. 
 
 2. Chair Swings. — In chair swings children ex- 
 periment with various forms of movement. They 
 swing high, low, fast, slowly. They twirl around 
 and then unwind, or attempt to swing a certain num- 
 ber of times without touching their feet to the ground. 
 
 As these spontaneous variations occurred, the play leader often 
 sang appropriate rhythms, thus guiding the spontaneous rhythmic 
 movement by a proper musical accompaniment. Children some- 
 times row in the chair swings, using the little brooms for oars, and 
 throw out a line to catch pretended fish. They play swimming by 
 lying flat on the seat, moving their arms or legs in the air. 
 
 3. Swinging on Single Rope Swings With Seats. — 
 
 The children swing two on a seat in standing position, 
 working up to considerable speed; they swing various 
 ways in sitting position, or whirl gently, twisting and 
 untwisting the rope. 
 
 4. Lawn Swings. — In playgrounds where some 
 strong lawn swings have been installed the children 
 play train, requiring tickets from those desiring to sit
 
 268 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 upon the seats, calling out stops, and assisting children 
 down the platform when the train stops. 
 
 5. Climbing Rope and Trapeze Swings. — Chil- 
 dren play sailor and climb up and down the rope. 
 They play fire sliding down the rope as a fire escape. 
 Sometimes "lifesavers" lower themselves from the 
 rope to the floor and rescue survivors swimming about 
 in the sea. 
 
 Most plays on the climbing rope and trapeze swing are mere plays 
 of physical activity. The children try to excel each other in climb- 
 ing and swinging high and fast, or in swinging from the trapeze 
 swing to the rope and back again. 
 
 6. The See-Saw. - - The children experiment in 
 swinging high and low, fast and slow. One child 
 sometimes stands in the middle and rocks the board 
 rapidly up and down. 1 Many dramatic games can 
 be played on the see-saw. Boat games are fre- 
 quently invented because the rocking movements 
 of the see-saws suggest boats. Trains are also dram- 
 atized, possibly because slow or fast movement, 
 getting off and on, and other features connected with 
 trains lend themselves readily to the movements of 
 the children on the apparatus. 
 
 7. The Merry-Go-Round. — On this apparatus, 
 children experiment in slow and fast movements. 
 Sitting securely upon the whirling center-board they 
 play they are riding on ocean liners or are driving 
 swiftly moving horsrs. 
 
 8. Swinging Balls and Other Objects. — Children 
 like to experiment with balls attached by long strings 
 to a horizontal pole. They like to bat the balls back 
 
 1 This is usually prohibited in supervised playgrounds.
 
 MOVEMENTS OF BODILY CONTROL 269 
 
 and forth to each other and to swing them to and fro. 
 Regulating the speed of these moving balls adds 
 more zest to the experimentations. This involves 
 considerable practice to obtain a high degree of skill. 
 It. is more difficult to regulate the speed when move- 
 ment is almost imperceptible than when movement is 
 at its height. Any group of children invent a variety 
 of plays, such as batting a ball to a partner who hits 
 it on the rebound, dancing balls up and down, hitting, 
 running, and catching balls, twirling and untwirling 
 them, swinging balls to represent pendulums or other 
 moving objects, and putting the balls through various 
 types of rhythm in response to the stimulation of 
 instrumental music. 
 
 9. Swinging the Body. — Children like to swing 
 the body to represent a rocking-horse, a swing, or 
 wind-blown objects such as windmills, trees, flowers, 
 or grass. 
 
 Sliding Plays 
 
 1. The Artificial Slide. — Very young children 
 sit timidly on the slide and clutch the side railing 
 tightly while they slide down. They soon learn to do 
 what they see other children do, even to sliding down 
 head foremost. 
 
 2. Variations of Play on the Slide. — Boys and 
 girls from five to nine years old discovered the follow- 
 ing ways of using the slide : sliding down on a block or 
 board; sliding down backwards; sliding down on one 
 side with arms outstretched in swimming position; 
 sliding down in sitting position with arms folded or 
 stretched overhead; sliding down while performing
 
 2JO SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 specified acts with the hands, such as clapping a 
 fixed number of times or throwing objects up and 
 catching them; starting down on the knees and when 
 half way down grasping the side of the slide and 
 springing to the sitting position; playing "tag" while 
 sliding. 
 
 3. Dramatic Plays on the Slide. — Swimming. 
 Train. Birds flying down the slide. Bridge: in this 
 play the children hold their hands up to form a bridge 
 under which all children must slide. 
 
 4. Sliding Toys. — In the playrooms of Pitts- 
 burgh the little children just learning to walk, push 
 chairs and doll-cabs about on the oiled floors. Chil- 
 dren of creeping age push blocks, engines, and animals 
 on wheels with them as they creep. As soon as some 
 facility in walking is acquired, children like to pull 
 after them toys on wheels, such as wagons, elephants, 
 bears, dogs, and rabbits. The smooth gliding motion 
 of the wheeled vehicles adds to the pleasure felt in 
 controlling the movements of something outside of 
 self. Children often incline a board against a table or 
 box, and slide blocks or toys on wheels down the in- 
 clined plane. They invent various games with weight- 
 ed toys called tumblers, counting a certain number ol 
 points when the tumblers complete a successful 
 journey to the end of the board or to rings marked on 
 the ground. 
 
 5. Skating. — Spontaneous sliding or skating on 
 icy streets is a common example of the prevalence of 
 sliding play both in childhood and in adult lite. 
 Children sometimes bind on their feel boards slightly 
 larger than their shoes, and slide or walk over the ice
 
 MOVEMENTS OF BODILY CONTROL 27 1 
 
 on these improvised snowshoes. Roller skating is a 
 common pastime with city children. In certain 
 sections of our large cities one may walk along streets 
 thronged with happy skaters. Some crowded streets 
 at certain seasons of the year present the appearance 
 of a skating rink.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 Movements of Gross Bodily Control: Dancing 
 and Swimming 
 
 Both swimming and dancing may be classed as 
 active movement plays involving the acquisition of 
 skill in their performance. To find the sources of 
 pleasure in dancing and in swimming, we must first 
 recall the fact that the human organism when re- 
 freshed finds pleasure in movement. This fact, how- 
 ever, does not account for the peculiar satisfaction 
 found in swimming or the fascination and charm the 
 dance affords. In swimming, the tonic effect of the 
 water upon the skin and its resistance as a medium 
 for locomotion, together with enjoyment of the 
 rhythmic movements necessary to support the body, 
 combine to place this sport in the foremost rank 
 of movement plays. Dancing gives us a highly 
 intensified form of locomotion in which the body 
 is put into varied positions suggested by the rhythm. 
 We see in dancing almost a complete relaxation from 
 tension and a state of physical exhilaration in which 
 there is sometimes noticeable complete unconsciousness 
 of fatigue together with a sense that the body is of 
 feathery lightness. In swimming, there is a relaxa- 
 tion of some muscle groups with a corresponding 
 tension in others. 
 
 An Analysis of Adult Dancing. — Proceeding first 
 to a description of the dance, we shall then confine 
 
 272
 
 MOVEMENTS OF BODILY CONTROL 273 
 
 ourselves to a brief mention of such swimming activi- 
 ties as are noticeable among children under ten years 
 of age, leaving other and more spontaneous move- 
 ment plays in water to be treated in another chapter. 
 To the analysis of adult dancing presented by Groos, 
 the writer has little to add. Presenting Spencer's 
 view that rhythm is a most suitable instrument for 
 the expression of passionate emotion, sad or joyous, 
 Groos reinforces Grosse's criticism that Spencer's 
 theory makes the rhythm of dancing only a strongly 
 intensified form of locomotion, and points out that it 
 does not in the least explain the pleasurable and 
 intoxicating quality of rhythmic motion. As Groos 
 says, rhythmic movements are employed among most 
 people either as a means of producing ecstatic con- 
 ditions as seen in the initiatory rites among savages, 
 or as a means of inciting religious ecstasy as practiced 
 by the religious sects who roll or dance until a condi- 
 tion of intoxication results. He does not overlook the 
 use of rhythmic movements in connection with 
 fighting or love plays, or their social use in modern 
 gymnastic and social dancing. His conclusions point 
 out that it is safer to regard dancing as an exciting 
 movement-play, which possesses in common with 
 other narcotics the magic power of abstracting us 
 from commonplace existence and transporting us to a 
 self-created world of dreams. 1 In speaking of the 
 origin of the dance among primitive people, St. 
 Johnson says: "One can almost imagine the Earliest 
 Man waking one morning and finding the sun 
 shining, the air bright and cheerful, the birds singing, 
 1 K. Groos: The Play of Man, pp. 88-91.
 
 J 74 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 and every thing good to see. And then, through very joy 
 of life, he started dancing, and laughing at the plea- 
 sure of this new sensation, he would start singing and 
 clapping his hands to keep time, and thus there, out in 
 the gray wilderness of Ancient Earth, were the two 
 great arts of Dancing and Music first brought to life." ' 
 
 St. Johnson's theory, however, fails to account for the 
 spontaneous rocking rhythms which accompany grief 
 among many peoples. The Irish "wake" and the rites 
 and rituals accompanying the burial of the dead among 
 savage tribes reveal the fact that all passionate emotion 
 tends to express itself in rhythmic form. 
 
 What is Rhythm? - The fundamental fact about 
 rhythm is periodicity or a regular succession of like 
 events. When any series of sounds, noises, or move- 
 ments is broken up into groups, we have units appear- 
 ing in serial form. It is the feeling for the group as a 
 whole which sets rhythm off as distinct from other 
 impressions. 
 
 The Origin of Rhythm is Physical. — When we have 
 a rhythmic movement we have a rhythmic nerve cur- 
 rent. The perception of rhythm comes from the pres- 
 ence in consciousness of a wave of kinesthetic sensa- 
 tions, due either to movement or tensions of the muscles. 
 There seems to be a biological ground for pleasure in 
 rhythm. The great pleasure which children find in 
 rhythm is due to the power rhythmic experiences have 
 to set up vibrations within the body and stimulate the 
 harmonious activities of the bodily organs. 
 
 The Psychological Basis of Rhythm. - The ten- 
 dency to make rhythmic movements is instinctive with 
 
 1 Reginald St. Johnson: The History of Dancing, pp. io-ii.
 
 MOVEMENTS OF BODILY CONTROL 275 
 
 children. Their joys and sorrows become externalized 
 in rhythmic gestures involving movements of the 
 trunk, arms, and legs. Sigismund gives an admirable 
 description of the rhythmic movements of a twenty- 
 week old infant. "If the nurse holds up a child of 
 this age on her lap, supporting it under the arm, it 
 will dance, hop, and spring perpetually like a hooked 
 fish, bound like a grasshopper, draw up his legs like a 
 closed pocket-knife, and twist his head and neck — in 
 short, he will exhibit the same mercurial exuberance of 
 motion which pleases us in young goats, lambs, and 
 kittens." 1 
 
 Sigismund's illustration emphasizes the spontaneous 
 character of early rhythmic expression. Native ap- 
 preciation of rhythm and application of the laws of 
 rhythmic progression have a basis in the nervous and 
 muscular system. Any movement once started tends 
 to recur and to keep recurring. One author explains 
 this as follows: "This tendency to recur follows from 
 the fact that the perceptions-reflex of the movement 
 itself acts as a stimulus, similar in character to the 
 original, toward the repetition of the movement. 
 There is, therefore, a tendency for a regularly recur- 
 ring series of similar movements to take place, each 
 stimulated by the perception-reflex of that which 
 precedes it. That this series does not go on indefi- 
 nitely as the result of one single stimulus, is due to the 
 fact that in the highly complex human nervous 
 organism fresh external stimuli are constantly occur- 
 ring which interfere with and prevent its development. 2 
 
 1 Sigismund as quoted by Karl Groos in The Play of Man, p. 80. 
 
 2 J. B. McEwen: The Thought in Music, pp. 9-10.
 
 276 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 The Range of Children's Dancing. - - The walking, 
 running, skipping, jumping, leaping, and hopping 
 movements of children tend to become rhythmical as 
 soon as they become automatic and habitual. Chil- 
 dren's spontaneous dancing includes more than this 
 rhythmic repetition of movements. It is the result of 
 a mood or idea and as such runs the whole gamut of 
 rhythmic expression, including intonations, gestures, 
 attitudes, postures, and even song. A close observer 
 of the spontaneous dance of emotional children who 
 are especially susceptible to music reveals the rare 
 transports of joy they experience when responding 
 through the dance to the moods and ideas revealed in 
 good music. It is easy to see that the ecstasies of 
 motion transport them into another world, where they 
 are content to submerge themselves in ordered and 
 repetitive motion. Even the normal child feels at 
 times the poetry of motion. With the average child, 
 double and quadruple time are easier to interpret 
 than triple time. Some children arrive at rhythmic 
 perception very slowly, learning first through imita- 
 tion and suggestion what other children express 
 spontaneously. Interest in rhythmic expression, as 
 has been shown, begins as early as the first year and 
 declines in the teens. A study of games seems to 
 indicate that girls enjoy rhythmic movements more 
 than boys. 
 
 Training in Rhythmic Activities. -- Many theories 
 and systems have been devised to bring about appre- 
 ciation and technique of rhythmic expression. Two 
 basic methods stand out as extreme views in teaching. 
 Both recognize that rhythm is perceptible by both the
 
 MOVEMENTS OF BODILY CONTROL 277 
 
 aural and the muscular systems. There are those 
 who, noticing the ease with which three and four- 
 year-old children respond to music through bodily 
 representation of musical values, work for sensibility to 
 music, and let the children's senses, limbs, and mind 
 be stimulated to externalize the values expressed in 
 the music. Others, while relying upon music to 
 supply emotions and thoughts, seek first to find points 
 of identity between the music and the lives and 
 actions of the children. The last mentioned aims to 
 catch individual and characteristic modes of expres- 
 sion and to improvise music which truly follows and 
 embodies that individual or characteristic note. 
 Jaques-Dalcroze combines both methods * He claims 
 that rhythmic movement can best be acquired by a 
 system of physical exercises — a highly flexible system 
 adapted to a large variety of temperaments. He 
 works for spontaneous representation of individual 
 moods and mental attitudes and also for gymnastic 
 exercise through exposure to the thought in music. 
 Devotees of both methods depend upon the experi-' 
 mental method for improvement and skill, for recent 
 studies concerning the acquisition of muscular skill 
 point out that progress comes through this method of 
 trial and success. Children must perform a muscular 
 act in order to have a means of understanding sug- 
 gestions concerning it. But when an improvement 
 has been hit upon it should be made conscious and 
 permanent by a teacher who calls attention to it as 
 good. 
 
 1 E. Jaques-Dalcroze: Rhythms, Music, and -Education.
 
 278 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 Swimming. - Very young children can keep afloat 
 in the water. A child of three or four years when 
 placed in deep water usually attempts some sort of 
 beating movement with his hands and feet. While 
 many children learn to swim as early as the fourth 
 year, the period from nine to twelve is naturally the 
 lime when the greatest interest in swimming prevails. 
 Studies of play activities of children in various 
 localities all unite in assigning to this period the plays 
 and games affording the most vigorous activity for the 
 whole body. 
 
 Authorities agree that swimming has both physio- 
 logical and aesthetic value. It is one of the most 
 beneficial means of preserving the health. The muscles 
 used are of the dominantly fundamental type; and 
 the effect of the special swimming coordinations upon 
 circulation, digestion, and the nervous system is 
 exceedingly beneficial. Swimming is an aesthetic 
 asset in that it excels all other forms of exercise' in 
 variety and grace of movement. It is a physiological 
 asset in that it enables the individual to build up 
 resistance to disease and offsets the strain city life 
 and sedentary occupations bring upon the accessory 
 movements and nerves. 
 
 The ability to swim is provided for in the common 
 school education of England. Public swimming baths 
 exist in all the large cities, and the children of the 
 upper grades, accompanied by their regular teachers, 
 go to these baths in the spring and fall. It is a recog- 
 nized fact that the swimming pool ought to be part of 
 the equipment of every elementary school. No equal 
 amount of space devoted to play equipment can per-
 
 MOVEMENTS OF BODILY CONTROL 279 
 
 form half the service that the swimming pool renders. 
 In the United States the public swimming pools have 
 in most cases been connected with the city play- 
 grounds. To these public playgrounds, swimming 
 pools, and baths thousands of men, women, and chil- 
 dren flock in the warm summer days; and all through 
 the spring and fall the pools are in constant use. 
 
 Records of an Infant's Spontaneous Dance 
 Movements 
 
 gyi Months. — R was fretting to-night from teeth- 
 ing, when I placed him in his high chair near the piano 
 and played to him. His posture and facial expression 
 instantly changed. His face brightened and his whole 
 body bobbed up and down rhythmically, while at the 
 same time his feet hit the footrest at regular rhythmic 
 intervals. 
 
 11 Months. — Rocking the chairs is a favorite 
 pastime with R. That the muscular exertion oc- 
 casions part of the enjoyment is shown from the fact 
 that he rocks the heavy chairs most frequently. 
 That the repetition and contrast in the movement is 
 also a part of his pleasure is evidenced by the fact 
 that he follows with his eyes the motion of the chairs. 
 R pounds a good deal in repetitive fashion, some- 
 times on the floor with his hands, at other times with 
 his toys. 
 
 1 j Months. — When carried along the floor in erect 
 position so that his feet barely touched the floor, R 
 moved his feet rapidly and rhythmically as if walking. 
 
 16 Months. — R walked sideways, rapidly, around 
 the dining-room table and occasionally stamped.
 
 2 8() SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 When holding on to the table he sometimes stood 
 still and stamped rhythmically several times. 
 
 ig Months.- I suspended a red hall from a string. 
 R hit it vigorously, watched it swing, then repeated 
 the act. 
 
 22 Months. - R was visiting his grandmother's 
 house, where music from a vocalian was played several 
 times. Almost at once la- began to boh tip and down 
 rhythmically and with heavy movements of the legs 
 to dance about the room, his arms beating time in the 
 air. lie repeated these movements frequently when- 
 ever dance music was played on the vocalian. 
 
 23 Months.- I pointed out some birds; R gave a 
 shout of delight as he leaped slightly upwards and 
 forwards several times with arms outstretched. 
 
 In this elemental dance we see rhythmic expression in the form 
 of pantomime. To appreciate the meaning of the dance it is 
 necessary to understand the part that gesture plays in the evolution 
 of the race. The appearance of birds sets up rhythmic nerve currents 
 within the body and rhythmic movements appi 
 
 26 Months. — One cold day R was running about on 
 the fronl porch. Accidentally his steps took on a for- 
 ward galloping movement. From that time on he gal- 
 loped aboutagood deal as he moved from place to place. 
 
 " Play again " i> the in\ ariable request after dancing 
 about in simple game-, such a- " 1 [ere we go 'round the 
 sun." In the boom, boom, boom which follows the 
 dance, R jumps up and down vigorously, with keen 
 enjoyment. When R was walking around in a ring 
 with me I quickened the pace and he danced the 
 gallop very rhythmically. 1 
 
 1 From the author's unpublished records.
 
 MOVEMENTS OF BODILY CONTROL 28 1 
 
 Records of Spontaneous Dance Movements 
 Observed in Children's Playgrounds 
 
 1. A group of children from two and a half to six 
 years of age were seated on the floor ready to play 
 ball when one child started to beat time on the floor 
 with her hands. Instantly every child followed her 
 example. The play leader improvised simple running 
 chords; she played these first slowly, then rapidly, 
 changing from loud to soft. Some of the children 
 showed instantly a spontaneous appreciation of the 
 contrasts in the music; others perceived the contrasts 
 largely through imitation of others' movements. 
 
 2. One day a canary in a cage was brought into a 
 playroom. Nearly all the children danced up and 
 down in repetitive fashion, some exclaiming "Ah!" 
 and clapping their hands. 
 
 Here again we see pleasure in serial form of motion. 
 
 3. A bundle containing several dolls was un- 
 wrapped before a group of two- and three-year-old 
 children. When the first baby doll was held up, the 
 children reached up their arms toward it and bobbed up 
 and down in great glee, calling eagerly, " Ale, me, me!" 
 
 4. At Christmas time a group of children were 
 taken into an adjoining room where stood a brilliantly 
 lighted Christmas tree. Some gazed quietly at the 
 spectacle, but the majority jumped up and down, 
 merrily exclaiming, "Ah!" or "Oh!" 
 
 5. On an outdoor excursion a boy of four dis- 
 covered a tiny bud on a bush. He jumped up and 
 down and called to the other children saying, "See! 
 see!" Another group of children from a slum district 
 found some tiny blades of grass, patted the grass
 
 282 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 gently, thru jumped up and down calling to the other 
 children to come and see. 
 
 6. In dramatizing the story of the "Pied Piper of 
 Hamclin," the children walked quickly and excitedly 
 when the rats disappeared, and slowly, almost 
 solemnly, when the Piper piped the children away 
 from their homes. 
 
 7. In playing Cinderella, the good fairy walked in 
 with a slow, dignified tread; the evil fairy limped in, 
 and stamped. 
 
 8. The children were sliding on an oiled floor, and, 
 quite naturally, threw out their arms every few steps 
 to regain balance; the play leader then accompanied 
 this spontaneous play with a slide-slide-slide-stop 
 rhythm. Later the children varied this rhythm to 
 run-run-run-leap and leap-run-run. 
 
 9. One day the play leader allowed the playground 
 rabbit to run about among the children. They chased 
 it around gleefully for a minute, then set themselves 
 to the task of cleaning the cage. Soon the rabbit, 
 left alone, began to leap about on her hind feet. 
 It was not long before the children had acquired the 
 bunny leap, which they accomplished by shifting the 
 weight of the body from their feet to their hands, while 
 leaping about on all lours. After this occurrence they 
 asked almosl every day to play bunny, and, when 
 music was supplied, the play took on rhythmic form. 
 
 10. A little bird hopped upon the window sill; 
 immediately the children in the playground began to 
 hop like birds. A few days later a number of rhythms 
 had developed from this activity, such rhythms as 
 run, run, run, hop, hop, and vice versa.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 Movements of Gross Bodily Control: Throwing, 
 Rolling, and Spinning Plays 
 
 Striking and Throwing are Originally Satisfying. — 
 The prevalence of throwing plays among peoples of all 
 nations seems to indicate to many authorities that 
 throwing is at bottom instinctive. Archer thinks that 
 throwing stones and hitting with a club are responses 
 apart from training. 1 With many primitive peoples 
 throwing was a means of killing adversaries and bring- 
 ing down game; in fact, like climbing, it was an im- 
 portant way of acquiring supremacy over wild animals 
 and inferior races. The fact that the throwing pro- 
 pensity persists in full force in an environment which 
 ordinarily imposes pain and punishment on many of 
 its manifestations, seems to indicate that it is more 
 than a mere matter of imitation; in fact, makes it 
 seem probable that both striking and throwing are 
 originally satisfying. This satisfaction does not nec- 
 essarily arise from the fact that both are racially old 
 activities, as Archer would have us believe, and hence 
 deeply rooted in the brain centers, nerves, and 
 muscles concerned with these movements; but from 
 the fact that they have a function in maturing the 
 muscular system. 
 
 1 R. A. Archer: "Spontaneous Constructions and Primitive 
 Activities of Children Analogous to Those of Primitive Man," 
 American Journal of Psychology, Vol. XXI, pp. 144-49. 
 
 283
 
 284 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 Archer believes that throwing develops from strik- 
 ing; that when an object slips accidentally from the 
 child's hand it reveals the possibility of extending 
 control over the object by throwing it. Naturally, 
 downward throwing occurs hrst, and forward throwing 
 develops soon afterward, while upward throwing 
 seems rather difficult to acquire because children 
 find difficulty in coordinating their catching move- 
 ments with the course of the descending ball. 
 
 Progressive Development of Throwing and Strik- 
 ing Movements. As early as the sixth month, the 
 child shows a tendency to pound with his spoon or 
 rattle. At about the same time he begins to drop his 
 toys. One child whom the writer observed accident- 
 ally loosened his grasp upon a rubber doll and seemed 
 surprised that it had passed from his grasp; then, his 
 eyes falling upon the doll, an association was formed 
 whereby he connected the act of dropping with a new 
 position of the doll which had escaped from his grasp. 
 At eight months this same child had developed a 
 passion for dropping toys out of his crib. When the 
 object dropped or thrown caught accidentally on the 
 edge of the crib, he would reach over and attempt to 
 push it down. If he succeeded, he would cry out with 
 delight; if the effort failed, he would utter a begging 
 cry for assistance. At nineteen months, dropping 
 pebbles down a steep embankment was a favorite 
 pastime. He would shout "gone" or "bang" as 
 soon as he stone left his hands. Picking the stones 
 up afterward and throwing them into a pail was decid- 
 edly less pleasurable. This was probably due to the 
 fact that picking up the stones afterward was play-
 
 MOVEMENTS OF BODILY CONTROL 285 
 
 fully insisted upon by his mother, hence was not a 
 self-initiated activity. At another time, gathering 
 stones in a pail became a pleasant pastime. With this 
 same child striking by means of a stick was first noticed 
 on the occasion of daily walks. Previous to this 
 time, however, he had knocked balls about the floor 
 with a broom, or rolled them upon the table by hitting 
 them with an egg-beater. On one of these walks he 
 found a stick and dragged it along the ground, or 
 struck it occasionally against a stone wall he was 
 passing. From that time on striking at fences, grass, 
 and other objects was indulged in freely during the 
 daily walks. He would cry out if deprived of the 
 stick and would show great satisfaction at the skill he 
 acquired in striking grass and weeds a sharp blow. 
 With this child, playfully striking a pet dog was a 
 tendency hard to eradicate, while hitting his play- 
 mates proved so satisfying that even pain and punish- 
 ment failed to eradicate the tendency entirely. The 
 following illustration seems to indicate the playful 
 nature of this striking propensity. One day in his 
 play the child, entirely without provocation, gave 
 his playmate a light blow on the hand, laughing as he 
 did so. The little girl instinctively drew back and 
 cried out, running behind a chair. Quickly the cul- 
 prit sensed a chase; striking both arms in the air as 
 he ran, he chased her merrily around the porch from 
 place to place. 
 
 Anyone who has played with little children has 
 seen numerous instances of their keen enjoyment of 
 spontaneous throwing. As Sigismund says, "All 
 children like "to throw and are often blamed for it
 
 286 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 very unjustly. We should rejoice, then, with 
 
 the children when a stone goes a long way or bounds 
 into the water with a splash. When children get 
 out-of-doors the desire to throw something takes pos- 
 session of them; even the yearling picks up pebbles 
 and delights to roll them. The older boys stand on 
 the coping or carriage block, and are engrossed in 
 testing the force and directness of their aim. They 
 are trying the power of will over matter." 1 
 
 That boys are often blamed unjustly for throwing 
 seems to be borne out by the following: A group of 
 boys in a summer recreation school stood waiting for 
 the doors to open, amusing thmselves in the meantime 
 by throwing each others' caps over the high picket 
 fence surrounding the school. As soon as the doors 
 were opened the boys assumed an eager, expectant 
 attitude and went directly to the bowling alley. No 
 further transgressions were seen that day. 
 
 Facts about the Striking Propensity. - In writing 
 of the striking propensity, Archer presents some 
 interesting facts: "Many of the boys and girls say 
 they carry a stick because they feel safer when walking 
 along the street or road. A stick may be used to 
 strike at weeds, animals, or even people. It is also 
 dragged along a picket fence so as to make a rhythmic 
 noise. In riding in a vehicle, one great pleasure is to 
 use the whip on the horses. Boys and even girls 
 engage in whipping contests, in which two of them 
 with whip in hand beat each other until one or the 
 other gives up. Driving stock also gives great 
 pleasure because the whip can be freely used. Much 
 
 1 Quoted by K. Groos, The Play of Man, p. 104.
 
 MOVEMENTS OF BODILY CONTROL 287 
 
 damage is sometimes done in striking flowers, small 
 trees, and other plants of value. There seems to be 
 an almost blind impulse to perform this motion with 
 something in the hand in the shape of a stick or whip." 
 "From the use of the stick and whip the child in the 
 course of time learns the use of the lever. This usu- 
 ally does not occur until the tenth or twelfth year. 
 There is considerable variation here. It is interesting 
 that many children do discover this incidentally in 
 their play with a stick." 1 Archer also mentions the 
 following throwing activities: "Small children throw 
 everything they can get hold of, blocks, toys, spoons, 
 knives, forks, food, balls, etc. When larger they 
 throw stones, skippers, snowballs, corn cobs, and pieces 
 of coal. Stones are used far more than any other object 
 in throwing. The returns show that they throw at 
 trees, street lamps, birds, horses, wagons, people, 
 windows, church steeples, signs on streets, shutters, 
 passing trains, brass balls on top of poles, cats, dogs, 
 fruit on trees, chickens, and barns. About 40 per cent 
 of the boys threw at cats, dogs, and birds." 2 Does not 
 this last fact seem to indicate that a good deal of the 
 zest in throwing comes from the desire to make things 
 happen, dogs, cats, and birds bringing more startling 
 reactions than do houses, lamp posts, and trees? 
 
 Throwing with the Help of a Blow. - - There comes 
 a time somewhere around the sixth year when the 
 boy seeks naturally to hit the ball a blow with his 
 
 iR. A. Archer, "Spontaneous Constructions and Primitive 
 Activities of Children Analogous to Those of Primitive Man," 
 American Journal of Psychology, Vol. XXI, p. 145. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 146.
 
 288 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 hand or with an improvised bat. This play is 
 usually combined with marksmanship. While chil- 
 dren of this age do not play highly involved games of 
 marksmanship, they play simplified games of tennis, 
 croquet, baseball, and shinny, in which there is either 
 hitting at a mark or hitting with some idea of placing. 
 In most games of this sort the radius of the arm is 
 artificially extended by means of such instrumentali- 
 ties as a bat, a racket, mallet, sling, or bow. The leg 
 is also used in kicking, another means of increasing the 
 sphere of movement, as in football when kicking at a 
 goal. Other games involving hitting with the help of 
 a blow are polo, billiards, cricket, golf, ping-pong, 
 volley ball, and net ball. 
 
 Throwing at a Mark. — Groos believes that with 
 primitive people, throwing at a mark originated in 
 the hostile use of the ability to throw, and notes the 
 fact that these games belong essentially to the male. 
 It is an interesting fact that such throwing contests 
 still persist in the form of games when conditions no 
 longer put a premium on the survival of those posses- 
 sing this skill. At the present time there is no 
 intimate connection between children's plays of marks- 
 manship and fighting play. 
 
 Aiming Requires Skill and Promotes Concentra- 
 tion. — With very young children, simple forward 
 throwing is quickly followed by the desire to hit 
 something, a house, a tree, animals, or another child. 
 The interest in shooting at a mark or goal is not strong 
 before the seventh year, although a few kindergarten 
 games testify to the beginning of this interest. One 
 reason for this interest in aiming, at about the seventh
 
 MOVEMENTS OF BODILY CONTROL 289 
 
 year, is that the finer muscular adjustments are now 
 being correlated with the rapidly developing brain 
 centers, and interest in skill and detail are for the first 
 time ends and aims of the child's motor and ideational 
 activity. That marksmanship plays promote a high 
 degree of concentration of attention and the capacity 
 for swift and accurate reactions is seen by even a casual 
 observer. 
 
 Shooting and aiming plays occur spontaneously in 
 all playgrounds for small children. A large number 
 of indoor games also appeal to this interest. Manu- 
 facturers of toys have commercialized the shooting 
 and throwing interest in all forms of games, such as 
 ring-toss, tenpins, target shooting, faba gaba, etc. 
 Indeed, as Joseph Lee says, "So strong indeed is the 
 marksman interest that it threatens, in America at 
 least, to absorb the whole play schedule to itself. 
 The American youth are just now missile mad. The 
 old running games, like 'Hill Dill,' 'Three Deep,' 
 'Prisoner's Base' languish; and everything has to 
 be, if not baseball or a modification of it, at least some 
 sort of throwing game. " l 
 
 Many Juvenile Offenses are Due to the Throwing 
 Propensity. — The Juvenile Court records of offences 
 due to throwing seem to support Mr. Lee's opinion. 
 One day the writer was riding in a Pullman car 
 through flat, level country when a stone crashed 
 through the window at her side and hit the back of a 
 man directly opposite. The conductor gave an illumi- 
 nating account of a number of accidents of this kind 
 which had occurred in this particular section. The 
 
 1 J. E. Lee: Play in Education, p. 206.
 
 290 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 accidents had been traced to a group of boys who even 
 now were under the probation of the juvenile court. 
 The difficulty of eliminating these boys' throwing 
 activities reminded the writer of her own trans- 
 gressions in childhood. She remembered gathering 
 stones to throw into buckets of water which people were 
 accustomed to draw from a well near her home. 
 Admonitions from passers-by had little effect. She 
 recalled also the scorn with which scoldings about 
 snow-balling were received in school. A sling-shot 
 was among her early possessions. One day she dared 
 a cousin to shoot a stone from his sling-shot at the 
 screen door of her home. The cousin accepted the 
 dare, and the stone crashing into a piano was a result 
 she had little foreseen. The writer also recalls 
 vividly the throwing contests held in her early play- 
 time. Throwing stones at lamp posts and over low 
 fences and buildings and skipping them over the water 
 were daily pastimes. 
 
 In all plays with rolling balls pleasure in motion as 
 such accounts for the satisfaction afforded. To the 
 infant, rolling or shoving balls and other objects is a 
 joy and an end in itself. As soon as the physical 
 coordinations used in aiming movements are built up, 
 the child seeks another end, namely a goal. A little 
 later comes the interest in rolling hoops, twirling wheels 
 on string, and various activities connectrd with such 
 play. What adult but remembers the fun of rolling 
 a hoop! • Here we find the pleasure in motion com- 
 bined with a new problem, that of developing skill in 
 whipping and balancing a moving object.
 
 MOVEMENTS OF BODILY CONTROL 29 1 
 
 From Scotland comes a game called curling, a 
 pastime common also in Alaska and Yukon Territory. 
 This winter game is played on ice by sliding from one 
 mark to another great hemispherical stones with 
 handles on top. The object of the sport is to aim 
 accurately at a mark, guarding one's own partner 
 while striking off one's antagonists. 
 
 Both the rolling of hoops and the skipping of stones 
 bring a feeling of mastery over the moving object and 
 the pleasure increases with the development of skill. 
 Skipping stones on water is hardly less pleasurable 
 and is a more universal pastime. The writer re- 
 members spending long hours, when a child, searching 
 for the smoothest, best-shaped stones with which to 
 vie with her companions in these skipping contests. 
 
 Tops and marbles have become almost as universal 
 playthings as the ball. From the countryside to the 
 heart of the city, no boy is found without some form 
 of top to spin, some favorite game of marbles. Lee 
 says it is to be regretted that nowadays mere tossing 
 of marbles seems to have driven out the more scien- 
 tific snapping of the marble. "Tops," he says, "reach 
 their greatest popularity when it is a part of the game 
 to strike, and if possible to split down the middle your 
 adversary's top by a straight and mighty throw." l 
 To illustrate the pleasure children find in spinning 
 tops and thus keeping the movements of another 
 object at their mercy, the following is quoted from 
 Wagner's description of a small boy who liked to 
 keep several tops spinning at once: "Each had its 
 name, and he talked to them all. The one which 
 
 1 J. E. Lee: Play in Education, p. 206.
 
 292 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 spun longest was his favorite, and he tested them by 
 setting them all in violent motion while he ran down 
 in the yard. When he came back he rejoiced over 
 those that were still spinning." ! 
 
 Record of Throwing, Rolling, and 
 Spinning Plays 
 
 /. Simple Throwing 
 
 1. In the baby corner of the playground infants are 
 seen dropping spoons, spools, rag dolls, and other 
 objects for the joy of seeing the "little mothers" pick 
 them up. Some are tearing newspapers to pieces, 
 throwing the fragments about the yard. 
 
 2. In the sand pile little tots are dropping sand 
 through their fingers and throwing it as far as they 
 can reach. Others are dropping stones into the sand 
 buckets. 
 
 3. In one corner of the playground a group of 
 small children are throwing rubber balls, then run- 
 ning after them. One baby is throwing a ball at her 
 older sister, who rolls it back for the baby to pursue. 
 Another small child happens to throw the ball upward, 
 looks amazed when it is gone, and fails to discover its 
 whereabouts. 
 
 4. A little boy is attempting to throw a ball 
 upwards and catch it again. At first he loses sight of 
 it entirely and misses his catch. After some experi- 
 mentation he learns to look up after it and reaches out 
 gropingly, his face all puckered up; but so unco- 
 ordinated are his movements thai he seldom catches it. 
 
 1 H. Wagner, as quoted by Groos: The Play of Man, p. m.
 
 MOVEMENTS OF BODILY CONTROL 293 
 
 5. Older boys are throwing balls upward, trying 
 to reach the height of the shelter house. As the balls 
 speed upward, the boys bend back their heads and 
 follow their courses with their eyes, catching the balls 
 with ease and precision. 
 
 6. Some boys, about nine years old, are playing 
 baseball in the modified form of "Scrub" and "Three 
 O' Cat." 
 
 7. Bouncing balls while clapping the hands a 
 certain number of times between the throw and the 
 catch was practiced by a group of girls for several 
 weeks until they attained considerable proficiency in 
 this art. 
 
 8. "Jacks" is a game in which throwing and catch- 
 ing are not the main centers of interest; rather are the 
 attention and interest focussed on what is done 
 between catches. 
 
 2. Throwing by Means of a Blow or a Stroke. 
 
 1. Babies sitting on a gymnasium mat in the play- 
 room kick with their feet against balls suspended from 
 the ceiling. At home they kick against their mothers' 
 hands. 
 
 These are perhaps the simplest plays in which hitting by means 
 of a stroke is noticeable. 
 
 2. A group of boys and girls are gathered about a 
 suspended basket ball knocking it toward each other 
 with sharp, quick strokes. 
 
 3. Some children sit on the floor playing "Hot 
 Ball." After subjecting the ball to imaginary heat 
 they strike it a^ sharp blow with the open palm,
 
 294 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 sending it across to another child. The ball is kept 
 going rapidly in this play. 
 
 4. Two boys are playing a spontaneous game re- 
 sembling tennis. Their tennis rackets are oblong 
 blocks. They are hitting a rubber ball across a rope 
 stretched between two chairs; the child on the other 
 side of the rope bats the ball back to the one who 
 throws it. 
 
 5. Two girls are playing a ball game with toy 
 apparatus consisting of two individual nets for catch- 
 ing and a light-weight ball. Placing the ball in the 
 hollow of the net they pull the sticks apart and thus 
 toss the ball to each other. The child receiving the 
 ball in her own net tosses it back to the second child, 
 who also attempts to catch it with her net. 
 
 Some little tots near by imitate this play; one throws a ball which 
 her opponent catches in her apron and then throws back. 
 
 6. Sitting on the floor, some children kick a light 
 basket ball back and forth. 
 
 j. Throwing at a Mark 
 
 1. A child a year and a half old rolled a ball toward 
 his mother, missing the mark quite as often as he 
 reached it. When he succeeded in rolling the ball 
 near her, she gaily rolled it back; when he failed, 
 she let him creep after it. 
 
 2. A favorite occupation on the playground is 
 aiming balls at a tree. When a large circular target 
 is placed on the tree younger children aim at the three 
 outside circles indiscriminately; older ones aim at the 
 center with accuracy and precision.
 
 MOVEMENTS OF BODILY CONTROL 295 
 
 3. Several boys and girls between four and six years 
 old are taking turns rolling rubber balls at a pyramid 
 built of blocks; the one who succeeds in knocking it 
 down rebuilds the pyramid and gains another turn. 
 
 4. About twenty children are playing a ball game 
 with the play leader; each child has a rubber ball 
 which he throws in turn at an open basket; after one 
 round, those who succeed in getting the ball into the 
 open basket have another turn, and so on until some 
 child wins the final honors. 
 
 5. In the playroom, five boys about six years old 
 have propped a table against some chairs to make a 
 slide. Down this inclined plane they are rolling a 
 ball, endeavoring to knock down a tenpin at the foot 
 of the table. 
 
 No score is kept; the activity is an end in itself. One day some 
 older boys were found playing a similar game, using the slide as 
 an inclined plane and a set of tenpins for the mark. Each boy had 
 three turns and kept a score of the number of pins he knocked down. 
 
 6. Ring-toss and quoits are played daily on the 
 playgrounds. 
 
 7. A group of boys invented a new throwing game 
 by suspending a tin bucket from the shelter house. 
 Standing in two lines the members of these teams 
 took turns throwing stones into the pail. A score was 
 kept and at the end of ten minutes the side having the 
 higher score won. 
 
 8. Boys are playing marbles. The six-year-olds 
 shoot at anything and use few rules for their play; 
 the older ones pick a good shot and play highly 
 organized games.
 
 296 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 9. One day a marble tournament took place on a 
 playground. The yard was marked off into courts and 
 the boys contested in relays, the finals coming off 
 with great spirit. 
 
 10. A group of six boys from seven to ten years old 
 invented an interesting marble game; they cut one 
 large and two small circular openings in a shoe box, 
 propped the box up at the back to form an inclined 
 plane, and took turns in aiming three marbles at the 
 holes. A score of sixty points was kept; each marble 
 that went into the large hole counted five; in the small 
 holes, ten. 
 
 Nearly all marble games should be classified as throwing at a 
 mark. 
 
 11. Some boys suspended a hoop from the shelter 
 house, asked for two basket balls, and lined up on two 
 sides. Each time a member of either team suc- 
 ceeded in getting a ball through the hoop, a stone was 
 dropped into the counting box of that side by the boy 
 who made the successful play. No score was kept, 
 but when the boys tired of the game they counted 
 -tones to see which side had won. The play leader 
 later introduced the keeping of a written score. 
 
 12. In one playroom boys from eight to ten years 
 of age devised the game of aiming a rubjber ball at a 
 spring bell attached to the wall. The play leader sup- 
 plied a hoop and bell. After that, several games were 
 invented, the aim of all being to hit the bell a certain 
 number of times. One game consisted of th rowing 
 the ball over the head when standing with the back 
 toward the bell; another consisted of throwing the ball 
 under one lei;, .liming at the bell.
 
 MOVEMENTS OF BODILY CONTROL 297 
 
 13. The play leader helped some boys to make a 
 wooden target by painting a circular board in three 
 concentric circles, red, white, and blue. The hits 
 scored were one, two, and three for outer, middle, and 
 inner circles respectively. In other playgrounds targets 
 were made by pasting squares of red, white, and blue 
 paper of three sizes on a square board. 
 
 14. A group of boys, most of them ten years old, 
 are playing a game in which the object is to throw one 
 ball in the air and hit it with another ball. 
 
 15. Both girls and boys about nine and ten years 
 old enjoy throwing a basket ball through hoops 
 fastened horizontally to poles. 
 
 16. The following games proved popular in the 
 indoor playrooms. Nearly all illustrate the principle 
 of rolling or throwing objects through holes: 
 
 Aiming bean bags at an inclined picture board where 
 three frogs are sitting. If the bag hits a frog's head, 
 it touches a spring which lets the bag through a 
 circular trap door; if not, friction makes the bag 
 adhere to the board. 
 
 Shooting toy pistols, with corks attached, at 
 pictures of three rabbits seated on stumps. 
 
 Playing faba gaba with a homemade board. 
 
 The marble box game and the hoop and bell game invented by- 
 children also belong in this class. 
 
 Down and Out. A popular marble game consisting 
 of rolling marbles down a spiral tube into holes marked 
 with numbers from one to twelve. 
 
 This game is especially popular with girls. Six-year-old children 
 enjoy merely rolling the marbles, while children from seven to nine 
 years old play for scores.
 
 298 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 Tiddledy Winks: a dish serves as a mark for shots. 
 Croquet: the wicket serves the same purpose. 
 Crokinole: here the mark is more varied. 
 
 4. Rolling and Spinning Plays 
 
 1. Babies are rolling halls and creeping after 
 them ; they are also twirling and bouncing bright 
 colored balls attached to strings. 
 
 2. Some babies just old enough to creep are twirl- 
 ing small embroidery hoops on the floor. 
 
 3. Little boys sit twirling tops with a rotary hand 
 motion. Older ones spin small hoops attached to 
 strings. 
 
 4. A two-and-a-half-year-old child, whom the 
 writer observed in a home, acquired considerable skill 
 in twirling a teething ring on a heavy cord. He would 
 beg his father to twirl it even more rapidly and would 
 watch the movements with pleasure. 
 
 5. A group of three- and four-year-old children are 
 sitting on the floor playing "Roll Over, Come Back 
 Here" with a small basket ball. 
 
 6. Both boys and girls are rolling hoops; one boy 
 has fitted together two hoops to form a hollow sphere; 
 two other children are doing the same thing with four 
 hoops. This leads to a new kind of hoop race in which 
 the added problem of keeping the hoop-ball intact 
 while running and whipping it adds zest to the race. 
 
 7. Some girls are spinning tin pans preparatory to 
 playing "Spin the Platter." 
 
 8. Boys are twirling small wheels, which have 
 come off the wheelbarrows, on strong cord; the object 
 is to see who can keep the wheels going longest.
 
 MOVEMENTS OF BODILY CONTROL 299 
 
 5. Selected Games of Skill Involving Throwing, Rolling, 
 and Spinning Movements 
 
 In this account of selected games of skill, only a 
 few of the best games are included. The writer's 
 purpose is to show by analysis the important aspects 
 of these games; in the analysis the appeal of movement 
 will be considered first, followed by brief comment on 
 the social and intellectual features. 1 
 
 Tossing. — 1. Children toss balls together, playing 
 individually, yet deriving considerable fun from 
 running after the balls, dodging stray balls, and 
 sharing achievements. Skill, speed, accuracy, rivalry, 
 and display are features of the game. 
 
 2. Balloon Ball. — Children toss a large, light ball 
 into the air and bat it upward with the hand until a 
 miss is made, or bat it downward, striking each time 
 on the upward bounce. Among the developments of 
 this game are speed, accuracy of blow, and attempts 
 at display. 
 
 3. Children toss or bounce balls to music, using 
 simple, accented two-four and four-four time at first, 
 later three-four time. There is increasing perception 
 of rhythm in relation to accuracy and speed. 
 
 Tossing or Throwing at a Mark. — 1 . Children 
 stand in a circle and toss rubber balls into a large 
 basket placed in the center of the circle. The game 
 may be varied by tossing sometimes singly, sometimes 
 all together. Display, attention, accuracy, and skill 
 are involved. 
 
 1 See Zach McGhee's analysis of games in "A Study in the Play 
 Life of Some South Carolina Children," Pedagogical Seminary, 
 Vol. VII, pp. 469-478.
 
 300 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 2. A hoop is suspended with bell attached in such a 
 way that the bell falls into the center of the hoop. 
 The children attempt to hit the bell with a ball or toss 
 the ball through the hoop without touching the bell. 
 In this game enjoyment of acquiring skill is evident, 
 also rivalry and display. 
 
 3. Bean Bags. -- Marks are set up or circles are 
 drawn on the ground. Bean bags are tossed at the 
 marks or into the chalk circles. A score may be kept 
 if desired. The chief enjoyment is in the movements 
 connected with throwing, in skill, in rivalry, and in 
 display. 
 
 4. Straddle Ball. — The players form a circle 
 astride, touching the feet of players at each side. 
 One player stands in the center and tries to throw a 
 basket ball between the feet of any two players or 
 between a player's feet. When he succeeds in doing 
 this, the player under whose feet the ball passed or the 
 player to whose right the ball passed must exchange 
 places with the center player. The chief interest is 
 in agility, rivalry, combat, and strategy. 
 
 5. Human Target. — One child becomes a target 
 standing in the center of a group of players. The 
 others pass a basket ball around among themselves 
 and throw it at the center player. When a player 
 receives a ball he must throw it from where he stands. 
 If in a poor position for a good shot, he can throw the 
 ball to someone near ■ the target. A new target 
 replaces the center player when he is touched or hit by 
 a ball. The chief interest in this game consists in 
 throwing, suspense, strategy, skill, and rivalry.
 
 MOVEMENTS OF BODILY CONTROL 301 
 
 6. Straddle Ball Relay. — Children are formed 
 into two lines, each player standing with feet well 
 apart and directly behind the one in front. At the 
 sign "Go," the first player in each line throws a basket 
 ball between his feet and down the line between the 
 feet of all the players. The last players in the line 
 pick up the balls and run to the head of the lines, 
 repeating the throw. When every player in the lines 
 has done this, one after the other, the race ends. The 
 chief enjoyment is in agility in throwing and running, 
 in cooperation, in rivalry in combat, and in suspense. 
 
 7. Bandy-Ball. — An old English game similar to 
 golf. Children use "bandies," sticks bent and round 
 at one end, to drive a small wooden ball to fixed 
 points. Accuracy of aim, rivalry, and competition 
 enter into this play. 
 
 8. Roll Ball. — A row of holes in the ground is 
 assigned to players. One player takes a ball, stands 
 off, and tries to roll it into a particular hole. The 
 player into whose hole it has rolled seizes the ball and 
 throws it at the other players, who scatter to avoid 
 being hit. If he succeeds it hitting someone, a stone 
 is placed in the hole of that player; if not, the player 
 must put a stone in his own hole. Any player 
 accumulating five stones is out of the game. Com- 
 petition in skill and resistance account for much of 
 the pleasure in this game, also a desire to star, rivalry, 
 manipulation, and a sense of humor. 
 
 9. Arch Ball. --The children form into two lines. 
 The head player in each line throws a basket ball over 
 his head into the hands of another player, who has his 
 hands in receiving position over his head. This
 
 302 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 player repeats the throw to the one back of him. 
 When each player has had a turn, the race ends. 
 Agility in throwing and running, cooperation, rivalry 
 in combat, and suspense make this a popular play. 
 
 Rolling the Ball. — I. Children sit in a circle and 
 roll or bounce the ball back and forth to each other. 
 The play is varied by using songs describing the time 
 to roll and to send back ; or by using balls of different 
 size and weight which, because of this variation, 
 demand different strength to handle. Interest is in 
 being "it," a sender or a receiver, in skill and accuracy 
 of aim, and in manipulation. Where words are used, 
 language interest also enters in. 
 
 2. Hot Ball. - - The children pretend the ball is 
 hot and hit it back and forth in a circle, using a 
 quick, sharp blow of the open palm. In this game, 
 enjoyment in speed and accuracy of aim is enhanced 
 by humor, rivalry, and agility in securing a turn. 
 
 Rolling at a Mark. — I . Children sit in a circle and 
 roll several balls, one at a time, into circles drawn on 
 the floor, or roll the balls at towers built of blocks. 
 Those who have sufficient accuracy of aim to stop one 
 or more balls within the chalk circles, or to hit the 
 towers, win another turn. Here we see interest in 
 skill, rivalry, humor, and display. 
 
 2. Tenpins. - Tenpins are set up and children 
 bowl at them with small wooden or hard-rubber balls. 
 Scores can be kept if desired. The chief interest is in 
 the physical activity of rolling, although some interest 
 in competition and display enters in. 
 
 Spinning.-- i. Spin the Platter. Children sit in 
 a circle and take turns in spinning a platter. This
 
 MOVEMENTS OF BODILY CONTROL 303 
 
 may be varied by using an embroidery hoop, a small 
 wheel, or a top. Those who spin longest get another 
 turn. The chief interest here is in passive enjoyment 
 in motion and in making spinning movements. Skill 
 and competitive interest are involved. 
 
 2. Spinning Buttons. — Large buttons are spun 
 on a string. Contestants are arranged in pairs. 
 Here we see passive enjoyment in contemplating 
 motion as well as pleasure in manipulating the string, 
 together with love of display and competition in skill.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 The Significance of Manipulation as a Play 
 
 Activity 
 
 What is Manipulation? — A little child, unin- 
 fluenced by training, pokes, pulls, scratches, and 
 otherwise handles many objects with which he comes 
 in contact. By manipulation we mean the sum 
 total of these movements or any one of the various 
 arm, hand, and linger movements made in response 
 to objects in the environment. 
 
 What is Its Significance Among Original Ten- 
 dencies? — At first sight these instinctive puttering 
 movements seem to accomplish little, although they 
 appear to have a certain satisfyingness. We have all 
 watched the apparently aimless reach-grasp-put-in- 
 the-mouth movements of infants, and are familiar 
 with the eager fingering of children, who poke and 
 maul most objects within their reach. These re- 
 sponses are really instinctive, even though they appear 
 less definite than some of the other inherited ten- 
 dencies. In speaking of the apparently aimless 
 appearance of manipulation, visual exploration, and 
 vocalization, Thorndike says: "But a more critical 
 consideration of the behavior will show that it is 
 conformable to the general type of a connection of a 
 definite response with a definite situation, perpetuated 
 in inheritance by its utility." ' 
 
 1 E. L. Thorndike: Educational Psychology, Vol. I, p. 136. 
 
 304
 
 306 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 Manipulation is Pleasurable. -- To see, hear, feel, 
 and make things happen to materials and objects in 
 their environment is the source of real satisfaction to 
 children. Sand is to feel, throw, and mold; wood is 
 to pound with, to carve, and build into toys; toys are 
 to do things with, and are the more satisfactory if 
 they can be taken apart and adapted to a never- 
 ending variety of uses. Such activities are ends 
 in themselves; keen indeed is the pleasure of being a 
 cause of the changes and uses of things in the physical 
 world. 
 
 Its Educational Significance. - - The aim of finger 
 play is knowledge, and all these seemingly indefinite 
 hit-and-miss handling movements of infancy and 
 childhood are links in the long chain of human experi- 
 mentation, necessary as a means of finding out the 
 truth about natural forces and materials, essential in 
 order that this environment of ours may be remade 
 and adapted to the constantly progressive demands of 
 man. 
 
 Manipulation Affords Training in Sense Percep- 
 tion. — Practice in handling things gives a greater 
 power of discrimination in all departments of sense 
 perception. Children acquire the power of attention 
 and gain practice in noticing things and their qualities. 
 They discriminate between hard and soft, among 
 colors, curves, and straight lines. This original 
 tendency to manipulate keeps children constantly 
 active where things are concerned. When their 
 movements arc inaccurate, they are penalized by 
 accidents. They learn to feel again, look again, 
 touch again in order to get clearer reports of objects
 
 MANIPULATION AS A PLAY ACTIVITY 307 
 
 and to adapt objects to their purposes. A wonderful 
 field of sense training is thus the result of a free use of 
 manipulation. Such admonitions as "Don't touch! 
 Don't handle!" run contrary to brain-set and muscle- 
 set in childhood. In nine cases out of ten, penalties 
 fail to stop destructive acts of manipulation. What 
 child does not cut his own hair, riddle clothing with a 
 knife, unjoint dolls and animals, break glass to bits, 
 bend wire and convert plastic materials into new 
 forms and shapes? 
 
 It Affords Social Training. — After the first crude 
 handling of infancy has passed into touch experimen- 
 tation and construction, manipulating activities de- 
 mand a social situation in which to develop. Coop- 
 eration is necessary in most manipulative and 
 constructive plays of childhood. Children need guid- 
 ance and leadership as well as cooperation from other 
 children, for impulse and skill are often far apart. 
 This necessitates a give-and-take of experience which 
 constitutes the principal social gain from constructive 
 activities. 
 
 It Affords Economic Training. — As the manipu- 
 lative activities of childhood expand into constructive 
 work with all kinds of plastic materials, they become 
 valuable as ends in themselves. They should not be 
 considered as a means of vocational training. The 
 chief economic value lies in the habits and attitudes 
 formed rather than in the specialized training re- 
 ceived. Dewey has shown constructive activities as 
 correlation centers in which the child's social feelings 
 are tied up with economic and industrial needs and 
 processes. One of the chief causes of industrial unrest
 
 308 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 is that the worker lacks social training and an intel- 
 ligent understanding of his economic adjustment to 
 labor. If the first constructive activities are social- 
 ized, a step has been taken in economic training. 
 
 It Affords ^Esthetic Training. The joy of creating 
 or constructing is not necessarily tied up with aesthetic 
 appreciation of the thing made. When a child makes 
 a kite or a cart, or molds apples out of clay, he is often 
 carried into enthusiasm because he enjoys doing 
 something, "being a cause" of changes in the paper or 
 wood or clay. However, he is more prone to aesthetic 
 appreciation of his own work than of the work of 
 others because of the effort he has put into it. If the 
 play leadership is such that the constructive result has 
 also some small artistic merit, the transition between 
 crudity and beauty, utilitarian and aesthetic, is made 
 more readily. 
 
 Sex Differences in Manipulative and Constructive 
 Abilities. — A study of sex differences in any field 
 brings us to the interesting conclusion that there is 
 more variation in abilities among members of the 
 same sex than exists between the opposite sexes. 
 However, it is interesting to note, in regard to motor 
 ability of the sexes, that in strength, rapidity of move- 
 ment, and rate of fatigue men seem to have an easily 
 measurable advantage, and in precision of movement 
 a slight advantage. The only concern we need have in 
 the field of play is to see that girls have wider oppor- 
 tunities for muscular experimentation than have 
 hitherto been provided; for in every group of girls 
 there are always some who can perform successfully 
 many muscular hats men perform; there are others
 
 MANIPULATION AS A PLAY ACTIVITY 309 
 
 who will fall far below the average for male achieve- 
 ment. 
 
 Manipulative Activities in the School. — Nearly all 
 manipulative activities are included in courses in 
 practical arts. The first six grades, however, do not 
 teach the practical arts from the vocational point of 
 view. The aim is to provide activity centers with 
 which to correlate subject matter and to enrich the 
 child's experience by giving him various contacts. 
 The modern elementary school includes many of the 
 practical arts in its curriculum; it has long been 
 recognized that breadth of interest is more necessary 
 during these early years than in the years to follow. 
 
 Principles Controlling Progress in Manipulation. — 
 To plead for a psychological order of procedure in 
 providing for manipulative activities seems almost 
 unnecessary in the light of modern reforms in ele- 
 mentary education. It is not an uncommon thing to 
 see children in progressive schools flit about naturally 
 from one constructive activity to another; to see them 
 lie flat on the floor as they play with blocks, or sit 
 comfortably at low tables to mold with sand and clay. 
 However, the rules of procedure in brief are as follows: 
 (1) large, coarse movements should precede small, fine 
 ones; (2) large materials such as sand, clay, large 
 blocks, and large crayons, should be given before such 
 materials as scissors, small crayon, and painting 
 materials; (3) in all manipulative activities, work 
 for the sake of expression should precede work for 
 technique. Originality should not be expected until 
 some technique has been gained.
 
 310 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 The Project in Connection with Manipulations. - 
 According to W. H. Kilpatrick, a project may refer to 
 any kind or variety of life experience which is actuated 
 by a dominating purpose. He notes four types of 
 projects. It is with the first that we are especially con- 
 cerned as we study manipulations. "The first type 
 represents those experiences in which the dominating 
 purpose is to do, to make, or to effect; to embody an 
 idea or aspiration in material form. The material of 
 which the thing it made, in which the idea is to be 
 embodied, may vary from clay, wood, cloth, and the 
 like, through marble or pigment, to the words and 
 thoughts and aspirations of a letter, a speech, a poem, 
 a symphony, or a prayer. * * * The criterion for 
 judging is the character of the purpose. Is there an 
 idea to be embodied?" l The project may be very 
 simple and easily accomplished, as when a child in the 
 kindergarten decides to build a wagon in order that 
 he may play store, and finally accomplishes this end 
 the same day. It may be so complex that it requires 
 the combined efforts of a group for a considerable 
 period of time to bring about the desired result. 
 All manipulative activities arc not necessarily proj- 
 ects. To partake of the nature of projects they must 
 represent purposeful planning where the aim is fixed, 
 guide the means used to reach it, and furnish its 
 motivation. 
 
 Constructive Activities. - Interest in manipulative 
 or constructive activities leads to a large number of 
 
 1 W. H. Kilpatrick and Others: "Dangers and Difficulties of the 
 Project Method and How to Overcome Them— A Symposium,'' 
 Teachers' College Record, Vol. XXII, No. 4, PP- 283-4.
 
 MANIPULATION AS A PLAY ACTIVITY 311 
 
 experimentations. The constructive efforts of children 
 take us far afield into life. Contact with earth, air, 
 light, heat, fire, and water demand manipulation on 
 the part of the child. Just as primitive man in his 
 efforts to sustain life and procure for himself food, 
 
 Photographed for the Pittsburgh Bureau of Recreation 
 
 Constructive and Manipulative Activities Accompany Many 
 Dramatic Plays 
 
 shelter, and clothing found it necessary to subdue and 
 control natural forces and materials, so children, in 
 their efforts to handle and discover, learn to make 
 plastic materials serve their purposes. Children, 
 however, learn to control such natural forces as sand, 
 clay, and water not because of any outer compulsion
 
 312 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 such as impelled primitive man to subdue them, but 
 because of the inner urge to manipulate and handle. 
 The writer regrets that the limitations of the written 
 page necessitate a rather arbitrary classification of 
 children's projects with sand, clay, water, etc. How- 
 ever, the records themselves show how rich and varied 
 children's experimentations are, and how their thought 
 breaks down the barriers of materials and circumvents 
 the limitations of natural forces. 
 
 Learning through Manipulative Activities. - In 
 their playful experimentation children learn much 
 about the qualities of things, and discover the applica- 
 tion of many natural and mechanical laws. For 
 example, in gardening the child learns how to control 
 conditions of heat and moisture. In building bridges, 
 dams, and boats, he discovers the pressure of fluids 
 and the laws of density, buoyancy, and specific 
 gravity. In building fires, he acquires information 
 about draughts and combustion. In experimenting 
 with kites, windmills, and airplanes he obtains a 
 knowledge of air currents and air pressure. In 
 playing with mirrors and prisms, in blowing soap 
 bubbles, and in making shadow pictures, he learns 
 something of the reflection and refraction of light. 
 In producing acoustic effects with toys such as drums, 
 reed pipes, and whistles, he gains a practical knowledge 
 of resonance and density of air. Many of the records 
 involving manipulation, experimentation, and curi- 
 osity will show, better than any discussion can point 
 out, the joy, manual skill, scientific knowledge, and 
 social insight gained by children through play activities 
 involving natural forces and materials.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 Spontaneous Play in the Earth 
 
 Spontaneous Play in the Earth is Natural to Chil- 
 dren. — The child of to-day shares with children of all 
 ages the delight of playing with soil, sand, and clay. 
 Without training he rolls, molds, pokes, and handles 
 the earth. In all such play the natural impulse to 
 manipulate is satisfied by doing something and having 
 something happen as a result. The child likes to 
 roll in the grass, pile up stones, dig in the moist sand 
 with his hands and feet, poke holes in the ground 
 with a stick, dig with implements, shape and mold clay 
 into creations of his own fancy, till and plant the soil ; 
 in fact, he likes to test in multiform ways his power 
 over materials and natural forces. Perhaps the 
 following incidents will illustrate the spontaneous 
 interest which contact with soil, sand, and clay affords 
 children. The writer once observed some street- 
 cleaners deposit a pile of sand in front of a house. 
 Instantly all the children of the neighborhood con- 
 gregated on the spot, and all during the day numbers 
 of them worked like busy bees digging, molding, and 
 building in the sand. At another time the author 
 was visiting a playground located near the banks of 
 the Monongahela River in Pittsburgh. The children 
 had discovered a natural clay bed and were wild with 
 interest in molding and shaping the moist clay. 
 Some of the children made cups, saucers, plates, plat- 
 
 313
 
 314 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 ters, and fruit baskets, putting them into immediate 
 use on a hastily improvised tea table. Others set 
 up a box for a counter and started a store. They 
 did not care to sell, so occupied were they in making 
 things and arranging them on the counter: cabbages, 
 apples, pears, plums, potatoes, loaves of bread, sticks 
 of candy — all made of clay. For more than two 
 hours these children played happily and constructively. 
 As an example of spontaneous gardening we have but 
 to recall the story of the boy who dug up the grass and 
 sod on a beautiful lawn, in order to plant some grass 
 seed, which he carefully covered with loose earth. 
 
 Play in Sand. — From the time when the baby 
 begins to sift sand through his tiny fingers just for the 
 satisfaction the "feel" of it affords, through the years 
 when sand serves as a medium for reproducing the 
 environment, 1 a sand pile should be easy of access to 
 the growing boy or girl. As Joseph Lee says: 
 "Children never tire of it. The very day of their 
 return from the seashore, where they had lived 
 actually on a sand beach, they rushed out and began 
 playing with the sand box as if they had never seen a 
 handful of such material before. The reason, of 
 course, as I have elsewhere stated, is that sand is 
 plastic to their hands, and more, that it takes the form 
 they imagine for it, instead of following some precon- 
 ception of its own." ■ 
 
 Community Work in the Sand Table. — Of com- 
 munity work in the sand table, Dr. Gesell says the 
 
 1 See G. S. Hall's "The Story of a Sand Pile," Aspects of Child 
 Life and Education. 
 
 2 Quoted by W. B. Forbush: The Manual of Play, p. 13.
 
 SPONTANEOUS PLAY IN THE EARTH 315 
 
 following: "Each child may have a part in building 
 the farm, the Indian or the Eskimo village, the circus 
 or store. Community work and a common respon- 
 sibility establish a feeling of comradeship of which 
 the schools are sorely in need. It gives an oppor- 
 tunity for just comparisons and mutual suggestions. 
 The children will work in pairs or in groups of three or 
 four, solving their problems independently, but being 
 obliged to conform to the general purpose or plan." 1 
 
 The Scope of Representation in the Sand Pile. — 
 As the records show, almost any experience vital to 
 childhood is represented in the sand pile, with or 
 without the addition of other materials. Farm life is 
 depicted, parks and zoos are laid out; fruit stands, 
 bakeries, and stores operate on busy streets; circus 
 tents are set up and the menagerie is installed on the 
 grounds; soldiers' camps are constructed and war 
 carried on. It matters not whether the ideas drama- 
 tized are gained through history, literature, or in the 
 everyday walks of life, all are realistically played out. 
 The records presented show the type of spontaneous 
 sand play which occurs on a playground. Where 
 smaller groups of children play together, better edu- 
 cational results can be obtained than where the sand 
 pile is congested. The presence of a play leader 
 insures progress. She clarifies and enlarges the chil- 
 dren's ideas through suitable suggestions or through 
 the use of stories or pictures. 
 
 Materials Used in the Sand. — Children of two and 
 three years of age need few materials for play in the 
 sand. They enjoy sifting the dry sand through their 
 
 1 Ibid., p. 14.
 
 SPONTANEOUS PLAY IN THE EARTH 317 
 
 fingers, heaping it loosely in piles, throwing it about, 
 and burying their hands deep in the sand. Given 
 shovels, pails, and spoons they occupy themselves 
 for hours filling buckets with sand and emptying the 
 sand out of the buckets. They also enjoy sifting sand 
 through cans with perforated tops. When the sand 
 is moist, young children soon Jearn to pat little cakes 
 in the hollows of their hands. Later, after they have 
 acquired skill in doing this, sand molds of various 
 sizes and shapes add zest to the play and suggest new 
 possibilities. Children of kindergarten age usually 
 mold with their hands trees, roads, houses, and 
 figures. It is possible to purchase a tin village for 
 sand modeling. This set consists of hollow figures of 
 houses, trees, and other objects. After filling the 
 forms with moist sand it is possible for children to 
 transfer these molded forms to the sand table. 
 Wooden stencils for molding in the sand are also 
 procurable. These are used by the children to 
 transfer pictures into the sand. For printing in the 
 sand there are boxes of raised letters. 1 Molds of fish, 
 birds, animals, and of various geometrical patterns 
 are to be found in nearly every department store. 
 A wooden sand mill with a wheel which turns around 
 by the action of the sand is also much enjoyed by the' 
 children. The writer has a vivid recollection of 
 playing for hours in her childhood with a sand mill 
 made out of a tin can perforated in several places so 
 that the sand kept running out by the force of gravity. 
 It is evident to anyone who has watched children play 
 
 1 For suggestions on sand toys see W. B. Forbush: The Manual of 
 Play, p. 298.
 
 318 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 in the sand that they are ready and willing to invent 
 
 their own materials as the need arises. The records 
 will show how cannon were made out of old window- 
 shades; trees and flowers, from twigs and tissue 
 paper; soldiers, out of clothespins dressed up; a 
 menagerie out of waterproof roofing paper; ducks, 
 fish, and frogs were cut from paper and mounted on 
 corks so that they would float on water; houses were 
 constructed of blocks, boards, and spools; and wagons, 
 telephones, and street cars were hastily improvised 
 out of cardboard boxes, spools, ribbon bolts, collar 
 buttons, and milk-bottle tops. A tool chest and 
 boxes of sewing material are indispensable aids in 
 meeting emergency calls for materials to enhance 
 dramatic and constructive play in the sand. 
 
 How Play in Sand Correlates with School Sub- 
 jects. --The sand pile presents opportunity to the 
 teacher for constructive suggestions in the use of 
 number through collecting the objects molded and 
 arranging them in groups; in art, through the forms 
 molded; and in physics, through the control of phys- 
 ical laws in constructing with sand. Miss Frances 
 McGough mentions some of these possibilities in an 
 article on "The Sand Tile - Its Use and Care": 
 
 ; 'The next development is that in which the molded 
 sand is turned out of the mold for further play. The 
 handling is no longer an end but a mean- by which 
 1 he child is enabled to w <a\ e innumerable imaginath e 
 and imitative plays. The boy becomes a grocer and 
 weighs out sugar lor his customers. The girl is a 
 homemaker and the sand becomes sugar, Hour, tea; 
 in fact, anything which it in any way suggests. Who
 
 SPONTANEOUS PLAY IN THE EARTH 319 
 
 has not made mud pies, and perhaps tried to eat them? 
 In connection with the store plays, counting and 
 measuring plays spring up. Buying and selling sugar 
 and similar commodities call for weights and measures. 
 The words pint and quart begin to be heard, although 
 the vessels which the child uses to represent these 
 measurements are very diminutive. When the chil- 
 dren begin to do this the teacher may use the oppor- 
 tunity to introduce real measures. Crude scales are 
 also used for weighing. The baker sells cakes by the 
 dozen and half dozen. Artistic tendencies exhibit 
 themselves through the efforts of the children to 
 obtain and use prettily shaped molds for their cake- 
 making and through attempts to decorate the cakes 
 with pretty flowers, pictures traced in the sand with 
 sticks, or designs of small pebbles." "Older children, 
 especially the boys, delight in plays that show the 
 operation of physical laws. They delight in crudely 
 constructed sand mills. They have been known to 
 spend hours in the construction of a gravity road, down 
 a winding pathway on a mountain of sand. If the 
 curve of the road or the inclination of the slope is not 
 just right the marbles go over the side instead of 
 rolling down the pathway made for them. There is a 
 feeling of real triumph when the road is just right and 
 the marbles at last go racing round the curves and 
 finally reach their resting place at the bottom." l 
 
 How to Construct Sand Boxes, Trays, and Bins for 
 Home Use. — In the modern home there is often 
 need of economy of space even where a nursery is 
 
 •F. McGough: "The Sand Pile— Its Use and Care," The 
 Playground, Vol. IX, pp. 160-169.
 
 SPONTANEOUS PLAY IN THE EARTH 321 
 
 installed. If a kindergarten sand table is used, a 
 table top can be put over it whenever the use of table 
 space is desired. Window seats can be so constructed 
 that zinc-lined sand trays may be fitted in near the 
 top, while a space for toys remains below; doors open- 
 ing up in sections on top make the sand trays available 
 for use, and when closed form the window seat. Sand 
 trays may also be built under the floor by cutting a 
 sectional door in the floor. Care to cleanse the sand 
 by frequent exposure to the sun is quite necessary. 
 
 The outdoor sand pile should have both shade and 
 sun, because if there is no sun the sand soon becomes 
 unsanitary, and if there is no shade the sand becomes 
 hot and baked in appearance, and the children un- 
 comfortable when using it. A tree affords the best 
 kind of shade for a sand pile; it is cooler than the 
 canvas shades sometimes stretched on frames above 
 the playground sand piles, and affords an ideal com- 
 bination of shade and sun. Any building sand or 
 bank sand will prove satisfactory, although, of course, 
 the white sand of the seashore is best. The sand bin 
 may be built of any desired size; twelve-inch planks 
 make a sufficiently deep box. A ledge about eight 
 inches wide should surround the box. This may be 
 used as a shelf on which to mold cakes or to display 
 wares in store plays. 
 
 Gardening 
 
 The Appeal of Gardening. — Digging in the soil is 
 
 almost an instinctive pleasure with children. It 
 
 seems to appeal to nerve cells in some way that makes 
 
 for relaxation and emotional contentment. Children
 
 322 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 like to dig and scratch in the soil and, until taught to 
 protect and nurture growing things, they often 
 uproot and demolish. From this genuine interest in 
 digging in the soil it is but a step to planting and 
 gardening. Native curiosity often impels busy hands 
 to dig up what they have planted that eager eyes may 
 search for the first signs of life. To meet this instinctive 
 interest in digging and planting, many playgrounds 
 have established community gardens in the neighbor- 
 hoods near by. In these gardens each child may have 
 his own plot, and dig, plant, and nurture, aided by 
 the wind, rain, and sun. 
 
 There is something so elemental and primitive about 
 children's enjoyment of digging and planting that we 
 need to give it more serious consideration. 
 
 The Educational Content of Gardening. — Garden- 
 ing is rich in educational content; it affords rich 
 contacts and gives children of different ages a chance 
 to learn about nature through working with her, 
 applying her laws, and observing the wonders she 
 creates. It is the "doing" side that is important. 
 However, the knowing side should not be left out of 
 consideration. As a means of understanding the 
 harvest, our source of food supply, the home and 
 school garden offers a center of correlation. Excur- 
 sions to enlarge the child's conception of the harvest, 
 the marketing of crops, transportation, prices, and cosl 
 of production, all bring a better understanding of the 
 significance of gardening. There are many approaches 
 to gardening, all of which have a point of contact in 
 play and a significance in education. First, there is 
 the aesthetic side, the interest in beauty of color,
 
 SPONTANEOUS PLAY IN THE EARTH 
 
 323 
 
 form, and design. Then there is the appeal of neat- 
 ness and orderliness; through raking up leaves and 
 burning weeds, children learn the value of tidiness in a 
 garden. The economic side also has some educational 
 importance. Children like to use what they grow 
 and thus come to 
 know the relative 
 economic values 
 and uses of var- 
 ious herbs, fruits, 
 and vegetables. 
 The scientific in- 
 terest is perhaps 
 of paramount 
 importance. 
 Through caring 
 for plants, chil- 
 dren learn the life 
 cycle of each 
 plant and its 
 habits of reacting 
 to various kinds 
 of soil, temper- 
 ature, and rainfall. The hand that manipulates, the 
 eye that observes, follow the trail of the scientist and 
 formulate laws by direct observation of cause and 
 effect. 
 
 Playing with Clay 
 The Appeal of Clay. — Did you ever see a group of 
 children yield themselves completely to the enjoy- 
 ment which play with clay affords? It is probable 
 
 School of Childhood, University of Pittsburgh 
 
 Play in the Earth
 
 324 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 that to shape and to mold this soft, yielding substance 
 is instinctively satisfying. The instinct of manip- 
 ulation and the love of workmanship, inherent in 
 original nature, combine to make the appeal of clay 
 immediate and universal where children are con- 
 cerned. One has hut to walk along the crow did 
 beaches at any summer resort to observe the tendency 
 common to adults to poke, handle, and mold damp 
 sand into shapes the fancy suggests. It is as if surplus 
 nervous energy were discharged with resulting free- 
 dom from strain. Children sometimes quiet clown 
 instantly as they yield themselves to the enjoyment 
 which results from externalizing their ideas and feelings 
 in molded clay. 
 
 The Educational Significance of Clay Molding. 
 This study does not aim to apply the values gained in 
 observing spontaneous play to subject matter of the 
 elementary grades. In regard to the universal use 
 of clay in public schools it seems necessary only to 
 point out the wide range of experimentation which 
 has resulted in courses in the practical arts. 
 
 Records of Sand Plays 
 
 Play in Dry Sand. Washington Park. — One day 
 a new sand table appeared in the Washington Park 
 playroom. The small children from two and a half 
 to six years old gathered quickly around it and began 
 to handle the dry sand. Some of the smallest 
 children delighted in sifting the wand through their 
 fingers: one child said it was salt; another called it 
 sugar. They enjoyed burying one hand by sifting 
 -and from the other hand gently over it. Other
 
 Mg 
 
 't^tf&tLl 
 
 
 1 4ft 
 
 
 
 Plays in the Sand
 
 326 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 children started at once to pile up the sand; two or 
 three connected their piles. Some dug wells. Others 
 made sand piles of varying sizes and dug holes in the 
 tops for chimneys, evidently intending to make 
 houses. One child built a large sand pile and called 
 it a mountain, tracing a railroad track around the 
 base. 
 
 Carrying Sand. Washington Park. — By mistake, 
 a load of sand was dumped on the ground instead of in 
 the sand boxes. The children played they were 
 expressmen and street cleaners. For several days 
 they shovelled the sand into small wheelbarrows and 
 carted it to the boxes. One child played "boss" and 
 directed the work of the others. 
 
 Houses. Lewis Playground. — Each child in the 
 group made his own house and yard in the sand box. 
 Some built walls around their houses; others sur- 
 rounded them with fences. The houses varied in 
 size and appearance; some had doors, chimneys, and 
 steps shaped in the wet sand; a few houses were built 
 of sand and blocks together; these last were larger and 
 stronger than the others. Nearly all the children 
 gathered grass to put in the yards. 
 
 Farmyard Play. 1 — One day a group of children made 
 a farm scene in the sand table. The following morning 
 a little girl brought a tiny wooden dog to guard the 
 farm. Other animals were contributed and the 
 children had great fun making the animals walk in 
 and out of the farmyard gate. They said the dog 
 could live in the house, but the cow, horse, and sheep 
 must go to the barn. As the first barn constructed 
 
 'From the records of Edith Murray.
 
 SPONTANEOUS PLAY IN THE EARTH 327 
 
 was too small to hold all the animals, a larger one had 
 to be built. They planned a barn in which there was 
 room for all the cows and the horse; they also built 
 separate kennels for the dogs, pens for the pigs, and 
 coops for the chickens. 
 
 Gardens. Washington Park. — A group of chil- 
 dren made gardens in the sand. Each child marked 
 off a space for himself. He next asked for some tissue 
 paper, and twisted small pieces of it into flowers; 
 these he planted in straight rows and circles, using 
 green, blue, and yellow in various combinations. 
 When these small gardens were finished several 
 children made a large park and built a fence of blocks 
 around it. 
 
 Gardens and Farm. Sullivan Playground. — One 
 day the children became much interested in making 
 gardens in the sand ; this interest grew into the laying 
 out of a farm into fields, orchards, and a house. 
 Then the children seemed satisfied and proceeded to 
 play farmer. They loaded the wagon with grass 
 to represent hay, pulled it a short distance, and then 
 unloaded it in the barn. After loading and unloading 
 several times it occurred to them to unhitch the horses. 
 
 In this simple little play, the loading and unloading seemed to be 
 the chief point. Interest in constructing the farm and wagon was 
 subservient to the playing out of a little drama, representing some 
 familiar events connected with farming. 
 
 Park and Zoo. Wickersham School Playground. — 
 
 Some of the children had been taken by their parents 
 to picnics at Kennywood and Highland parks. On 
 the playground the next day they built an amusement 
 park, laying out car tracks and constructing a roller
 
 328 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 coaster and shoot the chutes. They hollowed out a 
 lake, filled it with water, and put paper boats on it. 
 After they had sailed the boats a while, it occurred to 
 them to make a zoo. They decided this should not be 
 near the car tracks, lest the animals be frightened. 
 So they selected a quiet corner of the park and dug 
 caves for the different animals. This play con- 
 tinued for several days. 
 
 Fruit Stand. Arsenal Park. - The children molded 
 wet sand into apples, pears, and peaches, using twigs 
 for stems. They arranged these on a board for a 
 fruit stand and sold fruit to passers-by. 
 
 Beehives. Ormsby Park. — One day the children 
 made beehives in the sand by covering cubes with 
 damp sand. 
 
 Street Life. Ralston School Playground. — A very 
 quiet business street was represented, having a meat 
 market, grocery, bakery, and bank. Next, a resi- 
 dence street was laid out exactly parallel to the 
 business section. Homes were built along both sides 
 of the street; telephones were put Up and business 
 fiourished for some time. 
 
 Baking Day. Soho Club Playground. —A group 
 of small children made cakes of various shapes by 
 molding wet sand in tins. They arranged the cakes 
 in rows on the board. One little girl said she had a 
 store and called to some other children to come and 
 buy some of her cakes. A boy who was building an 
 elaborate house of blocks came over to buy; then he 
 went bark to his building again. The play leader 
 suggested that he might telephone for the cakes next 
 time, since he was so busy. He looked pleased and
 
 SPONTANEOUS PLAY IN THE EARTH 329 
 
 quickly grasped the necessity of putting up a telephone 
 system between his house and the bakery. He found 
 two sticks which served as poles, and some string 
 which he used for the wires. It proved great fun to 
 shout out his orders; so much so that a group of older 
 boys and girls gathered around the sand pile to set to 
 work building similar houses and telephones. This 
 led to more telephoning, which kept the girl in the 
 bakery so busy that she called on another girl to bake 
 cakes while she answered the telephone. A small boy 
 offered to deliver the cakes; this necessitated his 
 building roads between the houses. When he had 
 laid out a complete line of roads, he took an oblong 
 block for a wagon and pushed it around from house to 
 house, leaving a cake at each house where a cake had 
 been ordered. This play continued nearly all of one 
 afternoon. 
 
 Schenley Park. Lewis Playground. — One day a 
 group of boys laid out Schenley Park in the sand; 
 Carnegie Library and Phipps Conservatory were 
 constructed of blocks and ^somewhat resembled these 
 buildings. Another group of boys made a train shed ; 
 tracks were laid out and a train constructed of blocks 
 was pushed along the tracks and under the tunnels. 
 
 Burying Play. Lewis Playground. — A group of 
 boys had great fun all one afternoon, burying each 
 other, all but their heads, in the sand. 
 
 Caves. Sullivan Playground. — Some boys from 
 ten to twelve years of age became much interested in 
 making caves. As they gained experience in sur- 
 mounting the obstacles of construction, the caves grew 
 larger and more substantial. One day all the older
 
 330 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 children joined in making one large cave. They used 
 blocks to strengthen the walls, cementing them together 
 with sand. They called this cave a fort and selected 
 soldiers to act as guards. The smaller children 
 wanted to crawl into the fort, but were not permitted 
 to do so by the guards. These little ones then made 
 forts of their own. building a deep trench between 
 their forts and the big one. 
 
 Park. Mt. Washington School Playground. — An 
 elaborate city park was made, also a street car line. 
 Lights were put up all along the car track; string was 
 used as overhead wire for the street cars. 
 
 Tunnels, Bridges, and Ponds. Washington Park. — 
 About a dozen children were playing in the sand; 
 some made tunnels, bridges, and houses; others buried 
 pails in the sand to represent ponds and watering 
 troughs. This suggested bringing animals to drink. 
 and the rubberoid animals were taken to drink. The 
 children decided that these animals must have a place 
 to live; so large stables were built in the sand. The 
 stables were soon full of occupants. 
 
 Parks. National Tube Company Playground. - 
 All the younger children worked together to make a 
 park in the sand. They laid out walks, circular and 
 straight, and designed flower beds of various shapes. 
 For flowers they twisted up bits of brightly colored 
 tissue paper, for trees they set out twigs and small 
 branches. The swings they constructed by fastening 
 a crosspiece to two upright sticks and suspending 
 rope swings from the crosspiece. In these swings they 
 placed dolls (lit from manila paper. The play 
 leader cut a ring of dolls hand in hand. This pleased
 
 SPONTANEOUS PLAY IN THE EARTH 33 1 
 
 the children very much; they said the dolls were 
 playing " Ring Around the Rosy." After the children 
 had given the dolls a swing they decided to make a 
 roller coaster. This was modeled out of sand, a spool 
 box serving as a car. Then the dolls were taken the 
 round of the park, some to swing, some to ride on the 
 roller coaster, and some to look at the flowers. 
 
 Park Attractions. Andrews School Playground. — 
 A group of girls molded the Old Mill of Kennywood 
 Park, also the roller coaster. The last was elaborately 
 represented with a double track leading down slopes 
 and hollows. For many days different groups of 
 children worked out this scene in various ways, adding 
 a lake, cafe, and other details. One day two leaden 
 Indians were placed on the crest of the slope to act as 
 spies. This changed the entire character of the play. 
 
 Circus. Arsenal Park. — Some of the children had 
 been to a circus. They wanted to cut out animals, 
 so the play leader brought patterns and let them trace 
 and cut tigers, elephants, bears, lions, and giraffes 
 from rubberoid roofing. The next day the children 
 brought boxes of various sizes and made cages for the 
 different animals by cutting slits along the edge of the 
 top and bottom of each box and running wooden slats 
 through the slits. They put each animal in a suitable 
 cage and then surveyed the results. The outdoor 
 sand box was decided by all to be the best circus field. 
 The children carried the cages there and arranged 
 them to face out along the four sides of the box. One 
 child opened a ticket office. Any child purchasing 
 a ticket was allowed to walk around the circus field to 
 see the animals.
 
 332 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 Forts. Washington Park. The children made a 
 big fort in the sand. They built the fort with oblong 
 blocks and fortified its Inside walls with sand shovels. 
 Pieces of lath formed a barricade, beneath which they 
 dug a ditch. This was done by a few boys, who, in 
 order to complete their fort, took the blocks away 
 from the smaller boys. These smaller boys organized 
 themselves into a band, built a sand fort, and had a 
 battle with the older boys, getting some of their 
 blocks back again. 
 
 Forts. Arsenal Park. — Several boys became inter- 
 ested in making long mountain ranges with tunnels 
 penetrating lengthwise and crosswise; then they built 
 forts. One large fort was hexagonal in shape; the 
 boys called it Fort Duquesne. Another was oblong, 
 modelled from the Arsenal Park House; it was called 
 Fort Shelby after the commander, who rode around 
 the park and stopped every day to watch the children. 
 Flags waved from these forts; fine roadways led up to 
 them, and earthen breastworks protected them. 
 Towers of blocks served as lookout stations for 
 sentinels. Ends of old window shades wire rolled 
 up to represent cannon and were placed in the lookout 
 holes along the sides of both forts. Near by, the boys 
 set up an Indian camp; the wigwams were made ol 
 rag paper. A general war followed between the paper 
 soldiers and Indians. 
 
 Pike's Peak. Andrews School Playground. The 
 children made an enormous hill which they called 
 Pike's Peak. A car line was built around it and 
 passenger-* were taken up to see the sights.
 
 SPONTANEOUS PLAY IN THE EARTH 333 
 
 Soldiers' Camp. Lawrence Park. — A high hill, at 
 the bottom of which stood a row of tents surrounded 
 by a sand wall, was the soldiers' encampment. Some 
 little girls opened a bakery and sold pies to the soldiers, 
 receiving paper money in return. At another store 
 some girls sold paper badges, tents, and soldier caps 
 they had made. 
 
 War between Indians and English. Andrews 
 School Playground. — The English forts were built of 
 blocks and fortified with cannon. The soldiers took 
 daily gallops astride brooms. The Indian village was 
 in the sand pile; the Indian wigwams were made of 
 brooms arranged in tent shape and covered with 
 brown paper. A wooden box was the Indian canoe; a 
 broom, their paddle. Every day one of the English 
 soldiers mounted his horse and rode after the mail. 
 One day be brought back a piece of wood on which the 
 Indians had written a declaration of war. Both sides 
 prepared for war. The Indians won the first battle, 
 the English the second. Both sides seemed willing to 
 take turns at losing. 
 
 Houses, Forts, and Airplanes. Lewis Playground. — 
 Some girls built rows of houses, surrounding each 
 house with a picket fence made of sticks. The boys 
 made elaborate forts with flags flying from the 
 summits; paths led from the forts in all directions; 
 paper soldiers stood at the lookout posts and other 
 soldiers appeared to be ready to fire paper cannon. 
 A group of boys suggested that an airplane was needed; 
 so one was made to fly about the forts to afford pro- 
 tection from the enemy.
 
 334 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 Outline Pictures in the Sand. Lewis Playground. — 
 Alter a rain which left the sand hard and moist the 
 children started to draw pictures. First they patted 
 and pounded the sand into a smooth, slate-like surface. 
 They drew outlines of houses, barns, trees, flowers, 
 chickens, coops, hens, and pigs. One child drew a 
 flag. Another child laid out a rough but good map of 
 Pittsburgh, with the two rivers coming together at the 
 point near the block house and with Penn Avenue 
 running fairly parallel with the Allegheny River and 
 Second Avenue with the Monongahela. 
 
 Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Wickersham 
 Playground. - Some little girls made a park showing 
 a lake with a few paper boats sailing on it. Flowers 
 were made by pinching sand between the fingers. 
 The flowers suggested the story of Goldilocks and the 
 Three Bears. "Here she was lost while picking 
 flowers," they said. The park became the woods 
 where the three bears took their daily walk. A 
 house was built of sand and Goldilocks' experiences 
 in the three bears' home were played out most 
 realistically. 
 
 Washington Crossing the Delaware. Arsenal Park 
 Playground. - The children had enjoyed working 
 out a large puzzle representing the famous picture of 
 Washington Crossing the Delaware. One day when 
 playing in the sand, a boy made a boat out of sand 
 and assembled on its decks guns (clothespins) and 
 paper soldiers. Other children became interested and 
 offered to build forts along the shore; these were very 
 carefully built forts guarded by soldiers -md guns and 
 connected with the shore by means of drawbridges.
 
 SPONTANEOUS PLAY IN THE EARTH 335 
 
 A deep trench surrounded the fort. The sand was left 
 loose and rough to represent ice. The picture when 
 completed pleased the children very much. 
 
 A Battlefield in the Sand Pile. Adams Market 
 Playground. l — It was nine o'clock in the morning, the 
 beginning of a bright summer day. We were in the 
 heart of a congested business district in Pittsburgh, 
 where every inch of space is occupied, save a narrow 
 lot granted by the city as a breathing spot for the 
 children living in the crowded thoroughfares and 
 alleys of this district. 
 
 From all sides the children came flocking in, some 
 happy and buoyant, others sullen and ill-tempered; 
 yet all eager to play. I decided to wait and utilize 
 any interest that might spring up. The toys, buckets, 
 shovels, and other play materials were brought out; 
 as usual, the sand pile attracted the greatest number 
 of children, who were scattered in loose groups over 
 the field. "Let's build a fort," was the proposal of 
 some boys. At once all became interested. In a 
 minute the sand pile was cleared of pails, shovels, and 
 babies and the blocks were carried, wheeled, and flung 
 upon the field of operation. The boys divided 
 themselves into two groups, one taking charge of the 
 building of the fort, the other establishing some sort 
 of arsenal or workshop where the equipment of the 
 fort and the camp ground was planned and carried 
 out. A strong and substantial fort was built of 
 wooden blocks with windows just big enough to 
 permit the sending of bullets and cannon-balls. At 
 
 1 This play was supervised, recorded, and contributed in the present 
 form by Mrs. Hermine A. Johnson.
 
 336 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 one side a flower garden was laid out and enclosed 
 by a fence made of clothespins. A deep ditch, 
 spanned with several bridges, divided the sand pile 
 along its whole length into two parts. The boys 
 were working on both sides, adding, improving, and 
 changing according to their ideas. 
 
 So far everything went smoothly and no thought of 
 using the encampment as a battlefield entered the 
 boys' minds. Yet war was close at hand. Some ditch 
 diggers had come into too close contact with a group 
 of other boys who were making a fort on the other side 
 and the two sides began to quarrel about the territory. 
 The clashing of shovels and words called me to their 
 side and I overheard two boys saying to each other, 
 "They are British; let's beat them." In a minute the 
 sand pile became the scene of feverish activity. Two 
 hostile battlefields were forming — here the Americans, 
 there the British. The spirit of '76 had taken pos- 
 session of the sand pile and the Revolutionary War 
 was to be lived over again. Most strenuous efforts 
 of attack and defense were made on both sides; in- 
 trenchments were thrown up and barricades built. 
 It was very evident that the enthusiasm of the English 
 side did not keep pace with that on the American 
 side and by and by the majority had left the British 
 forces. I asked the boys if they thought it fair to 
 desert their posts, but they declared the English must 
 not be strong, "for we are going to beat them." 
 Meanwhile the workers in the arsenal had not been 
 idle. Tents, flags, and cannon were constructed and 
 Miit out to their place of destination. When the 
 tents appeared they were objected to. "They are no
 
 SPONTANEOUS PLAY IN THE EARTH 337 
 
 good," the boys said. "They are Indian tents." 
 The defect was soon remedied by placing an American 
 flag on top; the tents then met the approval of the 
 critics. These tents were placed in rows of five ; flags 
 were arranged on the grounds of both British and 
 Americans ; yet the boys were careful to keep the best 
 on the American side, while the ones of inferior grade 
 were shipped to the British. The cannon were con- 
 structions of some ingenuity; a cylindrical box, two 
 milk-bottle tops (for wheels), and a meat skewer put 
 together made quite a realistic cannon of the primitive 
 type. The boys stationed one cannon upon the 
 highest point of defense; at once the necessity of a 
 soldier behind the cannon was keenly felt and word 
 was sent to the workshop to produce such a soldier. 
 In response a paper soldier was cut out and brought 
 over, but he stood so weakly on his feet and looked so 
 little the part of a man of strength and courage that 
 he was scornfully rejected and soon disappeared. 
 Then some bright boy ran to the flower garden and 
 came back with a clothespin, which he planted beside 
 the cannon. This soldier at least had the qualities of 
 strength and steadfastness, but he could make nobody 
 believe he was anything but a clothespin. So he 
 had to go to the arsenal for transformation, and 
 transformed he was when he came back, on his head 
 the typical George Washington hat and in his arms a 
 gun which pointed directly toward the camp of the 
 British. In a moment all the clothespin fence rails 
 were unearthed and transformed into an army of 
 warriors, or rather into two armies, for some regiments 
 were sent over to the British side. The two armies
 
 338 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 were easily distinguishable by their differently colored 
 caps; the Americans wore blue, the other side white 
 caps. Meanwhile other work had been going on in 
 both camps. A big Union Jack was hoisted on top 
 of the British fort and smaller flags, targets, and 
 signal boards were distributed everywhere. Both 
 sides now were swarming with soldiers armed with 
 guns and carrying flags. The intensity of the play 
 began to reach a climax, new ideas springing up in 
 close succession. "Here comes the Doctor," shouted 
 a youngster bringing in a clothespin soldier on whose 
 breast was plastered a red cross. "Watch the 
 ambulance," was the next announcement; and in 
 came a vehicle constructed of an oblong box with four 
 wheels of milk-bottle tops, each side decorated with a 
 red cross. The ambulance was placed by the side of 
 the surgeon. As my idea of how a battlefield should 
 be run was rather vague, the boys had often to 
 explain what it all meant. "Here is a soldier with a 
 white cap in the American camp. Why don't you 
 keep him where he belongs?" I criticized. "Why, he 
 is a captive," I was told. "And these soldiers 
 haven't any caps on their heads at all." I objected. 
 "They're shot off," was the prompt reply. Near the 
 British fort I found a bridge, with two white-capped 
 soldiers standing on top and two blue-capped ones 
 underneath. "What are these Americans doing here 
 under the bridge?" 1 asked. "They are — they 
 are — what you call those men who sneak around to 
 find out about the enemy?" "Spies," I helped out. 
 " Yrs, yes! They arc spies. Do you see them 
 hiding under the bridge? They can hear every word
 
 SPONTANEOUS PLAY IN THE EARTH 339 
 
 the British say." In a corner near the American side 
 I came across a small building with something looking 
 like a steeple. "What's this"? I asked. "That's the 
 church Paul Revere rode away from," said my in- 
 formant. "And this man here, what is he doing 
 down here in the ditch?" " It's George Washington 
 crossing the Delaware." 
 
 "Come over here," said another boy. "I am 
 building Independence Hall, but I don't know where 
 to get the bell." I walked over to the venerable 
 structure. "I will try to get one," I promised. But 
 Liberty Bell was not to ring for us on the playground ; 
 in its stead all the noon whistles began to blow, 
 calling the boys to dinner and thus causing an inter- 
 ruption in our work. "Don't let us break the fort 
 up; save it all till this afternoon," was the general 
 request. Two or three boys volunteered to watch 
 until the others came back to take their places. 
 
 When we returned that afternoon we found the 
 camp ground untouched, except that some little 
 vandals had thrown a handful of oats among the 
 tents. I asked the boys to pick up the oats; unfor- 
 tunately this request was misunderstood and the 
 boys took it as a signal for a general breaking up. 
 In a minute sticks and stones were hailing down upon 
 the battlefield, smashing indiscriminately the British 
 and the American, sparing neither friend nor foe, 
 neither the doctor beside the ambulance nor George 
 Washington in the ditch. In less than a minute the 
 work of three hours was undone, destroyed with the 
 same zest and exultation with which it was created, 
 and the boys who were the leaders and the main
 
 340 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 workers were the first to tear down the labor of their 
 own hands. I was stunned and perplexed for a 
 moment; then I understood. During the whole 
 morning the boys' activity was directed towards the 
 one goal — the making of a battlefield. So far their 
 work had been constructive, well planned, preparatory 
 for things to come. This was one phase of their play. 
 Now the other part had to come, for war means de- 
 struction, annihilation, lawlessness. All the morning 
 this spirit of war had been lurking in their conscious- 
 ness, ready to break forth as soon as the intensity of 
 their work would relax. So, long suppressed, it now 
 broke forth with a vengeance, sweeping everything 
 within its reach. The battle had to come, and here 
 it was.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 Spontaneous Play with Fire and Water 
 
 Fire as Known Through Myths. — The fire myths 
 of many races indicate the almost universal use of 
 fire long before the annals of history. In myth 
 generally fire is regarded as a living thing. "As, 
 with primitive man, hunger and thirst are the natural 
 enemies of his existence, and his chief source of misery 
 or happiness, fire, food, and water became some of 
 his earliest gods. * * * Fire especially comes to 
 take a principal part in his life, though water worship 
 seems to have preceded that of fire. * * * Besides 
 warming him and giving him light at night, fire made 
 his food taste better and digest easier. * * * The 
 mysterious nature of the blazing fire, its apparently 
 spontaneous creation, its decomposing power and 
 perpetual self-motion, place it far above the other 
 elements or natural forces as an object of his venera- 
 tion and awe. Thus primitive man was a fire-using, 
 fire-worshipping animal." 1 
 
 The Fire Playing Propensity. - - The conquest of 
 fire, the power to understand its significance in the 
 life of man, took centuries to accomplish. To-day, 
 however, the mind and hand of man utilize fire in 
 industries and commerce. Its uses are so complex 
 that the average child has few opportunities to see its 
 
 1 C. E. Brown and G. S. Hall: "Children's Ideas of Fire, Heat, 
 Frost and Cold," Pedagogical Seminary, Vol. X, p. 28. 
 
 341
 
 342 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 possibilities. Yet although he does not understand 
 the significance of fire in modern industrial life, lire 
 appeals to the child. It is difficult to analyze its 
 charm. Building bonfires, brandishing fire-brands, 
 and setting off firecrackers are pleasurable activities 
 because of the fun of doing something and having 
 things happen as a result. Enjoyment in watching 
 fire seems to be due to aesthetic appreciation of color 
 and form. Such plays of visualization, however, do 
 not belong in the same category with plays involving 
 active experimentation with tire. 
 
 Is the Fire-playing Propensity Ingrained in Original 
 Nature? — Of course there are theorists who persist in 
 explaining all natural propensities through recapitula- 
 tion. To the writer it seems much simpler to account 
 for the child's special interest in fire through pleasure 
 in manipulation and experimentation, allowing for 
 the special attraction of unusual and startling effects. 
 Anyone who has been constantly among children 
 knows that the chief enjoyment of a bonfire is in 
 touching it off and seeing the results; the same may be 
 said of the universal interest in striking matches, 
 shooting off firecrackers, and lighting pin-wheels. 
 In the last three examples, noise and illumination 
 make the results startling and spectacular. 
 
 Fire-playing Common to Both Country and City 
 Children. — Country children play more freely with 
 fire than city children, because there are fewer restric- 
 tions. In winter, the country child revels in the open 
 fireplace. It is the center of domestic activities. 
 Children gather in the wood, feed the flames, and soon 
 learn to discriminate between woods that burn quickly
 
 PLAY WITH FIRE AND WATER 343 
 
 and those that do not. Here the family group gather 
 for warmth and comfort, pop corn, sew, talk, and 
 think. When the great logs burn brightly, the 
 shadows become bears and tigers as fancy supplies 
 shape and contour. In summer the brush is piled 
 high in the fields or woods and children's eager hands 
 feed the fire, while their eyes delight in the pictures 
 the leaping flames make against the dark sky. 
 Country children are taught to fear fire because of the 
 disastrous results. Such plays as those mentioned 
 above are invariably neighborhood affairs and are 
 carefully supervised by adults. 
 
 The city usually prohibits bonfires except at certain 
 distances from buildings. Yet wherever there are 
 bonfires, children swarm like busy bees, gathering 
 leaves or loose pieces of wood and paper to feed the 
 hungry flames as fast as the fire can devour them. At 
 certain times during the late summer and fall one sees 
 children congregated around such bonfires, laughing, 
 exclaiming, and, unless prevented from so doing., 
 running hither and thither brandishing firebrands. 
 In one neighborhood with which the writer was 
 familiar the boys came often to the houses, collecting 
 papers to burn in sand ovens. Some of these ovens 
 were well constructed with good draughts, showing 
 that the youthful builders had gained considerable 
 knowledge of the principles of combustion and their 
 application to heating apparatus. 
 
 Boys Show a Greater Propensity for Fire-playing 
 than Girls. — The Camp-fire Girls' organizations 
 utilize active experimentation with fire as well as 
 emphasizing its symbolic characteristics. The Boy
 
 344 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 Scouts' work also gives opportunity for legitimate 
 contact with such elemental forces as fire and water. 
 The hoys learn to make tire without matches, to cook 
 over the campfire, and to perform a series of acts 
 which are equally useful and enjoyable. 
 
 Much additional light is thrown on children's 
 delight in hre-playing through the following excerpts 
 from a study of "Children's Ideas of Fire, Heat, 
 Frost, and Cold," by C. E. Browne and G. S. Hall. 1 
 In this study, 148 returns to questions concerning the 
 fire-playing propensity were received, 103 were from 
 boys and 45 from girls. 'The average age of the 
 boys was 6.5; of the girls 6.7. From 71 cases noted 
 in the reminiscent returns, as directly observed by the 
 writers, there were 36 boys and 35 girls. Of the boys, 
 52 per cent played with tire; 47 per cent did not. 
 Of the girls, 34 per cent played, 66 per cent did not." 
 It thus seems apparent that boys are more attracted 
 by fire than are girls, although the interest seems 
 strong with both. 
 
 Various Ways of Playing with Fire. — "The delight 
 in fire-playing shows itself most commonly in building 
 bonfires, 24 per cent of all the instances. The next 
 most commonly reported is that of -winging around' 
 or rotating about the vertical axis with burning sticks 
 or papers in the hands, 16 per cent. Then, in order, 
 follow: Putting of sticks, straws, and other com- 
 bustibles into the fire to see them burn, 12 per cent; 
 building tires in houses and other buildings, 8 per cent ; 
 setting buildings on fire 7 per cent; setting curtains, 
 bedding, and carpets on fire, 3 per cent; building fires 
 
 1 See Pedagogical Seminary, Vol. X. pp. 39-41.
 
 PLAY WITH FIRE AND WATER 345 
 
 for baking or roasting, also in pans and cans, each 2 
 per cent, etc. In 14 per cent of these cases among 
 the boys, and 4 per cent among the girls, the building 
 of fires was accompanied by other activities, as 
 running, jumping, whirling the fire around, and 
 yelling. Interesting analogies are found in many 
 fantastic dances and orgies of the North American 
 Indians about their campfires." A consideration of 
 the distribution of interest in the various kinds of fire 
 experimentation mentioned in this study seems to 
 bear out the author's viewpoint that active experi- 
 mentation, doing something which brings novel and 
 startling results, accounts for the greatest appeal fire 
 makes to children. 
 
 Serious Aspects of Fire Play. — The returns also 
 emphasize the serious aspects of fire play. Statistics 
 show that more children are burned to death than 
 perish from any other cause. It is likely that their in- 
 terest in experimenting with fire grows through periods 
 of unprotected and unsupervised play. The training 
 in caution regarding fire should begin in earliest baby- 
 hood and continue throughout adolescence. How many 
 of the cases of destructive fire play cited above are due 
 to carelessness about early habits in connection with 
 fire and how many are due to the intensity of the desire 
 to experiment — a desire so strong that the child seeks 
 in unprotected moments to find out how fire acts, will 
 never be known. In the case of the writer's boy, a 
 chance five minutes alone was utilized to burn matches 
 in the house. "I just wanted to see why ashes from 
 paper are different from those of wood," said this 
 six-year-old child. Extreme punishment and a pro-
 
 346 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 gressive educational program seem the only courses 
 for parents to pursue in regard to this dangerous 
 tendency to experiment. The sane Fourth of July 
 movement is doing much to point out the dangers 
 involved by experimentation with fire even where 
 fireworks have been manufactured in accordance 
 with certain statutes. Spontaneous experimentation 
 with fire will be controlled in accordance with the 
 measure of supervision over children's play and with 
 education as to the nature of inflammable materials. 
 
 Water as Known through Myths. Some early 
 peoples believed water to be the origin of all things, 
 and thought all plant and animal life either came 
 from water or was made of water. As Bolton 1 says 
 in substance, through connection with plant life, 
 water was regarded as possessed of life-giving power. 
 People living in countries where there were seasonal 
 droughts ascribed to water the power of a super- 
 natural being. The Egyptians speak of the "spirit 
 of water." Thus, among various peoples, certain 
 streams and lakes were set apart as sacred; rain cere- 
 monials were tised for the purpose of securing rain; 
 water was used for healing and purifying purposes; 
 offerings accompanied 1>\ religious ceremonies were 
 made to propitiate the "spirit of water" in wells and 
 streams, and holy waters have often been places of 
 oracles and divinat ions. 
 
 Is the Tendency to Play in Water Ingrained in 
 Original Nature? Several writers believe that a 
 love of water is ingrained in original nature as the 
 
 1 F. E. Bolton: "Hydro Psychoses," American Journal of 
 Psychology, Vol. X.
 
 PLAY WITH FIRE AND WATER 347 
 
 result of man's past history. For example, according 
 to Bolton, as quoted by Thorndike, we find the 
 following theory: "This universal love for water seems 
 not to be due to experience alone, for all babes exhibit 
 it in their earliest days, if conditions are supplied. 
 It seems partly instinctive and of more than recent 
 philogenic (sic) origin, and at least suggests a survival 
 of the old-time life in an aquatic medium. This is 
 not demonstrable, but the weight of all testimony is 
 in that direction. How else can we account for the 
 passionate desire of children to paddle, to splash, ride 
 on rafts, run out in the rain; for their intense delight 
 in swimming, even going without meals, walking long 
 distances, enduring severe punishments, etc., just for 
 the sake of being in the water? Many of these 
 characteristics are exhibited by adults when the 
 conventionalities of civilized life can be thrown off." x 
 
 To this argument Thorndike answers: "It is, in 
 my opinion, probable that the love of paddling, 
 wading, and swimming is wholly or in large measure 
 due to the love of 'doing something and having 
 something happen as a result,' and to the increased 
 freedom of the body when fewer or more comfortable 
 clothes are worn. Water is enjoyed in large measure 
 for the same reasons that a sand pile, a roomful of 
 toys, or a gymnasium is enjoyed." 2 
 
 The writer's observations of thousands of children 
 in spontaneous play with water have led her to accept 
 Thorndike's view that enjoyment of water is in large 
 
 1 E. L. Thorndike, "The Original Nature of Man," Educational 
 Psychology, Vol. II, p. 203. 
 
 2 Ibid.
 
 348 SPONTANEOUS AND SITKRYISED PLAY 
 
 measure due to the love of "doing something and 
 having something happen as a result." 
 
 How Children of Different Ages Play in Water. 
 It is interesting to observe the different ways in which 
 children of varying ages respond to water. The 
 child of three is satisfied at first to walk slowly and 
 carefully in the shallow water, enjoying the "feel" of 
 it on his feet. When he has had his fill of this, he 
 begins to splash, laughing and jumping up and down 
 in glee at the exhilaration which comes from this 
 contact with the cool, resisting water. lie takes great 
 delight in tilling tin buckets with water and emptying 
 them again in the sand; in splashing water with his 
 hands, or in pushing floating boards hither and 
 thither with his hands and feet. But to the child of 
 five or six years, this is tame play indeed. Me likes to 
 wade, spash, and jump in the deep water; to run 
 and chase the other children ; to throw balls and ho< >] »s ; 
 to tug at boards and ropes thrown into the water; 
 and to float boats and craft of all kinds. The child ol 
 seven or nine years likes to do all this and still more. 
 He wants to do things that appear to be difficult and 
 dangerous; he is constantly daring his fellows to 
 perform some new feat — to jump over ropes, to skip 
 pieces of wood or stones, and to engage in such games 
 as "Water Tag," "Tug of War," and "Find the 
 Coin." 
 
 Rural Life Affords Better Opportunity for Water- 
 play than Does Urban Life. Most children who live 
 in rural communities have daily contact with small 
 lakes, brooks, and creeks; here sand and water presenl 
 wonderful opportunities for free play and constructive
 
 PLAY WITH FIRE AND WATER 
 
 349 
 
 genius. What fun to walk barefoot along the hard 
 sand at the water's edge; to dig the toes deep into the 
 wet sand; to draw pictures on the sand with a stick; 
 to make deep wells and watch the water flow in and 
 out with the coming and going of the waves; and to 
 
 
 is 
 
 
 
 ^jrafe^ " 
 
 
 
 
 *TU ~4l 
 
 
 ' 
 
 At the Seashore 
 
 dig deep ditches wide enough for sailboats to ply up 
 and down! Or what joy to play daily in the little 
 brook near home; to ford the narrow places; to build 
 dams and locks; to make water wheels which will 
 turn sand mills round and round ; and to whittle boats 
 which will sail majestically along the banks! Add to 
 this the fun of wading on and on indefinitely, without
 
 350 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 coming to the end of anything, and the country 
 child's joy of comradeship with water is complete. 
 
 The city child, though far removed from streams 
 and brooks, yet comes early into contact with water. 
 Children invariably play with faucets; experimenting 
 
 Children Like to Play at the Water's Edge 
 
 with the falling water, pouring it into and out of 
 kitchen utensils, and producing crude waterfalls and 
 fountains by using a sieve or by holding a hand over 
 the faucet, thus splashing the water aboul the room. 
 They like to use the garden hose, to sprinkle not only 
 the grass and walks bul also pedestrians and passing 
 vehicles; to darl in and under the water; and they 
 shout with glee when permitted to don a bathing suit
 
 352 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 and test the force of the water on the feet, back, and 
 chest. 
 
 To the city child the streets and gutters on a rainy 
 day afford greal delight. School children splash 
 merrily through puddles and small boys poke with a 
 stick along the curbings and gutters. Wherever there 
 are tubs or pails filled with water children gather about 
 them, for they delight to splash stones in the water, 
 to sail boats, to till tin cans with water, and, if per- 
 mitted, to throw water over each other's heads. 
 Most civic agencies for recreation realize the appeal 
 of water play, and provide wading pools, swimming 
 tanks, and shower baths in the recreation parks and 
 playgrounds. 
 
 The Wading Pool: Its Construction and Use. — 
 Country children need no wading pools, for in most 
 rural communities sandy or rocky brooks, creeks, or 
 streams entice children back to prehistoric amphibian 
 contact with soil and water. City children of 
 twenty years ago, if not fortunate enough to live near 
 the water, were deprived of much pleasure and 
 profitable experimentation. But to-day most cities 
 have playgrounds, in main- of which is a wading pool, 
 that blessed substitute for the pebbly brook and the 
 "old swimming hole." Since most of the wading 
 pools are circular in shape, with a drain in the center 
 from which the water is usually emptied each day, 
 permitting scrubbing of the cement bottom, there is 
 little of the danger of contagion from sources ol in- 
 fection which make stagnant pools a constant menace 
 to health. However, the cold cement is a poor 
 substitute for mud or sand. Half of the enjoymenl ol
 
 PLAY WITH FIRE AXD WATER 353 
 
 wading comes from putting bare feet down in soft, 
 yielding soil and at the same time reinforcing the 
 exhilaration this contact affords with the stimulating 
 effect of cold water on the skin. Then, too, the 
 crowded cement wading pool gives a sense of physical 
 limitation, for one's movements must necessarily come 
 in conflict with those of dozens of other children who 
 have equal rights to enjoyment. It is also difficult to 
 get the same enjoyment one experiences in roaming 
 along the shores of a lake or aimlessly following the 
 course of a brook. Yet there is the stimulating 
 contact with the cool water. It is hard to explain the 
 emotional contentment that contact with water affords 
 the mind and body. Suffice it to say that some 
 transformation of nerve cells occurs and that there 
 results a physical relaxation, a sense of well-being, 
 which defies analysis. 
 
 One advantage, however, inheres in the circular pool 
 fifty or sixty feet in diameter as compared with 
 brooks and creeks. The larger area is shallow and 
 permits even very young children some means of being 
 initiated into the charm of contact with water, while 
 their more venturesome brothers and sisters play 
 contentedly near the center of the pool. Where the 
 pool has no cement bottom, but is made by excavating 
 the soil, and where the water is occasionally filtered 
 away through a drain in order to supply fresh water 
 and allow the rays of the sun to disinfect the sandy 
 bottom, care should be taken that the children's 
 mouths, noses, and eyes do not become exposed to the 
 water, which necessarily contains dust and carries 
 infections. The feet alone are not liable -to contagion
 
 354 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 except from skin diseases, which are uncommon in 
 early childhood. 
 
 Toys and Materials Suitable for Play in Water. — 
 It is not necessary to provide elaborate toys for chil- 
 dren to use in the water. Wherever children are 
 found playing in the water, they are observed to be 
 using toys of their own construction. Bits of wood 
 
 Photographed for the Pittsburgh Bureau of Recreation 
 
 The Playground Fleet 
 
 become boats and are pushed about by means of 
 sticks or are guided by the hands of the children them- 
 selves. Boards become oars; the children sit down 
 in the shallow water and propel themselves by means 
 of these oars. Cork boats are among the most 
 practicable for playground use; cork reefs and corn- 
 cob crafts, though more difficult to construct, can 
 easily be made by children from seven to nine years of 
 age. Walnut and egg-shell craft and the tiny peanut-
 
 PLAY WITH FIRE AND WATER 355 
 
 shell boats furnish children genuine amusement. 
 They are fragile and difficult to handle, and are 
 always capsizing at unexpected times; yet they afford 
 considerable merriment. When children are old 
 enough to handle knives, boats may be whittled out 
 of cigar boxes; a mast, a sail, or cannon can convert 
 these boats into schooners, men-of-war, or super- 
 dreadnaughts. 
 
 Fishing plays require only a stick, a line, and a bent 
 pin. The children sometimes cut fish from paper or 
 cardboard, mount a steel hook through the fish, and 
 with a tiny magnet in place of a hook, bait and catch 
 the fish, which, mounted on corks, sail about on the 
 water. These floating fish are infinitely more difficult 
 to catch and require more skill than is demanded to 
 catch the stationary ones supplied in the Magnetic 
 Fish Pond game. Water wheels of various kinds are 
 on the market, but left to himself any ingenious child 
 can invent one and learn through using it the ele- 
 mental facts concerning water power. 
 
 For indoor water play the writer has made suc- 
 cessful use of galvanized-iron trays made to fit any 
 table desired and furnished with a drain pipe at one 
 end. The water can thus be emptied easily into 
 pails. This does away with the necessity of emptying 
 the water by hand. Duck ponds are on the market; 
 some of them are mere mechanical inventions by which 
 ducks and swans float around for half an hour or until 
 the mechanism runs down. Celluloid fish, ducks, 
 and swans are attractive materials to add to the 
 galvanized-iron tray mentioned above. They are more 
 durable than the floating toys which children them-
 
 356 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 selves invent. Seaplanes, balloons, and other aerial 
 craft enhance the pleasure of play in the water. 
 They can be manipulated by strings while the children 
 wade about, and the seaplanes, at least, can be made 
 to run smoothly over the water. Hoops, balls, and 
 long boards are useful materials to provide for simple 
 plays and games in the water. 
 
 Records of Water Plays 
 
 1. Wading Pools. Soho Moultrie Playground. - 
 Boys banked walls of sand around the inner ledge "I 
 the sand box to form a wading pool. They then 
 carried buckets of water from a neighbor's pump and 
 filled the pool with water. They enjoyed splashing 
 in the muddy water with their bare feet. After the 
 fun of this had worn off, they made crude boats out of 
 pieces of wood and pushed these around the pool by 
 means of sticks. 
 
 2. Wading Pool. Junction Hollow Playground. 
 The children went occasionally to the Ormsby Park 
 swimming pool and were always planning how they 
 could have one of their own. Every time the super- 
 visor appeared they told her of some new way in which 
 a swimming pool could be built on their playground. 
 As the playground was located in a small valley 
 underneath a railroad bridge, the immediate fulfill- 
 ment of their hopes did not seem probable. One day, 
 however, they discovered how to make a pool tor 
 themselves. A small natural spring was in the 
 location selected tor the pool. The children cleaned 
 up the surrounding ground and dug a pit about five 
 feet wide around the spring; this soon filled up with
 
 PLAY WITH FIRE AND WATER 357 
 
 water and made a small pond in which they could 
 wade. The day after the pool was finished, a mother 
 brought three ducks and let them swim in the pool; 
 this proved a great delight to the children. 
 
 3. "The Old-Fashioned Bucket." Ormsby Park. — 
 A group of children dug a well; they lined it with 
 blocks molded together with damp sand. It sug- 
 gested pictures of the "Old-Fashioned Bucket." The 
 children planned a frame similar to the one they had 
 seen in the pictures. To do this they stood two sand 
 shovels upright over the well and suspended a bucket 
 tied by a string to another shovel used as a crosspiece. 
 After filling the well with water the children took turns 
 lowering the bucket and bringing it up full of water. 
 This play lasted several days. 
 
 4. Ponds. Arsenal Park. — Ponds were made by 
 burying pails in the sand and filling them with water. 
 Turtles, fish, ducks, and frogs were cut out of paper 
 and mounted on milk-bottle tops. The children 
 enjoyed floating these in the water. 
 
 5. Flood. Arsenal Park. — One day a group of 
 children dug a deep river channel in the sand, filled it 
 with water, and floated boats down the river. They 
 kept pouring in more water until the river overflowed 
 and flooded the banks; then they knocked down the 
 bridges and sank, or rescued, the boats. 
 
 A thrilling dramatic play, constructive in purpose yet de- 
 structive to material. 
 
 6. New York Harbor. Sullivan Playground. — 
 
 Some boys had seen pictures of New York Harbor. 
 They planned to represent it in the sand. They 
 made the bay and harbor, constructing ferry boats,
 
 358 SPONTANEOUS AXD SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 steamers, and rowboats to put in the harbor; along 
 the banks of the harbor they laid out parks and 
 palisades; out in the bay they added islands, forts, and 
 the Statue of Liberty. 
 
 7. Sailing Boats. Ormsby Park. - The children 
 tunneled out a river to extend around the four sides of 
 the sand box, filled the river with water, and construct- 
 ed paper boats to float on it. These boats proving 
 fragile, the children got some large, flat corks, and with 
 thumb tacks attached paper sails. The wind was 
 very strong and blew the boats here and there on the 
 river. 
 
 8. Fishing. Washington Park Playground. — In 
 the playroom was a large galvanized-iron tray, just 
 the size of the kindergarten tabic which it was made to 
 fit. It was planned especially for water plays. The 
 children converted this tray into a fishing pond. 
 They made cardboard fish to which steel rings were 
 attached. With an improvised pole and magnet 
 they caught the fish. Sometimes they look the fish 
 home on a string and cooked them for dinner; at other 
 times they were satisfied to catch and land the fish. 
 
 9. Boats and the Carrying Trade. Washington 
 Park. - During a heavy rain, the outdoor sand pile 
 became flooded with water. After the storm had 
 subsided the boys dug river channels, using blocks for 
 wharves and setting up tall buildings along the river. 
 Next they made boats. One boy put a few sticks in 
 his boat and said he was loading it with lumber. Then 
 all the boys decided to have freight boats carrying 
 different things. They loaded the boats with wood, 
 stone, and sand, going from dock to dock to dispose of
 
 PLAY WITH FIRE AND WATER 359 
 
 the cargo. Someone suggested having a trading place ; 
 so a number of stores were started, some for lumber, 
 some for stone, and others for sand. The girls left 
 their house plays to buy at the stores; some interesting 
 bartering resulted. 
 
 This is a splendid example of play where the dramatic goes 
 hand in hand with constructive interest. The accidental sug- 
 gestion of a lumber cargo started the chain of ideas resulting in the 
 dramatic representation of the carrying trade. 
 
 10. Water Carnival. — Minerva Stern, in an article 
 entitled "A Water Carnival," published in the 
 January, 191 7, number of The Playground, describes 
 an interesting carnival held on a wading pool. Each 
 child came bringing his own boat, and, after getting 
 his number, waded around the pool until the judges 
 had made their decision. Then came various races in 
 which the boats were grouped according to weight, 
 size, and character. Finally the winners were lined 
 up for the finals. Another race was run for balance; 
 and it was discovered that many builders had failed to 
 balance their boats carefully.
 
 PART IV 
 
 PLAYS INVOLVING MOVEMENT, 
 IMPULSE, AND CURIOSITY
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 Visual Exploration 
 
 The Field of This Study Denned. — Having sur- 
 veyed two divisions of movement play, namely, plays 
 involving gross bodily control and manipulation, we 
 shall now turn our attention to the field of visual 
 exploration, our third division of movement plays. 
 Here we encounter a wealth of playful experimentation 
 connected with brightness, color, form, and perception 
 of movement. Our purpose is to touch upon spon- 
 taneous activities which reveal the scope of interest 
 children have along this line and point out a natural 
 procedure or "method" for visual education. The 
 importance of visual education has long been recog- 
 nized, but its scope is hardly realized at the present 
 time. A magazine called Visual Education is devoted 
 to the publication of the results of experimental study 
 in this field. 
 
 The Development of the Eye in Childhood. — Any 
 consideration of visual education brings home the 
 important fact that the eye in early childhood is 
 incompletely developed, underfocused, and poorly 
 adapted for close work. But as the body approaches 
 general maturity, the eye tends to become emme- 
 tropic. It is safe to say that the eye, like the other 
 sense organs of the normal child, does not change 
 percetibly after the second or third year. How, then, 
 do we account for improvement in perception of bright- 
 
 363
 
 364 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 ness, color, form, and movement? It is through the 
 perfecting of new I train associations. For example, a 
 one-year-old child sees a ball as something to mouth, 
 handle, drop, and roll. He also associates some 
 degree of brightness and color with it, but later he 
 perfects all these ideas and associates new ideas with 
 the old ones. Sense training then, so far as the eye is 
 concerned, is a matter of making brain connections. 
 
 The Effect of Light, Brightness, and Color on the 
 Human Eye. -- The human longing for light is so 
 strong that from time immemorial we have used light 
 as a symbol of divinity, a fact on which we have no 
 time to dwell except to note the significance of the 
 heavenly bodies and of fire in religion. 
 
 The infant's face takes on a satisfied expression 
 when turned toward the light. In the second and 
 third months his gaze clings to bright and shining 
 objects. Differences in brightness are perceived at 
 about six months, but color is not usually perceived 
 until the second half of the first year. In the writer's 
 observations of her son she noticed that although his 
 eyes rested with pleasure on colored bows suspended 
 nycr hi- crib during the fourth, fifth, and sixth months, 
 yet he gazed with almost equal satisfaction at yellow, 
 blue, and red bows, at candle light, or at a pink 
 afghan. This seems to indicate that degrees of 
 brightness were unperceived by him until about the 
 sixth month. 
 
 Most authorities agree that colors are not perceived 
 until the second halt' year. The consensus of opinion 
 seems to be that most children display more interesl 
 in the warm colors, red and yellow, than in the- colder
 
 VISUAL EXPLORATION 365 
 
 ones. Blue is perceived with greater difficulty than 
 red and yellow, according to most investigators. 
 Preyer says: "The inability of my two-year-old child' 
 to recognize blue and gray can be argued not only 
 from his occasional failure to do so, but also from the 
 evident difficulty he encounters in connecting the 
 commonly used and familiar names 'blue' and 'gray' 
 with any special sensations, while 'yellow' and 'red' 
 were correctly applied several months ago. Were the 
 sensations of blue and gray as clear as are red and 
 yellow, there would be no failure to recognize the 
 colors." 1 In the case of the writer's son, at the fifth 
 year gray and cold blues were perceived only in cases 
 where memory associated the name with some article 
 of clothing or a favorite toy. Even the color-blind, 
 as Whipple points out, learn to recognize reds and 
 greens by means of secondary criteria such as bright- 
 ness and saturation and familiarity with the applica- 
 tion of color nomenclature. 2 Hence we cannot be 
 sure that a child recognizes colors at a particular time 
 without testing with a large number of colors of varied 
 degrees of saturation and brightness. Applying this 
 knowledge to this child's apparent lack of perception 
 of blue and gray, we conclude that he either failed to 
 perceive these colors or, perceiving them, found them 
 less attractive than the brighter hues ; for whenever he 
 was asked to point out colors in a sunset he invariably 
 failed to mention gray or any blues except the bright- 
 est hues of blue. 
 
 1 K. Groos: The Play of Man, p. 56. 
 
 2 G. M. Whipple: Mental and Physical Tests, p. 150.
 
 366 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 The Young-Helmholtz theory assumes that primeval 
 man distinguished only the three primary colors, red, 
 green, and violet. From these were derived orange 
 and yellow, while blue was the very last to be dis- 
 covered. Primitive tribes paint their bodies and 
 color their ornaments almost exclusively with the 
 warm colors. The cool colors are seldom seen in 
 primitive ornamentation, even in combination with 
 the warm colors. With savages as with children it is 
 safer to assume that the cooler colors are less attrac- 
 tive than that they are imperfectly perceived. Nature 
 uses them profusely and civilized homes are decorated 
 largely in neutral tints. 
 
 Sex Differences in Perception of Color. - It is 
 interesting to note that boys concern themselves less 
 with color than do girls. Groos interprets this fact to 
 indicate differences in training rather than in inborn 
 capacity and points to the fact that the history of 
 painting seems to show that the masculine sex has a 
 finer color sense than the feminine. 1 He fails, how- 
 ever, to mention the important parallel that the 
 history of household arts shows that feminine interest 
 in and appreciation of color extends far beyond the 
 masculine. In conclusion, then, it appears that boys 
 and girls have few differences in inborn capacities for 
 color discrimination, but that their attention is direct- 
 ed to different fields. 
 
 Perception of Space. — As concerns perception of 
 space, without entering into the controversy as to 
 whether or not children have to learn by practice to 
 respond appropriately to distance, we may safely 
 
 1 K. Groos: The Play <>{ Man, pp. 59-60.
 
 VISUAL EXPLORATION 367 
 
 conclude that space perception for short distances, 
 aided as it is by the adjustments of the hands and 
 eyes, is earlier and more effectively developed than 
 is color perception, which is dependent upon the eye 
 alone. 
 
 Children get their first ideas of form, as they do of 
 space, by using the cooperative results of the hands, 
 the eyes, and the kinesthetic sensations. The 
 human face, the first oval, is at first to the child a 
 mere patch of light connected with the comfort of 
 being fed. The bottle gives early impressions of 
 cylindrical shape. The ball registers impressions of 
 sphericity to the hands closing in upon it. 
 
 Before the results of scientific investigations in 
 perception of color and form were known, the early 
 kindergarten tried to teach form .through type shapes, 
 namely, the ball, cube, and cylinder. A child was 
 supposed, somehow, to carry over a knowledge of 
 these three forms to a recognition of form in his environ- 
 ment. For example, he was asked to see cylindrical 
 characteristics in a stove-pipe, a vase, a whistle, or an 
 engine. Procedure of this kind hindered real per- 
 ception of form. It is more important that a child 
 recognize a stove-pipe as such, than as having cylin- 
 drical characteristics. To ask a child to see a cylinder 
 in a stove-pipe is to demand that he eliminate accuracy 
 of proportions from his perception of form and 
 substitute fancy for truth. In psychological termin- 
 ology it is asking him to reconstruct the image. 
 Children have enough to do to learn to see accurately 
 without being required to juggle their mental images 
 in this fashion.
 
 368 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 The Relative Importance of Perception of Form in 
 Visual Education. — Groos makes the interesting 
 statement that the visible form of objects is of higher 
 biological value to the exceedingly important faculty 
 of recognition than is color or brilliancy. 1 Recogni- 
 tion, the first requirement for reproduction, is natur- 
 ally dependent on perception of form. However 
 true this statement may be concerning the value of 
 form in visual education, it seems more than probable 
 that the early perception of form is indissolubly 
 bound up with that of brightness and of color. 
 Although there are no reliable data gathered from 
 scientifically conducted tests to prove that little 
 children show a preference for colored pictures, from 
 the writer's own experience in showing pictures to 
 children it has appeared that children under three 
 years of age can scarcely recognize the meaning of 
 simple outline. On the contrary, a child of kinder- 
 garten age has learned through secondary connections 
 to associate form with simple outline. R came home 
 from kindergarten one day exhibiting a series of crude 
 lines which meant to him trees, soldiers, houses, and 
 flowers. These lines stood for objects only because 
 associations had been built up between lines and 
 objects. 
 
 The Natural Way to Learn Form. — Most children 
 learn the fundamental characteristics of form before 
 they go to school. While busy mothers work about 
 the house, busy children linger and manipulate 
 anything which responds to their purposes. And as 
 they handle they learn how form lends itself to 
 
 1 K. Groos: The Play of Man, i>. 60.
 
 VISUAL EXPLORATION 369 
 
 locomotion and to construction. A classification of 
 form from the child's viewpoint would vary at 
 different ages, but would center about the uses of 
 objects. Round pie tins are recognized as better to 
 spin and roll than oval ones; square pans can be built 
 into houses; oblong tins can be used for street cars. 
 Round baskets are seen not as parts of hollow spheres, 
 but as containers. This incidental knowledge of 
 form which the child gets in spontaneous play needs 
 only to be made conscious to afford a basis for more 
 intelligent recognition and appreciation of form in 
 industry, art, and commerce. The mother or teacher 
 needs but to direct the appreciation and classification 
 of form along constantly progressive lines, and teach 
 a suitable terminology. Many mothers unconsciously 
 help their children to distinguish form through spon- 
 taneous play with buttons, boxes, jelly glasses, pie 
 tins, and blocks. Playing store, collecting nature 
 specimens, as well as drawing, cutting, clay modeling, 
 sewing, and carpentry work, all teach form in relation 
 to life situations and reveal the characteristics of form 
 in useful ways. The records show many cases where 
 perception of form was perfected through such 
 spontaneous play. 
 
 Perception of Movement. — Passive enjoyment of 
 motion is common throughout life. As soon as the 
 eyes develop the power to follow moving objects, 
 children exhibit an unlearned tendency to watch and 
 enjoy motion. The infant follows the movements of 
 people near him; his glance seeks out the undulating 
 movements of flames, the wreaths of curling smoke 
 blown from a pipe, water running from a faucet, or
 
 3"0 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 steam rising from a teakettle. When held at t lie open 
 window he delights to gaze at falling rain, the whirling 
 snowflakes, and trees and leaves Mown by the wind, 
 and to watch the swift movements of automobiles, 
 street cars, and trains. Toys that move are early 
 sought out and the movements of birds, insects, and 
 animals seldom fail to challenge attention. 
 
 The writer can remember the delight she ex- 
 perienced in her childhood from watching the move- 
 ments of the sand and water at the seashore. It was 
 pleasurable to see the beating of the waxes on the 
 shore, the dashing of the breakers on the piers, the 
 lapping of the water against the small craft moored in 
 the harbor, and the circling of the sea-gulls over the 
 water. On stormy days it was great fun to watch, 
 from a sheltered place, less fortunate people hurrying 
 to their homes; to follow with the eyes the course of 
 scattering leaves and papers tossed about by the 
 wind ; and at rare moments to hear the crash of 
 boughs lashed to the ground by the storm. 
 
 Most adults share these interests with children. 
 What a delight to watch the movements of throngs of 
 skaters threading their passage over the ice; to con- 
 template the merry whirl of dancers skimming 
 lightly over a waxed floor; to watch the undulating 
 movements of swimmers working their passage so 
 gracefully through the water! What pleasure, too, to 
 follow with the glance the swiftly rolling balls sent 
 toward a goal or to watch the progress of tennis balls 
 released from the racket, of arrows speeding upward, 
 or the flight of the swiftly whirling discus! Adults 
 enjoy watching the speeding of automobiles and horses
 
 VISUAL EXPLORATION 37 1 
 
 along race tracks. There is more than the enjoyment 
 of seeing physical skill in watching skillful acrobatics; 
 there is pleasure in contemplating motion in and of 
 itself. 
 
 Method in Visual Education. — The records of play 
 activities connected with brightness, color, form, and 
 movement indicate some important considerations for 
 more formal work in visual education and are therefore 
 worthy of mention. In his play the child trains his 
 eye to recognize colors and forms in situations useful 
 to him as he works out purposes of his own. He uses 
 a red glass window for his house of blocks, because he 
 likes the color effect ; but when he finds that he cannot 
 see clearly into the interior of the house he is building, 
 he substitutes a white window pane. He soon learns 
 that cylindrical blocks make excellent rollers for toy 
 vehicles; but when he tries to fashion a permanent 
 toy, he discovers that wheels are more easily secured 
 to the toy and serve his purpose better. In construc- 
 tion, the child is not interested in trying out various 
 materials for the sake of mere experimentation; he 
 has some purpose to serve, some end to attain. The 
 old type of sense training was to refine the senses. 
 This seems to be Montessori's position. Her didactic 
 apparatus was calculated to serve the purpose of 
 intellectual gymnastics. She seems little concerned 
 with evidence for or against the transfer of training to 
 situations useful in life. It seems extremely doubtful 
 whether the children taught by her method to dis- 
 criminate among geometrical forms would recognize 
 those forms in their relation to constructive problems 
 in machinery, sewing, or carpentry work, or whether
 
 372 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 their appreciation of art would profit by such exercises. 
 On the contrary, it seems highly probable that a child 
 who learned form through building with blocks, con- 
 structing with boxes and paper, and through cutting 
 and drawing would have learned about form in a useful 
 way. The same may be said of training in color. 
 It is what the child learns that counts, not how his 
 senses are refined by so doing. 
 
 In speaking of the didactic apparatus of Montessori 
 and her method, Kilpatrick has the following to say: 
 "It is true that any experience with color or form or 
 weight helps to make one's concepts of these things; 
 and pleasurable experience along any one of these 
 lines will lead the child to look for further allied 
 experiences. It is further true that growth comes 
 from the organization of such experiences, and that 
 this is the training that we really wish. In these 
 ways exercise with this apparatus may be, indeed, 
 will be, of service; because from it comes opportunity 
 for the conscious consideration of such experiences. 
 The formal and mechanical aspect of the training is, 
 however, practically valueless." l 
 
 Records of Perceptions of Color and 
 of Brighi nkss 
 The following records show play situations in which 
 perceptions in brightness, color, form, and movemenl 
 are gained through spontaneous play: 
 
 Twentieth day. " R's eyes followed a moving 
 lighted candle up and down, but not from left to 
 right." 
 
 1 W. H. Kilpatrick: The Moiilcssori System Examined, pp. 50-51.
 
 VISUAL EXPLORATION 373 
 
 Twenty-third day. "R's eyes followed a candle 
 flame sideways once out of about every three trials." 
 
 Twenty-eighth day. "R seemed to enjoy gazing in 
 the direction of the windows and the lighted gas 
 grate. His gaze also seemed to cling repeatedly to a 
 pink afghan thrown over a chair near his crib." 
 
 Forty-fourth day. "He gazed at a large mirror 
 with interest." 
 
 Seventy-eighth day. "R's gaze rested for several 
 minutes at different times on a red tissue-paper bow 
 suspended by a string from the wall near his crib. 
 Several days later he looked with almost equal interest 
 at yellow, blue, and violet bows." 
 
 Fourth month. "Three balls, red, yellow, and 
 blue in color, were placed in a row in front of R. At 
 first it seemed that he gazed less at the yellow ball 
 than at the others, but when the position of the balls 
 was changed several times, it was discovered that he 
 looked more frequently at the extreme left ball, 
 regardless of color." 
 
 Seventh month. "One cloudy day I turned on 
 the electric light. R noticed the difference in bright- 
 ness at once and looked around, then up to the lighted 
 dome. His gaze returned to the dome again and 
 again." 
 
 Eighth month. "R likes especially well to see the 
 flames spring out when I touch a match to the gas 
 grate." Mere color and brightness are not the only 
 attraction; fire brings an appeal of its own. 
 
 Fourteenth month. "Several rolls of crepe paper, 
 red, orange, blue, and violet, were placed before R in a 
 row. He seized red first, then orange, then blue.
 
 374 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 An hour later the same colors were arranged differ- 
 ently before him. He reached for orange, red, blue. 
 in order named, then held the orange for a consider- 
 able period. A third time the rolls of colored paper 
 were laid before him. He crept past the red and blue 
 rolls to reach the orange one." 
 
 Fifteenth month. "From red, orange, violet, and 
 blue, R chose orange. From red, orange, violet, 
 and white R chose violet." 
 
 Eighteenth month. "The same four tolls of paper 
 were laid on the floor. R picked them up one at a 
 time and threw each down on his other side. He then 
 picked up the orange roll and manipulated it. A 
 few clays later R chose red and orange from the four 
 colors. Later in the same day he chose orange and 
 violet. R is apparently at this time partial to 
 orange as a color." 
 
 Four years and two months. " R was playing with 
 the buttons in my button box. He said, 'here'- a 
 mahogany button. This one is gold.' I nodded 
 approval, saying, 'Find a blue one.' R picked out a 
 dark blue button. 'Yes! that is navy blue.' I said; 
 'Find a light blue one.' R picked out a bright blue 
 button, either not recognizing the meaning oi light 
 blue, or not perceiving the color." ' 
 
 Playing with Colored Glass. --The writer spent 
 many happy hours, when a child, playing with samples 
 of bright transparent and translucent glass. In the 
 pure white sand so abundant near the shore, the 
 squares of glass gleamed forth like precious stones. 
 
 1 All these examples are selected from the author's unpublished 
 records.
 
 VISUAL EXPLORATION 375 
 
 Glass houses and church windows were built and 
 rebuilt. It was fun also to look through the glass at 
 houses, trees, and people; not only were the color 
 effects interesting, but the objects viewed obliquely 
 through the glass took on variations of form and 
 changed in perspective. 
 
 It would be easy to guide such playful experimentation along 
 lines of scientific inquiry in which the cause of refraction and laws 
 controlling it are spontaneously discovered by children. 
 
 Treasuring Bits of Cloth. — Children collect pieces 
 of bright silk, velvet, and satin, treasuring them care- 
 fully. Most children enjoy the "feel" of silks, satins, 
 and velvets so that color is not the only factor here. 
 
 Blowing Soap Bubbles. — Who has not gazed with 
 delight at a group of children blowing soap bubbles 
 in the sunshine and watched their eager faces light up 
 with pleasure when the golden bubbles sail majestic- 
 ally upward, or break into myriads of shining stars 
 before the perilous journey downward is completed? 
 Each bubble acts as a reflector, producing many 
 colors of the rainbow. 
 
 Experimenting with a Prism. The Light Bird. 
 Sooner or later every child discovers for himself 
 bright spots thrown on the wall, floor, or ceiling of a 
 room by the refraction of light through a prism or 
 mirror. "One day when R was a little more than a 
 year old he sat so unusually still for several moments 
 that I looked in the direction of his gaze and dis- 
 covered he was pleasantly engaged in watching a 
 dancing spot of light on the wall." l In Froebelian 
 kindergartens the children call this refracted light 
 1 From the author's unpublished records.
 
 376 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 "the Lighl Bird" and often try to catch it, running 
 hither and thither in its quest, only to discover that 
 their eyes alone can catch and hold their pretty 
 plaything. 
 
 The Rainbow. - The rainbow invariably calls from 
 children responses of delight. Main- children arc 
 observed to gaze spellbound by the riotous, sensuous 
 appeal of so many colors. The rainbow is, of course, 
 a common example of reflected and retracted light. 
 
 Experimenting with Vegetable Colors Obtained 
 from Roots, Barks, Leaves, and Berries. The 
 writer has seen children who were playing drug store 
 go to considerable trouble to make colors to represent 
 various "drugs" which they displayed in bottles. 
 With a few suggestions concerning the action of salt, 
 alum, and baking soda as mordants or to produce 
 changes of color, many chemical experiments can be 
 performed by children. The results are pleasing and 
 satisfying. For example, the husks of walnuts or 
 butternuts make brown. Brown can also be made 
 from coffee, tea, or onion. Grape skins and purple 
 cabbage make violet. Pokeberries make a red violet 
 and cranberries a red or old rose. Nasturtium or 
 tomato leaves can be used for green. 
 
 Records of Perception of Form 
 Eleventh month. " R discovered that cylinders 
 
 Kill and learned how to roll them to me by pushing 
 
 them away from himself." 
 
 "While rolling an embroidery hoop, R accidentally 
 
 learned that .1 certain method of throwing with a high 
 
 arm movement induced spinning. lie repeated the
 
 VISUAL EXPLORATION 377 
 
 act several times. Here were perception of form and 
 enjoyment in contemplating motion voluntarily pro- 
 duced." 
 
 "R tried to pick up the spots in the linoleum pat- 
 tern." 
 
 " R fits a small cylindrical box in a larger cylindrical 
 box and says 'gone' when he can not pull it out." 
 
 "Whenever R is left free to do what he pleases in 
 the kitchen, he goes directly to the cupboard and 
 takes the lid off the double boiler, then tries to fit it 
 on the various-sized utensils near by. He has never 
 been observed to fit a round lid on a square tin or vice 
 versa." 
 
 "One interesting feature of R's perception of form 
 in objects is his growth in ability to perceive the uses 
 of objects in relation to their size and shape. He 
 places small dolls in boxes, and has been observed to 
 note variations in the same shape in fitting together 
 such objects as boxes, pans, and jelly glasses." 
 
 "R learned to spin an oval tin as well as a round 
 one." 
 
 Thirteenth month. "R is pleased to take corks 
 out of bottles and put them back again. Given 
 three glass bottles with stoppers of different sizes, 
 he will devote himself for a considerable period to 
 fitting the stoppers in the right bottles. Here 
 pleasure in manipulation is the chief enjoyment. 
 Mistakes are self-corrective, since only the right 
 stopper will fit each bottle." 
 
 "Given a nest of blocks, R did not at first discover 
 how to fit all into a nest. He placed only two 
 together."
 
 378 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 "R fits together four stew pans of various sizes, 
 each size in its proper place." 
 
 "R attempts to arrange clothespins in a row over 
 the edge of a box. Here some aesthetic appreciation 
 of regularity of form is noticeable." 
 
 Fourteenth mouth. "R appeared to be gazing into 
 a hand mirror which chanced to lie on the floor 
 beside him. Presently he looked again and laughed. 
 I wondered if he was amused at the grotesqueness of 
 the image. He reinforced this belief on my part by 
 holding the mirror perpendicularly and gazing in- 
 tently into it. In all probability he noticed the 
 reflection of other objects besides himself." ' 
 
 i. Distorting Mirrors. -Gazing at images of 
 themselves in the howls of silver spoons, in glass 
 globes, and in crystals is a favorite occupation <>t 
 children. Greal glee greets the abnormalities of form 
 and features thus produced. Recreation agencies 
 have seized upon this spontaneous interest. Amuse- 
 ment resorts present crystal palaces where the 
 principle of spherical aberration in convex and 
 concave mirrors is worked out for the purpose <»i 
 getting unusual and startling effects. People become 
 suddenly thin or fat and greal merriment results. 
 The interest in spherical mirrors might extend to 
 embrace an understanding of the industrial uses of 
 reflected light, examples of which are searchlights, 
 lighthouses, and the headlights of locomotives. 
 
 2. DoubJe or Triple Mirrors. Main- children 
 play with double hand mirrors, or gaze into the triple 
 mirrors of dressing-tables. Here the reflecting sur- 
 
 1 Prom i 1 ■ ' - unpublished records.
 
 VISUAL EXPLORATION 379 
 
 faces form an angle. The children notice that several 
 images can be seen at once in the triple mirrors; three 
 when the mirrors are at right angles; more when the 
 angles are less than right angles. 
 
 3. Looking at Reflections in the Water. — Chil- 
 dren enjoy bending over wells, ponds, and streams to 
 see the inverted images of themselves reflected in the 
 water. They soon notice that trees and houses at 
 the water's edge appear to be upside down in the 
 water and that poles resting obliquely in the water 
 look broken. They also note that the depth of a 
 pond or stream appears different according to their 
 distance from the water. 
 
 4. Shadow Pictures and Shadowgraphs. — What 
 child cannot remember the delight of shadow chasing ! 
 Many children, too, learn to make shadow pictures 
 on the walls: rabbits, bears, wolves, elephants, and 
 tigers chase each other across the sheet in rapid 
 succession. Half of the interest in shadow pictures 
 comes from passive enjoyment of the movements of 
 the forms created and pleasure in being a cause. 
 Lions can be made to roar and stalk, tigers crouch 
 ready to spring, and kittens dart after their prey. 
 This interest has been commercialized through shadow- 
 graphs. The shadowgraph set consists of punched- 
 out cards on which designs are lithographed in colors. 
 The light shining through produces pictures on the 
 wall. 
 
 5. The Stereoscope. 1 -- This instrument is com- 
 monly used in schools and homes. It is an optical 
 device by which two lenses give the appearance of life 
 
 1 See W. B. Forbush: The Manual of Play, pp. 327-328.
 
 380 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 proportions to objects, persons, and scenery. Add to 
 this the effect of perspective and roundness of contour, 
 and it is readily perceived how children delight in 
 this instrument, also what splendid educational oppor- 
 tunities it has for broadening the scope of such school 
 subjects as geography, history, and botany. 
 
 6. Multiple Pictures. When children look into a 
 thick mirror, they notice several images of a near by 
 light or candle. This is because the front surface of 
 the mirror and the metallic surface at the back act as 
 parallel reflectors. 
 
 7. The Kaleidoscope. — What joy most children 
 derive from looking at the beautiful figures in the 
 kaleidoscope! By looking through a tube containing 
 three mirrors extending its entire length, the children 
 see geometrical patterns of ground pieces of colored 
 glass which are loosely placed between ground glass 
 and a plate of clear glass parallel to it. 
 
 8. The Camera. - Nearly every child desires to 
 own a camera. The problems involved here are too 
 intricate to be included in this book. 
 
 Records of Perceptions or Movements 
 
 1. The Edison Home Kinetoscope.' — Children 
 who are fortunate enough to possess this scientific toy 
 can have motion picture exhibitions in their own 
 homes. Small rolls of films are used and the light is 
 furnished by a small acetylene generator. 
 
 2. The Radiopticon or Postcard Picture Machine. 
 - By means of this machine, ordinary post cards 
 
 and pictures can be reflected enlarged upon a sheet. 
 1 Ibid., pp. 327-8.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 Experimentation With Sound 
 
 The Scope of This Study Defined. — The field 
 connected with experimentation in sound is so vast 
 that it will be possible to touch upon only two or 
 three phases. Babbling and voice play have been 
 purposely omitted while spontaneous experimentation 
 with sounds and noises, also with toys producing 
 acoustic effects, have been selected for emphasis. 
 
 Groos' Theory of Sound Play. — In speaking of the 
 tissue hunger for sound on the part of the sensory 
 organism, Groos says: "It seems that, in order to 
 maintain our present life, an incessant rain of outer 
 stimuli must beat upon us, like the atomic storm 
 which many believe pours constantly upon the 
 heavenly bodies and accounts for gravitation. * * * 
 This may be why children are so indefatigable in 
 making noises, patting their hands, cracking their 
 knuckles, snapping and drumming with the fingers, 
 stamping and beating with the feet, dragging sticks 
 about, cracking and slamming doors, beating hollow 
 objects, blowing in keys, banging on trays, clinking 
 glasses, snapping whips, and, in short, delighting in 
 tearing and smashing noises generally. And adults 
 are not much behind them. These same sounds in 
 other forms please us too, as for example the clinking 
 of spurs, snapping a riding whip, rattling sabres, the 
 
 381
 
 382 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 Photographed for the Pittsburgh Bureau qf Recreation 
 
 M cjsical Experimentation 
 
 tinkling of tassels and fringes, the rustle of flowing 
 draperies." ' 
 
 Experimentation with Sound. - The child's first 
 experimentation with sound comes through a rec- 
 ognition of the noises and sounds going on about 
 him. Music soothes him in his cradle, toys squeak, 
 birds sing, bells ring, whistles blow, and animals utter 
 
 1 K. Groos: The Play of Man, pp. 4-^-43-
 
 EXPERIMENTATION WITH SOUND 383 
 
 their characteristic sounds, while people talk, whistle 
 and sing. The writer can testify from her own 
 records of one child's natural responses to objects 
 yielding acoustic effects. Before R was a month old 
 he was easily quieted when crying by listening to 
 piano music or the ticking of a watch held near his 
 ear. As soon as he could tear paper the noise pro- 
 duced in this way seemed particularly pleasurable. 
 Ability to grasp and to control his arm movements 
 made the shaking of rattles and pounding and clapping 
 with his hands enjoyable. The noise produced by 
 pounding on the glass doors of the bookcase was so 
 pleasurable that he persisted in this activity even 
 when punished for so doing. He particularly liked 
 pounding with a spoon on tin lids and dishes, rattling 
 dishes about, and pounding wood with a £,lass bottle; 
 and if not watched he would attempt to pound on 
 marble with a bottle. On his first birthday he was 
 given a drum. He was not satisfied with the noise 
 produced by beating it with a drumstick, but tried 
 other effects by beating the drum softly or loudly 
 with his hands, or by striking it with a bottle, a spoon, 
 or an egg-shaped darning ball. When he heard 
 piano music, he often responded instantly by jumping 
 up and down in his high chair, sometimes also by 
 beating against the chair with his hands and feet. 
 He liked shaking keys, striking a tap bell, and ringing 
 sleigh bells. In fact, he enjoyed making any noises 
 possible to make by hitting and pounding. At thir- 
 teen months he sometimes struck a note softly on the 
 piano, although then, as earlier, pounding on the 
 piano loudly with both hands was his chief delight.
 
 384 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 About the same time he discovered that by inserting 
 one end of a steel strip between the rails of his play 
 pen he could vibrate it and produce a buzzing sound. 
 This was one of his favorite plays for several weeks. 
 
 The Physiological Foundations of Appreciation of 
 Sound. — All this stimulation and appreciation of its 
 meaning is an important part of education in infancy 
 and childhood. The impression of each sound is 
 transmitted by the proper nerve to the brain and is 
 there recognized. And so, in children's early bab- 
 bling, certain chance variations in sound are more 
 pleasing than others and are noticed by eager parents 
 who encourage their children to reproduce them. 
 Thus they are perceived and felt more vividly and are 
 developed for use in connection with the speaking or 
 singing voice. Such a conscious and willed reproduc- 
 tion of sound represents real achievement in the 
 development of the mind-ear. There is in the mind 
 an image of these sounds and this image persists and 
 motivates the reproduction of the sound on a certain 
 pitch, and with a certain intensity, duration, and 
 stress. To reproduce these tone effects accurately 
 the whole vocal apparatus — the lungs, the muscles 
 surrounding them, the vocal cords, tongue, palate,, 
 and maxillary muscles — must be set in motion. 
 The mind-ear also judges the result and the child 
 repeats a tone or sound until desired effects are 
 gained, or until satisfied by the activity itself. 
 
 Development of Apprehension of Music— The mere 
 recognition of isolated musical sounds or of noises does 
 not necessarily lead to musical appreciation. So 
 long as this tone is unrelated to other tones in the
 
 EXPERIMENTATION WITH SOUND 385 
 
 mind we have not musical thought. It is only when a 
 series of musical sounds is grouped in rhythmical units 
 and these groups of sound are harmoniously perceived 
 that musical thought may be said to exist. The faculty 
 of hearing, of listening, so as to make sense of what is 
 heard requires steady and systematic cultivation during 
 the same years that the eye is being trained in count- 
 less ways to see and perceive accurately. It is a com- 
 monplace to suggest that the ear requires training 
 during its period of greatest sensitivity. It is prior to 
 the fourteenth year that the child's nervous system 
 is the most responsive to sound and rhythm. 
 
 Musical Appreciation. — It will be impossible to 
 more than refer to the wide, new experimentation 
 having for its object musical appreciation as distinct 
 from performance. A number of phonograph com- 
 panies are conducting experiments in connection with 
 records, trying out different systems in practice 
 centers. The following range of experimentation is 
 perhaps typical of the new lines of development. 
 The author says: 
 
 The following ways for arousing curiosity and directing interest 
 have proved very successful in the experiments: 
 
 (1) By selecting a poem or story that is believed to be in a 
 mood parallel to the music; thus stimulating the curiosity of the 
 listeners to hear how nearly the literary mood suggests the music 
 mood. 
 
 (2) By directing the attention of the listeners to music through 
 their knowledge of marching, dancing, e 
 
 (3) By suggesting that the music may be used in pantomime or 
 interpretative dancing. 
 
 (4) By suggesting that the music is in the same mood as a 
 picture, either shown or described.
 
 386 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 (5) By presenting a problem, for instance: two poetic selections 
 with one musical selection. After studying the mood in each 
 selection, play the record and have the listeners decide which they 
 think the music fits the better; or by reversing the process and using 
 two selections of music with one poetic selection. 1 
 
 Acoustic Playthings. — Children, like savages, show 
 extraordinary cleverness in fashioning crude musical 
 implements. With savages the impulse to make 
 musical instruments arises largely from their desire 
 to accentuate dance-rhythms, and incidentally to add 
 new methods of experimentation in imitating the 
 sounds suggested by nature or by voice play. With 
 children, pleasure in manipulating materials in such 
 a way that musical sounds are produced is sufficient 
 to account for the large numbers of ingeniously 
 fashioned clappers, whistles, drums, and stringed 
 instruments we find among children's original toys. 
 
 Musical Toys to be Struck or Shaken. - - This 
 group of toys may correspond to such musical instru- 
 ments as the drum, the gong, the tom-tom, the 
 triangle, bells, the hammer, the tubcrphone, and the 
 tambourine. The child invents his own rattles by 
 filling boxes with stones, gravel, or sand. Jingles are 
 made of bunches of pebbles or bones. Clappers of 
 wood or bone are frequently made and castanets are 
 made of shell and metal. Drums are invented by 
 stretching a piece of cloth or leather over gourds, a 
 hollowed piece of wood, or a metal dish. These 
 drums are struck either by the hands or by sticks. 
 Gongs are made from stone or wood and are sometimes 
 arranged in sets to produce contrasting sounds. 
 
 1 L. Mohler: "Music Moods," Educational Bulletin, Columbia 
 Graphophone Company.
 
 EXPERIMENTATION WITH SOUND 387 
 
 Many children learn to play crude tunes on pans or 
 glass goblets filled with water. They soon discover 
 how to produce varying sounds by altering the 
 amount of water in the goblets or the nature of the 
 stick they use for striking. 
 
 Toy Stringed and Wind Instruments. — Spontaneous 
 plays with so-called wind instruments are almost as 
 numerous as with beaten ones. Children blow on 
 grasses or willow whistles, thus producing shrill and 
 startling sounds. Playing tunes on combs is a favorite 
 pastime. Experimentation with a tin horn or roll 
 of paper often leads the youthful inventor to produce 
 a megaphone; if he lives on a ranch, natural horns are 
 converted into trumpets. It is but a step to the 
 invention of the traditional "Pipe of Pan," made 
 of reeds, grasses, wood, or stone, and with no hole 
 to finger or reed to set in vibration. Most children 
 stop at this point, although a few go so far as to 
 learn that the principle of producing sound through 
 a pipe is to set the air within into vibration by allow- 
 ing a stream of air from the mouth to strike the 
 edge of the pipe, or by using a vibrating tongue 
 or reed. The children who have constructed crude 
 wind instruments are quick to grasp the principles of 
 sound-making illustrated by the flute, the clarinet, 
 and the trombone. 
 
 An introduction to stringed instruments often comes 
 through playful experimenting. Boys who work 
 with metal discover that they can produce musical 
 sounds from thin strips of metal fastened securely in a 
 vise. Drawing a bow across a partly filled glass of 
 water also produces pleasant tones. Someone has said
 
 388 SPONTANEOUS AXD SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 that thrumming with the hand on a bowstring may 
 first have suggested musical sound to the cars of the 
 caveman. The child gets his introduction to the 
 harp type oftenest by stretching cord tightly over a 
 shallow wooden box. He varies this by adding a 
 series of catgut strings of different length or mass 
 and plucking them with a piece of wood, metal, or 
 ivory. The number of strings varies from one or two 
 upward, though the weakness of the framework usually 
 limits both number and tension. Many boys enter- 
 tain themselves for hour> by plucking the strings of a 
 home-made banjo or guitar. They soon learn that 
 even in the simplest of these stringed instruments the 
 air within the box acts as a resonator. For the same 
 reason a teacup or a sea shell held to the car emits 
 sounds which seem to the ear to resemble the roar of 
 the sea. 
 
 Echo Plays. — Echo plays may well be included 
 under acoustic effects spontaneously produced by 
 children even though the agency is the human voice. 
 Most children can remember the pleasure derived 
 from shouting loudly near steep hills, tall piles of 
 lumber, or high buildings, and hearing the sound 
 come back again. Children who travel notice the 
 strange and unusual echoes which occur between the 
 parallel walls of deep canyons. Boys out hunting 
 experience aerial echoes when they hear the sound ol a 
 gun gradually rolling off in the distance. At amuse- 
 ment parks there are whispering galleries into which 
 children are often taken. When they whisper softly 
 on one side the sound may be heard distinctly at some 
 distant point because of the curved walls.
 
 EXPERIMENTATION WITH SOUND 
 
 389 
 
 The Toy Orchestra. — So many of the results of 
 experimentation with children's toy orchestras have 
 been published in educational magazines and musical 
 journals that it seems unnecessary to explore the 
 possibilities of the toy orchestra in this study of 
 spontaneous sound play. 
 
 The writer includes a selected list of descriptions of 
 various experiments in connection with the many-sided 
 efforts to give children musical appreciation. 
 
 Photographed for the Pittsburgh Bureau of Education 
 
 "America," Accompanied by Playground Orchestra
 
 390 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 A Selected List of Readings concerning Toy 
 
 Orchestras and Training Children in 
 
 Musical Interpretation 
 
 J. N. Barrett: "Music During the Third Year," The Home Kinder- 
 garten Manual, pp. 155-157- (This article touches on early 
 training in the perception of musical sounds in the home, and 
 gives suggestions for using music to help control emotions and 
 moods.) 
 
 C. B. Cady: "Music Needs of the Kindergarten," Ibid., pp. 305-308. 
 (Discusses the value of music for music's sake, not for a pro- 
 gram.) 
 
 C. B. Cady: "Music Education of a Little Child," Kindergarten and 
 First Grade, 1916-1917. 
 
 C. Crawford and E. R Fogg: The Rhythms of Childhood. (Select- 
 ed rhythmic activities with simple music to express really 
 childish ideas and words.) 
 
 C. H. Farnsworth: How to Study Music. 
 
 M. H. Glyn: Rhythmic Conception of Music. 
 
 E. Jaques-Dalcroze: Rhythm, Music and Education. 
 
 F. Kirk: Rhythmic Games and Dances for Children. 
 
 I. C. Knapp: "Musical Activities with Little Children," Kinder- 
 garten and First Grade, June, igiS. (Suggestions concerning 
 rhythmic activities, bands, and creative singing.) 
 
 S. Macpherson: The Musical Education of the Child. (Discusses 
 the child's musical environment and how to help him interpret 
 it.) 
 
 S. Macpherson: The Musical Education of the Child. Part II, 
 "Appreciative Music Study: Its Meaning and Its Value." 
 
 S. Macpherson: The Appreciative Aspect of Music, chap, ii, 
 "How to Listen to Music." 
 
 ('.. Mayard: "The Music Problem," Ibid., March and May, 1920. 
 (Discusses appreciation of music through the phonograph and 
 suggests a few records to be used with small children.) 
 
 G. Mayard: "The Music Problem," Ibid., February, 1020. (A 
 
 discussion of musical toys and the kindergarten orchestra.)
 
 EXPERIMENTATION WITH SOUND 39 1 
 
 G. Mayard: "The Music Problem," Ibid., January, 1920. (Sug- 
 gestions for listening to elementary music sounds.) 
 
 D. C. Miller: The Science of Musical Sounds. 
 J. B. McEwen: Thought in Music. 
 
 L. Mohler: Music Moods as a Basis for Appreciation. Education 
 Bulletin, Columbia Graphophone Company. 
 
 M. E. Pennell: "Music for the Early Years," The Home Kinder- 
 garten Manual, pp. 308-319. (Contains descriptive lists of 
 songs, instrumental selections, and phonograph records, also 
 methods for using each.) 
 
 W. S. Pratt: The History of Music, chap, i, "Primitive or Savage 
 Music." 
 
 H. H. Seymour: What Music Can Do for You. (Has a chapter on 
 music for children.) 
 
 E. Smith: "Early Music Teaching in School," The Home Kinder- 
 
 garten Manual, pp. 544-545. (Discusses the preparation and 
 study of a song and the nature of an ideal song for children.) 
 
 C. F. Smith: The Music of Life. 
 
 W. R. Spalding: Music, an Art and a Language. 
 
 T. Surette: "Music and Life," Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 119, pp. 
 
 T. Surette: "Public School Music," Ibid., Vol. 118, pp. 812-823. 
 T. Surette: "What Is Music?" Ibid., Vol. 117, pp. 188-197. 
 T. Surette: "Music for Children," Ibid., Vol. 117, pp. 356-363- 
 E. B. Taylor: Anthropology, chap, iv, "Language." (Discusses 
 
 gesture-language . ) 
 H. Weber: Putting Young America in Tune. (How to teach children 
 
 appreciation of music.) 
 G. H. Woods: School Orchestras and Bands.
 
 APPENDIX A 
 
 TOPICAL REFERENCES AND EXERCISES FOR 
 TEXTBOOK ASSIGNMENT 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 Play and Work: An Interpretation 
 
 Collateral Reading 
 
 G. D. Strayer and N. Norsworthy: How to Teach, chapter iv, 
 
 The Meaning of Play in Education. 
 C. E. Seashore: Psychology in Daily Life, chapter i, Play. 
 K. Groos: The Play of Man, pp. 361-389. (Discusses the theories 
 
 of play.) 
 J. Dewey: How We Think, pp. 161-169. (Discusses play and 
 
 work.) 
 F. Bobbitt: The Curriculum, chapter i, Educational Experience 
 
 upon the Play Level; chapter ii, Educational Experience upon 
 
 the Work Level. 
 J. L. Meriam: Child Life and the Curriculum, chapter xiv, School 
 
 Studies — Play. 
 
 F. N. Freeman: How Children Learn, chapter v, The Child's Native 
 
 Responses — Play. 
 
 G. T. W. Patrick: Psychology of Relaxation, chapter ii, The Psy- 
 
 chology of Play. 
 L. E. Appleton: A Comparative Study of the Play Activities of Adult 
 
 Savages and Civilized Children, pp. 78-83. 
 C. W. Waddle: An Introduction to Child Psychology, chapter v, 
 
 The Play of Children. 
 
 Questions and Exercises 
 
 1. What is the "surplus energy" theory of play; the "utility" 
 theory; the "atavistic" theory; the "biological" theory? 
 
 393
 
 394 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 2. What were your favorite plays in childhood? Which do 
 you connect with inherited tastes and capacities? Which were 
 directed or stimulated by environment or imitation? 
 
 3. Were there any plays common to childhood which you cannot 
 include in your repertoire of plays? Account for the omission. 
 
 4. Describe several play activities which involve either work or 
 drudgery. What conditions, both physiological and psychological, 
 produce changes in the development of purposeful play? 
 
 5. Give several illustrations of how play may pass insensibly into 
 work. 
 
 6. Discriminate between supervised and spontaneous play as 
 regards purpose, motivation, and habit formation. 
 
 7. Make a list of play projects which would be likely to permit to 
 children choosing them, a variety of purposes sufficiently strong to 
 help initiate the means and technique necessary in the achievement 
 of the projects. Separate those projects primarily suited for the 
 kindergarten from those suited for the first, second, third, and 
 fourth grades, respectively. 
 
 8. What standards would you apply in judging whether or not a 
 given play activity is of value to an individual child or to a group? 
 
 9. How far are you willing to go in demanding that individual 
 children reach set goals of muscular coordination in such physical 
 activities as rolling a hoop, batting a ball, or in swimming and in 
 dancing? 
 
 10. How would you measure the development of character in 
 play or in work? 
 
 1 1 . Do you account for play through a single instinct or through 
 special instincts connected with life in general? Illustrate your 
 point by applying it to movement plays and to dramatic plays. 
 
 if. Discriminate among play, work, toil, drudgery, recreation, 
 and amusement in childhood and in adult life. 
 
 13. Discuss the values of supervision of children's play. What 
 are the advantages and disadvantages in regard to (1) securing the 
 expression and repression of desirable and undesirable inborn ten- 
 dencies; (2) adapting plays and games to children's stages of 
 development; (3) adjusting individual differences to group needs; 
 (4) emphasizing the intellectual, social, moral, and physical elements
 
 APPENDIX A 395 
 
 of the play at the proper time; (5) preserving the initiative of 
 children? Give four examples to show common errors in supervi- 
 sion, including in your diagnosis of mistakes the points mentioned. 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 Education through Dramatic Plays 
 
 Collateral Reading 
 
 K. Groos: The Play of Man, pp. 300-313. (Discusses dramatic 
 
 imitation in play.) 
 I. King: The Psychology of Child Development, chapter x. (Deals 
 
 with the meaning of imitation in childhood.) 
 N. Norsworthy and M. T. Whitley: The Psychology of Childhood, 
 
 chapter ix. (Discusses imagination in childhood.) 
 E. W. Curtis: The Dramatic Instinct in Education, chapter vii, 
 
 Play. 
 W. McDougall: An Introduction to Social Psychology, chapter xv, 
 
 Imitation, Play and Habit. 
 
 Questions and Exercises 
 
 1. Visit a playground. Remain for one hour an observer of a 
 group of children from three to seven years old. List their activi- 
 ties. Do the same with a group of children from seven to nine years 
 old, and with another group from nine to twelve years old. Com- 
 pare with others' lists. What proportion of plays are dramatic? 
 What proportion are dominantly plays involving physical activities 
 and skills? What proportion involve impulse and curiosity about 
 natural forces and materials? 
 
 2. In the dramatic plays what instincts and capacities did you 
 notice? Did you see examples of mastering or submissive be- 
 havior, or motherliness, or the hunting and fighting instincts? Of 
 display, or self-conscious behavior? Of sex behavior? Of gregari- 
 ousness? Of nurturing? Of protective behavior? Of acquisition 
 and possession? 
 
 3. What characteristics of people and what features of inanimate 
 objects did you see imitated most frequently? At what ages?
 
 396 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 4. Where did you notice "make believe" and how would you 
 characterize the mental attitude back of such play? 
 
 5. Observe several dramatic plays and note whether the social 
 tendencies such as gregariousness, desire for approval, dislike or 
 scorn, kindliness, attention to human beings, and the like, are being 
 developed normally or the tendencies opposed to them, fighting, 
 mastery, rivalry, jealousy and ownership. What seem to you to be 
 the most popular dramatic plays from three to seven years; from 
 seven to nine; from nine to twelve years? 
 
 6. What laws of attention account for the short duration of the 
 dramatic plays of children of kindergarten age, and for the wide 
 range of interests displayed all through childhood? 
 
 7. Give some definite, practical illustrations of how dramatic 
 plays supplement training in observation, attention, imagination, 
 cooperation, and language development. 
 
 8. Present two dramatic plays. Show the possible influence of 
 other persons in (1) what the children did; (2) their manner of 
 doing it; (3) the motives which induced the dramatizations. Indi- 
 cate also the native tendencies which led to the plays. 
 
 9. Sum up your ideas regarding the advantages and disadvan- 
 tages of emotional training through dramatic play as contrasted with 
 training through actual life activities. 
 
 10. Illustrate how season, sex, and custom influence children in 
 their choices of plays and games. 
 
 11. From an analysis of plays involving imitation, show how the 
 tendency to duplicate the actions and attitudes of people is one 
 means of conserving social progress; indicate also how the imitative 
 tendency hinders progress. 
 
 12. Do you regard dramatic play as a preparation for life or as a 
 method of living? Support your answer. 
 
 13. Show how undesirable instinctive tendencies may be modified 
 through dramatic plays. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Playing Doll and House 
 
 Collateral Reading 
 G. S. Hall and A. C. Ellis: Aspects of Child Life and Education, 
 A Study of Dolls, pp. 157-204.
 
 APPENDIX A 397 
 
 M. V. O'Shea: Social Development and Education, chapter ix. 
 (Discusses social types, including the dramatic.) 
 
 L. A. Palmer: Play Life in the First Eight Years, pp. 199-205. 
 (Relates how children may be taught to assume some house- 
 hold responsibilities in the play spirit.) 
 
 E. V. Dobbs: Primary Handwork, chapter v, The House Problem. 
 
 M. E. Wells: A Project Curriculum, Section 1 B, First Grade, 
 Major Project — Playing Families. 
 
 C. F. Chassel and M.S. Upton: "Scales for Measuring Habits of 
 Good Citizenship." Teachers College Record, Volume XXIII, 
 pp. 52-80. 
 
 Questions and Exercises 
 
 1. From your observation of children's house-plays, list all the 
 instinctive tendencies you think enter into such play. State how 
 undesirable tendencies may be modified by associating with them 
 unpleasant consequences, and how desirable tendencies may be 
 strengthened by rewards. 
 
 2. List in order of their importance, in connection with house- 
 plays, the social and non-social tendencies given in Thorndike's 
 "Original Nature of Man," Educational Psychology, Volume I. 
 
 3. Can children in playing house gain specific skills in making 
 beds, laundering, and the like? Is it more or less economical to 
 develop household skills in play than in connection with responsi- 
 bilities in the home? What part would frequency and intensity of 
 interest play in fixing these habits? 
 
 4. From a perusal of the records of children's spontaneous 
 house-plays indicate how you could improve some of the plays 
 by stressing real-life situations in place of some of the symbolic 
 and representative plays described. 
 
 5. What is the bearing of the child's disposition to pet and fondle 
 dolls, pets, and other children upon his attitudes as regards con- 
 sideration of others, kindliness, and protection of the weak? 
 
 6. If a child of your acquaintance were satisfied continually to 
 engage in such dramatic play as Record 2 in this chapter represents, 
 upon what level of intelligence would you place him? 
 
 7. Analyze the relative intelligence of both girls in Record 3, 
 making allowance for physiological age, and the fact that one child
 
 398 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 was in a new environment. Which social traits should be en- 
 couraged in each child? Which ones penalized? 
 
 8. Mention some differences in the natures of children which 
 arc like the differences between primitive and civilized people and 
 which you consider are the result of variations in intelligence. 
 
 o. Show how the play described in Record 6 could be made more 
 educational by substituting real experiences for the artificial ones 
 described. 
 
 io. Do you consider that promptness, neatness, orderliness, and 
 the like can be learned in connection with dramatic plays such as 
 Record 8 represents? Support your answers by illustrations. 
 
 n. Show how ideas of justice originate in real life situations. 
 Criticize Record io from this standpoint. 
 
 i2. After reading Record u, indicate how character develop- 
 ment could result from demanding control, courtesy, politeness, and 
 the like in connection with the play. Would you be able to demand 
 from the children the qualities necessary to enact a role; for the 
 cooks, neatness; for the ticket puncher, skill in making change; for 
 the waitresses, politeness and quick service? 
 
 13. If you grant that character development is one of the 
 purposes of supervised play, how would you seek to motivate chil- 
 dren to demand right responses from each other? Are you willing- 
 to reward achievements in character as you reward skill in tunning, 
 jumping, and throwing? 
 
 14. Could portions of the Chassell-Upton scale of measuring 
 habits of good citizenship be used in connection with dramatic 
 plays on the playground and in the home? Indicate how. 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 Playing Store 
 
 Collateral Reading 
 J. and E. Dewey: Schools of Tomorrow, pp. 45-48. (Discusses the 
 
 use of games involving store activities in connection with school 
 
 instruction.) 
 M. E. Wells: A Project Curriculum, Section 1 B, Second Grade, 
 
 Major Project — Playing Store.
 
 APPENDIX A 399 
 
 C. F. Burk: "The Collecting Instinct," Pedagogical Seminary, 
 
 Volume VII, pp. 179-207. 
 J. B. Watson: Psychology From the Standpoint of a Behavior ist, 
 
 pp. 255-256. (Discusses collecting and hoarding.) 
 F. G. Bonser: The Elementary School Curriculum, chapter v. 
 
 (Shows the emergence of the curriculum from life activities.) 
 
 Questions and Exercises 
 
 1. Which type of store experiences do you consider most impor- 
 tant, real play with real materials, representative play, or actual 
 buying and selling in commercial stores? 
 
 2. In connection with buying and selling in real stores, how can 
 you develop in children the ability (1) to concentrate on purchasing 
 one or several articles and on getting the correct change; (2) to 
 search and find a quality desired; (3) to test the quality by the end 
 it is to serve and the price paid for it? 
 
 3. In playing store with real materials how can you demand the 
 following social habits: neatness and beauty in the store; promptness 
 in attending to orders; accuracy in filling orders; patience and 
 courtesy in store behavior; cooperation in planning and executing 
 the work? 
 
 4. Are you willing to reward children for achievements in 
 character in connection with store-plays? If so, how? 
 
 5. List the arithmetical skills which are likely to be needed in 
 storekeeping. Make separate lists for the kindergarten, first, 
 second, third, and fourth grades. 
 
 6. Show how writing and reading grow out of a felt need in 
 connection with store-plays. 
 
 7. Indicate how appreciation of color and form is an integral 
 part of experience in playing store. 
 
 8. What goals or standards of achievement are you willing to 
 demand from children who wish to play storekeeper, buyer, 
 deliveryman, and bookkeeper in store-plays? 
 
 9. Show the correlation between store-plays and the work in 
 manual training, in fine and industrial arts, in cookery, physics, 
 and chemistry. 
 
 10. How can habits of thrift be established through playing 
 store?
 
 400 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 ii. Indicate how interest in collecting and hoarding can be 
 connected with store-plays. 
 
 12. Make a list of problems or projects which might arise from 
 school excursions to stores. 
 
 13. Do you approve of the toy shop model store equipment? 
 Support your answer. 
 
 14. List an equipment necessary for playing store in any given 
 grade. Plan for (1) grocery store; (2) millinery shop; (3) drug 
 store. 
 
 15. Relate the dangers and limitations of overemphasizing 
 representative plays with symbolic materials in regard to (1) habit 
 formation; (2) economy of time. 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Playing School 
 
 Collateral Reading 
 
 E. L. Thorndike: "The Original Nature of Man," Educational 
 Psychology, Volume 1, pp. 92-97. (Discusses some of the social 
 instincts — masterly and submissive behavior and display.) 
 
 E. A. Kirkpatrick: Fundamentals of Child Study, chapter v. Imi- 
 tating and Socializing Stage. 
 
 J. E. Lee: Play in Education, chapter xviii. Subjects of Persona- 
 tion. 
 
 Questions and Exercises 
 
 1 . What proportion of plays in which social limitation is impor- 
 tant are found in the plays of children from seven to ten years of age? 
 
 2. What other plays besides school are important as a means of 
 social imitation? 
 
 3. From the records do you consider that the methods of teaching 
 drawing, writing, or gymnastics carry over into children's play as 
 habits? 
 
 4. Of what significance does the lesson in physical training 
 described in Record 1 bear to the problem of formal versus informal 
 play?
 
 APPENDIX A 4 01 
 
 5. Do you consider that children to whom school represents real 
 experiences in carpentering, gymnasium work, music, drawing, 
 and the like would represent school in the way described in Record 1? 
 
 6. Mention the social characteristics most likely to be imitated 
 in playing school. Explain why. 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 Hunting Plays 
 
 Collateral Reading 
 
 J. F. Lee: Play in Education, chapter xxix, The Gang. 
 
 N. Norsworthy and M. T. Whitley: The Psychology 0} Childhood, 
 chapter iii. (Discusses the non-social instincts.) 
 
 H. D. Sheldon: "The Institutional Activities of American Chil- 
 dren," American Journal of Psychology, Volume IX, pp. 425-448. 
 
 L. H. Gulick: A Philosophy of Play, chapter iii, Hunting and Fight- 
 ing. 
 
 Questions and Exercises 
 
 1. Is there such a thing as a general hunting instinct? If so, 
 what is it? If not, what are the situations and responses referred to? 
 
 2. Give some definite, practical illustrations of how pursuit 
 and flight may be utilitarian responses to savage children and 
 playful activities to civilized children. 
 
 3. How can we preserve the individualistic tendencies, rivalry, 
 fighting, and competition, yet develop sympathy and cooperation? 
 Illustrate your point by indicating ten hunting plays for children 
 under ten years of age, which involve team play in opposing gangs, 
 yet provide for cooperation and fair play. 
 
 4. What are the dangers and advantages connected with school 
 teams or contests between school teams, also with debating socie- 
 ties? 
 
 5. Make a list of games involving progression in the use of the 
 hunting responses. 
 
 6. List ten quiet games involving the search for hidden objects. 
 State at what ages these games can suitably be played.
 
 402 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 7. Criticize the following utilization of the hunting responses as 
 a center for correlating the various activities of the third grade: 
 During one month the children made bows and arrows and hunting 
 costumes, constructed Indian wigwams, solved arithmetic problems 
 relating to the trade and barter of Indians, dramatized the hunt, read 
 Indian folk-lore, sang Indian songs, played Indian games, molded 
 and baked Indian pottery, learned Indian dances, relived other 
 phases of the Indian life. 
 
 8. What tendencies lie back of bullying and teasing, hounding 
 those of religious faith other than our own, college hazing, and 
 persecution of special classes in society? 
 
 9. Plan five spontaneous hunting activities, participation in 
 which trains children to value law, order, and equality of oppor- 
 tunity. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Fighting Plays 
 
 Collateral Reading 
 
 E. L. Thorndike: "The Original Nature of Man," Educational 
 Psychology, Volume I, pp. 68-76. (Discusses fighting.) 
 
 J. A. Puffer: The Boy and His Gang, chapter x, The Individualistic 
 Activities and the Group Games. 
 
 G. E. Johnson: "Play as a Moral Equivalent of War," The Play~ 
 ground, Volume VI, pp. 111-12^. 
 
 J. E. Lee: Play in Education, chapter xxv, The Fighting Instinct. 
 
 Questions and Exercises 
 
 1. Give illustrations from your own experience or from children's 
 literature of a child's natural responses to the first five situations 
 enumerated by Thorndike in the collateral reading. 
 
 (a) Being interfered with in any bodily movements which the 
 individual is impelled by its own constitution to make. 
 
 (b) To a similar situation, excepl that interference is by getting 
 in the way or shoving. 
 
 (c) To the situation "being seized, slapped, chased, or bitten." 
 
 (d) To the situation "sudden pain."
 
 APPENDIX A 403 
 
 (e) To the situation "an animal of the same species toward 
 whom one has not taken the attitude of submission and 
 who does not take it toward him." 
 
 2. Read all the records in this chapter. Discriminate between 
 the cases where fighting seems to be called out by uncontrolled 
 brute force occasioned by low intelligence and the cases where 
 fighting results from the desire of physical prowess, strategy, skill, 
 and daring. 
 
 3. On what level of intelligence do you place the sentinel in 
 Record 1? What social habits and attitudes would you strive to 
 develop in this child? Do you approve or disapprove of the play 
 leader's policy of non-interference? 
 
 4. Indicate how the type of fighting play seen in Record 3 could 
 be improved (1) as regards rules of fair play; (2) as regards type of 
 experience dramatized. On what level of intelligence would you 
 consider children who persisted in plays of this kind? 
 
 5. How would you proceed to build up a stock of ideas which 
 should control the combative tendency and develop cooperation, 
 sympathy, and fair play in children? How eliminate the individ- 
 ualistic responses? Support your answer by several illustrations. 
 Indicate how this method would apply to the two boys in Record 5. 
 
 6. What experience do you consider should precede the need for 
 the following rules: (1) boys never fight girls; (2) one never fights a 
 smaller or a weaker playmate; (3) one never fights a child wearing 
 glasses? 
 
 7. What treatment or changes in environment might avoid the 
 following pugnacious behavior: 
 
 (a) Where a boy or girl falls into fights coming home from 
 school. 
 
 (b) Where children continually quarrel for advantage in plays 
 and games. 
 
 (c) Where an infant whose will is crossed continually hits and 
 strikes at his parents. 
 
 (d) Where children give way to outbursts of temper or to 
 combating authority through "answering back." 
 
 8. Submit a plan for the education of the combative tendency in 
 girls in the lower primary grades; in the upper primary grades.
 
 404 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 .). Submit a plan for boys in the lower primary grades; in the 
 upper primary grades. 
 
 10. Suggest ways in which the activities of undesirable gangs may 
 be motivated, controlled, and directed toward social ends. 
 
 1 1. (.ranted that the pugnacity of nations resulting in warfare is 
 being supplanted by emulation in industrial and commercial 
 spheres, what possible consequences can you foresee in the moral 
 fibre of individuals and of society? 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 Playing Hospital and Funeral 
 
 Collateral Reading 
 A. B. Gomme: Dictionary of British Folk-Lore. Volumes I and IL. 
 
 I Read a description of funeral games — Booman, Green Grass, 
 Green Gravel, Jenny Jones, Old Roger, Wallflowers.) 
 A. B. Gommj : Ibid., Volume II. pp. 527-5.51. (Discusses the 
 content of this type of game 
 
 Questions and Exercises 
 
 1. How do you account for the fact that savages represent their 
 joys and sorrows through movement? Look through several folk- 
 dance books for samples of pantomimic dances illustrating this fact. 
 
 2. What types of movement do children use to indicate pleasure, 
 joy, and expectation? Select several folk dames which could be 
 used to express such moods. Supply children with a happy 
 experience and let them interprel their feelings through a panto- 
 mimic dance; record results. 
 
 3. What types of movement do children spontaneously use when 
 disappointed, dejected, and unhappy? Will they pantomime their 
 sorrows as they do their joys and pleasures? Give illustrations. 
 
 4. Do children realize the meaning and significance of the 
 traditional funeral games? Support your view with tact 
 
 5. Look through I he records of hospital plays for examples of the 
 exercise of the social instincts — motherly behavior, kindliness, 
 sympathy, and desire for approval and display.
 
 APPENDIX A 405 
 
 6. Analyze Record 1 from the standpoint of instincts. List in 
 order of importance the original tendencies which made this play- 
 appeal to the children. How far could you depend upon spon- 
 taneous imitation to motivate drill in connection with habits of 
 cleanliness and kindliness and with the care of the sick? 
 
 7. After reading Record 3 explain psychologically the elements 
 which made this play attractive to the one enacting the chief role 
 and to those playing minor roles. 
 
 8. Read Record 4 and indicate whether the ignorance of these 
 children concerning hygiene is due to low intelligence or poor 
 environment. Could knowledge concerning hygiene be taught 
 through play? 
 
 9. What is the attitude of children under six years of age toward 
 the death and burial of pets? Toward the funerals of grown-ups? 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 Playing Fireman 
 
 Collateral Reading 
 
 G. Sisson: Studies in Education, edited by Earl Barnes, First Series, 
 Stanford University, 1896-97. Children's Plays. (Presents a 
 study of spontaneous play among kindergarten children.) 
 
 L. A. Palmer: Play Life in the First Eight Years, pp. 167-173. 
 
 L. H. Gulick: A Philosophy of Play, chapter v, Fire Play. 
 
 Questions and Exercises 
 
 1. Compare the repertoire of play in the group observed by Miss 
 Sisson with the repertoire used in kindergartens (1) as to move- 
 ment; (2) as to quality of imitative-dramatic action; (3) as to variety 
 of dramatization. In the spontaneous plays was the children's 
 attention centered upon action or the effects of action? Control 
 of ideas, or free outpouring of images ? Choice of means to reach 
 ends, or imitation of some leader's copy? 
 
 2. After studying the records presented in this chapter, name the 
 values which you consider children gain from freely constructing 
 plays of the type this chapter suggests.
 
 406 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 v Indicate how playing firemen, trainmen, and policemen and 
 similar dramatizations may become for children a means of par- 
 ticipation in real life activities in real situations. 
 
 4. Indicate in what ways a supervisor could inculcate in children 
 through dramatic plays (1) a stock of ideas regarding protection 
 from fire; (2) habits of quick action in the presence of fire, 
 courage, bravery, and protection of the weak and helpless. 
 
 5. Criticize the toys commonly sold to represent children's 
 ideas of firemen and policemen. Plan three toys you consider of 
 possible educational value in connection with playing fireman. 
 
 6. Name five stories which you consider to have unusual educa- 
 tional value for children ; confine your list to stories which would lead 
 to dramatizations of fire. 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 Playing Animals 
 
 Collateral Reading 
 
 A. M. Kkackowizer: Projects in the Primary Grades, pp. 120-154. 
 (Gives suggestive outlines for nature study from a functional 
 viewpoint.) 
 
 N. Norsworthy and M. T. Whitley: The Psychology of Childhood, 
 pp. 60-63. (Discusses kindliness, sympathy, and cruelty.) 
 
 J. and E. Dewey: Schools of Tomorrow, pp. So- 102. (Tells what 
 progressive schools are doing in providing for contact of 
 animals.) 
 
 S. Blow: Mottoes and Commentaries on Froebel's Mother Play, 
 chapters xiv and xix. (Gives pictures and Proebel's commen- 
 taries on training the child's attitudes and habits with animals.) 
 
 C. Johnson: When Mother Lets Us Keep Pets. 
 
 Questions and Exercises 
 
 1. In what way do you approve or disapprove of Froebel's con- 
 ceptions of the child's relationship to nature and to animals? 
 
 2. How do Froebel's ideas concerning training in sympathy 
 compare with those in the reference in The Psychology of Childhood/
 
 APPENDIX A 407 
 
 3. When a child discovers birds, fish, reptiles, and the like, in 
 close proximity, what are likely to be his first native reactions to 
 each? How far will training and experience modify his behavior? 
 
 4. At what age would you initiate children into information 
 regarding the habits and group life of the various animals with 
 which they come in contact? 
 
 5. At approximately what ages can children assume part of the 
 care of pets? At what ages can they assume entire responsibility 
 for them? 
 
 6. What animals would you include in a list of pets which a child 
 should know in the kindergarten? What part does environment 
 play in determining your selection? What part does use play in 
 your selection? 
 
 7. Is it better to have animals out of their place or not at all in 
 school districts where there is no adequate provision for a zoo? 
 
 8. Can work in nature study profit by trips to museums? Do 
 you approve of stuffed animals? 
 
 9. Of what importance is "playing care for animals" as a prep- 
 aration for actual responsibility toward them? 
 
 10. Cite examples of cruelty springing from the instincts of 
 curiosity and manipulation. 
 
 11. Give examples of the type of training in sympathy which is 
 likely to degenerate into sentimentalism. 
 
 12. Name ten cases of cruelty to animals and point out how 
 kindliness, sympathy, and helpfulness can be established through 
 awakening interest in the lives of animals and through generating a 
 sense of responsibility toward them. 
 
 13. In teaching children to protect animals in their play, what 
 points do you consider could be best emphasized in dramatic play, 
 and what points could be stressed when on hikes and during visits 
 to a zoo? 
 
 14. Find in your experience examples of the modification of un- 
 desirable native responses toward animals, cruelty, teasing, and 
 bullying.
 
 408 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 Miscellaneous Collection of Dramatic Plays 
 
 Collateral Reading 
 A. F. Chamberlain: The Child, chapter vi, The Arts of Childhood. 
 W. H. Kilpatrick: "The Project Method," Teachers College Record, 
 
 Volume XXII, No. 4. (Emphasizes the value of a self- 
 initiated project in education.) 
 
 J. and E. Dewey: Schools of Tomorrow, pp. 107-124. (Gives illus- 
 trations of constructive activities involving the use of the play- 
 motive and dramatic situation.) 
 
 J. L. Merriam: Child Life and the Curriculum, chapter xiv, School 
 Studies — Handwork. 
 
 Questions and Exercises 
 
 1. After reading the spontaneous dramatic plays recorded in 
 this chapter analyze the original tendencies back of each one. 
 Show how the same tendencies would support work along similar 
 lines — boating, dressmaking, mending shoes, and the like. 
 
 2. Select five illustrations of purposive play activities in which 
 you consider interest to be keen enough to act as a driving force 
 and to desired ends. Illustrate how these five play activities could 
 develop into group projects which might involve knowledge and 
 technique in the subjects of the elementary school. 
 
 3. Show how building boats, constructing sewing machines, 
 making hats, and the like demand a knowledge of number, form, 
 and color and the application of facts and laws from varied sources. 
 
 4. What are the advantages and disadvantages in so-called 
 project teaching? What checks and drills do you consider 
 necessary? 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 The Dramatic Plays of One Child 
 
 Collateral Reading 
 R. S. Woodworth: Psychology, Study oj the Mental Life, chapter 
 xix. Imagination, pp. 481-8.
 
 APPENDIX A 409 
 
 G. E. Johnson: Education by Plays and Games, pp. 83-95. 
 
 L. E. Appleton: A Comparative Study of the Play Activities of Adult 
 
 Savages and Civilized Children, pp. 56-61. (Discusses play 
 
 life for the first four years of childhood.) 
 C. W. Waddle: Introduction to Child Psychology, pp. 133-138. 
 
 (Discusses what children play during the first three years of 
 
 life.) 
 
 Questions and Exercises 
 
 1. Study the dramatic plays recorded for the second, third, and 
 fourth years respectively. Present the outstanding facts concern- 
 ing the dramatic plays of each year, bearing in mind the physical and 
 mental welfare of the child. 
 
 2. What determines the differences in the early dramatic plays 
 of civilized children and savages? 
 
 3. Select five typical plays from among the records and show 
 later stages necessitated by growth in movements and ideas. 
 
 4. From a perusal of the records what opinions do you form 
 regarding the part age, sex, and custom play in the choice of ex- 
 periences to be dramatized? 
 
 5. List the plays recorded under the following heads: (1) those 
 depicting animal activities; (2) home activities; (3) trade activities. 
 Show the relation between the interest in each type of play and such 
 original tendencies as manipulation, multiform physical activity, 
 curiosity, motherliness, sociability, and the like. 
 
 6. When do constructive activities enter into dramatizations? 
 What is the usual order, from constructive to dramatic or from 
 dramatic to constructive? 
 
 7. What do you notice regarding the span of attention during the 
 first, second, third, and fourth years? How do you account for the 
 fact that some of the dramatic plays are very short while others 
 occupy fully an hour? 
 
 8. Read the reference on Imagination and then observe a group of 
 children in dramatic games. Give ten samples of so-called fancy 
 and indicate what the child is in reality doing through such mental 
 play. 
 
 9. Trace growth in children's uses of objects to represent ideas. 
 Select several examples from the dramatic plays in this chapter and 
 from your own experience.
 
 41 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 10. What plays recorded in this chapter seem to you strikingly 
 symbolic in the uses to which objects are put? Is this symbolic 
 play real to the child in the sense in which actual experience is real 
 to you? Contrast the meaning and significance to a child three 
 years of age of a tea-party where everything is imagined and 
 another where exact service is used. Do the same for a child be- 
 tween seven and nine years. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 The Meaning and Significance of Movement 
 
 Collateral Reading 
 
 L. M. Terman: The Hygiene of the School Child, chapter xvi, The 
 Nervous Child. 
 
 F. Warner: The Study of Children, pp. 51-96. (Movements 
 classified and described.) 
 
 X. Oppenheim: The Physical Development of the Child, chapter v. 
 (Discusses the activities of the kindergarten and primary 
 school from the standpoint of physical welfare.) 
 
 B. T. Baldwin: Physical Growth and School Progress, Bulletin 
 No. 10, 1914, U. S. Bureau of Education, pp. 144-152. (Pre- 
 sents some general conclusions in regard to the height and 
 weight of school children.) 
 
 J. M. Tyler: Growth and Education, chapter v, Growth of the 
 Neuro-Muscular System. 
 
 Questions and Exercises 
 
 1. In your opinion, what factors in the organization of society 
 militate against securing for children a complete physical develop- 
 ment in the years before school age? In the primary grades up to 
 the tenth year? 
 
 2. What methods and materials can parents use to assist children 
 to build up a good supply of automatic acts, such as running, 
 walking, and reaching? 
 
 3. How far do modern investigations of conditions of growth in 
 childhood warrant us to go in subscribing to a rough order of 
 muscular development ? Support your argument by facts. What
 
 APPENDIX A 411 
 
 are the bearings of these facts on the choice of graded games or 
 play apparatus for any selected group of children? 
 
 4. Are you willing to follow up experimental evidence that 
 certain muscles have reached the height of their development by 
 planning exercises for the corresponding muscular coordinations 
 which are ripe for action? What physical standards or goals would 
 you set? Illustrate in climbing the rope ladder, in swinging on the 
 traveling rings, and in vising the horizontal bars, selecting a definite 
 physical age for the children you plan to help. 
 
 5. How far are you willing to go in prescribing certain definite 
 ways of rolling hoops, throwing balls, shooting at targets, and the 
 like? Upon what tests do you base your conclusions regarding the 
 advisability of these set goals? At what stage in each activity would 
 you teach selected movements? 
 
 6. Give five illustrations of the best educational procedure to 
 use in planning for running games suitable for children from three 
 to seven years and from seven to nine years of age. 
 
 7. Granted that there should be full provision for the spon- 
 taneous exercise of all bodily movements before attempting to 
 bring them under voluntary control, what recognition would you 
 make of this fact in a gymnasium period? Would there be separate 
 days for "free choice''? How much group work would you plan, 
 and when? 
 
 8. What mistakes have been made in the selection of materials 
 for the kindergarten? For the first, second, third, and fourth grades 
 respectively? 
 
 9. Approximately what length of time should a recitation period 
 of the "sit still" kind last in the first, second, and third grades 
 respectively? What subjects in the primary grades admit of work- 
 shop teaching, thus eliminating repression of movements? What 
 freedom of posture, position, and movement do large kindergarten 
 floor materials permit as contrasted with materials to be used on 
 tables? 
 
 10. Classify as to cause some of the most common nervous 
 movements of children. 
 
 11. What school subjects have profited most by scientific in- 
 vestigations concerning the muscles used in fine coordinations? 
 What changes in practice have resulted from these investigations?
 
 412 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 12. In regard to improvement in acquiring any new series of 
 movements show the importance of (i) consciousness of a definite 
 goal; (2) speedy working of the law of effect; (3) desire to improve; 
 (4) interest in the process. Support your points by illustrations in 
 teaching dancing, swimming, tennis, and croquet. 
 
 13. At what ages are the following statements approximately true? 
 
 (a) Children like to roll, slide, climb, pound, jump, and use the 
 entire body in large free movements. 
 
 (b) These same activitier, are engaged in through competition 
 in games or in play with apparatus. 
 
 (c) Plays are largely individualistic. Participation by others 
 is not necessary and is sometimes resented. 
 
 (d) Objects are desired that stimulate the senses, yet demand 
 little manipulative skill. 
 
 (e) Materials providing scope for the imagination, but involv- 
 ing the smaller muscles, have a special appeal. 
 
 (f) Play is decreasingly solitary and increasingly competitive, 
 and demands finer manipulation with the hands and feet. 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 The Value of Games of Skill and Play Apparatus 
 in Motor Education 
 
 Collateral Reading 
 
 M. Montessori: The Montessori Method, chapter ix. (Discusses 
 special gymnastics for small children and indicates the value of 
 gymnastic apparatus.) 
 
 A. C. Sies: "Problems in Sensory-motor Education Involving the 
 Selection of Play Materials and Apparatus for Small Chil- 
 dren," The Kindergarten and First Grade, Volume I, No. 2. 
 (Describes suitable play apparatus for small children.) 
 
 Catalogues of Athletic Supplies. 
 
 L. H. Gulick: .1 Philosophy of Play, chapter xii, Play and Physical 
 Growth. 
 
 L. H. Gulick: "Psychological, Pedagogical, and Religious Aspects 
 of Group Games," Pedagogical Seminary, Volume VI, pp.
 
 APPENDIX A 413 
 
 Questions and Exercises 
 
 1. Look over several catalogues of athletic supplies and select 
 six pieces of apparatus which will help children tinder seven years of 
 age in the achievement of the ordinary physical acts of life such as 
 walking, reaching, and running. Do the same for children from 
 seven to ten years of age. 
 
 2. In play on apparatus and in games show how cooperation, 
 rivalry, competition, and repetition are a help to children in working 
 for specific skills. 
 
 3. State what practical judgments, foresight of consequences, 
 comparisons, and observations are likely to be made in the following 
 plays and games of skill; ring toss, marbles, rolling hoops, sailing 
 kites, blowing bubbles, climbing, and jumping toward a mark. 
 
 4. List ten games of skill involving the exercise of the entire body, 
 which are likely to be invented by children under seven years of age. 
 List ten games of skill for children from seven to nine years of age 
 involving the exercise of specific parts of the body yet demanding 
 cooperation from the entire body. 
 
 5. Name ten games or exercises of skill involving the use of the 
 smaller muscles. 
 
 6. Plan a series of ball games involving increased skill in throwing 
 or striking toward a mark or in catching balls. 
 
 7. Make a list of play material, games, and puzzles to be used in 
 the acquisition of skill. 
 
 8. Point out how the development of skill in games invokes 
 experimentation and selection of good copy. Illustrate in the 
 following games or exercises: Cat and Rat, dancing, swimming, 
 performing stunts on apparatus, juggling. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 Movements of Gross Bodily Control: Kicking, 
 
 Creeping, Climbing, Walking, Running, 
 
 Skipping, Leaping, and Jumping 
 
 Collateral Reading 
 
 L. A. Palmer: Play Life in the First Eight Years, pp. 28-40. (A 
 discussion of movement plays in the first eight years.)
 
 414 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 X. McGhee: "A Study in the Play Life of Some South Carolina 
 
 Children," Pedagogical Seminary, Volume VII, pp. 459-47X. 
 
 (Gives a list of games in which running is the dominant 
 
 interest.) 
 A. W. Trettien: "Creeping and Walking," American Journal of 
 
 Psychology, Volume XII, p. 31. 
 E. J. Swift: Mind in the Making, chapter vi. The Psychology of 
 
 Learning. 
 
 Questions and Exercises 
 
 1. Plan ten games involving running, arranging the games in 
 order of progression from those involving pleasure in simple exercise 
 to those whose aim is acquiring speed, strength, and endurance. 
 Plan ten more games where the chief interest is in strategy, rivalry, 
 and competition between opposing teams. Indicate also how 
 cooperation among members of the team leads to exercise of the 
 social instincts. 
 
 2. What set goals or physical coordinations do you consider 
 should be required in connection with running games: (1) for 
 children under seven years; (2) for children under ten years? 
 Support your conclusions by facts concerning the physical develop- 
 ment of children. 
 
 3. Plan some kicking, creeping, and running plays which a mother 
 would be justified in using with children under three years of age. 
 Support your plan by facts concerning the physical developmi 
 children under three years of age. 
 
 4. Describe ten games involving jumping. Show the progression 
 from games in which pleasure in simple jumping is the chief element 
 to games involving rivalry, competition, and display. 
 
 5. What checks and safeguards in running and jumping would 
 you require from girls between the years nine and twelve? 
 
 6. Plan ten pieces of apparatus to be used in a playroom for 
 children under ten years of age, especially designed for the progres- 
 sive development of creeping, walking, climbing, and jumping 
 activities. 
 
 7. Describe ten climbing acts in which the muscles of trunk, legs, 
 and arms cooperate. Contrast the development gained in this way 
 with formal gymnastics planned to exercise the entire body.
 
 APPENDIX A 415 
 
 8. What periods of accelerated growth in sets of muscles occur 
 in children under twelve years of age? Connect these periods 
 of rapid growth with children's spontaneous plays during these 
 periods. 
 
 9. Give several illustrations to show how children arrive at 
 "plateaus" in experimentation on play apparatus. Diagnose the 
 trouble. Show how to proceed in each case. 
 
 10. Supply the missing numerals in the following statements: 
 
 a. In lung capacity and strength of grip, girls do not measure 
 up to boys at years of age. 
 
 b. There is an accelerated increase in growth of bones, especi- 
 
 ally in the long ones, at years. 
 
 c. Children prefer games with definite rules at years. 
 
 d. Play in definite groups is preferred; there is a beginning of 
 cooperative team work at years. 
 
 e. The aim in performing stunts or games of skill is usually 
 speed and accuracy at years of age. 
 
 f. Interest in running is at its height at years. 
 
 g. At approximately years of age chasing, doll play and 
 
 mere imitative games decline, while team games, games of 
 chance, rhythmic exercises, and athletics are more popular. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 Movements of Gross Bodily Control: Swinging, 
 
 Sliding, and Other Effortless Movement 
 
 Plays 
 
 Collateral Reading 
 
 W. W. Newell: Games and Songs of American Children, chapter 
 
 viii. (Discusses games involving pleasures of motion.) 
 H. S. Curtis: The Practical Conduct of Play, chapter v. 
 
 Questions and Exercises 
 
 1 . What is the physiological basis of pleasure in effortless motion 
 as contrasted with pleasure in active exercise? 
 
 2. Name ten sports involving pleasure in effortless motion. 
 Name ten plays in which exercise precedes effortless movement.
 
 416 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 3. How can current criticism of the use of swings in playgrounds 
 be met by improvement in the various kinds of swinging apparatus 
 and in methods of installing it? 
 
 4. Discuss the physiological benefits which children under ten 
 years of age derive from swinging and sliding. 
 
 5. Describe some of the harmful effects resulting from the use of 
 several kinds of whirligigs or the commercial merry-go-rounds and 
 from the use of see-saws and swings. 
 
 6. Discuss the value of supervision in the use of the slides and 
 swings. 
 
 7. How do you account for the large number of wheeled toys on 
 the market? What two-wheeled toys or vehicles would you select 
 for a four-year-old child; for a six- and an eight-year-old child?' 
 
 8. What ages would you consider best for using the velocipede, 
 the bicycle, roller and ice skates, skis, and snow-shoes? 
 
 9. Plan a series of stunts to be performed on the trapeze swings 
 or on the giant stride, demanding progress in ideas and physical 
 coordinations concerned with hanging, swinging, and jumping. 
 
 10. Name a series of cautions to be used in connection with play 
 on each piece of apparatus mentioned in this chapter. 
 
 11. Illustrate how growth in learning takes place in any series 
 of acts connected with skating, sliding, or riding a bicycle. 
 
 CHAPTER Will 
 
 Movements of Gross Bodily Control: Dancing 
 and Swimming 
 
 Collateral Reading 
 
 E. Jaques-DalCROZE: Rhythm, Music and Education, chapter ix, 
 
 Rhythm and Creative Imagination. 
 K. Groos: Play of Man. pp.. 89-92. (A discussion of dancing.) 
 E. W. CURTIS: The Dramatic Instinct in Education, chapter viii, 
 
 I )ancing. 
 R. St. Johnson: .1 History of Dancing. 
 
 Questions and Exercises 
 
 1. Show the evolution of the dance in children's spontaneous 
 play. Plan a series of pantomimes or dances likely to be invented
 
 APPENDIX A 417 
 
 by children under seven years of age. Do the same for children 
 between the ages of seven and nine. 
 
 2. Apply the laws of learning to the art of teaching dancing. 
 Indicate your method of developing spontaneous, sincere expression, 
 originality, and grace. 
 
 3. Describe the various ways in which music may be used in the 
 teaching of dancing. 
 
 4. Plan a series of dances representing: (1) joyful moods of 
 nature; (2) tempestuous moods of nature; (3) joyful work as repre- 
 sented in the trades; (4) the work of toilers; (5) characteristic 
 movements of animals; (6) war. In all of these show progression 
 from simple gestures or pantomimes to highly organized interpreta- 
 tive dances. 
 
 5. Describe five common errors you have noticed in the teaching 
 of dancing or of swimming. 
 
 6. What set physical goals or coordinations do you consider should 
 be demanded of pupils in dancing and in swimming at seven years? 
 At twelve years? Support your demands by known facts regarding 
 periods of growth and the rough order of muscular development. 
 
 7. Criticize favorably and unfavorably several well-known 
 systems of dancing. 
 
 8. Indicate the part played by knowledge and feeling in inter- 
 pretative dancing. Where can you demand uniformity of expres- 
 sion? Where is diversity necessary? 
 
 9. In teaching folk dancing is it ever advisable to change the 
 content or form of the dance? Support your answer. 
 
 10. What is the place of swimming in the elementary school? 
 In the program of the playground? 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 Movements of Gross Bodily Control: Throwing, 
 Rolling, and Spinning Plays 
 
 Collateral Reading 
 
 R. A. Archer: "Spontaneous Constructions and Primitive Ac- 
 tivities of Children Analogous to Those of Primitive Man," 
 American Journal of Psychology, Volume XXI, pp. 144-9. 
 (Gives an analysis of throwing.)
 
 41 8 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 A. B. Go.mmk: Dictionary of British Folk-Lore, Volume I, Part I, 
 
 pp. 13-17. (A collection of ball games.) 
 W. W. NEWELL: Camcs and Songs of American Children, chapter 
 
 xiii. (Describes ball and similar sports.) 
 
 Questions and Exercises 
 
 1 . Plan ten throwing games which will be suited to children 
 under three years. Plan another series of throwing games for 
 children of kindergarten age; another for children from nine to 
 twelve years of age. Support your plan by known facts regarding 
 the throwing propensity during these periods. 
 
 2. What requirements or physical coordinations used in throwing 
 do you consider it is necessary to demand at successive periods of 
 development in childhood? 
 
 3. Name a number of serious throwing acts used by savages, 
 which have been handed down to children as play activities. 
 
 4. Consider the beneficial result upon the circulation, respiration, 
 and digestion of participation in throwing games. Compare with 
 the effects of formal gymnastics. 
 
 5. At what age is interest in throwing at its height? When does 
 the tendency wane? 
 
 6. Describe the use of judgment and imagination in the acquisi- 
 tion of skill through rolling, spinning, and throwing plays. 
 
 7. Criticize a number of throwing games which have been in- 
 vented for commercial purposes. Support your criticism by known 
 facts concerning muscular development. Invent some better 
 games. 
 
 8. Does the fact that throwing is no longer economically neces- 
 sary in modern society affect the place of throwing activities in 
 childhood education? Support your answer. 
 
 9. Plan some spinning plays which afford better muscular 
 coordinations than are built up in the use of small commercial 
 spinning toys. 
 
 10. Would you show a child how to throw a ball, hold a bat, or 
 spin a top before or after he has attempted to perform each act?
 
 APPENDIX A 419 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 The Significance of Manipulation as a Play 
 Activity 
 
 Collateral Reading 
 
 G. C. Meyers: "Grasping, Reaching and Handling," American 
 
 Journal of Psychology, 191 5. 
 J. Lee: Play in Education, chapter xiv, Manipulation; chapter xv, 
 
 Construction. 
 A. L. Gesell: The Normal Child and Primary Education, chapter 
 
 xiii, Handiwork. 
 M. E. Wells: A Project Curriculum, Section I. 
 E. B. Kent: The Constructive Interests of Children. Doctor's 
 
 dissertation. Columbia University. 
 
 Questions and Exercises 
 
 1. What is the relation of the instinct of manipulation to courses 
 in practical arts in the first four grades? 
 
 2. At what age is there the greatest disparity between expres- 
 sion and technique? Show what allowance you would make for 
 lack of technique in planning the manual activities of the kinder- 
 garten. Indicate how you would work for improvement in tech- 
 nique. 
 
 3. At what ages do children draw, paint, sew, and mold clay 
 from models? Are there any scientific studies to indicate a path 
 of procedure as regards the use of models at any particular age? 
 
 4. Criticize the exclusive use of projects in relation to (1) 
 acquiring technique in an orderly sequence of events; (2) acquiring 
 knowledge through a variety of ways; (3) providing drill in a 
 variety of situations. 
 
 5. Name a number of projects which children at any given age 
 might propose and by which they might gain manipulative skill in 
 a variety of ways. 
 
 6. Indicate along what lines you would plan different manual 
 activities for girls and boys. Is the difference a matter of applica- 
 tion or does it concern the relative native abilities of the sexes?
 
 420 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 7. Plan a considerable number of objects which would be suitable 
 for children under three years of age to handle and manipulate. 
 
 Make a list of play materials for use in the kindergarten; for the 
 first, second, third, and fourth grades respectively. 
 
 8. How far would you he willing to trust a child to choose his 
 own line of manual experimentation? What standards and results 
 would you develop in an activity once chosen? Illustrate your 
 point by a project which children in any given grade might select 
 and execute. 
 
 g. Show how practical judgments and training in observation, 
 comparison, and the like enter into all manual activities. Illustrate 
 in boat making, in building with blocks, or in stringing heads. 
 
 10. From a study of Kent's The Constructive Interests of Children, 
 make two lists showing ( 1 ) the most common and instinctive manual 
 plays; (2) the most valuable ones for the evolution of society. 
 
 11. Fill in the blanks with the appropriate age or sex: 
 
 a. - - are more likely to use carpenter's tools, experiment 
 with levers or pulleys, water power and electricity than 
 are . 
 
 b. - — enjoy rhythmic games more than — — . 
 
 c. Interest in doll-play is rapidly disappearing at years. 
 
 d. — like constructive activities connected with cooking, 
 
 sewing, and dressmaking at years of age. 
 
 e. Juggling with the hands and feet is often practiced with 
 enjoyment at years of age. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 Spontaneous Play in the Earth 
 
 Collateral Reading 
 G. S. Hall and Others: "The Story of a Sand Pile," Aspects 0} 
 
 Child Life and Edtn ation. 
 H. S. Curtis: The Practical Conduct of Play, pp. 48-57- (Discusses 
 
 the appeal of sand, also the construction and care of sand bins.) 
 E. V. Dobbs: Primary Handwork, chapter vi, Sand Tables and What 
 
 tu Do with Them.
 
 APPENDIX A 421 
 
 J. L. Randall: Educative and Economic Possibilities of School- 
 Directed Home Gardening in Richmond, Indiana, U. S. Bureau 
 of Education, Bulletin 1917, Nov. 6. 
 
 Questions and Exercises 
 
 1. After reading the records of spontaneous play in the sand, 
 plan ways and means of utilizing this activity in the first four grades 
 of the elementary school. 
 
 2. Show how work in the sand table or in sand bins may be 
 correlated with work in geography, history, art, nature study, 
 arithmetic, literature, and the like. 
 
 3. In what ways do manipulation and molding with sand and 
 clay lead to observation and judgment about form and size? 
 
 4. What is the chief educational consideration for giving garden- 
 ing an important place in the school curriculum? What are some 
 of the secondary reasons for its educational significance? 
 
 5. Make a list of toys which you consider would not hinder actual 
 experience in handling and molding sand. Name the sand toys 
 which you consider do hinder real development of manipulative 
 abilities. 
 
 6. What is the scope and purpose of work in clay (1) from the 
 standpoint of appreciation of form and color; (2) from gaining the 
 ability to externalize feelings and ideas in material form; (3) from 
 training in manipulative skill? Describe some projects which 
 children in any given grade might purpose and execute. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 Spontaneous Play with Fire and Water 
 
 Collateral Reading 
 
 C. E. Brown and G. S. Hall: "Children's Ideas of Fire, Heat, 
 Frost and Cold," Pedagogical Seminary, Volume X. 
 
 F. E. Bolton: "Hydro Psychosis," American Journal of Psychology, 
 Volume X, pp. 169-227. 
 
 H. S. Curtis: The Practical Conduct of Play, chapter vi f Swimming 
 Pools, also chapter iv, pp. 45-48.
 
 422 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 Questions and Exercises 
 
 i. How would you begin in babyhood to teach children to 
 protect themselves from fire? Where prescribe prohibitions and 
 punishments? 
 
 2. Plan an environment for rural children affording abundant 
 opportunity for experimentation with water. Indicate how you 
 have made provision for (i) big muscle activity; (2) experimentation 
 with water as a motor power; (3) knowledge of boats of all kinds; 
 (4) knowledge of water creatures. 
 
 3. Plan a wading pool for children under ten years of age and a 
 swimming pool for children of all ages — both suitable for a large 
 city playground in a congested district. Indicate the play materials 
 you would provide for use in the wading pool, also the water sports 
 you would develop in connection with the swimming pool. How 
 would you provide for the sanitation of both wading and swimming 
 pools? 
 
 4. Plan an aquarium for children under seven years of age. Do 
 the same for children from seven to twelve years. Indicate how 
 experience with an aquarium may lead to (1) an understanding of 
 the habits and the life history of aquatic creatures; (2) provision 
 for the needs of these creatures in the artificial environment ; (3) 
 growth in nurture and responsibility for the lives of aquatic 
 creatures. 
 
 5. Show how experimentation with water as a natural force 
 leads to an understanding of the laws of physics and of chemistry. 
 Give illustrations to support the points made. 
 
 6. What uses should the school make of the propensity for 
 fire-playing? Indicate an educational program which would lead 
 children to understand the dangers of fire-playing, yet would afford 
 some opportunity for experimentation with fire. 
 
 7. How can the school utilize interest in a?sthetic appreciation 
 of fire in connection with school celebrations and pageants? 
 
 8. After a perusal of the records in this chapter plan a series of 
 commercial water toys which might appeal to the constructive 
 interest of children and train them in ingenuity and inventiveness. 
 Indicate how various kinds of blocks and mechanical constructive 
 sets can be used in inventing machinery connected with water power.
 
 APPENDIX A 423 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 Visual Exploration 
 
 Collateral Reading 
 
 K. Groos: The Play of Man, pp. 54-74. (Treats in scholarly way- 
 perception of color, form, and movement; should be supple- 
 mented by more recent findings in psychology.) 
 
 Visual Education, Volumes I and II. (A casual survey of this 
 magazine will indicate modern investigations in connection 
 with visual education.) 
 
 J. M. Baldwin: Mental Development in the Child and the Race, 
 chapter iii, Distance and Color Perception by Infants. 
 
 D. R. Major: First Steps in Mental Growth, chapter vi, Color. 
 
 R. Pintner: "Esthetic Appreciation of Pictures by Children," 
 Pedagogical Seminary, Volume XXV, pp. 216-218. 
 
 Questions and Exercises 
 
 1. Describe ten vital, engaging experiences which children 
 between seven and nine years of age might plan and execute and 
 which demand appreciation of color, brightness, and form. Plan 
 the same for children under seven years. 
 
 2. When is the eye of the child able to perceive colors? Of 
 what does training in appreciation and recognition of color and 
 form consist? 
 
 3. How would you proceed to teach colors, bearing in mind the 
 necessity of connecting colors with situations which seem worth while 
 to children and at the same time are typical of the situations in which 
 color will be necessary throughout life? 
 
 4. Show how you would subordinate formal work in color and 
 form to situations in which need of both occur. 
 
 5. How would you eliminate unnecessary associations of color 
 with objects which it is not important to associate with color in a 
 striking way? 
 
 6. Does educational procedure in appreciation of color follow the 
 color schemes used in connection with industry, railroading, and
 
 424 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 advertising? How far would you use these color associations in an 
 educational scheme? 
 
 7. How far can nature be used as a guide to appreciation of 
 color? Make a list of ways in which children learn colors in 
 connection with gardening, hikes, and excursions. 
 
 8. If recognition of form is of great importance, how would you 
 undertake training for an appreciation of form in life situations? 
 Illustrate through projects in which the essentials of form are neces- 
 sarily perceived and applied. 
 
 0. Plan ten projects which reveal the application of the essential 
 characteristics of spheres, cylinders, cubes, and wheels to industrial 
 purposes. Name ten toys illustrating the uses of each. 
 
 10. Make a list of twenty-five toys which you consider require 
 special coloring to be serviceable and beautiful to children. Indi- 
 cate the colors to be used in decorating each. 
 
 1 i . Indicate how recognition and appreciation of color and form 
 may be taught in connection with arithmetic, geography, history, 
 dressmaking, and cookery. 
 
 12. Criticize the Montessori method of teaching color and form. 
 
 13. Show how colors are learned in connection with target prac- 
 tice, croquet, puzzles, card games, and the like. 
 
 14. Indicate how children may learn color and form in playing 
 grocery store, drug store, millinery shop, and candy store. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 Spontaneous Experimentation with Sound 
 
 Collateral Reading 
 
 W. S. Pratt: The History of Music, chapter i. Primitive or Savage 
 
 Music. 
 C. H. Farnsworth: How to Study Music, chapter ii. How to Listen 
 
 to Music. 
 L. Mohler: Music Moods a Basis for Appreciation. 
 E. B. Tylor: Anthropology, chapter iv, Language. 
 G. W. Woods: School Orchestras and Bands.
 
 APPENDIX A 425 
 
 Questions and Exercises 
 
 1. After reading Tylor's Anthropology, chapter iv, make some 
 suggestions regarding the training of children in musical apprecia- 
 tion through the use of the human voice, i. e., training involving 
 recognition of low and loud, slow and quick, gentle and violent, 
 and of changes in pitch. 
 
 2. How far can spontaneous interest and curiosity in connection 
 with experimentation in sound be carried over into supervised 
 music? 
 
 3. Make a list of sound plays a mother could use in developing 
 language with a two-year -old child. 
 
 4. How far do current systems of phonics rely upon spontaneous 
 interest in experimentation with sound to motivate drill? Criticize 
 two or three phonic systems. 
 
 5. Point out ways in which progressive methods in music apply 
 and utilize children's spontaneous delight in reproducing character- 
 istic sounds and jingles. 
 
 6. Name several important experiments in musical appreciation 
 in connection with the use of phonograph records. 
 
 7. Describe one or two noted educational experiments with 
 toy orchestras in the elementary school. 
 
 8. Study the Mother Goose rhymes and then make out a list of 
 ten or twelve of the most pleasing and characteristic combinations 
 of sounds which you find there. Make a list of the same number of 
 pleasing sounds in nature or in connection with industry. Look 
 through song primers and note how these combinations of sounds are 
 utilized. 
 
 9. In the making of crude musical instruments what departments 
 of the elementary school could be called into service? 
 
 10. Show how physics, geography, and chemistry may be applied 
 in experimentation with sound. 
 
 n. Study children's spontaneous songs and list ten suggestions 
 a writer of songs should bear in mind in connection with subject 
 matter, rhythm, and duration of songs for small children.
 
 APPENDIX B 
 Bibliography of References concerning Play 
 
 • Addams, J.: The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets. Macmillan. 
 
 1909. 
 American Institute of Child Life. The Dramatic Instinct in 
 
 Children. (Monograph 352.) 1914- 
 ♦Angell, E. D. Play. Little Brown. 1910. 
 Angell, J. R.: Chapters from Modern Psychology. Longmans 
 
 Green. 191 2. 
 
 Chapter vi, Social and Racial Psychology, pp. 203-211. 
 Appleton, L. E.: A Comparative Study of the Play Activities of 
 
 Adult Savages and Civilized Children. Univ. of Chicago Press. 
 
 1910. 
 Archer, R. A.: "Spontaneous Constructions and Primitive 
 
 Activities of Children Analogous to Those of Primitive Man " 
 
 American Journal of Psychology, XXI, 114-150. 1910. 
 Babcock, W. H.: "Games of Washington Children." American 
 
 Anthropologist, I, 243-284. 1888. 
 Bailey, C. S.: Girls' Make-dt-Home Things. Stokes. 191 2. 
 Baldwin, B. T.: The Physical Growth of Children from Birth to 
 
 Maturity. (Studies in Child Welfare, Volume 1, No. 1.) 
 
 Univ. of Iowa. 192 1. 
 
 Pp. 160-164 and 196-197. 
 Baldwin, J. M.: Mental Development in the Child and the Race. 
 
 Macmillan. 1894. 
 
 Chapter iii, Distance and Color Perception by Infants. 
 Blanton, M. G.: "The Behavior of the Human Infant During 
 
 the First Thirty Days of Life." Psychological Review, XXIV, 
 
 456-483. 1917. 
 
 • Bobbitt, F.: The Curriculum. Houghton Mifflin. 1918. 
 
 Chapter ii, Educational Experience upon the Play-Level. 
 Chapter iii, Educational Experience upon the Work-Level. 
 Chapter xvii, The Function of Play in Human Life. 
 427
 
 428 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 Bolton, F. E.: "Hydro Psychoses." American Journal of Psy- 
 chology, X, 169-227. 1899. 
 
 Bonser, F. G.: The Elementary School Curriculum. Macmillan. 
 1920. 
 
 Chapter v, The Emergence of the Curriculum from Life 
 Activities. 
 
 Braucher, H. S.: "Growth and Wealth of the Playground Move- 
 ment." American City (City Edition), XV, 645. iqi6. 
 
 Bryan, W. L. : "On the Development of Voluntary Motor Ability." 
 American Journal of Psychology, V, 125-204. 1892. 
 
 Bureau of Educational Experiments. Playthings. (Bulletin 1.) 
 Bureau of Educational Experiments. 16 \V. 8th St., New York. 
 1917. 
 
 Burk, C. F.: "The Collecting Instinct." Pedagogical Seminary. 
 VII, 179-207. 
 
 Burk, F. L.: "From Fundamental to Accessory in the Develop- 
 ment of the Nervous System and of Movements." Pedago- 
 gical Seminary, VI, 5-64. 1898. 
 
 BURK, F. L.: "Teasing and Bullying." Pedagogical Seminary, 
 IV, 336-37I- i 8 Q7- 
 
 • Cabot, R. C: What Men Live By. Houghton Mifflin. 1914. 
 
 Chapter i. Work, Play and Drudgery. 
 
 Chapter x. Playfulness, Seriousness and Dullness. 
 
 Chapter xi. Play, Recreation and the Other Arts. 
 
 Chapter xvi, Chaotic Plays, Disjointed Plays and Others. 
 Carr, H. A.: The Survival Values of Play. (Investigations of the 
 
 Department of Psychology and Education, Volume 1, No. 2.) 
 
 Univ. of Colorado. 1902. 
 Chamberlain, A. F.: The Child and Childhood in Folk-thought. 
 
 Macmillan. IQ03. 
 « Chamberlain, A. F.: The Child: ,1 Study in the Evolution of Man. 
 
 Scribner. igoo. 
 
 Chapter ii. The Meaning of Youth and Play. 
 
 Chapter vi, The Arts of Childhood. 
 
 • Chask. J. H.: "Street Games of New York Children," Pedagogical 
 
 Seminary, 12. 503-4. 
 Chassel, C. F., and Upton, M.S.: "Scales for Measuring Habits 
 of Good Citizenship." Teachers College Record, XX I II. 52-80.
 
 APPENDIX B 429 
 
 Chubb, P. (and Associates} : Festivals and Plays in Schools and 
 
 Elsewhere. Harper. 191 2. 
 Colvin, S. S.: The Learning Process. Macmillan. 191 1. 
 
 Chapter i, Fundamental Elements in the Learning Process. 
 Colvin, S. S., and Bagley, W. C: Human Behavior. Macmillan. 
 
 1913- 
 
 Chapter x, How Instinctive Human Behavior May be Changed. 
 Comstock, A. B.: The Pet Book. Second Edition. Comstock 
 
 Pub. Co. 191 5. 
 *Cook, H. C: The Play Way: An Essay in Educational Method. 
 
 Stokes. 1915. 
 
 Chapter i, General Principles of the Play Way. 
 
 Chapter ii, General Methods of the Play Way. 
 Corbin, A. M.: The School of Childhood of the University of Pitts- 
 burgh. (Bulletin, Volume 10, No. 8.) Univ. of Pittsburgh. 
 
 1914. 
 Crawford, C, and Fogg, E. R.: The Rhythms of Childhood. 
 
 Barnes. 191 5. 
 Cromie, W. J.: "Eight Minutes' Common-Sense Play for the 
 
 Growing Child." Outlook, CVIII, 188-195. 1914. 
 ►Croswell, T. R.: "Amusements of Worcester School Children." 
 
 Pedagogical Seminary, VI, 314-371. 1899. 
 Culin, S. : "Hawaiian Games." American Anthropologist, New 
 
 Series, I, 201-247. 1899. 
 
 • Culin, S. : "Street Games of Boys in Brooklyn, New York." 
 
 Journal of American Folk-Lore, IV, 221-237. 1891. 
 Curtis, E. W.: The Dramatic Instinct in Education. Houghton 
 Mifflin. 1914. 
 Chapter vi, Play. 
 Chapter vii, Dancing. 
 Chapter xi, Pageantry. 
 
 • Curtis, H. S.: Education through Play. Macmillan. 1915. 
 Curtis, H. S. : The Play Movement and its Significance. Macmillan. 
 
 1917. 
 Curtis, H. S.: The Practical Conduct of Play. Macmillan. 1915. 
 Dearborn, G. V. N.: The Influence of Joy. Little Brown. 1916. 
 Dearborn, G. V. N.: Motor-sensory Development. Warwick and 
 
 York. 1910.
 
 430 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 Dewey, J. : How We Think. Heath. 1910. 
 
 Chapter xii. Activity and the Training of Thought. 
 DEWEY, J.: Interest and Effort in Education. Houghton Mifflin. 
 
 IQI3- 
 
 Chapter iv, Types of Educative Interests. 
 Dewey, J.: "Interpretations of Savage Mind." Psychological 
 
 Review, IX. 217-230. 1902. 
 » Dewey, J.: "Play." "Play and Education." The Cyclopedia 
 
 of Education. Macmillan. iqi3- 
 •DEWEY, J. and Dewey, E.: Schools of Tomorrow. Dutton. 1915- 
 Dobbs, E. V.: Primary Handwork. Macmillan. 1914. 
 
 Chapter v, The House Problem. 
 
 Chapter vii, Sand Tables and What to Do with Them. 
 
 Chapter viii. Animals and Toys. 
 Dorrett, 0. W.: Music and the Play Instinct. World Book Co. 
 
 1915- 
 
 Ellwood, C. A.: Sociology in its Psychological Aspects. Appleton. 
 1912. 
 Chapter ix. The Role of Instinct in the Social Life. 
 
 EVANS, E.: The Problem of the Nervous Child. Dodd Mead. 10:0. 
 
 Felton, R. A.: Serving the Neighborhood. Missionary Education 
 Movement. 156 Fifth Ave., New York. 1020. 
 
 FLEXNER, A.: A Modern School. (Occasional Papers, No. 3.) 
 General Education Board. 1916. 
 ■ Folson, J. K.: "The Scientific Play World of a Child." Pedago- 
 gical Seminary. XXII, 161-182. ro 1 5- 
 » Forbush, W. B.: The Boy Problem. Pilgrim Press. 1901. 
 
 Forbush, W. B.: Child Study and Child Training. Scribner. 
 
 1915- 
 • Forbush, W. B.: Manual of Play. George W. Jacobs & Co. im \- 
 •FREEMAN, F. N.: How Children Learn. Houghton Mifflin. 1917. 
 
 Chapter iv, The Child's Native Responses: Play. 
 Froebel, F.: The Education of Man. Appleton. 1887. 
 Gardner, P.: "Some Games of Philippine Children." Journal of 
 
 America)! Pall: Lore, XX. 1 10-120. 1007. 
 Gesei.i., A. L. and Gesei.l, B. C: The Normal Child and Primary 
 
 Education. Ginn. 191 2. 
 
 Chapter viii, Touch and the Appreciation of Things.
 
 APPENDIX B 431 
 
 Chapter x, Dramatic Expression. 
 
 Chapter xii, Language. 
 
 Chapter xiii, Handwork. 
 » Gillin, J. L.: "The Sociology of Recreation." American Journal 
 
 of Sociology, XIX, 825-834. 1914. 
 Gomme, A. B.: Dictionary of British Folk-Lore. Nutt. 1894. 
 
 Part 1, The Traditional Games of England, Scotland and 
 
 Ireland. 2 volumes. 
 ♦ Groos, K.: The Play of Man. Appleton. 1901. 
 Groszmann, M. P. E.: The Exceptional Child. Scribner. 191 7. 
 
 Chapter xxii, The Kindergarten Period. 
 Gulick, L. H.: The Healthful Art of Dancing. Doubleday Page. 
 
 1910. 
 Gulick, L. H.: A Philosophy of Play. Scribner. 1920. 
 
 Chapter iii, Hunting and Fighting. 
 
 Chapter v, Fire Play. 
 
 Chapter xii, Play and Physical Growth. 
 Gulick, L. H.: "Psychological, Pedagogical and Religious Aspects 
 
 of Group Games." Pedagogical Seminary, VI, 135-151. 1899. 
 •Hall, G. S. and Others: Aspects of Child Life and Education. 
 
 Ginn. 1907. 
 %Hall, The Story of a Sand Pile, pp. 142-156. 
 
 Hall & Ellis, A Study of Dolls, pp. 157-204. 
 
 Burk, The Collecting Instinct, pp. 205-240. 
 
 Ellis, Fetichism in Children, pp. 287-299. 
 Hall, G. S. and Browne, C. E.: "Children's Ideas of Fire, Heat, 
 
 Frost, and Cold." Pedagogical Seminary, X, 27-85. 1903. 
 » Hall, G. S.: Youth, Its Education, Regimen and Hygiene. Apple- 
 ton. 1904. 
 
 Chapter vi, Play, Sports and Games. 
 Hancock, J. A.: "A Preliminary Study of Motor Ability," Peda- 
 gogical Seminary, III, 8-29. 1894. 
 Hancock, J. A.: "Work and Play." Education, XXV, 257-268. 
 
 1905. 
 Hetherington, C. W.: The Demonstration Play School of IQ13. 
 
 (Publications: Education, V, 241-288.) Univ. of California. 
 
 1 914. (Same article, American Physical Education Review, 
 
 XX, 282-94; 373-80; 429-45- 1915-)
 
 432 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 Herts, A. M.: The Children's Educational Theatre. Harper. 
 km i . 
 
 Herts, A. M.: "Dramatic Instinct, Its Use and Misuse." Peda- 
 gogical Seminary. XV, 550-562. 190S. 
 
 Hill, P. S., Editor: Experimental Studies in Kindergarten Theory 
 and Practice. Teachers College, Columbia Univ. 1914. 
 
 Hunt, J. L.: .1 Catalogue of Play Equipment for Little Children. 
 (Bulletin 8.) Bureau of Educational Experiments. 16 West 
 8th Street, New York. 1918. 
 
 JaQUES-Dalcroze. E.: Rhythm, Music and Education. Putnam. 
 1921. 
 
 Chapter v, Music and the Child. 
 Chapter ix, Rhythm and Creative Imagination. 
 Chapter x. Rhythm and Gesture in Music Drama and Criti- 
 cism. 
 
 Jennings, H. S., Watson, J. B., Meyer, A., Thomas, W. I.: 
 Suggestions of Modern Science Concerning Education. Mac- 
 millan. 1917. 
 Pp. 6-17, Heredity and Diversity in Children. 
 
 Johnson, B. J.: Experimental Study of Motor Abilities of Children 
 in Primary Grades. (Johns Hopkins Univ. Studies in Educa- 
 tion, No. 2.) Johns Hopkins Press. 191 7. 
 
 Johnson, C: When Mother Lets Us Keep Pets. Moffatt. 1911. 
 -Johnson, G. E. Education by Plays and Games. Ginn. i9°7- 
 •Johnson, G. E. Education 'Through Recreation. (Cleveland Educa- 
 tion Survey.) The Survey Committee of the Cleveland 
 Foundation. 1916. 
 
 Johnson, G. E.: "Play as a Moral Equivalent of War." The 
 Playground, VI, 111-123. 191 2. (Same article, American 
 Physical Education Review, XVI, 291-301. 191 1.) 
 
 Johnson - , V. E.: Chemistry and Chemical Magic. Oxford Univ. 
 Press. iqi2. 
 
 Johnson, V. E.: Plying and Some of its Mysteries. Oxford Univ. 
 Press, it) 1 2. 
 
 Judd, C. H.: Psychology. Second Edition. Ginn. 1917. 
 Chapter vi, Experience and Behavior. 
 Chapter x, Speech as a Form of Behavior.
 
 APPENDIX B 433 
 
 Kendall, C. N. and Mirick, G. A.: How to Teach the Special 
 
 Subjects. Houghton Mifflin. 1918. 
 
 Chapter iii, Physical Education and Play. 
 Kent, E. B.: The Constructive Interests of Children. (Thesis, 
 
 Ph. D.) Teachers College, Columbia Univ. 1903. 
 Key, E.: The Century of the Child. Putnam. 1909. 
 ♦Kidd, D.: Savage Childhood. A Study of Kafir Children. Black. 
 
 1906. 
 
 Chapter v, Play. 
 Kilpatrick, W. H.: The Project Method. Teachers College, 
 
 Columbia Univ. 1918. 
 King, I.: Education for Social Efficiency. Appleton. 1913. 
 
 Chapter vii, Play as a Factor in Social Efficiency. 
 King, I.: The Psychology of Child Development. Univ. of Chicago 
 
 Press. 1903. 
 Kirkpatrick, E. A.: Fundamentals of Child Study. New Edition. 
 
 Macmillan. 191 7. 
 
 Chapter ix, Development of Adaptive Instincts — Play. 
 Kirkpatrick, E. A.: The Individual in the Making. Houghton 
 
 'Mifflin. 191 1. 
 
 Chapter ii, Interest. 
 
 Chapter v, Imitating and Socializing Stage. 
 Kline, L. W. and France, C. J.: "The Psychology of Ownership." 
 
 Pedagogical Seminary, VI, 421-470. 1899. 
 Krackowizer, A. M.: Projects in the Primary Grades. Lippincott. 
 
 1919. 
 Langenbeck, M.: "A Study of a Five-year-old Child." Peda- 
 gogical Seminary, XXII, 65-88. 191 5. 
 Lee, J.: "Play as an Antidote to Civilization." The Playground, 
 
 V, 110-126. 1911. 
 Lee, J.: "Play as Medicine." The Play ground, V, 289-302. 1911. 
 » Lee, J.: Play in Education. Macmillan. 191 5. 
 McDougall, W. : A n Introduction to Social Psychology. Thirteenth 
 
 Edition. Luce. 191 8. 
 
 Chapter xi, The Instinct of Pugnacity. 
 
 Chapter xii, The Gregarious Instinct. 
 
 Chapter xv, Imitation, Play and Habit.
 
 434 SPONTANEOUS AND SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 'McKeever, W. A.: Training the Boy. Macmillan. 1013. 
 Chapter vii, Play and Playthings. 
 
 • McGhee, /.: "A Study in the Play Life of Some South Carolina 
 
 Children." Pedagogical Seminary, VII, 450-478. 1900. 
 McGough, F. J.: "Problems of Supervision of a Playground." 
 
 The Playground, IX. 127-133. 191 5. 
 McGough, F. J.: "The Sand Pile — Its Use and Care." The 
 
 Playground, IX, 160-164. 1915. 
 McMURRY, C. A.: Teaching by Projects. Macmillan. 1920. 
 MacPherson, S.: The Musical Education of the Child. Boston 
 
 Music Co. 1 9 16. 
 Major. D. R.: First Steps in Mental Growth. Macmillan. 1906. 
 
 Chapter vi. Color. 
 
 Chapter xii, Play. 
 » Mangold, G. B.: Child Problems. Macmillan. 1910. 
 
 Book 2, Chapter i. Play. 
 
 Book 2, Chapter ii. The Playground Movement. 
 
 • Mangold, G. B.: Problems of Child Welfare. Macmillan. 1914. 
 
 Part 2, Chapter iv, Play and Recreation. 
 Marot, H.: Creative Impulse in Industry. Dutton. 1918. 
 Matf.er, F.: Child Behavior; a Critical and Experimental Study of 
 
 Young Children by the Method of Conditional Reflexes. Badger. 
 
 1918. 
 
 • Meriam, J. L.: Child Life and the Curriculum. World Book Co. 
 
 1920. 
 
 Chapter xiv. School Studies — Play. 
 
 Chapter xvi, School Studies — Handwork. 
 Miller, I. L.: The Psychology of Thinking. Macmillan. 1909. 
 
 Chapter xiv, Development of the Imagination in Relation to 
 
 Thinking. 
 MOLL, A.: The Sexual Life of the Child. Macmillan. [912. 
 Montessori, M.: The Montessori Method. Sixth Edition. Stokes. 
 
 1912. 
 Montessori. M.: Spontaneous Activity in Education. (The Ad- 
 vance] Montessori Method, Volume i.) Stokes, [917. 
 Myers, G. C: "Grasping, Reaching and Handling." American 
 
 Journal of Psychology, XXVI, 525-530. [915.
 
 APPENDIX B 435 
 
 ♦ Newell, W. W.: Games and Songs of American Children. Harper. 
 
 1884. 
 
 Norsworthy, N. and Whitley, M. T.: The Psychology of Child- 
 hood. Macmillan. 1918. 
 
 Oberndorf, C. P.: "The Emotional Life of the Child." Archives 
 of Pediatrics, XXXIV, 747. 1917. 
 
 Oppenheim, N.: The Development of the Child. Macmillan. 1898. 
 Chapters ii and iii, Facts in the Comparative Development of 
 the Child. 
 
 * O'Shea, M. V.: Social Development and Education. Houghton 
 
 Mifflin. 1909. 
 Chapter ix, Social Types. 
 
 Chapter xiii, Cooperation in Group Education. 
 Palmer, L. A.: Play Life in the First Eight Years. Ginn. 1916. 
 
 • Patrick, G. T. W.: Psychology of Relaxation. Houghton Mifflin. 
 
 1916. 
 
 Chapter ii, The Psychology of Play. 
 Pintner, R.: "Esthetic Appreciation of Pictures by Children." 
 
 Pedagogical Seminary, XXV, 216-218. 1918. 
 Pray, F.: "Children's Dramatic Games, Ancient and Modern." 
 
 Education, XXV, 356-365. 1905. 
 
 • Puffer, J. A.: The Boy and His Gang. Houghton Mifflin. 191 2. 
 
 Chapter x, The Individualistic Activities and the Group 
 
 Games. 
 
 Chapter xiii, The Gang and the School. 
 Pyle, W. H.: The Psychology of Learning. Warwick and York. 
 
 1921. 
 
 Chapter xiii, Inborn Nature in Relation to Learning. 
 Randall, J. L.: Educative and Economic Possibilities of School- 
 Directed Home Gardening in Richmond, Indiana. (U. S. 
 
 Bureau of Education Bulletin 1917, No. 6.) 
 Rapeer, L. W., Editor: Educational Hygiene. Scribner. 1915. 
 
 Chapter xxi, Play and Playgrounds in Cities, G. E. Johnson. 
 
 Chapter xxiv, Play and Recreation at the Rural School, S. H. 
 
 Curtis. 
 Reeder, R. R.: How Two Hundred Children Live and Learn. 
 
 Charities Publication Committee. 1910.
 
 436 SPONTANEOUS AXD SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 Rus, J.: The Children of the Poor. Scribner. 1892. 
 Chapter xvii, The Truants of < hir Stn 
 
 Rusk, R. R.: Introduction to Ex pen men lot Education. Longmans 
 
 Green. 1913. 
 
 Chapter iii, The General Development of the Child — Physical 
 
 and Mental. 
 • Seashore, C. E.: Psychology in Daily Life. Appleton. 1913. 
 
 Chapter i. Play. 
 Shedlock, M.: "Dramatic Instinct in the Social Life of the Child." 
 
 Socio! Education Quarterly, I, 61-65. January, 1908. 
 ' SHELDON, H. D.: "The Institutional Activities of American 
 
 Children." American Journal of Psychology, IX. 425-48. i8q8. 
 Shinn, M.W.: The Biography of a Baby. Houghton Mifflin, iqoo. 
 Sies, A. C: "Problems in Sensory-motor Education Involving the 
 
 Selection of Play Materials and Apparatus for Small Children." 
 
 Kindergarten and First Grade, I. 40-55. 1916. 
 SlSSOX, G.: "Children's Plays." Studies in Education , edited by 
 
 Earl Barnes. First Series, I, Stanford Univ. 1896-97. 
 Slaughter, J. W.: "The Moon in Childhood and Folklore." 
 
 American Journal of Psychology. XIII, 204-3 iS. 1002. 
 Strayer, G. D. and Norsworthy. X.: How to Teach. Macmillan. 
 
 1917. 
 
 Chapter ix. Meaning of Play in Education. 
 St. Johnston. R.: .1 History of Dancing. Simpkin. 1006. 
 Stevenson, R. L.: "Child's Play." In Virginibus Puerisque. 
 
 Scribner. 
 Strutt. J.: The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England. 
 
 Chatto & Windus. 1876. 
 Swift, E. J.: Mind in the Making. Scribner. iqo8. 
 
 Chapter ii. Criminal Tendencies of Boys; Their Cause and 
 
 Function. 
 
 Chapter vi. The Psychology of Learning. 
 » Swift, E. J.: Youth and the Race. Scribner. 191 2. 
 
 Chapter iii. The Chance to Grow. 
 
 Chapter vii, The Spirit of the Gang: an Educational Asset. 
 Tanner, A. E.: The Child. Rand McNally. 1004. 
 Terman, L. M.: The Hygiene of the School Child. Houghton 
 
 Mifflin. 1914.
 
 APPENDIX B 437 
 
 Chapter v, Some Physiological Differences Between Children 
 
 and Adults. 
 
 Chapter xvi, The Nervous Child. 
 
 • Thomas, W. I.: "The Gaming Instinct," American Journal of 
 
 Sociology, VI, 750-63- 
 
 • Thorxdike. E. L.: Educational Psychology. 3 volumes. Teachers 
 
 College, Columbia Univ. 1913-14. 
 Thorndike, E. L.: Notes on Child Study. Second Edition. 
 
 (Columbia University Contributions to Philosophy, Psychology 
 
 & Education, Volume 8, Nos. 3-4.) Macmillan. 1903. 
 
 Chapter xiv. The Emotional Life of Children. 
 
 Chapter xv, The Active Side of Child Life. 
 
 Chapter xvi, Moral Education and Discipline. 
 
 Chapter xxi, Differences between Boys and Girls in Mental 
 
 Traits. 
 Town, C. H.: An Analytic Study of a Group of Five and Six-year-old 
 
 Children. (Studies in Child Welfare, Volume 1, No. 4.) 
 
 Univ. of Iowa. 192 1. 
 Trettien, A. W.: "Creeping and Walking." American Journal of 
 
 Psychology, XII, 1-57. 1900. 
 
 • Tyler, J. M.: Growth and Education. Houghton Mifflin. 1907. 
 
 Chapter v, Growth of the Neuro-Muscular System. 
 
 Chapter x, The Kindergarten Period. 
 
 Chapter xi, The Child Entering School. 
 
 Chapter xiv. Physical Training — Place of Play in Education. 
 Tylor, E. B.: Anthropology. Macmillan. 1881. 
 
 Chapters iv and v, Language (Including Primitive Sounds.) 
 Waddle, C. W. : An Introduction to Child Psychology. Houghton 
 
 Mifflin. 1918. 
 
 Chapter vi, The Play of Children. 
 Walker, J. R.: "Sioux Games." Journal of American Folk-Lore, 
 
 XVIII, 277-290. 1905. 
 Warner, F.: The Study of Children. Macmillan. 1897. 
 
 Chapter ii, The Body of the Child: Its Construction and 
 
 Growth. 
 Watson, J. B.: Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist. 
 
 Lippincott. 1919. 
 
 Chapter vi, Hereditary Modes of Response: Emotions. 
 
 Chapter vii, Hereditary Modes of Response: Instincts.
 
 438 SPONTANEOUS AXD SUPERVISED PLAY 
 
 Wells, M. E.: .1 Project Curriculum. Lippincott. 1921. 
 
 Section i, The Curriculum as Worked Out in Trenton, N. J. 
 White, W. A.: The Menial Hygiene of Childhood. Little Brown. 
 
 IQIQ. 
 
 Chapter iv, Stages of Development. 
 Chapter viii. Further Problems — Play. 
 »Wood. W.: Children's Play and its Place in Education. Kegan 
 
 Paul. 1913. 
 Woodrow, H.: Brightness and Dullness in Children. Lippincott. 
 
 IQIQ. 
 
 Chapter iii. Brightness and Dullness. 
 Woodworth, R. S.: Psychology, a Study of Mental Life. Holt. 
 1921. 
 Chapter xix, Imagination, pp. 481-488.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Activity, multiform physical, 209 
 ff.; 2ii, 212, 213, 216, 221; 
 mental, 31 ff., 35 ff. 
 
 Adventure, love of, 36 ff., 100 ff. 
 
 ^Esthetics, training in, 86, 92, 308, 
 322 ff., 342. 
 
 Age, differences in play, 30, 31, 
 35. 36, 37- 39, 53. 56 ff., 58, 
 79, 103 ff., 124, 177, 180; dif- 
 ferences in physical develop- 
 ment, 223, 224, 225, 235. 
 
 American Institute of Child Life, 
 28, 43. 
 
 Amusement, 21 ff. 
 
 Analysis, method of in play, 6 ff. 
 
 Anger, 1 1 1 . 
 
 Apparatus, play, 214 ff., 234 ff., 
 241 ff., 246, 247. 
 
 Appleton, L. E., 19, 231, 234. 
 
 Approval, desire for, 48. 
 
 Archer, 283, 287. 
 
 Arithmetic, learned in play, 81, 
 88, 91, 319. 
 
 Attention, span of, 35; to stimuli, 
 51, 141, 148, 149. 
 
 Attitudes, 307. 
 
 Babbling, 384. 
 
 Bad roles, 44, 93. 
 
 Ball games, 102, 269. 
 
 Bolton, F. E., 346. 
 
 Book, W. F., 228. 
 
 Boys, preferences in play, 101, 
 
 243, 244, 246, 287, 344. 
 Boy Scouts, 102 ff. 
 Brightness, sensations of , 364, 365. 
 Brown, C. E., and Hall, G. S., 341, 
 
 344- 
 Bryan, W. L., 218. 
 Bullying and teasing, III, 116. 
 Burk, C. F., 79. 
 
 Cady, C. B., 390. 
 
 Camp Fire Girls, 102 ff., 343. 
 
 Chemistry, 92. 
 
 Clay, 311 ff., 313 ff., 323 ff. 
 
 Climbing, 244 ff. 
 
 Clinics, 212 ff., 220 ff. 
 
 Collecting, 9, 77 ff., 86; arranging 
 and classifying, 77 ff; progres- 
 sion in, 79 ff. 
 
 Color, 364, 365; appreciation of 
 through play, 92, 371, 372. 
 
 Competition, 247, 251 ff. 
 
 Concentration, 35 ff. 
 
 Concepts, moral, 44 ff.; of rela- 
 tionship, 151. 
 
 Constructive activities, 157, 158 
 ff., 174, 175, 176 ff., 367 ff., 371. 
 
 Cooperation, 49 ff., 134, 231, 307. 
 
 Crawford, C, and Fogg, E. R., 
 390. 
 
 Creeping, 237 ff. 
 
 Cruelty, 39. 
 
 Culture-epoch theory, 97 ff. 
 
 Curiosity, 342, 347, 363, 385. 
 
 Curtis, H., 259. 
 
 Dancing, 105, 266, 272, 276. 
 
 Dearborn, G. V. N., 221. 
 
 Delinquency, juvenile, 44 ff., 289, 
 290. 
 
 Development, physical, 223 ff., 
 241 ff. 
 
 Dewey, J., 103, 307. 
 
 Doll play, 51, 53. 
 
 Dramatization and instinct, 27, 
 31; in infancy, 27, 179 ff.; 
 meaning of, 28, 30; in relation 
 to laws of exercise and effect, 
 30; and children's interests, 17; 
 a reflex of life, 31, 34, 181; and 
 favorite roles, 35 ff.; of facts, 
 fairy tales and myths, 40 ff.; 
 and language, 47 ff. 
 
 Drawing, 65, 94, 96. 
 
 Ellwood, C. A., 114. 
 
 Emotions, training of, through 
 
 play, 46 ff ., 132 ; overstimulation 
 
 of, in play, 46. 
 Emulation, 120, 134, 135. 
 
 439
 
 44t> 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Environment, 7. 
 
 Exercise and effect, laws of, and 
 
 play, 30, j 10. 
 Experience and play, 3 fT. 
 Experimental method, in study of 
 
 play, 5. 
 
 perimentation, $12, ^42, ^4^, 
 
 371, 381, 386. 
 
 Farnsworfch, C. H., 390. 
 Fatigue, in play, 14, 16, 18, 32, 
 
 34; in work, 21. 
 Fighting instinct, in fT.; socio- 
 
 logical significance of, 113 ff.; 
 
 educational use of, 1 15 fT., n8ff. 
 Finger-play and knowledge, 56, 
 
 3<>4- 
 Fire-play, 341 fT., 344. 
 Fire-playing propensity, 344. 
 Food-getting and hunting, 97. 
 Forbush, \V. B., 314, 317. 
 Form, perception of, $64, $67 IT., 
 
 371- 
 Fundamental to accessory, theory 
 
 of, 217, 218, 219, 278. 
 
 Games, distinguished from plays, 
 225, 22<.)\ and eombath 
 1 in fT.; of skill, 229 ff., 231, 24^, 
 252 fT., 255 fT., 294 ff., 296 ff.; 
 in defined and undefined groups, 
 231; dramatic, Part II. 
 
 Gang, 99 ff. 
 
 Gardening, 321 ff., 322. 
 
 ' " ell, 314 ft. 
 
 Girls, sex difference in play, 52, 
 115, 243, 244, 276, 308, 344 ff. 
 
 Glyn, M. H., 390. 
 
 Gomme, A. B., 230. 
 
 Gregariousness, 9, 102. 
 
 Groos. K., 37, 56, 2i,H, 244, 273, 
 , 286, 366, 368, 1*2. 
 
 Growth, of muscles, 2*28; of im- 
 agery, 56 ff. 
 
 Habit, and dramatization, 47 ff.; 
 muscular, 220 fT.; laws of, 22s. 
 1 [al itation, 52, 76. 
 Hall, G. S., 53,314. 
 Hancock, J. A.. 2 [8. 
 H< alth, 211 fT., 214, 216. 
 Honor, 1 [5. 
 
 Hopping, 242 ff. 
 
 Hunting, 97, 98 ff., 101, 102 ff., 
 
 111. 
 Hygiene taught through 
 
 [34 ff-i 176. 
 
 and action, 1 2, 27, 235. 
 Illusion, in play, 37. 
 1 , 12, 27, [42 ff.; disparity 
 
 between and reality, <;<; ft.; re- 
 construction of, 39 ff., 73 ff., 
 
 367 ; development of, im ff. 
 
 Imagination, development of, in 
 play: reproductive, 41 ; produc- 
 tive, 40. 
 
 Imitation, not original tendency, 
 30; in relation to laws of exercise 
 and effect, 30, 49, 227; of strik- 
 ing and novel effects, 35, 14S; in 
 infancy, 1S4 fT.; and play, 7, 31. 
 
 Industrv, elements of, in play, 90 
 fT., 307 ff. 
 
 Infancy, plays in, 1.S4 ff.; move- 
 ments of, 221 ff., 364. 
 
 Information, 81 ff., 88, 89 ff., [34, 
 322; concerning character, 44 
 IT., 94. 
 
 Instincts, educational signifies 
 of, 50, 54, 116; in play and 
 work, 6, 9; non-social, 1*7, 100, 
 112; cataloging of, 217. 
 
 Intelligence, low types, 120, 127, 
 
 [31; tests, 220. 
 Interest, breadth of, in play, 3 ff., 
 17 IT. 
 
 Jacques-Dalcroze, E., 277 
 
 Johnson, G. E., preface, 1 15, 22^. 
 Judgment in play, 2.^,2, 234 ff., 
 
 236. 
 Jumping, 245 fT. 
 Justice, sense of , in play, 113, 116, 
 
 125 ff. 
 
 Kilpatrick, \V. 11., 310, 372. 
 Kinesthetic effei I . 185, 274, 367. 
 Kindergarten, ji ff., $4, 140, 218, 
 
 . 377. ff- 
 Kindline s, 134, 151 fT. 
 
 Kirk, P., V)<>. 
 
 Labor, and play, s; and industry, 
 
 2J fT.
 
 INDEX 
 
 441 
 
 Leadership, desire for, 64; in 
 play, 77, 141. 
 
 Learning, process, 226; of move- 
 ments, 210, 219, 277. 
 
 Lee, J. E., 101, 289, 291, 314, 
 
 Light, perception of, 364. 
 
 Macpherson, S., 390. 
 
 McDougall, W., in, 113, 115. 
 
 McEwen, J. B., 275. 
 
 McGhee, Z., 251, 299. 
 
 McGough, F., 319. 
 
 Manipulation, in play, 52, 55, 77, 
 87, 224, 304, 306 ff., 324, 386. 
 
 Mastering and submissive be- 
 havior, 93, 102. 
 
 Mayard, G., 390. 
 
 Memory, in play, 86 ff . 
 
 Method, in play, 226 ff., 277, 307, 
 
 363, 371- 
 
 Meuman, E., 228. 
 
 Miller, D. C, 391. 
 
 Mohler, L., 386. 
 
 Montessori, M., 247, 371. 
 
 Motherly behavior, 9, 51 ff., 53 ff. 
 
 Movements, gross bodily, 212, 
 223 ff., 237, 257, 272; minor 
 bodily, 218, 219, 220; order of 
 development of, 217 ff., 221 ff., 
 223 ff., 309; instinctive basis of, 
 210, 216, 244; volitional, 217, 
 221, 222 ff., 229; reflex and 
 automatic, 209; progress in, 221 
 ff. ; rhythmic, 275; perception 
 of, 369 ff. 
 
 Moving pictures, evils of, 45 ff. 
 
 Music, appreciation of, 384 ff. 
 
 Natural forces, 311. 
 
 Nature study, appreciation of, 
 
 154 ff-- 312, 322. 
 Noises, 381, 383. 
 Norsworthy, N., and Whitley, 
 
 M. T., 56, 114, 115, 210, 217. 
 
 Observation, and attention, 86, 
 
 88; and reasoning, 88; and 
 
 dramatization, 41 ff. 
 Obstacles, value of, in play, 100 
 
 ff., 234, 236. 
 Occupations, adult, and children's 
 
 play, 22. 
 
 Orchestra, toy, 389 ff. 
 Origin of play and work, 9. 
 Originality, 310. 
 Ownership, sense of, 9, 162. 
 
 Personality, social, 48, 49 ff. 
 
 Physics, love of, learned in play, 
 177. 312, 319, 387 ff- 
 
 Pictures, 90. 
 
 Play and work, same origin, 9; 
 distinguishing characteristics, 
 10 ff.; variations in, 17; in re- 
 lation to adult occupations, 21 
 ff.; utilitarian, 57 ff. 
 
 Play, classification of, 3. 
 
 Playground, National Association, 
 214 ff., 216; benefits of, 226. 
 
 Plot, expansion of, in plav, 58 ff., 
 182. 
 
 Poffenberger, A. T., 44. 
 
 Predatory activities, 98 ff.; or- 
 ganizations, 100. 
 
 Preferences in play, 17 ff., 366. 
 See Boys and Girls. 
 
 Projects, 310. 
 
 Pugnacity, m ff., 117. 
 
 Punishment, 47, 113. 
 
 Reasoning, development of, in 
 
 play, 149, 231, 232, 235. See 
 
 Judgment. 
 Recapitulation, 342. 
 Reflexes, 216, 221, 232. 
 Repetition, 227, 231, 266, 274, 275. 
 Responsibility, training through 
 
 play, 89, 151. 
 Rewards, 47, 210. 
 Rhythm, 273, 274, 277, 279. 
 Rivalry, 9, 117, 231, 251 ff. 
 Robinson, 245. 
 Rolling and spinning, 283 ff., 298 
 
 ff. 
 Rousseau, E., 232. 
 Ruger, H. A., 227. 
 Running games, no, 243, 247. 
 
 Sand, 309, 313 ff., 315 ff.; table, 
 
 314, 319 ff. 
 School, 86, 88, 90, 120, 216, 226, 
 
 309. 
 Self-control, in play, 116, 236. 
 Self-display, in play, 48, III.
 
 442 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Sense perception, development of, 
 
 86, 87, 91; and movement, 181, 
 
 232, 306, 364, 371, 384. 
 Sex, differences in play, 52, 115, 
 
 307, 308, 343 ff.; in perception 
 
 of color, 366. 
 Sevmour, H. H., 391. 
 Sheldon, H. D., 100. 
 Shepardson, 217. 
 Sigismund, 275, 286. 
 Skating, 270 ff. 
 Skills, specific, acquisition of, 57, 
 
 59, 61, 236, 272. 
 Sliding, 259, 263 ff., 266 ff. 
 Sound, experimentation with, 381 
 
 ff., 383 ff. 
 Space, perception of, 366. 
 Spaulding, W. R., 391. 
 Spencer, 273. 
 St. Johnson, R., 274. 
 Stevenson, R. L., 39. 
 Supervision, value of, in play, 102, 
 
 152, 174, 315; dangers of, 183, 
 
 262. 
 Swimming, 272, 278. 
 Symbolism, 31 ff., 156. 
 Sympathy, 151 ff., 154. 
 
 Talent, 17 ff. 
 
 Teasing and bullying, 9, 54 ff., 109. 
 
 Thorndike, E. L., 30, 54, 70, 97, 
 
 220, 244, 304, 347 
 Throwing, 284, 286, 289. 
 Tilley, L. E., 238. 
 Toys, 35, 158, 270, 265, 291, 306, 
 
 317 ff., 327 IT., 354 ff-. 386. 
 Transfer oi training, 54, 96, 371. 
 Trettien, A. W., 238. 
 Trial and success, 226, 306. 
 Tyler, J. M., 223, 225. 
 
 Vierordt, K., 223. 
 Visual, exploration, 304, 363; edu- 
 cation, 363. 
 Vocalization, 304. 
 
 Wading pools, 352. 
 
 Wagner, H., 292. 
 
 Walking, 239 ff., 241. 
 
 Wallin, J. E. W.,220. 
 
 Warner, F., 222. 
 
 Water play, 272, 346 ff., 352 ff., 
 
 355- 
 Whipple, G. M., 365. 
 Will, 227. 
 Work, see Play. 
 Writing, use of, in play, 219. 
 
 Young-Helmholtz, 366.
 
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