THE PSYCHOLOGY OF RELAXATION 59* 



Young Men's Christian Associations from devotional to hygienic and 

 athletic religion; the renaissance of the gymnasium and the Olympic 

 games ; the increased interest in outdoor life of all kinds ; the renewed 

 devotion to outdoor games, like tennis, golf, baseball and football; the 

 rapid extension of the play motive into almost every branch of educa- 

 tion; the new vacation schools and school excursions; finally the super- 

 vised playgrounds, supervised folk dancing, supervised swimming, 

 wading, tramping, gardening, singing and story telling. Even with 

 very young children the Montessori system seeks to relieve the tension 

 of the old task methods by making the child's activities natural and in- 

 teresting as well as useful. 



More than twenty-four hundred regularly supervised playgrounds 

 and recreation centers were maintained last year in 342 cities in this 

 country. A brand new profession has appeared, that of play leaders, 

 employing 6,318 professional workers. 



The legislatures of some states have passed laws requiring every city 

 of a certain size to vote on the proposition of maintaining playgrounds. 

 New York City expended more than $15,000,000 on playgrounds previ- 

 ous to 1908. The city paid $1,811,000 for one playground having about 

 three acres. Chicago spent $11,000,000 on playgrounds and field houses 

 in two years. Formerly the boy could play on the street, in the back 

 alley, in the back yard ; now the alley and back yard have disappeared, 

 the street is crowded with automobiles and the few remaining open 

 spaces are given over to the lawn mower and keep-ofi-the-grass signs, 

 while more and more the school has encroached on the boy's precious 

 period of growth, filling nine of the twelve months of the year and 

 carrying the dreaded examination even into his evenings. 



For reasons which will be shown presently boys must play. Take 

 away the opportunity for legitimate play, and the play instinct, the in- 

 stinct of rivalry, of adventure, of initiation, will manifest itself in anti- 

 social ways. Hence the juvenile court and the reform school. " Better 

 playgrounds without schools," says one writer, "than schools without 

 playgrounds." 



Our purpose, however, in this article is not to consider the practical 

 and sociological aspects of play, important and interesting as they are, 

 but rather its psychological aspects, the object being to determine if 

 possible what play is and why it is necessary. We shall have in view 

 not children's play merely, but play in its wider sense and especially the 

 play and sport of adults. 



Herbert Spencer was the first writer to propose a theory of play. 

 Spencer's theory, which came perhaps from a suggestion of the poet 

 Schiller, was that play is due to the overflow of energy, superabundant 

 energy. It expends itself, therefore, in activities having no further end 

 than the activities themselves, while work is due to the attainment of 

 some end. 



