THE PSYCHOLOGY OF RELAXATION 593 



survive in the counting out rhymes, in the charms and talismans and 

 superstitions of children. One recalls the magic formula used by Tom 

 Sawyer for driving away warts. 



You got to go by yourself in the middle of the woods where you know there 

 ia a spunkwater stump, and just as it's midnight you back up against the stump 

 and jam your hand in and say: 



Barley corn, barley corn, injun meal shorts, 

 Spunkwater, spunkwater, swaller these warts 



and then walk away quick eleven steps, with your eyes shut and then turn around 

 three times and walk home without speaking to any one, because if you speak, 

 the charm's busted. 



The mental habits of the child seem like echoes from the remote 

 past, recalling the life of the cave, the forest and the stream. The in- 

 stinct exhibited in infancy, as well as in boyhood, to climb stairs, ladders, 

 trees, lamp-posts, anything, reminds us of forest life ; the hide-and-seek 

 games which appeal so powerfully even to the youngest children recall 

 the cave life of our ancestors, or at least some mode of existence in which 

 concealment from enemies, whether human or animal, was the condition 

 of survival ; while the instinct of infants to gravitate toward the nearest 

 pond or puddle, the wading, swimming, fishing, boating proclivities of 

 every youngster, seem like a reminiscence of some time when our fathers 

 lived near and by means of the water. 



During a long period in the evolution of life among the higher ani- 

 mals and in the early history of man, the one all-important factor was 

 speed, for upon it depended safety in flight from enemies and capture in 

 pursuit. This ancient trait has persisted and survives to-day in a deep 

 instinctive joy in speed, whether exhibited in running or coasting or 

 skating or in the speed mania which lends such delight to motoring, 

 flying, fast sailing and fast riding. 



Again, the ancient life of pursuit and capture persists upon every 

 playground in the familiar games of tag, blackman, pull-away, and a 

 hundred others. Indeed, for the exhibition of this instinct, no organized 

 game is necessary. Sudden playful pursuit and flight are seen wherever 

 children are assembled. The ancient life of personal combat is mirrored 

 in the plays of children in mimic fighting and wrestling. The passion 

 of every boy for the bow and arrow, sling, sling-shot, gun or anything 

 that will shoot, is merely the persistence of deep-rooted race habits, 

 formed during ages of subsistence by these means. 1 



There was a time when man lived in close relation with and depend- 

 ence upon wild and domestic animals. This period is reflected in many 

 forms in the child's life, in his animal books, his animal toys, his teddy 

 bears, in his numerous animal plays. The former dependence of man 



i Comp. ' ' The Psychology of Football, ' ' by present author, Amer. Jour. 

 Psych., Vol. XIV., pp. 104-117. A few paragraphs from this article have been 

 repeated in the present one. 



