596 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



shouting, gesticulating and throwing their hats into the air, because be- 

 fore them is enacted again the ancient, familiar scene. 



Success in modern life does not depend upon swiftness of foot or 

 swiftness of horse, yet our sports take the form of foot races and horse 

 races. There was a time when swiftness of foot and swiftness of horse 

 were vital. So in our sports these old scenes are reenacted. Few of us 

 can read a vivid account of a horse race or chariot race without profound 

 emotional disturbance, out of all proportion to the actual significance of 

 these things in the life of to-day. In fact they have no significance what- 

 ever now. They belong to the past. So it is of hurdle jumping, ham- 

 mer throwing, shot putting, trapeze performing, and all the events of 

 the circus ring, the athletic track, the stadium or arena. They reenact 

 ancient scenes and old forms of racial activity. The boy swinging on a 

 trapeze or hanging by his toes from the limb of a tree is not practising 

 the things he will have to do in later life, and this activity is of no value 

 to him as "a practise and preparation for life," except so far as any 

 physical activity contributes to his bodily development. A boy must be 

 active, and activity is essential to his development, but the form of his 

 activity is to a great extent determined anthropologically and his delight 

 in it is directly proportional not to its future usefulness, but to its his- 

 toric truthfulness. 



The sports of the ancient Romans illustrate, just as ours do, this 

 character of play. There is authority for the statement that 385,000 

 spectators were present in the Circus Maximus at one time. 8 The spec- 

 tacle that fascinated them was the age-old spectacle of man fighting with 

 man in deadly combat, and man with beast, and beast with beast. 



Such, then, are some of the facts illustrating the curious resemblance 

 between the habits and pursuits of early man, on the one hand, and the 

 plays of children and the sports of men, on the other. Is it possible to 

 explain this resemblance and arrive at a satisfactory theory of play ? An 

 attempt has been made to show a kind of parallelism between the mental 

 development of the child and the historical development of man and to 

 include this parallelism under the so-called biological law of recapitula- 

 tion. But this theory, sometimes called the recapitulation theory, en- 

 counters no less difficulties than the Spencer theory or the Groos theory. 

 Even if the law of recapitulation were generally accepted by biologists, 

 it would not explain the plays of children to refer them to it. There 

 would still be only a resemblance — or at the most a parallelism. But 

 more serious difficulties arise. This theory makes no attempt to explain 

 the sports of adults and it is becoming increasingly evident that the 

 plays of children and of men are to be explained on the same principle. 



3 Some manuscripts of the Notitia give the number as 485,000. Some mod- 

 ern critics believe that the actual seating capacity of the Circus was only 

 about 200,000 at its greatest enlargement. Great crowds, however, witnessed the 

 events from the surrounding hills and houses. 



