SCHOOL PLAYGROUNDS. 179 



parents expect the school to take charge of their children, and are 

 often much dissatisfied to have them thrown back upon their own 

 hands on rainy days. 



How has it come about that the playground and school recess 

 have been so generally given up? Is it altogether on account of 

 appearances? Teachers plead that the children ought to be pre- 

 served from association with objectionable playmates. This may do 

 for the touch-me-not, only child, but in American society it is never 

 a strong plea. That small fraction which seeks to educate its chil- 

 dren as a class can do so in a few schools limited to church, plutoc- 

 racy, Quakerism, or some such narrow basis. But the schools of a 

 free State are, above everything, founded on the essential equality of 

 individuals in the State, and the possibility of every one to rise to a 

 successful and honorable manhood. If there is one conviction above 

 another strengthened by experience, it is that, in their choice of 

 companions and susceptibility to influence, children are governed by 

 their innate qualities, and these qualities are fixed by heredity and 

 home influences long before the school age. In so large a com- 

 munity as a public school there is companionship for all, for it cer- 

 tainly represents the town itself. Let no one be afraid of the demo- 

 cratic instincts of childhood. 



I believe the playground is abolished because it interferes with 

 that deadly order and craze for supervision which is sought for as 

 the prime condition both inside and outside the schools. Order 

 of a wholesome sort is not inconsistent with the free recess of a big 

 school. I watched in Los Angeles a great school as it was mar- 

 shaled out to play and back again at the sound of a drum. After 

 a quarter of an hour of unrestrained sport, several hundreds were 

 gathered in lines at the tap of the drum, facing the cheerful school- 

 house in the mild bright sun, their faces radiating contentment and 

 good will while they straightened up at the mere hint of the teachers 

 on duty. In San Francisco I once found a certain primary school 

 keeping doll's day, when every girl brought her doll to school and 

 exhibited her at recess. The school yard was a barren inclosure 

 within a high board fence, but a joyful place to that young company. 

 To what purpose are teachers urged to study psychology? The chil- 

 dren in their seats are emptied of everything that pertains to their 

 souls. Not to study, because the teacher will explain everything, 

 and to behave just well enough to get safe out of school, is the 

 simple code which covers the conduct of average children. To ex- 

 tend this code to ideas of social duty — the highest — is not possible 

 while they do not form a society. Cultivation of friendship is just 

 as much out of the case; awakening of ideals, an impossibility. 

 But thrown together half an hour or more each day, the dead ma- 



