TEE PLAY ATTITUDE 473 



turity and plasticity in the young of the higher animals. To master 

 the details of a changing environment in the more serious after-life, 

 a vast number of physical and mental coordinations must be learned. 

 This experimental balancing of impulses is play. (3) In following out 

 the special motives which may be found to underly play — to be a cause, 

 the desire to create, to dramatize, to "show off" — nature urges the 

 youth into groups, and by means of the give and take of association 

 stimulates sentiment, imagination, leadership and that expansion of 

 self which comes from the consciousness of participating in a group 

 of which each member is a contributing factor and the rules of which 

 the member obeys because he has helped to make them. 



It is needless to contend that the puritanical aversion to play, 

 remnants of which are still extant, is evidence of an antiquated psy- 

 chology and a partial interpretation of morality and education. One 

 of the encouraging indications of recent years is the general willing- 

 ness to examine the phenomena of childhood and adolescence in a scien- 

 tific manner without the bias of a total-depravity doctrine or the 

 opposite dogma of the unconditional goodness of natural impulses. The 

 real problem is now seen to be that of knowing the facts and of 

 directing the raw material of youthful activities in a wholesome way. 

 A resultant of the changed attitude is a keener perception of the claims 

 of childhood outside the conventional fields of kindergarten and school — 

 in the street, in the department store, in the factory, and in the scores 

 of juvenile employments which are annually entered by children leav- 

 ing the elementary schools. By following the lead of Groos and other 

 writers we can appreciate the implications of the forces which urge 

 boys and girls to play house, soldier and conductor, to build " shacks," 

 or to guard the grocery-comer for the exclusive nightly meetings of 

 "the bunch." If the suggestion of the evolutionists is valid, that the 

 baseball is a rounded missile whose progenitor was the more deadly 

 arrow or spear, we can understand the popularity of the national sport. 

 We can realize the possibilities which are implicit in the rivalries and 

 emulations between gangs from different neighborhoods; and why, if 

 there are no provisions for the safe overflow of the play impulses in a 

 city made for adults and manufacture, trade, and other solemn "busi- 

 ness," the legitimate desires of youth will turn to the harmful practises 

 of outwitting the policeman, collecting stolen goods, or imitating the 

 exciting career of the outlaw. 



A second consequence of the investigation of play from the genetic 

 standpoint is a keen awakening to the necessity of channeling the ima- 

 ginative, enthusiastic energies of youth by organizing clubs, scouts and 

 playgrounds under municipal supervision. The capital invested in 

 social centers and playgrounds is the objective testimony to a new direc- 

 tion of public conscience and will. An expression of the public judg- 



