THE PLAY ATTITUDE 475 



of the whole plaj so firmly in his mind as to enable them to hold it, and to par- 

 ticipate in his single-minded determination to see it carried out. You have inti- 

 mate experience of the ways in which individual members contribute to the team 

 and of how the team, in turn, builds up their spiritual nature. . . . 



It is one thing to be able to feel the swing and unity of a company marching 

 or wheeling on a level floor; it is a very different thing to retain your sense of 

 organization when there is a tangle of bushes or a stone wall between you and 

 the next man on your right. . . . The triumph of the trained imagination in 

 still holding its sense of organization under such circumstances is a notable one; 

 especially when, as in the most successful teams, the player 's grasp of the whole 

 movement is of so masterly and flexible a nature as to be adequate not merely 

 to carrying out a prearranged man(Euvre in a rigid and unadaptable form, but to 

 sharing with the other members of the team in the intuitive perception of such 

 modifications as may be required by instant and unforeseen emergency. 



And the team is not only an extension of the player's consciousness; it is a 

 part of his personality. His participation has deepened from cooperation to 

 membership. Not only is he now a part of the team, but the team is a part 

 of him.3 



But the social consciousness of the gang and -the team has the defects 

 of its virtues. Intelligence and adaptability may be stimulated when 

 boys of widely differing social strata and races meet on a common foot- 

 ing and learn a meaning of equality which is not incompatible with 

 assertion of individual abilities. Nevertheless, the closeness of contact 

 and the powerful emotional appeal may induce a nan-ow corporate 

 egotism sustained by uncritical custom and the hardening process 

 which attends all institutions. Neighborhood and school may become 

 demoralized by in-grown associations which resist all attempts to 

 harmonize the ends of the small groups with the rights of the com- 

 munity. To preserve the legitimate function of primary groups and 

 at the same time to connect them with the legitimate activities of insti- 

 tutions possessing wider outlooks is a problem confronting secondary 

 schools and colleges. If the process of carrying over the attitudes built 

 up in family and playground, of modifying and redirecting spontane- 

 ous impulses, is not done in the school, there is little guarantee that 

 corporate loyalty, so valuable in itself, shall enter into the larger 

 loyalties to the city and the nation. 



The general difficulty, therefore, which the school has to meet is to 

 utilize the socializing forces which seek expression in gangs, clubs and 

 fraternities, and to eliminate harmful secrecy and clannishness. The 

 question of fraternities in secondary schools (to which the present dis- 

 cussion is confined) is important because the fraternity is a type of 

 relatively advanced associations arising when a degree of intelligence 

 and ability to discriminate has appeared, when groups are not merely 

 taken for granted, as they were in the period of childhood. Play in 



3 Joseph Lee, ' ' Play as a School of the Citizen, Charities and the Commons, ' ' 

 August 3, 1907, pp. 489-490. 



