160 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN. 



The particular form of exercise "best suited to head workers 

 is a very important matter. Regarded from our point of view, 

 that kind of physical activity will be most efficient which keeps 

 the cerebral motor areas in best repair, and which involves the 

 least dissipation of vital forces. Now, it seems to be a principle 

 of our human nature that what we like to do is in general better 

 for us than the things we hate. Pleasurable activities create less 

 wear and tear 1 than those which are distasteful, an arrangement 

 we should infer from the principles of evolution, even if we had 

 no confirmatory experience with it in our own lives. Disagree- 

 able tasks lie along the lines of greatest resistance for the organ- 

 ism, so a relatively larger amount of energy must be expended in 

 overcoming them; while on the other hand, what is agreeable 

 opens up ways of easy progress, and makes comparatively little 

 demands upon our powers. This doctrine is of vital conse- 

 quence in relation to our phye'eal exercise. Games and plays 

 and gymnastics which are pleasurable will accomplish the pur- 

 pose of recreation better than those which are indifferent or 

 bore-some. A game which will enlist our lively interest will do 

 much more for us than formal drill which we have to coerce 

 ourselves through. In other words, play, in the best sense of 

 the term, whether in the gymnasium or out of doors, constitutes 

 by all odds the most efficient method of exercise ; 2 it usually in- 

 volves the various organs of the body and utilizes highly co-ordi- 

 nated and complex activities, so that all parts of the motor mech- 

 anism of the brain are brought into action. "Man is wholly 

 man only when he plays," Schiller says. On the other hand, 

 formal drill ofttimes makes use of only a few movements and so 

 stimulates but small portions of the cerebral motor areas. 



Again, so far as possible the will should be released in physi- 

 cal exercise. This is accomplished more largely in play than 

 in drill which one dislikes ; things which we hate we have to will 



J cf. Johnson : Education in plays and games; Ped. Sem., Vol. 3, pp. 98 and 99. 



2 From the earliest times men have appreciated the transcendent value of play 

 in the development of childhood and youth. See, for instance, Plato, Laics, I, 

 643 and Rep. VII, 537 ; Aristotle, Bk. VII, 17 ; Froebel, Education of Man, § 30 ; 

 Locke in Quick*s Locke on Education, p. 55, 76. 



