^oo Rl-ral School Leaflet. 



schools, (c) Sunday schools, (d) other social organizations, public and 

 private, suitable for Sundays as well as for week days, adjusted to the 

 season of the year, and adapted to the needs of (i) very little children, 

 (2) children from eight to thirteen, (3) boys and girls in the adolescent 

 period, (4) adults; sex as well as age being taken into account when 

 necessar>^ The word play thus broadened brings us into the realm of 

 kindergartens, manual training departments, vacation schools, summer 

 camps, boys' clubs, girls' clubs, nature-study clubs, camera clubs, 

 collection clubs: it has to do with swimming, fishing, boating, skating, 

 skeeing, and snow-shoeing; also with all forms of athletics; with the use 

 of tools and implements, with the use of clay, plasticine, paper pulp, 

 and putty for modehng; with the use of tops and marbles, bean bags, 

 balls and kites, stilts, toys, soap bubbles, cards, dissected maps, scrap 

 books, and the myriad other amusement materials, plays, and games 

 which are the heritage of the human race, and without sharing in which 

 no child can grow to complete manhood or womanhood, and no adult 

 can live a cheerful, joyous, well-rounded out life. A fine course of 

 study can be formed out of the play occupations given above, a course 

 that would train mind as well as body, and that would give the best kind 

 of preparation for life's serious duties. It must be remembered that 

 learning to play well teaches us how to work well. 



HOW TO BECOME BETTER INFORMED 



If anyone wishes to inform himself more fully about these things, 

 let him buy Johnson's Education by Plays and Games, Ginn & Company, 

 New York, $.80. This is one of the best books on this subject and contains 

 what President G. Stanley Hall speaks of as a "Course of plays and 

 games graded by age from infancy, to middle teens, and also analyzed 

 so as to show the chief mental and physical activities involved in and 

 developed by each of them." This book also contains a good bibliography. 

 Other books will be mentioned later in this series of articles. 



FUTURE ARTICLES IN THIS SERIES 



In future articles we hope to speak of the country playground and its 

 equipment, of the necessity of being able to construct one's own appara- 

 tus, of the importance of play as a means of developing ability to co- 

 operate, very nuich needed by boys and girls; of the value of play 

 as a socializing factor in the country; i.e. as promoting contentment 

 and richer community spirit, of begetting love for the country which 

 will tend to make country life as fascinating and attractive as city life, 



