8 04 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ters tliat have to do with the simpler occupations of preceding gen- 

 erations. 



How important, then, is playl I attach to it great importance, 

 for in order to live out the fullest life it is necessary that the indi- 

 vidual go through the life of the race; without play it is not possible 

 to achieve full-orbed manhood and womanhood. It is an interesting 

 fact — of which, however, I do not know any scholarly investigation 

 having been made — that the plays of the children of any given race 

 are related to the complexity of the life of the race — that the children 

 in highly civilized races have a far higher play life than do those of 

 savage life. The plays in civilized lands certainly last during a 

 greater number of years; there is more to rehearse than there is in 

 the savage life. Not only is the period of infancy prolonged in civil- 

 ized life, but we have already crowded back into comparative youth 

 those plays that do not come to savage children till later. 



Adults who never played as children are woefully handicapped 

 in many directions — handicapped by the inability not only for recrea- 

 tion, but for many of the psychical activities that enrich life. My 

 own father played but little as a boy. During later life he tried to 

 play, but it was work. It was pathetic to see him try to play lawn 

 tennis. It was easier and more agreeable for him to study Sanscrit 

 than to bat a ball over a net. His hands were never trained to all 

 the nice adjustments involved in the use of tools. He never under- 

 stood mechanical things, and this I believe was somewhat related 

 at least to his not having, from the years of seven to twelve, the kind 

 of plays that I have spoken of as belonging to this period. 



Play during childhood and adolescence represents the form of 

 activity that alone can secure a whole-souled later life. Play is spon- 

 taneous, whole-hearted, from inner not from outer causes. It is the 

 poetic or creative in the individual at work. Duty can never secure 

 the same work that play can from a child. This spirit is the true 

 spirit for life. So long as one is driven by outside forces, by the 

 consciousness of duty, the whole self is not engaged. But when 

 one's work is done in the play spirit, with the enthusiasm and delight 

 of the plays of childhood, then we have the fullest development of and 

 product from the adult. The capacity for this appears to be related to 

 the play life of childhood and youth. To love one's work better than 

 any other occupation, to go into it with all the play spirit, is indeed to 

 be a poet in one's own line. What relation do the facts of which we 

 have been speaking bear to the physical education of children ? 



The development of the brain may be assisted and helped much 

 by such manual training as is now being done in some public schools. 

 Quick sense perceptions and rapid co-ordinations demand plays and 

 games and lAaces for them. The child is going through the out-of- 



