FREE PLAY IN PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 813 



FREE PLAY IN PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 



By M. FERNAND LAGRANGE. 



TO all the dangers that threaten the health of the child in 

 existing systems of education, the best and only remedy to 

 oppose is the regular practice of physical exercises. This remedy 

 can, however, be efficacious only provided the exercises are well 

 chosen and applied according to a rational method. Here we meet 

 a serious difficulty in the fact that many persons do not appreci- 

 ate the importance of the choice of a method, and are hostile to 

 changes in the systems already adopted. " It is contended/' once 

 said a university dignitary in our presence, "that our children 

 should take exercise, because hygiene requires it. But what bear- 

 ing has it on their health to make them march this way and that 

 way, play at the bars, or perform in a trapeze ? Select for them 

 the most convenient exercise to apply, and the problem of physical 

 education will be by so much simplified." 



In order that the reader may judge intelligently concerning 

 the controverted question of the choice of a method of physical 

 education, it is indispensable to cast at least a rapid glance upon 

 the different forms of usual exercises, and to compare their tend- 

 encies and spirit. The immense number of bodily exercises, 

 which it is impossible to describe here or even to enumerate in 

 full, may be referred, if we regard their spirit rather than their 

 details, to two methods — the natural and artificial. Exercises in 

 the former method are inspired by instinct, and demand move- 

 ments very similar to those which one would execute spontane- 

 ously if he were left to himself. The method is called play, and 

 constitutes a kind of regulation of acts to which the human being 

 is naturally inclined. The child, for instance, has a natural in- 

 clination to walk, jump, run, and throw whatever he has in his 

 hand, and attention has been turned to give the execution of all 

 these acts a purpose that shall make them interesting. 



The other method of exercise, called gymnastics, proceeds in 

 a different way. It is more scientific and systematic than play. It 

 does not start from the observation of the instinctive tendencies of 

 the human being, but from the study of the conformation of his 

 body. It does not say the child is disposed to walk, jump, and 

 throw stones ; let us therefore give it opportunity to perform all 

 these acts. But the body is divided into so many articulations and 

 contains so many muscles ; let us move each of these joints in turn, 

 bring each of these muscles successively into play, in order that 

 all the constituent parts of the human machine may receive their 

 quota of exercise. Gymnastics proper, basing itself on knowledge 

 of the anatomy of the human body, has devised more or less ingeni- 



