SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF THE CHILD. 



769 



muscles. The child's impulse to play and its instinctive self-activity 

 is Nature's provision for the proper development of the great and 

 small muscles during early childhood. I do not mean, that nothing 

 should be done with the child up to the age of eight years in the way 

 of education. His education should be through his play activities 

 pure and simple. Let him drink in knowledge from Nature and 

 objects around him through the senses of sight, hearing, and touch, 

 without recourse to books. Pleasant playgrounds with shady groves, 

 where children may gather and play under supervision, form, perhaps, 

 all the educational facilities children up to the age of eight years 

 require. Perhaps organised games could be introduced for the 

 development of the social and moral instincts. Children are naturally 

 selfish, and if they can be taught to subordinate their own interests 

 to that of the group, then their moral nature will be better developed 

 than by going through the complex process of drawing a " moral " 

 from a fairy tale, and applying it to their own conduct. By doing 

 what is right spontaneously in games they may learn to do it under 

 other circumstances, for up to the age of seven or eight morals are 

 imitative rather than of a good conscience. Play, as a matter of fact, 

 is necessary for the child of any age. The adult man himself is only 

 too glad to be able to play. You have seen the delight even old men 

 take in bowls, and generally wdien a man gets rich he buys something 

 to play with, such as a billiard table or a motor car. 



If work can be done with zest and pleasure, it becomes play, and 

 one of the problems of education and life is to break down the 

 distinction between work, as zestless toil, and play, in which it is 

 significantly admitted by business men a man is at his best. Children 

 are very conservative over their games, but I should think it would 

 be worth while for the Education Department to gather information 

 about games — both ancient and modei-n — with a view to inti'oducing 

 them into schools. There are, after all, very few good field games, 

 that are played, and those that are played are dependent often upon 

 too expensive preparation of ground and apparatus. 



After eight years of age a new period begins. Says Hall : " The 

 years from about eight to twelve constitute a unique period in human 

 life. The brain has acquired nearly its adult size and weight, health 

 is almost at its best, activity is greater and more varied than ever 

 before or than it ever will be again, and there is peculiar endurance, 

 vitality, and resistance to fatigue. The child develops a life of its 

 ()^^^l outside the home circle, and its natural instincts are never so 

 independent of adult influence. Perception is very acute, and there 

 is great immunity to exposure, danger, accident, as well as to tempta- 

 tion. Reason, true morality, religion, sympathy, love, and aesthetic 

 enjoyment are but veiy slightl}?- developed." 



Hall suggests that this period of childhood represents some stage 

 in the remote ages wlien the young shifted for themselves, and when 

 this age was the age of maturity. " Memory is quick, the senses 

 alert. Never again will there be such susceptibihty to drill and dis- 

 cipline, such plasticity to habituation, or such ready adjustment to 

 new conditions. Reading, writing, drawing, manual training, foreign ' 

 tongues and their pronunciation have now their golden hour. The 

 method of the teacher should be mechanical, repetitive, authoritative, 



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