THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 

 MONTHLY. 



SEPTEMBER, 1894. 



STUDIES OF CHILDHOOD. 



II. THE IMAGINATIVE SIDE OF PLAY. 



BY JAMES SULLY, M. A., LL. D., 



GEOTE PKOFESSOR OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND AND LOGIC AT THE TINTVKKSITY COLLEGE, 



LONDON. 



/"CHILDREN'S play has been studied under different aspects. 

 ^-S One of the most attractive of these is its imaginativeness. 

 All play is to some extent fanciful that is, inspired and vitalized 

 by fantasy; and the element of fancifulness is especially rich 

 and varied in the pastimes of the small people of the nursery. 



Viewed on this side, child play may be described as the work- 

 ing out into actual visible shape of an inner fancy. In many 

 cases, no doubt, the actual surroundings may supply the starting 

 point; the child, for example, sees the sand, the shingle, and 

 shells, and says, Let us play keeping a shop. Yet this suggestion 

 by something present is accidental. The root impulse of play is 

 to realize a bright, pretty idea ; hence its close kinship with art as 

 a whole. This image is the dominating force ; it is for the time 

 a veritable idee fixe, and everything has to accommodate itself to 

 this. Since the image has to be acted out, it comes into collision 

 with the actual surroundings. Here is the child's opportunity. 

 The carpet is instantly mapped out into two hostile territories ; 

 the sofa-head becomes a horse, a coach, a ship, or what not, to suit 

 the exigency of the play. 



This stronger movement and wider range of childish imagina- 

 tion in play is explained by the characteristics and fundamental 

 impulse of play the desire to be something, to act a part. The 

 child adventurer, as he personates Robinson Crusoe or other hero, 

 steps out of his every-day self and so out of his every-day world. 



VOL. XLV. 44 



