PLAY 



Arthur Allin 



The phenomena of play are closely connected with the law of 

 increase of plastic endowment,' inasmuch as the latter implies a long 

 period of preparation for the social activities of adult society. It is 

 these adult social activities which set the goal and prescribe the 

 ideals to be attained during the period of youth. Play, as an activity 

 of youth, is an initiation into society. Habits are formed which 

 later may be switched off and attached to other objects and aims 

 needful in the social life of the adult. The house being built may 

 for a time be occupied by the masons and carpenters, but these 

 strange guest-builders soon give place to those tenants for whom the 

 house was originally intended. Throughout all play runs the great 

 principle of vicarious stimuli. The colored plaything of the child, 

 the coveted banner of the college rush, the prize of the physical con- 

 test, the victorious score of the billiard player call forth certain 

 activities and habits of reaction which later may be attached to the 

 so-called serious ideals or stimuli of the more earnest storm and 

 stress of life. The stimuli of play are, from the sociological stand- 

 point, comparatively insignificant ; the reactions which are building 

 the structure for adult use are vastly the more important part of the 

 function. Play is the propaedeutics of the social life and the social 

 is its only justification. 



'Piske, Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy. Vol. 2, pp. 342-369. 

 Butler, N. M., Anaximander on the Proloneration of Infancy in Man, Classical Studies in 



Honor of H. Drisler, N. Y., 1894, pp. 8-10. 

 Hammarberff, Studien ueber die Idiotic, Upsala, 1895. 

 Donaldson, Growth of the Brain, pp. 74 ff ; pp. 238 ff ; pp. 240 ff. 

 Sutherland, Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct, 2 vols. 1898. 

 Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, London, 1892, p. 378. 

 Chamberlain. The Child: A Study in Evolution, 1900, pp. 1-27. 

 Barker, The Nervous System. 1899, pp. 1078 ff. 



Vigrnal, Developpment des 616ments du systfeine nerveux c6r6bro-spinal, Paris, 1889. 

 Kaes, Archiv fur Psychiatric, XXV, 1893. pp. 695-758. 

 Flechsigr, Leitungrsbahnen im Gehirn und Rucckenmark, Leipzig:, 18 



