358 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



Objectively, of course, we look upon the activities of these early 

 stages of growth as preparatory. To call it a world of pretence is to 

 apply a misnomer and to judge poorly of the value of play. Adults 

 are subject to selection, so also are these preliminary stages, but it 

 ought to be called a propaedeutical selection, one by the way not yet 

 recognized by biologists, psychologists or sociologists.^'^ 



Miss McCracken,^^) in speaking of the poverty-stricken girls of 

 the working classes of a certain city, says very aptly : 



"In the first place they have gone to the theatre, and they go to 

 the theatre to see the play ; not the players, nor to see how they 

 play the play, nor why they possibly play it thus, nor why they do 

 not play it in some other way ('in any conceivable other way,' as I 

 overheard a critic murmur at a recent Shakespearean revival), nor 

 what the author of the play meant, nor what he did not mean, nor 

 what he should have meant. They may see all these things ; they 

 frequently do see several of them ; but they go to the theatre to see 

 the play. It is interesting to remember that in Shakespeare's time 

 the entire audience went to see the play." 



Moreover, the only true criterion of play is the performance of 

 an activity with ease and mastery and with the spirit of pleasure. 

 All else is work or indifferently work or play. If this thesis is 

 granted,^'^ then play must not be confined to what we may call tra- 

 ditional forms of play, but must be extended even to adult occupa- 

 tions when performed with the spirit of pleasure and with ease and 

 mastery. For these reasons laughter may be classed as a form of 



play- 

 One more point only in this discussion. H. M. Stanley^*^ and 



SuUy^""^^ suggest that teasing may well be taken as the starting point 



(') A further discussion of this topic will appear shortly under the title of 'Propsedeutical 

 Selection.' See also the writer's article on 'Play' in the University of Colorado Studies, 

 Vol. 1. No. 1, and Mr. H. A. Carr's paper on 'The Survival Values of Play' in the 

 Investigations of the Department of Psychology and Education of the University of Colo, 

 rado. Vol. I, No. 2. 



(2) Elizabeth McCracken. 'The Play and the Gallery.' Atlantic Monthly, April. 1902. 



(3) See articles quoted above. 



(*) H. M. Stanley, discussion of paper by Hall and Allin on 'Tickling:, Laughter and the 



Comic, etc.,' P-vychological Review, 1899, p. 87. 

 (5) Sully, p. 84. 



