LITMIR.BIZ

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for the use of different plays and games. To assign such limits would be a wholly artificial procedure, and yet is one toward which there is sometimes too strong a tendency. A certain game cannot be prescribed for a certain age as one would diagnose and prescribe for a malady. Nothing in the life of either child or adult is more elastic than his play interests. Play would not be play were this otherwise. The caprice of mood and circumstance is of the very soul of play in any of its forms.

      The experience of the writer has been chiefly away from dogmatic limitations in the use of games. Very young players and adults alike may find the greatest pleasure and interest in the same game. Previous training or experience, conditions of fatigue, the circumstances of the moment, and many other considerations determine the suitableness of games. To illustrate, the author has known the game of Three Deep, which is one of the best gymnasium games for men, to be played with great interest and ability by a class of six-year-old boys; and the same game stupidly and uninterestedly bungled over by a class of much older boys who had not had previous training in games and were not alert and resourceful. Similarly, the comparatively simple game of Bombardment may be interesting and refreshing for a class of tired business men, while high-school pupils coming to care largely for team play may prefer Battle Ball, a more closely organized game of the same type. In general, boys and girls dislike the mode of play they have just outgrown, but the adult often comes again to find the greatest pleasure in the simpler forms, and this without reaching second childhood.

      Graded course of study on games

      The index of games for elementary and high schools contained in this volume constitutes a graded course based on experimental study of children's interests. This grading of the games for schools is made, not with the slightest belief or intention that the use of a game should be confined to any particular grade or age of pupils, but largely, among other considerations, because it has been found advantageous in a school course to have new material in reserve as pupils progress. The games have usually been listed for the earliest grade in which they have been found, on the average, of sufficient interest to be well played, with the intention that they be used thereafter in any grade where they prove interesting. This school index by grades, which includes most of the games, will be found a general guide for the age at which a given game is suitable under any circumstances.

      Relation of games to school life

      The relation of games to a school programme is many-sided. To sit for a day in a class room observing indications of physical and mental strain and fatigue is to be convinced beyond question that the schoolroom work and conditions induce a tremendous nervous strain, not only through prolonged concentration on academic subjects, but through the abnormal repression of movement and social intercourse that becomes necessary for the maintenance of discipline and proper conditions of study. As a session advances, there is needed a steady increase in the admonitions that restrain neuro-muscular activity as shown in the unnecessary handling of books and pencils and general restlessness; also restraint of a desire to use the voice and communicate in a natural outlet of the social instinct. One is equally impressed with the prolonged continuance of bad postures, in which the chest is narrowed and depressed, the back and shoulders rounded forward, and the lungs, heart, and digestive organs crowded upon one another in a way that impedes their proper functioning and induces passive congestion. In short, the nervous strain for both pupil and teacher, the need for vigorous stimulation of respiration and circulation, for an outlet for the repressed social and emotional nature, for the correction of posture, and for a change from abstract academic interests, are all largely indicated. Nothing can correct the posture but formal gymnastic work selected and taught for that purpose; but the other conditions may be largely and quickly relieved through the use of games. Even five minutes in the class room will do this—five minutes of lively competition, of laughter, and of absorbing involuntary interest. The more physical activity there is in this the better, and fifteen minutes of even freer activity in the fresh air of the playground is more than fifteen times better.

      The typical school recess is a sad apology for such complete refreshment of body and mind. A few pupils take the center of the field of play, while the large majority, most of whom are in greater need of the exercise, stand or walk slowly around the edges, talking over the teacher and the lesson. An organized recess, by which is meant a programme whereby only enough classes go to the playground at one time to give opportunity for all of the pupils to run and play at once, does away with these objections, if some little guidance or leadership be given the children for lively games. The best discipline the writer has ever seen, in either class room or playground, has been where games are used, the privilege of play being the strongest possible incentive to instant obedience before and after. Besides, with such a natural outlet for repressed instincts, their ebullition at the wrong time is not so apt to occur. Many principals object to recesses because of the moral contamination for which those periods are often responsible. The author has had repeated and convincing testimony of the efficacy of games to do away with this objection. The game becomes the one absorbing interest of recess, and everything else gives way before it. Dr. Kratz, Superintendent of Schools in Sioux City, Iowa, was one of the first school superintendents in the country to go on record for this benefit from games, and much fuller experience has accumulated since.

      Sociological and economic significance of games

      The growth of large cities has been so comparatively recent that we are only beginning to realize the limitations they put upon normal life in many ways and the need for special effort to counterbalance these limitations. The lack of opportunity for natural play for children and young people is one of the saddest and most harmful in its effects upon growth of body and character. The number of children who have only the crowded city streets to play in is enormous, and any one visiting the public schools in the early fall days may readily detect by the white faces those who have had no other opportunity to benefit by the summer's fresh air and sunshine. The movement to provide public playgrounds for children and more park space for all classes in our cities is one connected vitally with the health, strength, and endurance of the population. The crusade against tuberculosis has no stronger ally. Indeed, vital resistance to disease in any form must be increased by such opportunities for fresh air, sunshine, and exercise. This whole question of the building up of a strong physique is an economic one, bearing directly on the industrial power of the individual, and upon community expenditures for hospitals and other institutions for the care of the dependent and disabled classes.

      The crippling of moral power is found to be fully as much involved with these conditions as is the weakening of physical power. Police departments have repeatedly reported that the opening of playgrounds has resulted in decrease of the number of arrests and cases of juvenile crime in their vicinity; also decrease of adult disturbances resulting from misdeeds of the children. They afford a natural and normal outlet for energies that otherwise go astray in destruction of property, altercations, and depredations of many sorts, so that the cost of a playground is largely offset by the decreased cost for detection and prosecution of crime, reformatories, and related agencies.

      Children of the rich

      It would be a mistake to think that the children of the poor are the only ones who need the physical and moral benefit of normal childish play. One is forced to the conclusion that many children of the rich are even more to be pitied, for the shackles of conventionality enslave them from the outset. Many are blasé with opera and picture exhibits—typical forms of pleasure for the adult of advanced culture—without ever having had the free laughter and frolic of childhood. That part of the growing-up process most essential for character is literally expunged from life for them. One need spend but an hour in a city park to see that many children are restrained from the slightest running or frolic because it would soil their clothes or be otherwise "undesirable." The author recalls a private school for girls in which laughter was checked at recess because it was "unlady-like."

      Teachers of games

      In contrast to this barbarous repression are some delightful instances of provision for normal childish play and exercise for such children. In one of our large Eastern cities a teacher was employed for several seasons to play games with a group of children on a suburban lawn to which all repaired twice a week. This was genuine play, full of exercise and sport and laughter. In another Eastern city a teacher was similarly employed

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