Page:John Dewey's Interest and Effort in Education (1913).djvu/87

 action is so scanty and so accidental, however, that much energy remains unutilized and hence ready to break forth in mischief or worse; while mind takes flights of uncontrolled fancy, day-dreaming and wandering to all sorts of subjects.

The next great advance in the development of a more real, less arbitrary conception of activity, came with Froebel and the kindergarten movement. Plays, games, occupations of a consecutive sort, requiring both construction and manipulation, were recognized, practically for the first time since Plato, as of essential educational importance. The place of the exercise of bodily functions in the growth of mind was practically acknowledged. But the use of the principle was still hampered and distorted by a false physiology and psychology. The direct contribution to growth made by the free and full control of bodily organs, of physical materials and appliances in the realization of purposes, was not understood. Hence the value of the physical side of play, games, occupations, the use of gifts, etc., was explained by recourse to indirect consideration—by symbolism. It was supposed that the