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GAMES

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GAMES

Games. Modern psychologists have come to regard play as one of the most important activities. The Puritanic notion that the play-spirit is something to be crushed out and even the ordinary view that games may be tolerated only when not positively injurious to body or morals and when kept within proper limits of time and expense have given place to the belief that here we find an indispensable human occupation. Play is by many regarded as synonymous with rest or recreation, and as quite as important as sleep to relieve the fatigue caused by close application to one task. This view doubtless is correct, and it constitutes an important guide to practice.

A second theory is that advanced by the poet, Schiller, and the philosopher, Herbert Spencer. According to them, play is an activity by which the surplus energy of the body is dissipated. We play because we have energy that must be used, and if work does not consume it, play is inevitable. This theory also is part of the truth about play. It does not, however, account for the fact that children play when they are tired or sick.

A third theory, that of the German philosopher, Professor Gross, seems the most complete and significant of all. According to it, play is simply the manifestation of instinctive activities on occasions when something stimulates them, although, owing to the immaturity of the players or the character of the situations, no serious immediate result is possible or desirable. This theory accounts for the form of animal play, for it is that of the instincts of the species. The puppy plays at fighting, at pursuing its prey or fleeing from its enemies. The kid leaps as if on a mountain-side, and the colt flees as from a pursuer and kicks. The practice that the animal gets through these activities matures and perfects its instincts. Play, therefore, is its method of development, its education.

With human beings it is not quite so evident that play is the manifestation of instincts. For the instincts of the child, although ^very numerous, also are very imperfect, i. e., they require much training and experience in order to be developed to efficiency. Hence, before they are cultivated, they apparently are so useless that one would hardly recognize them as instincts at all. The hereditary element in the child's activity is very early modified by imitation and other forms of external control. Nevertheless, it is of the utmost importance, for without the instinctive tendencies there could be no development*. They, in fact, constitute the powers or capacities of the child, and they reveal those interests (q.v.) in the

direction of which all learning must proceed. During the first four or five years of a child's life the larger part of its learning comes through its play. Very early this takes the form of games largely adopted from other children, but each excellent, in that it affords a fine opportunity for the utilization and control of the instincts: fear, anger, sociability, shyness, affection, jealousy and envy, rivalry, sympathy, construct!veness, secretiveness, acquisitiveness, fondness for organization and government, for rhythm and beauty and for expression.

The play of children begins with mere impulsive activity; wiggling, grasping and handling, things, throwing them about, climbing, running etc. Through this the child gains control of its body and becomes familiar with the simpler properties of common things. This knowledge and power are enlarged by the destructive and constructive sport that begins to interest children after the first year. Later, control is perfected under the influence of rivalry, when the play activity takes the form of the performance of physical or, perhaps, mental feats. In all these sports, with the possible exception of the last, the child does not need the active co-operation of others. The games in which such co-operation is necessary are especially numerous and important in the development of the child. Springing from fellowship in any pleasant activity like running, throwing balls or peek-a-boo, they expand into games involving organization or rhythm or both. Here we find the ring-games, the forms of which number hundreds, perhaps thousands. They usually make use of rhythmical movement and often verse or song. With very young children their interest is almost entirely that of activity, novelty, rhythm, harmony and social intercourse. Later, they involve some competition, especially in the form of seeking the favor of other children or older persons. With children of ten these simpler interests have developed into the fiercer joys of intense rivalry. The games become contests, where individuals or sides struggle for supremacy in strength, speed, skill or cunning. Of these the most important and elaborate are the various kinds of ball.

With man the social training afforded by the game may be said to overshadow that in bodily control and in knowledge. Through this activity the child learns the fine art of getting on with his fellows, how to co-operate, how to influence, how to lead, when to submit, when to seek help, when to resist, when to command, manners, customs, morals. In a word, the game socializes the child, and, since it is through social co-operation that man lives, this activity is a fundamentally im-