CHAPTER IV

PLAY AS A FACTOR IN THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN

T HAS been said by those who are in a position to

IT

know, that the child learns more during his first six years than during all the rest of his life. If this be true-and we have every reason to believe that it is not far from the truth-there must be some condition during these early years especially conducive to educational growth. Those who have made a study of conditions believe that the growth of the child during this period is due to his being brought into direct contact with things in his play. This same growth does not continue after the child starts to school, because he is taken away from things and made to study books. The reason why the little child is so interested in his school work for the first few years of his school life is because the study of books is novel to him and brings into use his play ideas. However, by the end of the third year, he has become so dominated by the book idea and the dull routine of the school that he loses interest in his work, which from that time on becomes mere drudgery to him.

During these early years the child not only gains an accurate knowledge of his environment, but he gains control of his body and mind and acquires accuracy and precision in his movements. He learns to judge distances of sights and sounds, and lays the foundation for all future intellectual and moral growth. The child's development during these years gives us some conception of the importance of play in his education.

ORIGIN OF PLAY

But why does the child like to play and why is play so important in his education? Why will not the study of books, or what we call regular school work, bring about the same development? Why does the boy delight in striking a ball with a bat and then in running with all his might around a baseball diamond? What does he gain by it and why will he endure hardship and privations in order that he may do it more perfectly? You hear grown people say that if boys and girls would take the same interest in their work that they do in their play, it would be much better for them. This is because grown people do not understand. They have passed the play age and they cannot understand what play means to the child.

There have been several attempts to explain the play instincts of children. The first of these is the surplusenergy theory advanced by Herbert Spencer. He held that the nerve cells accumulate energy until they overflow and that this overflow energy results in play. This theory does not, however, explain why the child plays just what he does. Why does n't he expend his energy in work rather than in play? Why does he want to fight, hunt, fish, chase, play in the sand, make things, etc.? There is no denying that the child sometimes has a surplus of energy and that he expends at least a part of it in his play; but what about the child who plays to exhaustion long after all surplus energy is gone? As Joseph Lee says, "boys play on account of surplus energy in the same way that Raphael painted the Sistine Madonna because of surplus paint."

Dr. Groos, a German scholar, held that play is an instinct that serves the purpose of education. The child does not play because he is young, but he is young in

order that he may play, and in this play he prepares himself for life's activities. This is the theory of play that is held by almost all students of the subject. It was supplemented, however, by Dr. Hall of Clark University, one of the greatest authorities on the subject in America, who held that play is a remnant of the early activities of the race. The instincts of the child are a result of what the race did for thousands and thousands

of years.

While history gives us an account of the race for only about five thousand years, scholars believe that man has been living on the earth for more than one million years. To accept this theory does no violence to the biblical account of the creation, and it is the only means of explaining the physical, mental, and moral constitution of the race. Geologists have demonstrated beyond any doubt that man has lived upon the earth for many thousands of years. We have an account of him for a little more than five thousand years; when we first get a glimpse of him he is just emerging from barbarism, and we know that he lived for many thousand years in a state of savagery. If it be true that man has been on the earth for a million years, for about 995,000 years he lived in a state of savagery in trees, caves, mountains, protecting himself from his enemies and wild animals by running, chasing, throwing, digging caves, making huts, bows and arrows, stone hammers, bone knives, etc. It was during this period that his reflexes were fixed and he became the creature that he is.

Dr. Holmes says that "man is an omnibus in which all his ancestors ride." We to-day are what we are because our ancestors did what they did in the past. If the conditions of their lives had been different, we to-day should be different from what we are. If they had lived

under different conditions, we should be different physically, mentally, and morally. The boy loves to use a baseball bat because his ancestors, for ages, used clubs in fighting their enemies and wild animals; he likes to jump because his ancestors for ages, in fleeing from wild animals, had to jump over fallen trees, small streams, and other things that were in their way; he likes to fight because his ancestors had to fight for protection against wild beasts. The things that children like to do are the things that their ancestors did for ages until their whole being became adapted to doing those things. Joseph Lee says: "It is as natural for the child to hunt, fish, jump, chase, throw, as it is for the lamb to frolic on the hillside." It is by such activities that man has been made what he is, and it is only by such activities that he can be kept what he is and grow to greater perfection as the creature that he is. There have been many attempts to define play and to differentiate it from work, but all these attempts have been unsuccessful. Play is a remnant of the activities of our ancestors. We call them play, not because they are easy and require no effort, but because we delight in them, and we delight in them because they are in harmony with our nature. It is because play activities are no longer necessary to the protection of life and the acquisition of a livelihood that grown people do not see the seriousness of them. But, in reality, play is even more serious to the child than work is to the man. In it he is building himself up physically, mentally, and morally. It was in what we call play activities that man was made what he is, and it is only by such activities that he will continue to be what he is. When your trusty typewriter gets out of repair and you want to have it adjusted, the place for you to send it is to the factory where it was made.

The makers know best how to adjust its parts and to give it the best possible action. So when we want to adjust the growing child to the conditions around him, the best place to send him is to the factory where he was made, and that factory is his play. This is the important point for us to get here: the serious work of the ancestor has become the play of the child; through that work the ancestor became what he was physically, mentally, and morally.

Indeed, play has so long been misunderstood that the word "play" does not convey to the adult mind the proper conception of the activities of the child. The adult does not regard the child's play as anything serious. In fact, when we want to say that a thing lacks importance, we say that it is "child's play." But we must revise our conceptions along this line. The activities of the child are important; they are serious, and no one can closely observe children in their play without being impressed with this fact. The child is more in earnest in his play than many men are in their regular work. See the boy in the ball game; he is in the center field; a ball is knocked over the second baseman to him. Does he display any lack of seriousness when he gets the ball and in a moment must make up his mind where to put it? Did you ever see men more in earnest than a ball team of small boys lined up against a team of about the same strength? Did you ever see more earnestness than is displayed by the little six-year-old girl playing with her dolls, or the boy of five playing in a sand bed? Seriousness is one of the chief characteristics of the play of children. They enter into it heartily, and this is why it has for them such great educational value.