Clubs Based on Imaginative Play
Some of the most successful clubs for boys and girls are those in which every activity is made a part of a play-world, in which the members live during, and, to some extent, between, the sessions of the club. In the Boy Scouts, for example, the lad thinks of himself as a pioneer and enacts through a skillful variety of exercises many of the resourceful habits of the early explorers. The imaginative element is conspicuous also in Mr. Thompson-Seton’s organization, The Wood-Craft Indians. The program of the Camp Fire Girls likewise makes a strong appeal to the imaginative and the play spirit.
In the Order of the Knights of King Arthur the boys pretend that they are members of the ancient Round Table; they bear the names of knights and heroes; they carry their initiates from one rank to another; they engage in quests and tournaments, and the influence upon an individual is distinctly in the direction of absorbing ideals of chivalric manhood. In a sister organization, The Queens of Avalon, the girls think of themselves as the queens who in the King Arthur legend dwelt upon the magic isle of Avalon for the healing of mankind.
In an organization for younger boys, called The Brotherhood of David, lads between eight and twelve regard themselves as future kings, in exile, dwelling, like David, in caves and fields and preparing for sovereignty. The Wolf Cubs—an English organization for pre-adolescent boys—holds before its members the ideal of a pack of wolves.