It has frequently been brought as an accusation against Froebel that he makes no clear cut distinction between work and play, and that is true, but who nowadays does? Common sense would probably join hands with the philosopher in saying that the feeling of freedom is the chief distinction of play as opposed to work, and this is the definition quite distinctly given by Froebel. The definition is given in his detailed enumeration of “the various directions of an active life of instruction and education,” and after mentioning religious training, cultivation of the body as the means of expressing mind, the study of Nature, etc., etc., he comes to:
“Play, that is, spontaneous representation and exercise of every kind.”—E., p. 236.
Another definition given in “The First Action of a Child” is:
“Play, which is independent outward expression of what is within.”—P., p. 29.
It is because it is spontaneous that Froebel calls play, during the period of earliest childhood, when the child is gaining control of language, “the highest phase of human development at this stage.”
“Play and speaking form the element in which the child lives at this time.… Play is the highest stage of child-development, of human development at this stage, because it is spontaneous (freithätige) representation of the inner, representation of the inner out of the need and desire of the inner itself. This is implied in the very word Play.”—E., p. 34.
For modern views on play we turn to the exhaustive study made by Karl Groos in his two volumes, “The Play of Animals,” and “The Play of Man.” Here we find the writer taking “the conception of impulse life as a starting-point,” and reaching the conclusion “that among higher animals certain instincts are present which, especially in youth, but also in maturity, produce activity that is without serious intent, and so give rise to the various phenomena which we include in the word ‘play.’” In this play, Groos goes on, “opportunity is given to the animal through the exercise of inborn dispositions, to strengthen and increase his inheritance in the acquisition of adaptations to his complicated environment, an achievement which would be unattainable by mere mechanical instinct alone.” In the treatment of human play he considers “an analogous position is tenable,” but, for the word instinct, with its particular reactions, he must substitute “natural or hereditary impulse.”
We have already seen that though Froebel recognized the existence and importance of human instinct, still he distinguished between it and the “definite and strong instincts” which belong to the animals lower than man. We have seen that he regarded the play of childhood as “spontaneous self-instruction” based on the instincts of investigation and of construction or representation, action being regarded as the principal means of investigating, as well as of gaining control over the surroundings and over the self. We have noticed, too, that Groos feels inclined to assume a universal “impulse to activity,” and points out that Ribot approaches such an assumption, though for himself he can only venture to “hold fast to the fact of the primal need for activity.” Froebel does, as we have seen, attribute to the infant the one instinct of activity, which in one place he calls “the natural longing for some mode of activity inherent in all children,” and this he says becomes differentiated at a later period.
The special place given by Groos to imitation as “the link between instinctive and intelligent conduct” is also noteworthy. For we have seen that Froebel regards imitation in precisely the same light, never calling it an instinct, but saying that it is the outcome of spontaneous activity, and that it leads on to understanding.