[CHAPTER XVI
THE PLAY INSTINCT IN CHILDREN]
Italy's greatest recent patriot is Cesare Battisti, who suffered martyrdom for love of his native land. He was an Austrian subject, professor of biology and geography in the University of Trent and a deputy in the Austrian House of Parliament. In the beginning of the war he returned to Italy to fight against the country of his adoption and to favor the fortunes of his native land, and his efforts were crowned with great success. He entered the Italian Army as a lieutenant of the Alpini, and in 1916 fell into the hands of the Austrians, who quickly and cruelly despatched him by the most barbarous methods that they could conceive. Streets and piazzas have been named for him, hospitals and monuments have been raised in his honor, and his name is known to every man, woman, and child in the kingdom.
But it is not of Battisti that I would write, but to record a train of thought that was initiated by the sight of the orphans who were occupying the building which Italy's most distinguished physician, Ettore Marchiafava, aided by generous friends of the sick poor, has taken over for a tuberculosis hospital, and which will be called after Cesare Battisti. There were about two hundred girls, ranging in age from six to fourteen, in the charge of an order of nuns. The building is situated on a hill in the outskirts of Rome known as Monte Verde, which is the southern continuation of the Janiculum. In former days it was a palatial villa belonging to some dignitary of the church and latterly church property. It commands a magnificent view of Rome, of the Tiber, of the Campagna, the Castelli Romani, and the Alban Hills. When I arrived the children were in the grounds about the house and more or less segregated in a broad walk or alley lined by trees which led from the street to the villa. They were walking up and down in twos or threes or singly, apparently without other objective or display of desire than to walk. They looked like children of many nationalities, healthy and clean; but, more than that, they looked happy, contented, satisfied. As I passed amongst them, nearly every one greeted me with a smile and "Buon giorno." There was no show of embarrassment, shyness, bashfulness, or artificiality.
I looked over the grounds of the place, several acres, and saw not the slightest sign of games, swings, playgrounds, sand-piles, or other feature with which children divert themselves or are diverted in other lands. I went through the house from cellar to garret, and rarely have I seen an inhabited building with fewer signs of habitation. The dormitories contained long rows of beds with no sign of tables, chairs, stands, comfort-bags—nothing save the beds. The refectory was equally barren. The schoolroom was desolation itself—benches, long desks, and a solitary blackboard. The only indication that anything was taught save that which could be imparted by word of mouth was a typewriting machine. Examine as carefully as I might, I wasn't able to detect the smallest object for the diversion, entertainment, distraction, occupation of the little ones that the place was utilized to harbor, to nurture, to develop, and to instruct. When I returned to terra firma, there they were, walking up and down the alley as they were when I went in. A gentle-eyed sister was among the groups of the smaller ones, but they seemed not to need care. They were self-sufficient.
For the first time I felt the sensation of oppression in the presence of a crowd of joyous children. I felt they were in a prison-house narrower and more restricting than that which closes in upon the budding man, and I went away without thought of Cesare Battisti, but big with solicitude for these lusty young beings whose best and most potential quality, the play instinct, was being stultified, or at least not cultivated.
I marvelled that the country which made the most constructive contribution to child pedagogy of the nineteenth century fails to see or to realize that the most potent, directly God-sent possession of a child is its imagery or fancy, which externalizes itself in every child in the desire to play—to play parent, construction, warfare, games, or ape the activities of their elders. The explanation cannot be that Italy is ignorant of the cultivation of the child's instinct for play in other countries or of the immense provision that is made to enhance it both in public and in private life. I can readily understand that there might be wilful opposition to it in church institutions, as its elaborate display is considered inimical to that humility which is the essence of the Christian religion. Punish the flesh, have a contempt and a disdain for any of its clamorings, treat it as if it were a vessel unworthy of its sacred cargo the soul, scourge it and humiliate it, and you will find favor in His sight. It is extraordinary and inexplicable that man should feel himself free to suggest to himself and to others that a suppression, even abnegation, of God-given instincts which are as much an integral part of the genus homo as his speech capacity, is necessary in order that the individual should find favor in God's eyes and be worthy of reward when he is called to join Him. It seems so much more consistent with reason that the species were provided with instincts that they might be utilized, and therefore that the duty of the teacher and the guide is to foster these instincts, to develop them, and to direct them toward the channels where they may be utilized to the advantage of the individual, the community, and the state. If it were only the church that displayed an opposition to the development of the play instinct in children I should not concern myself particularly with it, as I am not inclined to take issue with the church, either in its propaganda or in its teachings. I consider that it takes an unfair advantage of infants and children, but I solace my indignation with the thought that when the child comes to man's estate mentally he is free to liberate himself from its enthralments and inhibitions. It may be said that it has shaped his mental processes, activities, and inclinations to such purpose that he does not see straight, and that accusation is true, providing they have sterilized his mind to such a degree that he is no longer capable of constructive thought. There is no doubt that they often bring about such mental eunuchoidismus, but it is probable that the great majority of those thus sterilized would have been dead-wood in the stream of evolutionary progress had they been left intact. But insensitiveness to the child's needs is not confined to parochial schools and other church institutions where children are harbored and taught. In Italy it is displayed in nearly every public and private institution where the young are segregated for purposes of instruction and maintenance.
I would not be understood to say that there are not playgrounds of any kind connected with Italian schools, but the few that exist are scarcely worthy of the name. The plain truth of the matter is that the play instinct has been thwarted so long in the Italian that it doesn't seem to exist any more. One of the things that strikes the stranger who penetrates far enough into family life to permit him the opportunity of observation is that the parent doesn't play with his children as does the Anglo-Saxon, and children do not play with each other. I cannot conceive that the child, left to itself, does not
"Hold unconscious intercourse with beauty
Old as creation,"
and give evidence of it and of the activity of its developing mind which reveals itself constructively in that which we call play. But the observation and experience of children in Italy lead me to believe that when they grow up and recall
"Those recollected hours that have the charm
Of visionary things, those lovely forms
And sweet sensations that throw back their life,
And almost make remotest infancy
A visible scene, on which the sun is shining,"