His parents are a child’s natural playmates for the first years of his life, since, as has been said, a too early introduction to a wider social circle can but have a baneful effect. Consequently, it is important that the inward impulse, as well as the outward stimulus, to play should be present, and when it is lacking the after impression of the early home throws a shadow over all the future life. The same remark, with some modifications, applies to teachers, when the child grows older and goes to school. It is, of course, not necessary for a teacher to join in the games of the merry urchins out of doors, yet in the lower grades especially it is a fortunate circumstance when he possesses the faculty of becoming a child again with the children in their plays and walks. He must be able, however, to resume the sceptre firmly when need arises.
This naturally opens the way for the second duty of the child’s instructor—directing his play toward what is good and useful. The two ends do not necessarily coincide, for there is an egotistical sort of playing with children which is more for the amusement of adults than anything else. Better no play than this. Herbert once said, “Let no man use his child as a plaything.” There are numerous ways to direct the child’s play to useful purposes. We may provide him with toys and tools which suggest their own use, as animals show us how to do when they bring a living victim to their young as a plaything. The objection that in providing playthings the child’s inventiveness as well as his enjoyment of illusion is interfered with needs but brief notice. Reischle rightly says that the most ancient tradition justifies the use of toys, and has chosen wisely among them. The physical and mental capacities of children are furthered, too, by the use of many plays which require no tools or toys. Recollection of our own childhood and a glance at the conditions will aid us in directing their play by advice or example. Influence in this direction is less apparent at school, but as the population of our cities grows more crowded the need for intelligent direction is becoming evident. City children grow up under unnatural conditions, and opportunities for play, especially health-producing movement-play, should be provided artificially, space devoted to it, needed aids furnished, and the effort made to introduce the most useful and attractive gymnastic plays to the children. The growing interest of all classes in such efforts encourages the hope that the damaging consequences of our modern methods of living may be effectually counteracted in this way.
As to the positive ethical development of the child by play, we may premise that play in itself contributes materially to the establishment of ethical individuality. This, as we have before insisted, is properly developed only in the give and take of social intercourse which with children is found almost entirely in play. “Development of ethical character,” says Reischle, “requires on the one hand social influences preparatory for service in human society, and on the other individual culture. Any supposed antagonism between these is only apparent. In reality they are the two including poles. Human society reaches its fulness only among well-rounded individualities, since they alone are properly fitted for service to the whole; and be it noted that such characters do not develop in solitude, but in the stress of social life. Play has its uses in both directions. How else can individual qualities be so well brought out and developed as in the free, untrammelled use of all one’s powers? Here are brought into contact contemplative, quiet natures with active, forceful ones, the stubborn with the pliant will. Play reveals the breadth or limitation of the child’s horizon, the independence of his character, or his need of support and direction.”[694]
In spite of all this, many are opposed to any attempt on the part of educators to introduce the ethical element into play. It is undoubtedly a mistake to smuggle moral reflections in whatever form into play (songs furnish a case in point), nor is it wise to single out for praise those who display skill, courage, self-control, a self-sacrificing spirit, or any other excellence of character in play. Such a practice tends to destroy its spontaneity and ideality. There seems, then, to be but one legitimate means for promoting development of ethical character in play. Those who with me regard æsthetic enjoyment of poetry as a play will recognise in it a wide field for positive influence. From the first nursery rhymes to the reading provided for those nearly grown, a discriminating hand should choose those works which are calculated to supply ethical ideals to the plastic mind. Yet attractiveness should always be considered, and any obscuration of poetic charm with moral reflections be avoided.
Much more obvious is the educational value of the negative task, the third, which consists in the avoidance of what is evil, and the effort to check wrong tendencies. The struggle with open iniquity goes hand in hand with avoiding more insidious moral danger. Let us try to distinguish the more salient points by the following method: First, the child should not play too much. In the physiological investigation I spoke at some length of the law of repetition, and the trancelike or ecstatic state induced by many plays, together with the fact that they are often pursued to the point of exhaustion. If the instructor insists on rest before this comes to pass he would seem to be imposing a proper restriction, which is most valuable to ethical education, for at this point the moral law of temperance can be made most impressive to the child. Second, play which has become or threatens to become violent may be restrained to proper bounds, and the important ethical lesson of self-control be inculcated. Third, it may be required that everything dangerous to life or health shall be excluded or carefully regulated. Here the teacher must avoid overanxiety, for courage, which is itself of at least equal ethical value, can only be developed in the growing character by the encounter of actual risks and learning to meet them with self-reliance. Fourth, guardians must sometimes interfere when fighting impulses are manifested in a rude or ill-natured manner, as it is apt to be in the various forms of teasing. Misuse of this valuable impulse may cause deep spiritual injury to both the aggressor and his victim. When children have fallen under the power of a bad, tyrannous, or low-minded leader, they should be interfered with, and if possible by some method which will show up the unworthy leader in his true colours. Fifth, and finally, it should be emphasized that the beautiful task of play, the development of the individual to full manhood or womanhood by means of an all-round exercise of his or her capacities, is retarded by restriction to one particular form of play. The prevalence of daydreaming is an instance of such injurious one-sidedness.[695] When a child becomes absorbed in solitary musing (see the youthful reminiscences of George Sand), he should be aroused by application to useful occupation or by social stimuli which bring him in every possible way into contact with the external world. Even the noble gift of imagination may from overindulgence degenerate into a deadly poison.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] L. Grasberger, Erziehung und Unterricht im klassischen Alterthum, Würzburg, 1864, vol. i, p. 23. See also Colozza’s compilation Il Guioco nella Psicologia e nella Pedagogia, Turin, 1895, p. 36.
[2] Die Spiele der Thiere, Jena, 1896. English translation by E. L. Baldwin. D. Appleton and Company, New York, 1898.
[3] This is a modification of my former view. For particulars, see the section on Imitative Play.