How to Add Ten Years to your Life and to Double Its Satisfactions

by S. S. Curry

Some men regard play as something low. On the contrary, notwithstanding the "recapitulation" theory, play should be a new aspiration, a deeper assertion of freedom, a higher opportunity for suppressed energies.

To play, certain feelings and conceptions of our nature must be awakened. Play reveals character even more than work because it shows the latent impulses of the man. Therefore, if in college, in school, or in childhood, in playing with companions, the right associations are brought to bear, the right persons are received as mates, then the very sympathy and contact with others will cause higher aspirations, deeper enjoyments, more spontaneous endeavor, and renewal of life. Play is sub-conscious, it is giving way in some sense, to instinct; but it is deliberatively giving up. It implies enjoyment but it does not necessarily imply the gratification of low desire.

Something can be said in favor of athletics. A story is told of a gentleman who visited his nephew in a large private school. He went around the athletic field and asked the trainers about his relative. Then the uncle found the boy in his room, digging. He said, "What are you doing here? None of the trainers see anything of you. What is the trouble?" The student answered, "I have been sick and I have been working hard to catch up." "Get out of this," replied the uncle, "I went to preparatory school and to college to find friends, to get enjoyment, to learn how to play, to come in contact with men. That is the serious business of school and college."

There are some who consider this the very worst of heresies. I used to think so myself; but contact with students in colleges and universities has enabled me at least to see the point of view of this gentleman. Many times I have met men who were not getting the most out of their college or university course though you could not tell that from their scholarship or so-called "standing." They lacked the spirit of enjoyment, the power of initiative. They lacked the power of sympathetic touch with other men that makes greatly for success in life.

To my mind there are some games which bring no sympathetic touch among men. Mere games are not always worthy of the name of play. They become drudgery, and they cause certain constrictions. They fetter the whole life. They call for perfect silence, call for the exercise of great mechanical skill. Frequently we find men playing games which are analogous, if not identical, with their work. Games should be different from work. They should bring sympathetic enjoyment. They should bring exultation.

A noted physiologist sent by his government to examine into the physical training of other countries visited a leading school in England and found the pupils one morning, during the best hours of the day, at play. Approaching one of the boys, he asked for the principal, and was conducted very politely to the master. The visitor was greatly impressed by the boys. He asked the principal why it was that his boys were playing during the best part of the day. "Ah," said the principal, "that is part of our method. We want the best time in the day to be devoted to their outdoor exercises and sports. We take the utmost care that the boys shall come into the most sympathetic spirit with each other, and anything that happens wrong on the playground is to us fully as serious as what happens in their studies."

There is a universal conception that play is not serious. Children are allowed to do just as they please. This is a mistake. Froebel has taught the true spirit and importance of play. Some people consider his explanations as being purely speculative, if not insane; but the great majority of those who have really studied child life agree with him.

It is important what games the child is given. The play must be enjoyed. It should awaken creative energy. It should appeal to the imagination and feelings and not be a purely mechanical exercise of will. It is absolutely necessary for the unfoldment of character that the child come into touch with other minds, and also into contact with things.

Someone has summed up the whole principle in a sentence: "Bring such objects before the child as will stimulate spontaneous activity." The objects may be animals, birds, leaves, flowers, balls, sticks, anything which can awaken human faculties or be turned into a tool.

Arts are given us rather for avocations, for our enjoyment, as a test of our ability to appreciate the different points of view. Each art, as I have often tried to say, expresses something that no other art can say, and he is a cultivated human being who can read all the arts and enjoy them. The aim of art is to guide our energies in higher directions, and to stimulate our ideals. Art develops attention and trains us to become interested in a great variety of directions.