William Byron Forbush

“ The child soon tires of mechanical toys, talking dolls or elaborate doll-houses with which there is nothing he can do. Illustrating this point Joseph Lee says: “Toys, things of convenient size and shape to play with, are indeed essential. But it is what you can do with or imagine about them, not what they themselves can do, that is important.... It is the child’s own achievement, not that of the clever man who made the toy, that counts.” ”

“ To the mother who is at her wits’ end in trying to devise something new and good for children’s parties, the idea of using the dramatic instinct should come as a godsend. Nothing could possibly be more delightful than an afternoon of dramatic games, varied by more quiet story-telling. Playing statues, getting up tableaux, performing charades, and even extemporaneously acting out story-plays are all methods of entertainment which win enthusiastic response. ”

“ Of the ready-made toys, toy furniture for the house, the sand pile for outdoors and the doll for both are most useful. “The doll,” as Sully tells us, “takes a supreme place in this fancy realm of play. The doll is an all-important comrade in that solitude à deux, of which the child, like the adult, is so fond.” The complete adaptability of the doll makes it an ideal means for the puppet play of idealism. “A good, efficient, able-bodied doll, like the American girl’s,” says Joseph Lee, “is at home in any situation in life, from princess to kitchen maid, to which she may be called. ”

“ A child, however, will have equal enjoyment by making a toy village out of blocks, stones, and twigs; he can make a miniature theater out of an old kennel that will satisfy him better than the brightly colored ones which can be bought, and he can play store, train, expressman with nothing more than some boxes and a cart. The larger skill and knowledge of the child gives more content to plays of an earlier period. He now invents and conducts elaborate sieges and defenses for his toy soldiers; he not merely plays with his pets, but he harnesses and drives them. ”

“ The parent who tells a continued story to his children, which they illustrate together by crude drawings, is engaged in an operation which is fully as much a game as a story, and which often results in the children acting out the story after it has been told or adding chapters to it of their own composition. So keenly do they visualize the characters of such a story that upon being suddenly called upon to relate what happened in their favorite hero’s life after some particular incident they will often reminisce as vividly as if they were telling their own histories. ”

“ She believes that intensive work carried on patiently and for a long time with a moderate-sized dramatic club is more effective than the ambitious endeavor to deal with a large company. As in all social work that amounts to anything, it seems better to get somewhere with a few than merely to start with the many. In the small group the mob spirit is entirely absent, and if it be a selected company, everybody is in earnest. ”

“ The mother may help the development of this expressive instinct in early childhood. Even a baby ought to be treated as a play-mate, not as a plaything. There is an old-fashioned game known as “Come to see.” The little damsel with her doll, and perhaps “dressed up” in some of her mother’s wardrobe, came to call on mother. Her efforts to behave exactly as a lady should were aided and guided by the mother’s careful behavior as hostess. It is a training in manners. When the children play visit each other they use all the manners they have. They practice useful lessons without knowing it. ”

“ But the greatest difference between the spirit of the mother or teacher who coaches some young people in their amateur plays and the teacher of dramatic art is that the latter works almost entirely to specialize the actor for his business and art of acting, while the leader of amateurs is concerned chiefly with the results of the acting in developing the characters of the children through this exercise of the dramatic instinct. ”

“ Those who have been brought up in a colder atmosphere can hardly fail to remember the thrill which they felt when they witnessed or participated as children in the dialogues, exercises, and choruses of Sunday school concerts. There has been of late the beginning of a revival, even in Protestant churches, of the miracle play, in which boys as well as girls have been delighted to take part, and in which the spiritual impression of the enacting of Scripture stories without scenery has been profound upon both actors and audience. ”

“ The boy who is trying to represent the monkey will suggest that he have a hand-organ man; the hen will want chickens, and the scene will go naturally and easily without dictation. It is interesting to see how the children grow in power of representation and suggestion, and how naturally language begins to be the necessary accompaniment of gesture. The language of the children will be pictorial and full of unexpected terms and phrases. At this stage of the work it will be found helpful to put a screen between the player and the class. Such a device adds a little mystery to the play. ”

“ Dramatized Work
The chief difference between work and play to a child seems to be that in work a definite creative result is kept in mind, so that the end, rather than the means, is the central purpose. ”

“ A pleasant device to encourage young children to work is to denominate them as “soldiers,” “watchmen,” or “little partners.” The addition of a paper cap or a wooden sword or a policeman’s club will carry many a small youngster through a task which would otherwise seem intolerable. One mother has strengthened her family discipline by assigning each of her children in turn to be “the captain of the day,” giving each in turn special privileges and the responsibility of keeping the other children in order. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Supervised practice in controlling the imagination is no less important than is that of controlling impulses. To play a part in a little homemade drama or pageant helps the child to find his place and to do his part in the world’s work—and play. ”

“ In play the means is everything and the end is a matter of22 indifference. Until the child is old enough to become something of a creator and inventor he does not instinctively perform much work. Sometimes before that period arrives, however, it is possible to interest him in profitable tasks if he can engage in them with his imagination; and all through childhood, and, indeed, all through life, imagination is the Shekinah that leads the host of toil through its wilderness toward the promised land. ”

“ The religious pageant, as well, with its simple yet suggestive scenery, and its appropriate music, lights the imagination of the children and young people until they themselves live through, in a measure, the experiences of those staunch men and women who lived centuries ago in the Holy Land.27 By making these Bible characters seem real human beings, who thought and acted much as we do to-day, we help to make them a real power to shape character in the lives of our boys and girls. ”

“ The boy now thinks he is a man and the girl wishes to be a woman. This play-adultism manifests itself, of course, in the insistence upon wearing adult clothes and entering into adult experiences. Now is the time for13 the den or the clubhouse or the workshop, in which the maturing boy or girl entertains his friends and executes his craftsmanship projects. The would-be athlete now constructs his rude outdoor gymnasium. Indoors the amateur magician performs tricks to his more or less astonished family.
A valuable device, which is far more than a toy, for this period is the stereoscope. ”

“ Here Frederica Beard’s sensible statement is memorable: “The dramatic instinct is not utilized primarily by the seeing of plays, but by self-expression in the acting out of plays suitable to a particular age.” It is the children20 who have been surfeited by the drama and the moving-picture show who regard dramatic play as tiresome. Those who are leading in the Junior Drama League, instead of encouraging theater-going among children, are strongest in their insistence that children ought to be kept from the playhouses. ”

“ Beginning with pantomime and continuing with originative story-playing, the child, by and by, in adolescence, comes to the period when he is ready to perform memorized plays. By doing so he gains a new form of expression and becomes capable of recognizing what is really fine in the drama.
The parent should crave, and the social worker plan, so that every child will have the opportunity during the “gang” period of belonging to some social club whose scheme is based upon imaginative play. ”

“ By serial dramatic play is meant a dramatic game which is taken up day after day for a considerable period, until it becomes a continued story. The children who engage in this sort of play are, of course, getting a much finer intellectual stimulus than those who play entirely in a desultory and disconnected fashion. Not all children have the capacity to sustain games of this sort. ”

“ And one doll in her time plays many parts; she has to, or lose her job.” Besides this, so perfectly does the doll mingle with the child’s own personality that it produces and maintains a complete feeling of oneness. ”

“ The superior craftsmanship of the child between ten and twelve enables him to enjoy games which imitate in close detail many adult activities. Crepe paper, beads, and such plastic materials as clay and plasticine can be used for improving the beauty of constructive articles. The boy now enjoys some of the published games by which he can play conductor, postoffice, and banker, and the girl who plays house does some actual cooking and house-cleaning. ”

“ Folk-dancing is a form of dramatic play which, historically, has been of great importance and is to-day most valuable in stimulating artistic capacity and making the child bodily and spiritually graceful and harmonious.
Parents will find their best resource for children’s parties in inviting all those present to exercise the dramatic instinct. ”

“ The home may develop the dramatic instinct by encouraging dramatic play and games. Some of the most inexpensive and accessible homemade playthings are the most valuable for dramatic purposes.
Through serial and cooperative dramatic play, the parent enters into and retains the pleasantest kind of fellowship with his children. There is excellent opportunity to employ this kind of play in story-telling and at the family festivals. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Being provided with no materials with which he can build he takes apart his too complete toys. A pile of blocks, a sand-pile, a paint-box, some dolls that must be cut out, a ruined shed that perhaps may be made into a doll-house, these are ideal materials for childish play.
There are a number of old-fashioned games which exercise the dramatic instinct. Among these are: Kitty White, Did You Ever See a Lassie?, Farmer in the Dell, Squirrel in the Trees and the Duck Dance. These are all described in Miss Bancroft’s book on play and games, referred to below. ”

“ Development through patient drill of some capacity in the taking of parts, on the other hand, tends to help a child to discriminate between good and poor acting, and to appreciate all his life that which is truly fine in this great and ancient art. ”

“ The manipulation of apparatus and the movements and dialogue behind the scenes are as entertaining to the spectators as the regular acts. At the close a plate of delicious plums is passed, for which the youngsters must have walked two miles in the hot sun, and mortgaged all of the proceeds of the entertainment in advance. ”

“ The third variety is the shadow play, in which with even simpler properties but with more careful rehearsal the children pose as silhouettes and employ a few dramatic gestures. In Miss Perry’s When Mother Lets Us Act the details of all these pantomime performances are given quite adequately.
The next step in dramatic performances is story-playing. The easiest kind consists of simple character sketches, in which a child may portray quickly with language as well as gesture such characters as the father, an old witch, a newspaper boy, a school teacher. Animals may also be imitated. ”

“ We come now to the performing of memorized plays by adolescent young people. Before adolescence memorizing is of little value in dramatic performance, unless it be of poems to be acted, because it tends to hamper the freedom of original speech and action. ”

“ Miss Jane Addams and her fellow-workers at Hull House believe that the development of the characteristic national dances of the various countries that are sending us immigrants is going to be, together with their folk songs, a valuable contribution to the refinement of our national life, as well as an important support to the self-respect of these people who, because of the arrogance of Americans, suppose they have everything to learn and nothing to give. ”