Problem play

“ The conditions under which an activity occurs, its concomitants, and the attitude of the individual performing it determine whether it is play or work--not its source or root.
Much, then, of what we call play is simply the manifestation of instincts and capacities not immediately useful to the child. If they were immediately useful, they would probably be put under the head of work, not play. Many of the activities which seem playful to us and not of immediate service do so because of the conditions of civilized life. ”

“ It is the way in which we take the responsibilities and problems of life that makes it either a deadly bore—a mere dull round of routine and drudgery—or the most interesting and absorbing game, capable of enlisting all the energy and enthusiasm we have to put into it. The people who accomplish things are the people who play the game. ”

“ We met one important phase of this adjustment in considering play and work. In play, interest centers in activity, without much reference to its outcome. The sequence of deeds, images, emotions, suffices on its own account. In work, the end holds attention and controls the notice given to means. Since the difference is one of direction of interest, the contrast is one of emphasis, not of cleavage. When comparative prominence in consciousness of activity or outcome is transformed into isolation of one from the other, play degenerates into fooling, and work into drudgery. ”

“ But as soon as the reiteration of the ideas suggested by their game becomes languid or difficult, their play for the time loses its charms, and the fascination is gone. That it is the cessation of active thought, which is the chief cause of their play ceasing to please, is proved from the circumstance, that if another interesting companion shall be added to their number, or if any thing shall occur to renew this operation,—the reiteration of ideas,—upon the mind, the same degree of interest, and to a corresponding extent, is immediately felt, and the play is resumed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The point to be observed is that, under modern conditions, it is difficult to produce a play of very complex psychological, moral, or emotional substance, in which the whole crisis comes within the frame of the picture. ”

“ Moreover, the passage from play to work should be gradual, involving not a radical change of attitude but carrying into work the elements of play, plus continuous reorganization in behalf of greater control. ”

“ We have agreed to regard a play as essentially a crisis in the lives of one or more persons; and we all know that crises are much more apt to have a definite beginning than a definite end. We can almost always put our finger upon the moment--not, indeed, when the crisis began--but when we clearly realized its presence or its imminence. ”

“ In our common speech, too, life is referred to as a battle, and is in reality too often a general struggle for money or power. It is but natural, then, to find the fighting impulse developed early in childhood and practised in play. Indeed, the demand for its exercise is so strong that there is scarcely any form of play which may not take on the character of a contest. ”

“ We have seen that a play consists, or ought to consist, of a great crisis, worked out through a series of minor crises. An act, then, ought to consist either of a minor crisis, carried to its temporary solution, or of a well-marked group of such crises; and there can be no rule as to the number of such crises which ought to present themselves in the development of a given theme. On the modern stage, five acts may be regarded as the maximum, simply by reason of the time-limit imposed by social custom on a performance. ”

“ But for my present purpose, the most suitable simile would be that of a game of chess, where the plan we determined to follow is conditioned by the play of our rival,—in life, by the caprice of fate. We are compelled to modify our tactics, often to such an extent that, as we carry them out, hardly a single feature of the original plan can be recognized. ”

“ There’s one thing we’ve got to keep in mind, fellows, and that is that the simpler our plays are the better they’ll work. If we decide on that formation we’ve talked of our plays have got to be simple. ”

“ In the course of getting acquainted with a varied world, whirling on through the ever changing phases of it, he had learned a rule of conduct which was to the effect that when one played a strange game, he should let the other fellow play first. ”

“ We need more careful study on the part of teachers of children’s games, and more planning that all may secure the benefits which come from this sort of activity. In the schoolroom, wherever it is possible, the spirit of play should pervade the work. There will be cases enough where results will depend upon the exercise of authority. Let us never forget that the reaction of play may mean just as valuable results as the reaction of necessity, and that the ideal life is the one in which all work is play. ”

“ In other words, what is the proper function of play, with respect not to youth merely, but to all mankind?
§ XXIV. It is a much more serious question than may be at first supposed; for a healthy manner of play is necessary in order to a healthy manner of work: and because the choice of our recreation is, in most cases, left to ourselves, while the nature of our work is generally fixed by necessity or authority, it may be well doubted whether more distressful consequences may not have resulted from mistaken choice in play than from mistaken direction in labor. ”

“ The chances are matter of complaint; but if these were removed, the game itself would no longer amuse the parties. In devising, or in executing a plan, in being carried on the tide of emotion and sentiment, the mind seems to unfold its being, and to enjoy itself. ”

“ It is for the need of such trained and balanced power of will that our highways of finance are strewn with the wrecks of able men. If the love of fair play, a sense of true moral values, and above all, the power and habit of will to act on these can be developed in our boys and girls, it will mean immeasurably for the uplift of the community. ”

“ Up to about its primary school days a child thinks, naturally, only of play. But many a form of play contains disciplinary factors. "You can't do this," or "that puts you out," shows a child that it must think, practically, or fail. ”

“ Indeed when we consider the leading principle and prevailing sentiments of most plays, we shall not wonder that they are not always thought to be the most suitable employment for youth at school; nor, when we reflect on the long interruption to the common school-exercises, which the preparation for a play must necessarily occasion, shall we think it consistent with the general improvement:—But, to wave every objection from prudence or morality, it may be confidently affirmed, that the acting of a play is not so conducive to improvement in elocution, as the speaking of single speeches. ”

“ I do not speak here of the terrible infatuation of play, and the almost utter impossibility of resisting it, but I allude to what is infinitely worse, the certainty of your applying play theories and play tactics to every event and circumstance of real life. ”

“ The play deals with society's refuse, men and women of the alleys, whose only subsistence consists of what they can pick out of the garbage barrels. A gruesome subject, is it not? And yet what other method is there to break through the hard shell of the minds and souls of people who have never known want, and who therefore assume that all is well in the world? ”

“ How can we expect anything else than that the child will grow impatient of the restraint and run to his play with the greatest eagerness?”292 Those who, on the other hand, protest against making play of instruction are mistaken in supposing that it is thereby turned into a jest, for we well know that play can be prosecuted with great zeal and earnestness. ”

“ To this question there is but one answer: the best possible provision. "Qui veut la fin veut les moyens." In the life of organised play which the children lead, attractive ends are ever being set before them. If they are to achieve these ends, they must take the appropriate means. ”

“ Where something approaching drudgery or the need of fulfilling externally imposed tasks exists, the demand for play persists, but tends to be perverted. The ordinary course of action fails to give adequate stimulus to emotion and imagination. So in leisure time, there is an imperious demand for their stimulation by any kind of means ”

“ Let us see what the authorities say on the point. “Keep in mind that general maxims pre-suppose the game and hand at their commencement, and that material changes in them frequently require that a different mode of play should be adopted.” “It is a general maxim not to force your partner unless strong in trumps yourself. ”

“ With the other we provide next to no opportunities for the evolution of problems out of immediate experience, and allow next to no free mental play for selecting, assorting, and adapting the experiences and ideas that make for their solution. ”

“ But he who cannot or will not play according to the rules of those who are making the game is disqualified. He should go elsewhere. Hitherto in my life I had followed the code of a smaller game, in which we seldom pressed an advantage to the limit or cut our pound of flesh from out a vital part. Now I had voluntarily associated myself with other men in a venture I believed was big, fair, and square, and I was learning that the rule of their game was thumbs down—give nothing—take everything. ”

“ We play the game over again: we wonder how it was possible for us to fail. We turn our brain with straining at contradictions, and striving to make things what they are not, or in other words, to subject the course of nature to our fastastical wishes. ”

“ When fairly remote results of a definite character are foreseen and enlist persistent effort for their accomplishment, play passes into work. Like play, it signifies purposeful activity and differs not in that activity is subordinated to an external result, but in the fact that a longer course of activity is occasioned by the idea of a result. ”

“ When the leader whoops, the crowd also whoop; when he fights, they fight. All this social practice is most valuable as discipline in serious social business.”635 Such effects of general imitation are prominent in most social fighting plays, but we shall confine ourselves to some children’s games in which acting in common seems to be itself the principal aim. Here we are met by the fact that in its last analysis such play is referable to adult imitation—that is to say, they are handed down to the children. ”

“ This activity of the mind in allowing itself to be absorbed, and consciously so, in an object with the purpose of making it his own, or of producing it, is Work. But when the mind gives itself up to its objects as chance may present them or through arbitrariness, careless as to whether they have any result, such activity is Play. Work is laid out for the pupil by his teacher by authority, but in his play he is left to himself. ”

“ Every action is chosen, and expresses will and preference. Therefore play is highly moral. It is the bursting up of our own individuality and it expresses especially in the lesser things, the preferences of life. ”

“ Does not its peculiar and inherent nearness to the springs of life and life’s realities demand a complete explanation grounded on a general principle which is applicable at once to youth and to the play which lasts all through life? ”

“ The great difficulty is that it is well-nigh impossible to make separate observations on them as a distinct class, for as a rule the social impulse furnishes the incentive to the special games which we have considered. To take a familiar example: Society chat is a social play par excellence, and yet the indulgence in this element of it appeals to consciousness as but a vague and undefined satisfaction compared with the influence of the impulses to combat and to courtship. ”

“ Misuse of this va406luable 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. ”

“ But to have children engaged in play, in the sense of free play, cannot be the only measure. There must be supervision and direction. The spirit that characterizes the activities which are not immediately useful must be incorporated into those that are useful by means of the shifting of association bonds. ”

“ A superficial knowledge of the etiquette and rules that govern the various social games of cards will be found a great advantage in society, since, if one does not dance or play cards, he will be forced to content himself with other wall-flowers like himself. ”

“ Let the teacher watch his pupils while at play if he would discover their individual peculiarities, for it is then that they unconsciously betray their real propensities. This antithesis of work and play runs through the entire life, the form only of play varying with years and occupations. To do what we please, as we please, and when we please, not for any reason, but just because we please, remains play always. Children in their sports like nothing better than to counterfeit what is to be the earnest work of their after-lives. ”