Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium by Jessie Hubbell Bancroft (top novels of all time .txt) π
In the arrangement of material there has many times been a strong temptation to classify the games by their historic, geographic, psychologic, or educational interests; by the playing elements contained in them; or by several other possible methods which are of interest chiefly to the academic student; but these have each in turn been discarded in favor of the original intention of making the book preΓ«minently a useful working manual for the player or leader of games.
[Sidenote: Varying modes of play]
The same games are found not only in many different countries and localities, but under different names and with many variations in the form of playing them. This has necessitated a method of an
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The typical school recess is a sad apology for such complete refreshment of body and mind. A few pupils take the center of the field of play, while the large majority, most of whom are in greater need of the exercise, stand or walk slowly around the edges, talking over the teacher and the lesson. An organized recess, by which is meant a programme whereby only enough classes go to the playground at one time to give opportunity for all of the pupils to run and play at once, does away with these objections, if some little guidance or leadership be given the children for lively games. The best discipline the writer has ever seen, in either class room or playground, has been where games are used, the privilege of play being the strongest possible incentive to instant obedience before and after. Besides, with such a natural outlet for repressed instincts, their ebullition at the wrong time is not so apt to occur. Many principals object to recesses because of the moral contamination for which those periods are often responsible. The author has had repeated and convincing testimony of the efficacy of games to do away with this objection. The game becomes the one absorbing interest of recess, and everything else gives way before it. Dr. Kratz, Superintendent of Schools in Sioux City, Iowa, was one of the first school superintendents in the country to go on record for this benefit from games, and much fuller experience has accumulated since.
The growth of large cities has been so comparatively recent that we are only beginning to realize the limitations they put upon normal life in many ways and the need for special effort to counterbalance these limitations. The lack of opportunity for natural play for children and young people is one of the saddest and most harmful in its effects upon growth of body and character. The number of children who have only the crowded city streets to play in is enormous, and any one visiting the public schools in the early fall days may readily detect by the white faces those who have had no other opportunity to benefit by the summer's fresh air and sunshine. The movement to provide public playgrounds for children and more park space for all classes in our cities is one connected vitally with the health, strength, and endurance of the population. The crusade against tuberculosis has no stronger ally. Indeed, vital resistance to disease in any form must be increased by such opportunities for fresh air, sunshine, and exercise. This whole question of the building up of a strong physique is an economic one, bearing directly on the industrial power of the individual, and upon community expenditures for hospitals and other institutions for the care of the dependent and disabled classes.
The crippling of moral power is found to be fully as much involved with these conditions as is the weakening of physical power. Police departments have repeatedly reported that the opening of playgrounds has resulted in decrease of the number of arrests and cases of juvenile crime in their vicinity; also decrease of adult disturbances resulting from misdeeds of the children. They afford a natural and normal outlet for energies that otherwise go astray in destruction of property, altercations, and depredations of many sorts, so that the cost of a playground is largely offset by the decreased cost for detection and prosecution of crime, reformatories, and related agencies.
It would be a mistake to think that the children of the poor are the only ones who need the physical and moral benefit of normal childish play. One is forced to the conclusion that many children of the rich are even more to be pitied, for the shackles of conventionality enslave them from the outset. Many are blasΓ© with opera and picture exhibitsβtypical forms of pleasure for the adult of advanced cultureβwithout ever having had the free laughter and frolic of childhood. That part of the growing-up process most essential for character is literally expunged from life for them. One need spend but an hour in a city park to see that many children are restrained from the slightest running or frolic because it would soil their clothes or be otherwise "undesirable." The author recalls a private school for girls in which laughter was checked at recess because it was "unlady-like."
In contrast to this barbarous repression are some delightful instances of provision for normal childish play and exercise for such children. In one of our large Eastern cities a teacher was employed for several seasons to play games with a group of children on a suburban lawn to which all repaired twice a week. This was genuine play, full of exercise and sport and laughter. In another Eastern city a teacher was similarly employed for many seasons to coach a Basket Ball team in the small rear area of the typical city residence. Teachers of physical training and others are doing much to organize this sort of exercise, including tramping clubs and teams for cross-country runs, and the encouragement of Tether Ball and other games suited to limited conditions.
As a nation we are slow to learn the value of recreation. We go to the extremes of using it either not at all or so excessively as to exhaust nervous energy to the point where "the day we most need a holiday is the day after a holiday." This may be different when we learn more fully that the recuperative power of short intervals of complete relaxation has a genuine investment value. The increased output of energy afterward, the happier spirits, prolonged endurance, clearer thinking, and the greater ease and pleasure with which work is done, more than compensate for the time required. It has been stated that one large manufacturing concern has found it greatly to its advantage to give a daily recess period to its employees at its own expense, the loss of working time being compensated in the quality of the output following, which shows, for instance, in the fewer mistakes that have to be rectified. The welfare work of our large stores and factories should provide opportunity, facilities, and leadership for recreative periods of this character.
For the brain worker such benefit from periods of relaxation is even more apparent. Our strenuous and complicated civilization makes more and more necessary the fostering of means for complete change of thought. When this can be coupled with invigorating physical exercise, as in active games, it is doubly beneficial; but whether games be active or quiet, the type of recreation found in them for both child and adult is of especial value. It affords an emotional stimulus and outlet, an opportunity for social coΓΆperation, an involuntary absorption of attention, and generally an occasion for hearty laughter, that few other forms of recreation supply.
The list in this volume of games for house parties and country clubs is given with the hope of making games more available for adults, though with the knowledge that guests on such occasions take in a wide range of ages, and many games for young people are included. These are equally appropriate for the home circle. In addition, the so-called gymnasium games offer some of the finest recreative exercise.
The author would like to make a special plea for the playing together of adults and children. The pleasure to the child on such occasions is small compared to the pleasure and benefit that may be derived by the grown-up. To hold, in this way, to that youth of spirit which appreciates and enters into the clear-eyed sport and frolic of the child, is to have a means of renewal for the physical, mental, and moral nature. In a large city in the Middle West there is a club formed for the express purpose of giving the parents who are members an opportunity to enjoy their children in this way. The club meets one evening a week. It is composed of a few professional and business men and their wives and children. It meets at the various homes, the hostess being responsible for the programme, which consists of musical or other numbers (rendered partly by the children and partly by the adults), of occasional dancing, and of games, some of which must always call for the mutual participation of the children and their elders. A more beautiful idea for a club could scarcely be devised. It is also a tragic fact that, lacking such an occasion, many parents have little opportunity to enjoy their children, or, alas! even to know them.
Another illustration may indicate even more strongly the benefits from such social gatherings of adults and children. In a small town where the young boys and girls spent more evenings than seemed wise in places of public amusement, a teacher of physical training not long ago opened a class for them expressly to meet this situation. The programme included games, dancing, and formal exercise, and a special effort was made to teach things of this sort that might be used for gatherings at home. The class fulfilled its object so well that the parents themselves became interested, began to attend the sessions and participate in the games, until they were an integral part of all that went on,βa wholesome and delightful association for all concerned, and one that practically ended the tendencies it was designed to overcome.
Mr. Myron T. Scudder, in his practical and stimulating pamphlet on games for country children (Country Play; A Field Day and Play Picnic for Country Children. Pub. by Charities, N.Y.), points out a very real factor in the failure of American country life to hold its young people when he cites the lack of stimulation, organization, and guidance for the play activities of the young. It is a mistaken idea that country children and youths have through the spaciousness of environment alone all that they need of play. Organization and guidance are often needed more than for the city children whose instincts for social combination are more acute.
ORIGINS.βOne may not close even
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