Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 15.djvu/195

PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY. 181 This so-called co-operation of all the faculties, which I suspect is accounted a good thing, is rather an uninhibited display of associated movement. We know how many a youthful penman waggles his lolled-out tongue while pain- fully forming his smudgy strokes, how the embryonic pianist wriggles much more of himself than his fingers. Some years ago I was continuously occupied with a boys' football club. It was delightful to watch how mere rowdy gesticulation and scattered impulse gave way to quiet, fast, well-inhibited movement, and attention dead-centred on the ball. Now the 'faculties' were really co-operating, that is, they were working to one end without waste of energy. I am constrained to introduce this short discussion mainly because of its peda- gogical reference. There is too great a tendency in much infant-school work of to-day to noisy and redundant move- ments ; this, too, is said to be work with all the faculties ; really it is but a survival of the primitive diffused excite- ment which only with difficulty becomes definitely localised and applied, without waste and excess, to a particular end. We may need pedagogically to adopt such a method in some instances ; as when we introduce arithmetic by the counting of objects, or of movements which we can see in place of the later and finally sufficient movements of attention. But they are mere accessories to secure the direction of attention, and we should discard them as soon as possible. They are survivals of a primitive type. " The account of games and plays of children collected by Mr. AV. H. Newell and Mrs. Gomme affords innumer- able examples of the child's reflexion of the labours and duties of the past," and Prof. Groos says : l " Play will in general serve more to tone down instincts already present than to strengthen them or create entirely new ones". This latter sentence requires comment, for whilst heartily agreeing that our more primitive instincts are eased off by play, yet how does such a view consist with Prof. Groos' theory that play is a divinely appointed preparation for the work of life, except, of course, in this purely negative sense. I heartily agree that primitive instincts are eased off by play. It is extremely characteristic of school children when charged with some, barbarity to their fellows to answer : " If you please, I was only playing ". And many school teachers owe their success to their wisdom in drafting off the bellicose into cricket and football clubs, and so toning off the instinct to fight. 1 Play of Mini, p. 692. 18