Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 15.djvu/46

III. PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY (I.). BY W. H. WINCH. I. INTEODUCTION. I PROPOSE to make an attempt to collect, compare, and examine various conceptions of the nature of play. In Germany, Prof. Groos has devoted two interesting and valuable volumes to the subject, and one condition of this essay was the stimulus of dissent aroused by a consideration of some, at least, of the Professor's views. Justification for a consideration of this subject on theoretical grounds is hardly needed, and its great practical value to educational theory lends it additional importance. I admit that any one actively engaged in the educational world is prone to conclude that there is very little connexion between the thoughts of thinkers, on the one hand, and the practice of teachers, on the other. This view would be, in some meas- ure, a mistaken one. It is usually indeed a past philosophy which has filtered slowly down, and represents the new in school theories. But this statement needs some qualifica- tion. For example, in a recent conference of the Froebel Society, Prof. Groos was alluded to as regarding ' play ' as a necessary practice and preparation for after life " a view," the speaker went on to say, "which in no wise contradicts Froebel"; he might have said, "which gives a large justi- fication to Froebelian philosophy and methods ". But it is just because I think this conception of play as practice and preparation for the serious duties of life to be but very partially true and to have dangerous applications in educational practice that I am constrained to criticism. Nor is the opinion concerning the great importance of this question merely an individual one. We know how acutely difficulties are felt, and how far disaster has proceeded before official reports publish them. It is very significant, therefore, that the Eev. C. D. Du Port,