self-employment, which may be habits of indolent ease if the child is not allowed to be as active as his nature requires.
There were no theories of play in Froebel's day, but he had certainly read Levana, and in all probability he knew what Schiller had said in his Letters on Aesthetic Education. The play theories are now too well known to require more than a brief recapitulation.
It will generally be allowed that the distinctive feature of play as opposed to work is that of spontaneity. The action itself is of no consequence, one man's play is another man's work. Nor does it seem to matter whence comes the feeling of compulsion in work, whether from pressure of outer necessity, or from an inner necessity like the compelling force of duty. Where there is joy in creation or in discovery the work and play of the genius approach the standpoint of the child,
Indulging every instinct of the soul,
There, where law, life, joy, impulse are one thing.
In the play of early childhood there may be freedom, not only from adult authority, but even from the restrictions of nature or of circumstances since "let's pretend" annihilates time and space and all material considerations.
Among theories of play first comes what is known as the Schiller-Spencer theory, in which play is attributed to the accumulation of surplus energy. When the human being has more energy than he requires in order to supply the bodily needs of himself and his family, then he feels impelled to use it. As the activities of his daily life are the only ones known to him, he fights his battles over again, he simulates the serious business of life, and transfers, for instance, the incidents of the chase into a dance. In this Way he reaches artistic creation, so that "play is the first poetry of the human being."
As an opposite of this we get a Re-creation theory, where play, if not too strenuous, understood as a change of occupation, rests and re-creates.
Another theory is that of recapitulation, which has been emphasised by Stanley Hall, according to which children play hunting and chasing games, or find a fascination in making tents, because they are passing through that stage of development in which their primitive ancestors lived by hunting or dwelt in tents.
Lastly, a most interesting theory is that which is associated with the name of Groos, and which is best expressed in the sentence: "Animals do not play because they are young, but they have their youth because they must play," play being regarded as the preparation for future life activities. The kitten therefore practises chasing a cork, the puppy worries boots and gloves, the kid practises jumping, and so on.
A full account of play will probably embrace all these theories, and though they were not formulated in his day, Froebel overlooked none, though he may have laid special stress on the preparation side. Yet another value of play emphasised by Professor Royce, viz. its enormous importance from the point of view of mental initiative, is strongly urged by Froebel. Professor Royce argues that "in the mere persistence of the playful child one has a factor whose value for mental initiative it is hard to overestimate." Without this "passionately persistent repetition," and without also the constant varying of apparently useless activities, the organism, says Professor Royce, "would remain the prey of the environment."
To Froebel, as we have seen, the human being is the climax of animal evolution and the starting-point of psychical development. The lower animal, he maintained, as all will now agree, is hindered by his definite instincts, but the instincts or instinctive tendencies of the human being are so undefined that there is room for spontaneity, for new forms of conduct.
Professor Royce says that "a general view of the place which beings with minds occupy in the physical world strongly suggests that their organisms may especially have significance as places for the initiation of more or less novel types of activity." And to Froebel the chief significance of play lies in this spontaneity.
"Play is the highest phase of human development at this stage, because it is spontaneous expression of what is within produced by an inner necessity and impulse. Play is the most characteristic, most spiritual manifestation of man at this stage, and, at the same time, is typical of human life as a whole."
These various theories seem to reinforce rather than to contradict each other, and it is more important to avoid running any to an extreme than to differentiate between them. In the case of recapitulation, we must certainly bear in mind Froebel's warning that the child "should be treated as having in himself the present, past and future." So, as Dr. Drummond says: "If we feel constrained to present him with a tent because Abraham lived in one, he no doubt enters into the spirit of the thing and accepts it joyfully. But he also annexes the ball of string and the coffee canister to fit up telephonic communication with the nursery." He may play robbers and hide and seek because he has reached a "hunting and capture" stage, but the physiologist points out that violent exercise is a necessity for his circulation and nutrition, and to practise swift flight to safety is useful even in modern times.[11] Gardening may take us back to an agricultural stage, but digging is most useful as a muscular exercise, and "watering" is scientific experiment and adds to the feeling of power, while the flowers themselves appeal to the aesthetic side of the sense-play, which is not limited to any age, though conspicuous so soon.
[Footnote 11: An up-to-date riddle asks the difference between the quick and the dead, and answers, "The quick are those who get out of the way of a motor-bus and the dead are those who do not."]
Froebel recognised many kinds of play. He realised that much of the play of boyhood is exercise of physical power, and that it must be of a competitive nature because the boy wants to measure his power. Even in 1826 he urges the importance not only of town playgrounds but of play leaders, that the play may be full of life. Among games for boys he noted some still involving sense-play, as hiding games, colour games and shooting at a mark, which need quick hearing and sight, intellectual plays exercising thought and judgement, e.g. draughts and dramatic games. One form of play which seemed to him most important was constructive play, where there is expression of ideas as well as expression of power. This side of play covers a great deal, and will be dealt with later; its importance in Froebel's eyes lies in the fact that through construction, however simple, the child gains knowledge of his own power and learns "to master himself." Froebel wanted particularly to deepen this feeling of power, and says that the little one who has already made some experiments takes pleasure in the use of sand and clay, "impelled by the previously acquired sense of power he seeks to master the material."
In order to gain real knowledge of himself, of his power, a child needs to compare his power with that of others. This is one reason for the child's ready imitation of all he sees done by others. Another reason for this is that only through real experience or action can a child gain the ideas which he will express later, therefore he must reproduce all he sees or hears.
"In the family the child sees parents and others at work, producing, doing something; consequently he, at this stage, would like to represent what he sees. Be cautious, parents. You can at one blow destroy, at least for a long time, the impulse to activity and to formation if you repel their help as childish, useless or even as a hindrance. … Strengthen and develop this instinct; give to your child the highest he now needs, let him add his power to your work, that he may gain the consciousness of his power and also learn to appreciate its limitations."
As the child's sense of power and his self-consciousness deepen he requires possessions of his "very own." Says Froebel: "The feeling of his own power implies and demands also the possession of his own space and his own material belonging exclusively to him. Be his realm, his province, a corner of the house or courtyard, be it the space of a box or of a closet, be it a grotto, a hut or a garden, the boy at this age needs an external point, chosen and prepared by himself, to which he refers all his activity."
As ideas widen the child's purposes enlarge, and he finds
