The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1877-11-22

attained the age of sixty years; in Great
Britain there are 1910; in Holland,
rs, 982; in Sweden, 78, 1877; in Denmark,
86,557; in Belgium, SO, 1882; and in
France, 1O1 ,495. On the other hand
Great Britain has Is centenarians
for every million inhabitants; France
has 7.3; Belgium. Z; Sweden, &c; and
Holland. 1.3.
The Science Of Play.
There is not much obvious conncc-
ton between the homely couplet, "All
work and no play makes Jack dull
boy. and Schiller's hypothesis Of a
"Spieltrieb,'' or sport impulse which
he recognizes as existing in human
nature, and to which he traces the
origin of all fiction, and especially that
of a poetic and dramatic character.
Yet both ideas express truths which
need but to be blended together, to bring
before us a realization Of the absolute
necessity of play in practical and
physiological light. The first may be
taken as referring to the physical gam
bOls of the young animal; the second,
to that which in one sense may be men,
tai relaxation. in another, not so; af-
Tentatively if the exercise of the sport
impulse involves q total change of
thought and idea, negatively if no such
change takes place.
Play is an instructive faculty, inherent
in all animals. 1t is as much an in
stinct as the desire to seek food when
hungry; and to regard it as mere
aimless and trifling species of exertiOn
is a total mistake. The gambols of a
child emerging from babyhood, or of Il
kitten, are due to precisely similar rea-
sons. At this period of life the purpose
of play in man and brute is the same;
in after years the difference vastly
widens through the introduction of the
intellectual elements in the actions of
the child, and of course its total absence
in those Of the brute. The games and
playthings of youth are not those Of
childhood; but the play of an old dog
though more rarely occurring-is new
ertheless the same as that of a young
puppy. The object of play in young
life is exercise. 1t is the peculiar ex-
crcise which nature prompts the organ
ism to undertakes; and it may be said
that it is the only possible form of excr-
else which is at once attended by pleas
ure, and is able to mold the frame of
the growing animal in the direction of
its perfect development. Its antithesis
is task work, which, though it may not
involve one 1.-THE the exertion, neverthe-
lers passes quickly into fatigue, and
thus results in straining some muscles
unduly while others are left compare
lively undeveloped. In play alone, the
instructive sense of physical need gets
full scope; its spontaneity and aimless-
less are therefore only apparent, and
it's nature and amount are determined
by the sense of pleasure in the exercise
itself; while, on the other hand, astrictly
natural limit is imposed on all undue
exertion by obedience to the sense Of
fatigue. The result is an equable and
harmonious development of muscular
energy and nutrition in every muscle
and fiber; and it is one attainable in no
other way-certainly not by any pre-
scribed routine of exertiOn--Or save by
Obeying a natural instinct.
DR.. John Strachan, of Edinburgh, has
recently published little treatise, ply
siologically inquiring into the bearing
of play upon education and training;
and, after advancing conclusions sub
stantially similar to those above
enumerated, he proceeds further, and
states that the law of spontaneous de-
velopment through play does not end
with physical improvement, but that,
after time, the higher and more diff
ferentiated faculties come to be re-
quired for the perfection of the animal,
and that the same law presides over
their evolution. Play, he explains, that
is apparently aimless, or, at least, not
consciously directed exercise, is the
means of securing the equable develop
ment of the brain and its faculties
memory, imagination, hope, wonder,
and even special kinds of intellectual
and moral activity, according to the
endowments, and, perhaps, all the ac-
cidents, of social position in the indi-
vidual. Exercise is accompanied by
pleasure up to the limit of fatigue; be-
yond this limit, by pain or uneasiness.
Special endOwments or faculties
brought into prominence by accident
and, after exercised, are more, others
are less, developed. But in every case
there is q limit, and the only sure
way of asccrtaining the limit is by CIV
ing scope to the instinct; in other
words, by allowing play or appar-
emily unrcgulated and spontaneous inn
pulse its due place in the work of edu-
cation"
OF course the practical deduction to
be made from DR.. Strachan's conclu-
sions are, first, that tasks should never
be arranged so as to carry the organ
ism over the limit of fatigue, that play
as such should be real play, nothing
but the absolutely free and spOnta-
neous direction of the sport impulse"
and not circumscribed by any limits as
to kind or nature. Our authors treat
ment ends with the bearing of play
upon the education and training of the
young, else he might have pursued his
inquiry further and reached the hardly
avoidable conclusion that. as the hui
man being grows older, play becomes
more and more mental process, until
at last it becomes hardly distinguishes
BILE from work. The labors of almost
any professional man will demonstrate
this; the results of his sport impulse
viewed individually are due to what
would to another man involve hard
labor. Eventually play becomes mere
ly difference in work, and involves the
disuse of one set of tired brain mole
cules, as it were, and the calling into
action of fresh series, and the more
different the labor the greater and more
enjoyable, and, doubtless, the more
beneficial, the change. The author of
that supremely funny children's story,
Alice in Wonderland, and the wild
ly-absurd "Hunting of the Shark" is q
grave theological Professor in . great
English University-and both writings
are productions which professional
wits and humorists would shrink from