The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1904-09-26
Education and Football.

Discussing the history OF pedagogical
training, DR.. THOMAS NJ. BALLET, Dean
of the School of Pedagogy of the New
York University lays just stress upon
the Importance of play in education
He says that education "is becoming
less bookish." Indeed, the absolute di-
yorce of books from education may be
awaited hopefully. Once education was
work. Now it is largely play The old
fashioned, compulsory, arbitrary sys-
tenn is obsolete. DR.. JOHNSON said bru-
tally that children are afraid Of being
whipped, get their task, and there's
an end ont" The rod is going and the
task is gone. Children frsk, scamper
and play into education. With what
muttering and sullenness, what knead
ing of dirty knuckles into briny eyes,
the old-fashioned child learned to spell
"cat" and dog" and drum Now he
news. bow-wows or beats an actual drum
or sees picture of cat, a dog, drum,
and as long as the picture or the original
is before him, he can spell the word.
The play of men, animals and children,
has been studied by psychologists, an
thropologists and sociologists. "All ami
mails" DR.. BALLET tells us, develop
healthy bodies through play, without
formal gymnastics" To the last clause
we can give only provisional assent.
The residence of mules hind leg may
be the survival OF a primitive formal
sapdte The greyhound is the product
- IN trin iati
and sprnting.
In his opening address at the School
of Pedagogy, Saturday, DR.. BALLET
committed himself to theory Of play
that gives new dignity to the chief fall
study in the schools and colleges:
Play Is the reproduction repetition OF what
was serious work OH the part of our remote pre-.
historic ancestors The football game Is rehearsal
of tribal warfare. and develops the elemental vtr.
tues essential to primitive social life. such as cour
age, loyalty, self -subordlnaton and self control.
While we hold the prehstorical,
historical and anthropological theory
of play, some of DR.. BALLIET's assertions
are doubtful. Football is not merely
a reproduction and rehearsal of serious
work; it is mighty serious work. We're
remote prehistoric ancestors "up to"
such work? Did the great ancestral
primates, arboreal in their habits, punt
and kick cocoanuts in clearings OF the
jungle? The so-called football hair" is
clearly survival of the elder days, when
men wore their natural furs. Made
the fur fly" is a fossilized metaphor
But we cannot believe that football Is
only "a rehearsal of tribal warfare 1t
is not rehearsal; it is the main bust
ness and the great tragicomedy Of school
life 1t is SO vehement and severe that
the early, imperfecuy nourished and
cachectic tribes never could have sur
vived it. And look at the thin and
scrawny shins OF the Australian black
fellows, supposed to be nearer than
most other tribes to the state of nature
"the primitive" type. Football, the
nurse of manly biceps and heroic calves,
has never been among those savages.
Unless it was developed among the
arboreal ancestors, chasing the cocoanut
it can hardly have arisen before the
pastoral age. When was the first pig
skin tanned?
Obscure ia the question of the origin
Of football and other sports. The pile
dwellers may have gone in for" water
polo; but football was out Of their ele-
ment The cave jewellers may have had
squash courts and handball courts, but
they had small facilities for football.
But whatever its origin, DR.. BALLET Is
right in saying that it develops the ele-
mental virtues. At the same time, its
sinister tendency toward militarism has
made divers Mugwumps mourn.