The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1909-04-17
GOD HELP THEM.

In the upper state of New York life is develop
ing to educators competent to know, children have
forgotten how to play They are the opposite of
Peter Pan, who never grew up, in that they have
never properly been children They are, mostly,
the children of the rich. The number of these
playless youngsters is variously estimated in the
thousands. About 10000 is fair figure. Indeed,
thousands of wealthy children in New York are
actually homeless.
The trouble is that the modern luxuries de-
moralizing the child spelling his imagination and
his powers of self-resource. One trouble is the
elaborate mechanical toys. The child of wealth has
dolls that talk palatial dolls houses lighted by cleo
tricity and with all modern appurtenances; NINA
ture steam railroads and trolley lines that go, and
even an automobile for his own use He can sit
cuddled on a sofa and let a servant his toys
for him. Hence, his imagination becomes atrophied
-he has no use for simple things and is dependent
on money alone for all his artificial pleasures
The costly and magnificent theatre spectacles
provided especially for the children in New York
are said to be another source of decentralization.
The child is taken to witness plays with gorgeously
caparisoned fairies witches princes and soldiers,
a most elaborate stage setting. 1t does not sug-
gest any simple games for him to initiate but he
simply clamors for more of such spectacles. In
stead of learning to play himself he demands that
hired players furnish his amusement.
Perhaps the most unfortunate of the citys chill
dren are of the hotels The growing difficulty of
the servant problem in the metropolis the remark
able congestion of the population and the tendency
of many families to spend good part of the year
abroad, have led to the abandonment of thousands
of homes whose former occupants lead sort of
nomadic hotel life while in the city. The children
in these families, therefore know nothing of home
life. They have no place to play even if they knew
how except in the case of those few favored chill
dren who recently revolted from this stupid life
amid gilded halls and ran away. He was eventually
found, with his handsome frock sadly torn and
spattered, having a splendid time playing about
some ash cans with big crowd of ragged urchins
in tenement street. 1t is found that among chill
dren of this class the ready -made. money-bought
idea is beginning to infect some of the sweetest of
home observance and to change them from times
of thought into periods of mere purchase. a
mothers birthday for instance, instead of being
period of long and careful planning to give pleas
ure, is degenerating into occasion when the fa-
Their as prelude to hasty shopping trip to buy
a gift to mark the day. No sacrifices, no effort of
thought arc involved. To counterfeit this tendency
to depend ready-made play has become sig |
nfcant development of educational work in the |
In this the endowed school conducted |
by the Society for Ethical Culture of New York,
which has both rich and poor pupils, has been the
leader, and next year will establish a course of
teachers particularly designed to teach children how
to play.