Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1909-11-25
PLAY VALUABLE
IN DEVELOP MENT

ment OF the SChOOl Children
and a Better Balanced Future
Generation.
The school play ground as an
educational factor, has received very
little consideration III the past, and
yet the play ground is a factor Of
the greatest importance. The school
is still quite largely a place for sit.
months of the year, and for silent
ly examining book learning under the
Watchful eye Of the teacher The
most important instincts of the
chIld's life are ignored; adult stan
dards and adult methods are thrust
upon him, and he is not supposed to
learn morality, social cooperation,
leadership, self-direction, and the art
of making friends by doing by
inaction and from dry textbooks.
The playground, which is the great
est laboratory for training future c;ti-
zens which we have, is neglected by
most teachers Often, in our cities,
there is not enough actual space for
schools of this country have but a
fringe of land about the school build
ings, for the children to play on,
and it is the rare school that has
gymnasium or play space in the
schOol-roOms. If, perchance there
has been left a playground of mod
est size, it has generally been pro-
Vided by our far sighted directors
for later building engagements. And
even this space, later to be built
upon, is as bare of apparatus and
play tools for the children as the
desert OF Sahara-not as we'll equipp-
ed as the Sahara in fact, since it
would provide great pile of sand at
least. The teachers, especially the
women, rarely venture out upon thes
pIay-spaces, even though it is gen
orally true they are as under-played,
as under-paid." And the children
many times prefer to sit in the
schooI-room at recess rather than
venture out on the crowded, indirect
ed, playIess Fairgrounds.
Not long ago some high school
boys were warned about going into
cigar stores and pool rooms, at in
termissions, because of the bad bab-
It's certain to be formed there. The
leader of the boys answered the
principal, superintendent and school
board member in about these words:
Where shall we go? You give us
no playground; we are not allowed
freedom in the school house: and we
are in serious need of some unhamD-
cred fellowship with each other. Tell
Us OF better place to stay" These
school authorities had brought home
TO them by this lad, I think. some
thing of the significance of this al
most nhuman treatment of vigorous
boyhoOd in our cities. Had the prin-
clpal, superintendent and director
dared to answer as they thought,
they would have been obliged to an
sWer: ct is ours and the peoples
fault, not yours
What are the results of our neglect
OF the playground as an education
al factor? In the first place. the
health and normal physical develop
ment of the children suffer. Our
schools are great breeding places for
weak lungs, flabby, pipestem arms
and legs, weakened eyesight, nerv-
BUSINESS, a nemia especially in girls,
due to undeveloped heart at a criti-
cal period of life) and general weak
ened constitution
1--WE seem sometime to have for
gotten that the aim of school and
college is not primarily learning, but
IuS u6N6IOpu6uL OIL SIrO0S, W6I-Ddl-
anced men and women, who can bear
the burdens and do the work of their
own place in life, and meet the emer-
gencies of complex civilization
The chief business of the lower
grades (below high school should
be to promote healthy physical
growth. The body of the young boy
and girl demands more care and at
tention than the mind. Pulmonary,
rather than cerebral, capacity is the
best promise of future usefulness.
Playground, garden and gymnasium
can help more than desk and recita-
ton. Both are needed but the ply
steal is first; afterwards that which
is mental and SPIRITUAL
Herbert Spencer, speaking of the
school situation fifty years ago, says