Year: 1873

The Active Element in Play.


We make, of course, great mistake
if we overlook the active element in
play, and children and grown persons
must not get their sport too easily, nor
enfeeble themselves by sedentary
amusements. Here the important dis
tinction Of the active and passive voice
opens upon us. In baseball, in crick-
ett, in billiards, in bowling, and in
ouoits and football there is whole
some stir of the limbs and the blood,
and also good exercise for the pcrcep-
tions and Judgment. Spinning tire top
and flying the kite, playing marbles and
battledoor, are mlider sports, yet they
have the use for the mind as well as tho
body, and they have place in physical
education too important to allow any
sensible man to despise them. We
tend generally very much, however,
away from all these outdoor active
plays, and we like to get our amuse-
ment as easily Ms possible, while the
least loss of time or cost OF effort.
Hence tho great prevalence of the sit
ting plays, the sedentary recreations.
These are of various kinds, according
as they quicken the perceptions and
the understanding at the table, as in
the case of draughts, backgammon, or
tho less Objectionable forms of card
playing or as in the case of riddles
and charades and conundrums, they
stir the wits or in the play with dolls
and puppets, which start the fancy ; or,
lastly, in the games of chance, that
move hope and fear without calling out
any worthy action of mind or heart,
and which are of doubtful service even
in their mildest forms, so ready are
they to encourage the accursed passion
for gaming. Now we certainly need to
bring out the more active class of plays,
and men of business and the profes-
sions would be much better every way
if they would keep up the usages and
the spirit of their youth by going with
their children and young people to the
baseball ground or the bowling-alley.
1t is the merest drivel to speak of any
of these wholesome sports as bad be-
cause they are sometimes abused. A
billiard table and Il bowling-alloy are
no more evil in themselves than di-
ning-room or bath h-house, for each of
these may and has been perverted to
monstrous corruptions.


1t is becoming very practical ques-
ton how far the active sports should
become so intense and personal as to
excite emulation and influence partisan
ship, as is so often the case with our
rowing matches and ball-playing. Here
second distinction, based upon emu
lation and its absence, presents itself.
Too often these contests cease to be
plays, and when the victory secures
either valuable prize or a substantial
honor, and sometimes it brings health
and even peace of mind into peril 1t
is fun to see Harvard and Yale or Ok
ford and Cambridge rowing for the
mastery, but the brave fellows who are
straining their muscles to win the day
for their color are not especially jolly,
and no work is harder than theirs. Young
men must, indeed, be manly, and not
mind roughing it sometimes, and the
boat-race is of piece with the scram-
BILE of life, and one must not be over
dainty in play when we are to try our
hand and take our chance in the rough
and-tumble of the world. 1t is best,
however, to give to manly plays as much
geniality and harmony as possible. We
can not ask young men, indeed, to be
content with dancing all the time with
ladies in sympathetic round and party
regulation. Nor can we hope to confine
them to the routine of the gymnasium
and its feats of turning and climbing.
Military sports meet their active tenn
per very well, and marching and coun-
termarching with banners and music
are better and more friendly exercise
than the everlasting fight for supre-
macy, whether with the oar, or the
football, or the cricket bat. 1t is well
to calm the pulses of youth, and even
of children, by adding plays OF repre-
sentation to active sports, and finer
quality of fellowship goes with hearing
music, seeing tableax and pictures,
walking in the fields, or rowing or sail
ing quietly amidst pleasing scenery,
or joining in a social party with its con-
slant change of scenes and persons and
recreations. We ought to make more
of this style Of amusement, and try to
refine and dignity the love Of fun in
our young people by more taste and
beauty.-Dr. Samuel Osgood, in Har-
pcr's Magazine.


Two curious suicides have taker
.I..o "a D..:, 18th o,oos;onoI h., a.,