also such sports as hopping, skipping,
jumping, dancing, skipping rope, vaulting, leapfrog, whirling,
somersault. The dizzy sensation resulting from stimulation of the
semicircular canals is evidently pleasant to young children, and some
of their sports seem aimed at securing a good measure of it.

{487}

Things that increase your radius of action; balls to throw or bat, bow
and arrow, sling, mirror used to throw sunlight into a distant
person's eyes; and we might include the bicycle here as well as in the
preceding class.

Things that resist the force of gravity, floating, soaring, balancing,
ascending, instead of falling; or that can be made to behave in this
way. Here we have a host of toys and sports: balloons, soap bubbles,
kites, rockets, boats, balls that bounce, tops that balance while they
spin, hoops that balance while they roll, arrows shot high into the
sky; climbing, walking on the fence, swimming, swinging, seesaw again.

Things that move in surprising ways or that are automatic: toy
windmills, mechanical toys.

Things that can be opened and shut or readjusted in some similar way:
a book to turn the leaves of, a door to swing or to hook and unhook, a
bag or box to pack or unpack, water taps to turn on or off (specially
on).

Plastic materials, damp sand, mud, snow; and other materials that can
be worked in some way, as paper to tear or fold, stones or blocks to
pile, load or build, water to splash or pour; and we might add here
fire, which nearly every one, child or adult, likes to manage.

Finally, playmates should really be included in a list of playthings,
since the presence of a playmate is often the strongest stimulus to
arouse play.

_Such being the stimulus, what is the play response?_ It consists in
manipulating or managing the plaything so as to produce some
interesting result. The hoop is made to roll, the kite to fly, the
arrow to hit something at a distance, the blocks are built into a
tower or knocked down with a crash, the mud is made into a "pie", the
horn is sounded. Many games are variations on pursuit and capture (or
escape): tag, hide-and-seek, prisoner's base, blind {488} man's buff,
football, and we might include chess and checkers here. Wrestling,
boxing, snowballing are variations on attack and defense. A great many
are variations on action at a distance, of which instances have
already been cited from children's toys; in adult games we find here
golf, croquet, bowling, q