es, so that we "play games," it applies also to informal
play activities, such as a child's "playing horse," "playing house,"
or playing in the sand. In such unorganized play there are no fixed
rules, no formal mode of procedure, and generally, no climax to be
achieved. The various steps are usually spontaneous, not
predetermined, and are subject to individual caprice. In games, on the
contrary, as in Blind Man's Buff, Prisoners' Base, or Football, there
are prescribed acts subject to rules, generally penalties for defeat
or the infringement of rules, and the action proceeds in a regular
evolution until it culminates in a given climax, which usually
consists in a victory of skill, speed or strength. In a strictly
scientific sense, games do not always involve the element of sport or
play, being used in many forms among primitive peoples for serious
divinatory purposes. It is perhaps needless to say that all of the
games in the present collection are for the purpose of sport and
recreation.

[Sidenote: Playing values]

The four hundred games here published are selected from a far larger
number. No game has been included that has not been considered to have
strong playing values, by which term is meant, in addition to other
qualities, and above all others, the amount of sport and interest
attending it. The points of play that contribute to the success of a
game have been secured from experience, and unfamiliar games have been
thoroughly tested and the points of play noted for older or younger
players, large or small numbers, or other circumstances.

[Sidenote: Elements of games]

Games may be analyzed into certain elements susceptible of
classification, such as the elements of formation, shown in the circle
form, line form, or opposing groups; other elements are found in modes
of contest, as between individuals or groups; tests of strength or
skill; methods of capture, as with individual touching or wrestling,
or with a missile, as in ball-tag games; or the elements of
concealment, or chance, or guessing, or many others. These various
elements are like the notes of the scale in music, susceptible of
combinations that seem illimitable in variety. Thus in the Greek
Pebble Chase, the two elements that enter into the game--that of (1)
detecting or guessing who holds a concealed article, and (2) a
chase--are neither of them uncommon elements, but in this combination
make a game that differs in playing value from any famili