r widely concerning the
educational value of voluntary imitation. It is evident, however, that
in certain cases, as learning correct forms of speech, in physical and
manual exercises, in conduct and manners, etc., good models for
imitation count for more than rules and precepts. On the other hand, to
endeavour to teach a child by imitation to read intelligently could only
result in failure. In such a case, the pupil, by attempting to analyse
out and set up as models the different features of the teachers reading,
would have his attention directed from the thought of the sentence. But
without grasping the meaning, the pupil cannot make his reading
intelligent. In like manner, to have a child learn a rule in arithmetic
by merely imitating the process from type examples worked by the
teacher, would be worse than useless, since it would prevent independent
thinking on the child's part. The purpose here is not to gain skill in a
mechanical process, but to gain knowledge of an intelligent principle.

PLAY

=Nature of Play Impulse.=--Another tendency of early childhood utilized
by the modern educator is the so-called instinct of play. According to
some, the impulse to play represents merely the tendency of the surplus
energy stored up within the nervous organism to express itself in
physical action. According to this view, play would represent, not any
inherited tendency, but a condition of the nervous organism. It is to be
noted, however, that this activity spends itself largely in what seems
instinctive tendencies. The boy, in playing hide-and-seek, in chasing,
and the like, seems to express the hunting and fleeing instincts of his
ancestors. Playing with the doll is evidently suggested and influenced
by the parental instinct, while in all games, the activity is evidently
determined largely by social instincts. Like imitation, therefore, play
seems a complex, involving a number of instinctive tendencies.

=Play versus Work.=--An essential characteristic of the play impulse is
its freedom. By this is meant that the acts are performed, not to gain
some further end, but merely for the sake of the activity itself. The
impulse to play, therefore, must find its initiative within the child,
and must give expression merely to some inner tendency. So long, for
example, as the boy shovels the sand or piles the stones merely to
exercise his physical powers, or to satisfy an inner tendency to
imitate the actions of others, the opera