g for running's sake. They try to find some object for their
exertions; the younger children play pranks. The activity of children
thus left to themselves has rarely a good result; it does not aid
development, save as regards the physical advantage of general
nutrition, that is, of the vegetative life. Their movements become
ungraceful; they invent unseemly capers, walk with a staggering gait,
fall easily, and break things. They are evidently quite unlike the
free kitten, so full of grace, so fascinating in its movements,
tending to perfect its action by the light jumping and running which
are natural to it. In the motor instinct of the child there appears to
be no grace, no natural impulse towards perfection. Hence we must
conclude that the movement which suffices for the cat does not suffice
for the child, and that if the nature of the child is different, his
path of liberty must also be different.

If the child has no "intelligent aim" in his movements, he is without
internal guidance, thus movement tires him. Many men feel the
dreadful emptiness of being compelled to "move without an object." One
of the cruel punishments invented for the chastisement of slaves was
to make them dig deep holes in the earth and fill them up again
repeatedly, in other words, to make them work without an object.

Experiments on fatigue have shown that work with an intelligent object
is far less fatiguing than an equal quantity of aimless work. So much
so, that the psychiatrists of to-day recommend, not "exercise in the
open air," but "work in the open air," to restore the individuality of
the neurasthenic.

"Reconstructive" work--work, that is to say, which is not the product
of a "mental effort," but tends to the coordination of the
psycho-muscular organism. Such are the activities which are not
directed to the _production_ of objects, but to their _preservation_,
as, for instance, dusting or washing a little table, sweeping the
floor, laying or clearing the table, cleaning shoes, spreading out a
carpet. These are the tasks performed by a servant to _preserve_ the
objects belonging to his master, work of a very different order to
that of the artificer, who, on the other hand, _produced_ those
objects by an intelligent effort. The two classes of work are
profoundly different. The one is simple; it is a coordinated activity
scarcely higher in degree than the activity required for walking or
jumping; for it merely gives purpose to those