standing
of the needs of child nature and yet to be one with the children--these
are the essentials of the supervision of play.

QUESTIONS

1. Distinguish between the fighting instinct and the instinctive basis
of play.

2. Under what conditions may an activity which we classify as play for a
civilized child be called work for a child living under primitive
conditions?

3. What kinds of plays are characteristic of different age periods in
the life of children?

4. Trace the development of some game played by the older boys in your
school from its simpler beginnings in the play of little children to its
present complexity.

5. Name the characteristics common to all playful activity.

6. Distinguish between play and drudgery.

7. What is the difference between work and play?

8. To what degree may the activities of the school be made play?

9. Explain why the same activity may be play for one individual, work
for another, and drudgery for a third.

10. Why should we seek to make the play element prominent in school
activity?

11. When is one most efficient in individual pursuits--when his activity
is play, when he works, or when he is a drudge?

12. Under what conditions should we compel children to work, or even to
engage in an activity which may involve drudgery?

13. Explain how play may involve the maximum of utilization of the
abilities possessed by the individual, rather than a type of activity
easy of accomplishment.

14. In what does skill in the supervision of play consist?

* * * * *

X. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES FOR THE TEACHER

It has been indicated here and there throughout the previous chapters
that, despite the fact that there are certain laws governing the various
mental traits and processes, still there is variation in the working of
those laws. It was pointed out that people differ in kind of memory or
imagination in which they excel, in their ability to appreciate, in the
speed with which they form habits, and so on. In other words, that boys
and girls are not exact duplicates of each other, but that they always
differ from each other. Now a knowledge of these differences, their
amounts, interrelations, and causes are very necessary for the planning
of a school system or for the planning of the education of a particular
child. What we plan and how we plan educational undertakings must always
be influenced by our opinion