. Williams, a New York principal, of reserving certain streets for
children between the hours of three and five, and of diverting traffic
to other streets less suitable for children's play? So great is the
value--mentally, morally, and physically--of out-of-door play that it
has even been suggested that the substitution of such play for school
for all children up to the age of ten would insure better minds and
sounder physiques at fifteen. It is generally admitted that the child
who enters school at eight rather than at six will be the gainer at
twelve. What a travesty upon education to insist upon schooling for
children because they are apt to be run over on the street, or to be
neglected at home, to shoot craps, or belong to a gang and develop bad
morals.

Educators will some day be ashamed to have made the schools the
catch-all or the court-plaster for the evils of modern industry.
Instead of pupils and mothers going to the school, enough hygiene
teachers, and play teachers, and district physicians could be employed
with the money now spent on indoor instruction to do the house-to-house
visiting urged in many chapters of this book. Such a course of action
would have an incalculable effect on the reduction of tuberculosis, not
only in making healthier physiques but by inculcating habits of outdoor
life and love of fresh air. The danger of those contagious diseases
which ravish childhood would be greatly reduced. An ambition for
physical integrity would make unnatural living unpopular. Competition
in games with children _of the same physical class_ develops accuracy,
concentration, dispatch, resourcefulness, as much as does instruction
in arithmetic. Smoking can easily be discredited among boys trying to
hit the bull's-eye. A boy would sooner give up a glass of beer than the
championship in rifle shooting or a "home run."

The influence of the "spirit of the game" on practical life has been
described thus by New York's director of physical training, Dr. Luther
H. Gulick:

Play is the spontaneous enlistment of the entire personality in
the pursuit of some coveted end. We do not have to pursue the
goal; we wish to--it is our main desire. This is the way in which
greatest discoveries, fortunes, and poems are made. It is the way
in which we take the responsibilities and problems of life that
makes it either a deadly bore--a mere dull round of routine and
drudgery--or the most interesting and absorbing game