happily show little
differentiation. Almost any game not prejudicial to health serves to
call into action the moral forces we strive to cultivate. The game to
a certain extent typifies the larger life--the life of effort,
contest, striving to win. Self-control and proper consideration of
others in the one must serve as a help in fitting for the other.

[Illustration: Courtesy of L.A. Alderman
Drill work as well as games is beneficial to health and also teaches
self-control]

Teachers are often inclined to overlook or undervalue the training of
girls in games. The fact is that girls especially need this training
as the woman's sphere in present-day life is widening. Men have always
had contact with the world. Women have in times past had to content
themselves with a single interest involving contest--the social game.

How far we may safely go in utilizing the game element--that is, the
contest or competition element--in school work is a question for
thought. The "rules of the game" are less easy to enforce here;
jealousies are harder to control; handicaps are more in evidence and
less easy to make allowance for in contests; the discouragement of
failure may have more serious results. The mere fact of class grouping
involves a natural competition, healthful and beneficial and wisely
preparatory for future living. More emphasis than this upon rivalry
may produce feverish and unhealthful conditions, far removed from the
mental poise we desire for our girls. The school can give the girl few
things finer than the ability to attack work quietly and yet with
determination and a sense of power to meet and overcome obstacles.

The school and the playground form the growing girl's community life.
In them she must learn to practice community virtues, to shun
community evils, and to accept community responsibilities. For her the
school and the playground are society. Here she will take her first
lessons in the pride of possessions, in the prestige accompanying
them, in the struggle for social supremacy, in doubtful ideals brought
from all sorts of doubtful sources. Here she will find exaggerated
notions of "style" and its value, impure English, whispered
uncleanness in regard to sex matters, and surreptitious reading of
forbidden books. Here also she will find worthier examples--clean,
pure thought, honesty and fair dealing, pride of achievement rather
than of externals, fine ideals exemplified in the best homes. And no
finer