k the Herald Angels Sing," "O Zion Haste," "Holy,
Holy, Holy," "Abide with Me." These will suit those of from ten upward;
younger children will enjoy "Can a Little Child Like Me," "Brightly
Gleams Our Banner," "Jesus Loves Me." "I Think When I Read That Sweet
Story," and "For the Beauty of the Earth," though they will join gladly
in the other hymns. Or, instead of using the phonograph, sit down
quietly at the piano and play these hymns, with just enough emphasis for
the children to catch the rhythm, and they will soon be standing at the
piano singing with you.[16]

Sec. 3. PLAY ACTIVITY

The child is a playing animal. Play is not an invention of the devil,
designed to plague parents and to lead children to waste their time. It
is nature's best method of education, for when a child plays he is
simply reaching forward in his activities to the realization of his
ideals. Play is idealized experiences. There is always a significance of
wider and maturer experience in children's play. Therefore the family
must find space and time and adaptation of organization to the child's
need of spontaneous, free activity in play.

The special religious value of play lies in the fact that the child in
his games is experimenting with life, learning its lessons; especially
is he learning the art of living with other lives. It is our religious
duty to see to it that our children become used to living in society by
playing in social groups. Scarcely anyone is more to be pitied than the
lonely child standing in the corner of the playground, able only to
watch the games, because parental prohibition has already made him a
solitary and unsocial creature.

The educational potencies of play are so great that we dare not leave
its activities to chance. Parents must study the power of play, its
psychological and educational values, in order to direct its activity to
the highest good.

The adequate care of a child's play-life will involve, in addition to
the trained intelligence of the parents, provision for space in the
house and also outdoors, willingness to subordinate our peace and our
pleasure to the child's play at times, a reasonable though not
necessarily expensive provision of play materials, attention to the
character of the plays and playmates. The home will not lose its harmony
and beauty if it is filled with playing children. Its function has to do
with their development rather than with the preservation of chairs.

I. Re