hat the
boys shall come into the most sympathetic spirit with each other, and
anything that happens wrong on the playground is to us fully as serious
as what happens in their studies."

There is a universal conception that play is not serious. Children are
allowed to do just as they please. This is a mistake. Froebel has taught
the true spirit and importance of play. Some people consider his
explanations as being purely speculative, if not insane; but the great
majority of those who have really studied child life agree with him.

It is important what games the child is given. The play must be enjoyed.
It should awaken creative energy. It should appeal to the imagination
and feelings and not be a purely mechanical exercise of will. It is
absolutely necessary for the unfoldment of character that the child come
into touch with other minds, and also into contact with things.

Someone has summed up the whole principle in a sentence: "Bring such
objects before the child as will stimulate spontaneous activity." The
objects may be animals, birds, leaves, flowers, balls, sticks, anything
which can awaken human faculties or be turned into a tool.

Arts are given us rather for avocations, for our enjoyment, as a test of
our ability to appreciate the different points of view. Each art, as I
have often tried to say, expresses something that no other art can say,
and he is a cultivated human being who can read all the arts and enjoy
them. The aim of art is to guide our energies in higher directions, and
to stimulate our ideals. Art develops attention and trains us to become
interested in a great variety of directions.

As a proof of this observe the great beauty of nature. We are stirred
to go out of doors, to go into the woods and note the beautiful scene
and the music of the pines that calls us. Nature everywhere seems at
play, seems to invite men to come out into her unlimited playground, the
playground of universal principles and fullness of life.

The poet, Schiller, explained all art as being derived from the play
instinct. It has been said that play is the overflow of life. Life,
love, joy, all noble ideals, must awaken spontaneity or they will not
grow. All parts of man's nature must have expression and not be
repressed. Play is given to stimulate and to express the spontaneous in
us, to manifest emotion and imagination and a sense of freedom. Freedom
is a necessity of all unfoldment. Even the flower must bloom
spontane