Between these two extremes lies work.  It differs from play in that the results are usually of more value and in that the attention is therefore often of the derived type.  It differs from drudgery in that there is not the sharp distinction between the process and the result and in that the attention may often be of the free spontaneous type.  It was emphasized at the beginning of this chapter that the boundaries between the three were hazy and ill defined.  This is especially true of work; it may be indistinguishable from play as it partakes of its characteristics, or it may swing to the other extreme and be almost drudgery.  The difference between the three activities is a subjective matter—­a difference largely in mood, in attitude of the person concerned, due to the readiness or unreadiness of the neurone tracts exercised.  The same activity may be play for one person, work for another, and drudgery for still another.  Further, for the same person the same activity may be play, work, or drudgery, at different times, even within the same day.

Which of the three is the most valuable for educational purposes?  Certainly not drudgery.  It is deadening, uneducative, undevelopmental.  Any phase of education, though it may be a seemingly necessary one, that has the characteristics of drudgery is valueless in itself.  As a means to an end it may serve—­but with the antagonistic attitude, the annoyance aroused by drudgery, it seems a very questionable means.  Education that can obtain the results required by a civilized community and yet use the play spirit is the ideal.

But to have children engaged in play, in the sense of free play, cannot be the only measure.  There must be supervision and direction.  The spirit that characterizes the activities which are not immediately useful must be incorporated into those that are useful by means of the shifting of association bonds.  Nor can all parts of the process seem worth while to the learner.  Sometimes the process or parts of it must become a means to an end, for the end is remote.  But all this is true to some extent in free play—­digging the worms in order to go fishing, finding the scissors and thread in order to make the doll’s dress, making arrangements with the other team to play ball, finding the right pieces of wood for the hut, and so on, may not be satisfactory in and of themselves, but may be almost drudgery.  They are not drudgery because they become fused in the whole process, they take over and are lost in the joy of the undertaking as a whole; they become a legitimate means to an end, and in so far take over in derived form the interest that is roused by the whole.  It is this fusion of work and play that is desirable in education.  This is the great lesson of play—­it shows the value and encourages the logical combination of the two activities.  Children learn to work as they play.  They learn the meaning and value of work.  Work becomes a means to an end, and that end not something remote and disconnected from the activity itself, but as part and parcel of it.  Thus the activity as a whole imbued with the play spirit becomes motivated.