CHAPTER V

The ethical value of organized play[6]

The value of work as a prime factor in character building must not be overlooked.  In the revival of play that is sweeping over our American cities and in the tendency to eliminate effort from modern education there is danger of erecting a superficial and mere pleasure-seeking ideal of life.  It is upon the background of the sacred value of work that the equally legitimate moral factor of play is here considered.  Further, the value of undirected play in cultivating initiative, resourcefulness, and imagination, especially in young children, is worth bearing in mind.  One must grant also that play is not always enlisted in the service of morality.  But neither is religion.  Both may be.  At any rate it is evident that when boy nature is subjected to city conditions we must either provide proper outlet and guidance for the boy’s play instincts or be guilty of forcing him into the position of a law-breaker and a nuisance.

Reduced to its lowest terms, organized play is thus recognized as a convenient substitute for misconduct.  Even the property owner and peace-loving citizen, if moved by no higher motive, will agree to the adage that “Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do,” and will welcome the endeavor to safeguard property rights and promote the peace of the community by drawing off the adventurous and mischief-making energies of the boys into the less expensive channels of play.  Practical men are quite agreed that it is better for “gangs” to release their energy and ingenuity against one another in a series of athletic games than to seek similar adventure and satisfaction in conflict with established property rights and the recognized agencies of peace and order.

Nevertheless there persists in the church, however unconsciously, a sort of piety that disregards the body, and the conventional Christian ideal has certainly been anemic and negative in the matter of recreation.  The Young Men’s Christian Associations with their reproduction of the Greek ideal of physical well-being have served to temper the other-worldly type of Christianity with the idea of a well-rounded and physically competent life as being consonant with the will of God.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century Francke of Halle, an educational organizer and philanthropist of no mean proportion, said, “Play must be forbidden in any and all of its forms.  The children shall be instructed in this matter in such a way as to show them, through the presentation of religious principles, the wastefulness and folly of all play.  They shall be led to see that play will distract their hearts and minds from God, the Eternal Good, and will work nothing but harm to their spiritual lives.”