It is astonishing how large a proportion of play is dramatic in
character. Mr. George E. Freeland watched a baby of two and a half
years for a whole day and noted that he engaged in fifty-four different
imaginative games. It would be pretty hard, therefore, to enumerate all
the ways in which a child of three, at the period when imagination
seems to awaken, utilizes this faculty in play. This is the time when
the child imitates the acts of older people; therefore, whatever tiny
implements or apparatus he can use for that purpose are acceptable to
him.
Of the ready-made toys, toy furniture for the house, the sand pile for
outdoors and the doll for both are most useful. “The doll,” as Sully
tells us, “takes a supreme place in this fancy realm of play. The doll
is an all-important comrade in that solitude à deux, of which the
child, like the adult, is so fond.” The complete adaptability of the
doll makes it an ideal means for the puppet play of idealism. “A good,
efficient, able-bodied doll, like the American girl’s,” says Joseph
Lee, “is at home in any situation in life, from princess to kitchen
maid, to which she may be called. And one doll in her time plays many
parts; she has to, or lose her job.” Besides this, so perfectly does
the doll mingle with the child’s own personality that it produces and
maintains a complete feeling of oneness.
Says Sully: “‘The dolly must do all and be all that I am;’ so the
child, in his warm attachment, seems to argue. This feeling of oneness
is strengthened by that of exclusive possession, the sense that the
child himself is the only one who really knows dolly or can hear her
cry. It is another manifestation of the same feeling of intimacy and
solidarity when a child insists on dolly’s being treated by others as
courteously as he himself is treated. Children will often expect the
mother or nurse to kiss and say good-night to their pet or pets--for
their hearts are capacious--when she says good-night to themselves.”
“The rimes of Mother Goose,” says Mrs. Herts, “were predominantingly
dramatic. A great many of them associate words, song, and action. The
ordinary printed collections are misleading in this respect. The words,
taken alone, are not the thing. Think of printing ‘Pease porridge hot’
as a separate and independent poem without the dramatic hand-play!
Indeed, it is a pity to have these rimes in books at all.”
The mother may help the development of this expressive instinct in
early childhood. Even a baby ought to be treated as a play-mate, not
as a plaything. There is an old-fashioned game known as “Come to see.”
The little damsel with her doll, and perhaps “dressed up” in some of
her mother’s wardrobe, came to call on mother. Her efforts to behave
exactly as a lady should were aided and guided by the mother’s careful
behavior as hostess. It is a training in manners. When the children
play visit each other they use all the manners they have. They practice
useful lessons without knowing it. The mother who takes these baby
games seriously enough to enter into them in the child spirit is
teaching her children as truly as is the kindergartner.
The child from four to seven is capable of a wide range of imagination.
These years are regarded by psychologists as the most active
imaginatively throughout life. Capable of imitation of the ideas as
well as the acts of adults, the child uses dolls, soldiers, Noah’s
arks, carts, playhouses, blocks, sand-piles, paint boxes, and stencils
to act out a great variety of adult occupations. The imagination seems
to engage in freer play the more incomplete are the media provided by
others for its expression.
“Nothing,” says Stevenson, “can stagger a child’s faith; he accepts the
clumsiest substitutions and can swallow the most staring incongruities.
The chair he has just been besieging as a castle, or valiantly cutting
to the ground as a dragon, is taken away for the accommodation of a
morning visitor, and he is nothing abashed; he can skirmish by the
hour with a stationary coal scuttle; in the midst of the enchanted
pleasance, he can see, without sensible shock, the gardener soberly
digging potatoes for the day’s dinner. He can make abstraction of
whatever does not fit into his fable; and he puts his eyes in his
pocket, just as we hold our noses in an unsavory lane.”
Joseph Lee says, “One of the most petted quadrupeds I have known
consisted, to the prosaic eye, of half a barrel hoop.”
Even young children differ in the vividness and completeness with which
they surrender themselves to imaginary situations. It is said that
Stevenson himself was one day watching a boy who was playing that a
sofa was a boat. When he had finished he climbed down and walked away.
“For heaven’s sake, swim ashore!” cried out the imaginative child-lover
in genuine distress. It seemed to him a pity that the lad should not
carry his drama clear to its proper close.
No doubt, however, it is clumsy or blind interference by adults which
most often cripples the capacity of imaginative enjoyment. Sully tells
this: “A little girl of four was playing ‘shop’ with her younger
sister. The elder one was shopman at the time I came into her room and
kissed her. She broke out into piteous sobs; I could not understand
why. At last she sobbed out: ‘Mother, you never kiss the man in the
shop.’ I had with my kiss quite spoiled her illusion.”
The child soon tires of mechanical toys, talking dolls or elaborate
doll-houses with which there is nothing he can do. Illustrating this
point Joseph Lee says: “Toys, things of convenient size and shape to
play with, are indeed essential. But it is what _you_ can do
with or imagine about them, not what they themselves can do, that is
important.... It is the child’s own achievement, not that of the clever
man who made the toy, that counts.”
Miss Nora A. Smith tells of an old German toy-maker who, “when asked
where he got the ideas for his playthings, answered with a half-smile:
‘Not from the children, anyway. Children seldom get the toys they want,
but those that their parents want them to want.’”
The passion for destruction which often manifests itself during these
years is simply the perversion of the instinct for construction. Being
provided with no materials with which he can build he takes apart his
too complete toys. A pile of blocks, a sand-pile, a paint-box, some
dolls that must be cut out, a ruined shed that perhaps may be made into
a doll-house, these are ideal materials for childish play.
There are a number of old-fashioned games which exercise the dramatic
instinct. Among these are: Kitty White, Did You Ever See a Lassie?,
Farmer in the Dell, Squirrel in the Trees and the Duck Dance. These
are all described in Miss Bancroft’s book on play and games, referred
to below. Let us take her description of one of the less familiar
games, Kitty White, so that we may notice how the dramatic element
is expressed throughout. The accompanying music is not given in this
citation.
“This is an admirable game for very little children. Their dramatic
tendency should be given full rein in impersonating the soft movements
of the kitty and the mouse before the chase begins.
“Kitty White so slyly comes,
To catch the Mousie Gray;
But mousie hears her softly creep,
And quickly runs away.
“Run, run, run, little mouse,
Run, run, run, little mouse,
For Kitty White is coming near,
And she will catch the mouse, I fear.”
“One player is chosen for the mouse and stands in the center, and
another for Kitty White, who stands outside the circle. The other
players join hands in a ring and move around, while singing the first
four lines. Meanwhile Kitty White is creeping around outside of the
circle, peeping in at little Mousie Gray. When the fourth line is
reached, ‘And quickly runs away,’ the circle stops moving and drops
hands while the mouse runs out and in through the circle, chased by
Kitty White. For the last four lines, while the chase is going on, the
players in the circle stand in place and clap their hands while singing
‘Run, run,’ etc. When the mouse is caught, both return to the circle,
and another mouse and kitty are chosen.”
Between seven and nine still wider possibilities are found in the
dramatic use of materials. Sliced animals and other puzzles which
consist of building pictures from sections of cardboard, dolls
furnished with patterns for dressing, “Magic Changelings” (cutouts
representing Mother Goose characters so pasted together that they may
be two or three characters, according to the way in which they are
folded), pasteboard farms and villages, a dolly’s school outfit, Miss
Duncan’s pasteboard garden with labeled plants, stamped patterns of
birds and animals to be sewed and stuffed, the “Dynamobile,” which
goes by being wound up or attached to power, these are some of the
store-made plays that are worth while.
A child, however, will have equal enjoyment by making a toy village out
of blocks, stones, and twigs; he can make a miniature theater out of
an old kennel that will satisfy him better than the brightly colored
ones which can be bought, and he can play store, train, expressman with
nothing more than some boxes and a cart. The larger skill and knowledge
of the child gives more content to plays of an earlier period. He
now invents and conducts elaborate sieges and defenses for his toy
soldiers; he not merely plays with his pets, but he harnesses and
drives them. He can get up such varied entertainments as a circus, a
Wild West Show, a minstrel performance and a Japanese impersonation.
The child continues to play with dolls, but can now be induced to
produce an entire puppet show, one of the most educative employments,
by the way, possible to youthful play. He or she is now old enough to
be interested also in the simpler festivals, such as those of the
May Pole, Halloween, and the Fourth of July. Among the formal games
appropriate to these years are Bird Catcher, The Wee Bologna Man, Fox
and Geese and All Aboard.
We may provide an important stimulus to observation by encouraging
it in imaginative play. Miss Nora A. Smith makes this suggestion:
“Half-grown boys and girls too would be delighted to play at
‘Scouting,’ it being understood that a scout is always a special
person, selected for his special qualifications, and that he is
supposed to be unusually active, intelligent and trustworthy.
“The commanding officer, peacefully seated under a tree meanwhile,
sends out such a child scout to bring him a full report of the country
up to a given point, stating the condition of the roads, fences and
bridges; giving a description of the rocks or trees behind which the
enemy might take shelter; noting the presence of any figures in the
distance--dust rising or birds flying--the foot-marks, wheel-marks,
hoof-prints in the road, etc., or the presence of any object by the
wayside which would indicate that the foe had passed by.
“If it is explained that the expedition is a dangerous one,
necessitating great care and discretion on the part of the recruit,
and if it is suggested that it will perhaps be well to make certain
marks to guard against losing his way on return, by breaking small
branches, piling up stones, ‘blazing’ trees, scratching fence-posts,
etc., the excitement will be great and the game delightful, as well as
preeminently useful.”
This is about the time when he begins to get up entirely original
amateur shows, dramatizing either the stories he has read or the dramas
he has witnessed. In his The Coming Generation Dr. Forbush gives
these illustrations from his own household: “On going upstairs in the
country, the author has often been confronted by a large brown paper
poster which reads:
GREAT SHOW
AND FEED
At two o’clock
Admission One Cent.
I pay my fee at the door of one of the children’s chambers, and am
asked by the youthful ticket-seller if I care for a reserved seat. In a
stage whisper he adds, ‘O Parp, do take one; if you don’t, we’ll come
out short on the refreshments.’ I deposit the additional penny, and
am ushered to a seat upon the bed, over which is the placard, ‘First
Balcony.’ The rabble is seated on chairs.
“We are handed programs, executed with the expenditure of much muscle
and saliva. First, according to this program, is a ‘P’rad of Ginruls,’
introducing the entire company. Then follow recitations, songs, shadow
pictures, stereopticon and original plays, one of border life and the
other of conflict with crime in the city. A reminiscence of Cooper
is traceable in these vigorously acted dramas. The manipulation of
apparatus and the movements and dialogue behind the scenes are as
entertaining to the spectators as the regular acts. At the close a
plate of delicious plums is passed, for which the youngsters must have
walked two miles in the hot sun, and mortgaged all of the proceeds of
the entertainment in advance.”
The superior craftsmanship of the child between ten and twelve enables
him to enjoy games which imitate in close detail many adult activities.
Crepe paper, beads, and such plastic materials as clay and plasticine
can be used for improving the beauty of constructive articles. The boy
now enjoys some of the published games by which he can play conductor,
postoffice, and banker, and the girl who plays house does some actual
cooking and house-cleaning.
There was a description not long ago in American Motherhood of the way
a family carried their dramatic representations of literature still
further. They made models of the places they read about. An Esquimau
village was the simplest task. The people, dogs, sledges, and seals can
be modeled in clay and colored if material is at hand. If not, they can
be made of paper. Some oiled paper over blue makes a beautiful polar
sea, in which should float a great iceberg built either from paper, or
modeled from clay and covered with cotton, over which clambers a polar
bear. Cotton should cover the rude huts and all the land with its snowy
whiteness, and if a few pennies are available, a sprinkling of diamond
dust makes the scene very realistic.
The guidance of an older person is desirable in the matter of reading,
for the children should be encouraged to see that every detail is true
to fact. If Robinson Crusoe’s Island is attempted and rightly carried
out, the family copy will be worn to tatters before it is done, as it
certainly should be. The same kind of oiled and blue paper will again
serve for the ocean; the sandy beach can be real sand, in which may
be planted the tropical forest. The text itself must be studied for
the location of the cave, the later huts, the boat, the animals and
birds. In fact, the story must be made the foundation of it all and its
directions followed to the minutest detail.
The Hiawatha story is used in some form or other by almost every
primary teacher, and the working out of Hiawatha’s home is unfailingly
interesting. Here clay or plasticine is especially desirable. All the
characters mentioned in the poem are modeled in it and colored to
barbaric splendor. Wigwams are set in the evergreen forest, canoes
line the stony beach of the shining lake, while birds, squirrels,
turtles and other creatures are fitted into their proper environment.
Old Nakomis sits at the tent door; the fortune teller is in evidence;
Hiawatha stands at his canoe, and all the other characters are employed
as the story directs. The study for it and the making of Hiawatha’s
home should offer occupation for a large part of a winter’s leisure.
The beginnings of American history are studied through the reproduction
of a street in the Dutch village in which the Puritans took refuge from
persecution in England. Its houses with red roofs, its wind-mills, its
church, reproduce the character of the place, while in the street are
groups of people clad in the costume of the times, the men with the
broad-brimmed hats, the women with close bonnets.
The next step carries the Pilgrims across the water to the building of
Old Plymouth. In the construction of this village small twigs can be
used for the making of real log houses. Here, of course, must appear
the homes of Priscilla, of John Alden and Miles Standish, the Common
House and other places which any simple story of the Pilgrim Fathers
will give. Someone must hunt in the yard or in the street for a real
Plymouth Rock to place upon the seashore.
If possible, it is well to have two or three children work together if
a village is attempted. The work then moves rapidly enough to escape
discouragement, and the many discussions that are bound to arise over
the right way of doing this or that are bound to be instructive.
There is a great interest among boys at this time in such toys as
Meccano and the American Model Builder, in which materials are
furnished for making miniature bridges and structures and machines. The
great outdoor and cooperative games of baseball and football, which are
intensely dramatic, are now played by boys, while both boys and girls
enjoy more elaborate joint impersonations than ever before, in acting
charades and playing Dumb Crambo.
The years beyond thirteen introduce a second period of imitation.
The boy now thinks he is a man and the girl wishes to be a woman.
This play-adultism manifests itself, of course, in the insistence
upon wearing adult clothes and entering into adult experiences. Now
is the time for the den or the clubhouse or the workshop, in which
the maturing boy or girl entertains his friends and executes his
craftsmanship projects. The would-be athlete now constructs his rude
outdoor gymnasium. Indoors the amateur magician performs tricks to his
more or less astonished family.
A valuable device, which is far more than a toy, for this period is
the stereoscope. If supplied with stereoscopic photographs carefully
selected and explained, the sense of perspective, size, and life which
this optical instrument gives enables the imaginative youth, or adult
even, to enter so vividly into foreign experiences and customs as to
constitute, if but briefly, actual experiences of travel.
There is no material or device which has been mentioned above that
is not available to the most modest household. The majority of them
consist of articles already in the house and the others of tools or
materials which are inexpensive and of permanent value.