Recreation
There is a radical difference between relaxation and recreation. To relax
is to unbend the bow, to diminish the tension, to lie fallow, to open the
nature on all sides. Relaxation involves passivity; it is a negative
condition so far as activity is concerned, although it is often a positive
condition so far as growth is concerned. Recreation, on the other hand,
involves activity, but activity along other lines than those of work.
Froebel first clearly developed the educational significance and uses of
play. Earlier thinkers and writers on education had seen that play is an
important element in the unfolding of a child's nature, but Froebel
discerned the psychology of play and showed how it may be utilised for
educational purposes. His comments on this subject are full of
significance: "The plays of the child contain the germ of the whole life
that is to follow; for the man develops and manifests himself in play, and
reveals the noblest aptitudes and the deepest elements of his being.
...The plays of childhood are the germinal leaves of all later life; for
the whole man is developed and shown in these, in his tenderest
dispositions, in his innermost tendencies." And one of Froebel's most
intimate associates suggests another service of play, when he says: "It is
like a fresh bath for the human soul when we dare to be children again
with children." Play is the prelude to work, and stands in closest
relation to it; it is the natural expression of the child's energy, as
work is the natural expression of the man's energy. In play and through
play the child develops the power that is in him, comes to knowledge of
himself, and realises his relation with other children and with the world
about him. In the free and unconscious pouring out of his vitality he
secures for himself training, education, and growth.
The two instincts which impel the child to play are the craving for
activity and the craving for joy. In a healthy child the vital energy
rushes out with a fountain-like impetuosity and force; he does not take
thought about what he shall do, for it is of very little consequence what
he does so long as he is in motion. A boy, with the high spirits of
perfect health, is, at times, an irresponsible force. He acts
instinctively, not intelligently; and he acts under the pressure of a
tremendous vitality, not as the result of design or conviction. The
education of play is the more deep and fundamental because it is received
in entire unconsciousness; like the landscape which sank into the soul of
the boy blowing mimic hootings to the owls on the shore of Winander. The
boy who has the supreme good fortune of physical, mental, and moral health
often passes the invisible line between play and work without
consciousness of the critical transition. In the life of a man so
harmonious in nature and so fortunate in condition, work is a normal
evolution of play; and the qualities which make play educational and vital
give work its tone and temper. Activity and joy are not dissevered in such
a normal unfolding of a man's life.
Now, play is as much a need of the man's nature as of the boy's, and if
work is to keep its freshness of interest, its spontaneity, and its
productiveness, it must retain the characteristics of play; it must have
variety, unconsciousness of self, joy. Activity it cannot lose, but joy
too often goes out of it. The fatal tendency to deadness, born of routine
and repetition, overtakes the worker long before his force is spent, and
blights his work by sapping its vitality. Real work always sinks its roots
deep in a man's nature, and derives its life from the life of the man;
when the vitality of the worker begins to subside, through fatigue,
exhaustion of impulse, or loss of interest, the work ceases to be
original, vital, and genuine. Whatever impairs the worker's vitality
impairs his work. So close is the relation between the life of the artist
and the life of his art that the stages of his decline are clearly marked
in the record of his work. It is of the highest importance, therefore,
that a man keep himself in the most highly vitalised condition for the
sake of productiveness.
No one can keep in this condition without the rest which comes from self-
forgetfulness and the refreshment which comes from joy; one can never lose
the capacity for play without some sacrifice of the capacity for work. The
man who never plays may not show any loss of energy, but he inevitably
shows loss of power; he may continue to do a certain work with a certain
efficiency, but he cannot give it breadth, freshness, spiritual
significance. To give one's work these qualities one must withdraw from it
at frequent intervals, and suffer the energies to play in other
directions; one must not only diminish the tension and lessen the
concentration of attention; one must go further and seek other objects of
interest and other kinds of activity; and these objects and activities
must be sought and pursued freely, joyfully, and in forgetfulness of self.
The old delight of the playground must be called back by the man, and must
be at the command of the man. The boy's play, in a real sense, creates the
man; the man's play re-creates him by re-vitalising him, refreshing him
and restoring to him that delight in activity for its own sake which is
the evidence of fresh impulse.
This is the true meaning of recreation; it involves that spiritual
recuperation and reinforcement which restore a man his original energy of
impulse and action. Recreation is, therefore, not a luxury, but a
necessity; not an indulgence, but a duty. When a man is out of health
physically and neglects to take the precautions or remedies which his
condition demands, he becomes, if he has intelligence, a suicide; for he
deliberately throws his life away. In like manner, the man who destroys
his freshness and force by making himself a slave to work and so
transforming what ought to be a joy into a task, commits a grave offence
against himself and society. The highest productivity will never be
secured until the duty of recreation is set on the same plane with that of
work, and the obligation to nourish one's life made as binding as the
obligation to spend one's life.
How a man shall secure recreation and in what form he shall take it
depends largely upon individual conditions. Mr. Gladstone found recreation
not only in tree-cutting but in Homeric studies; Lord Salisbury finds it
in chemistry; Washington found it in hunting; Wordsworth in walking;
Carlyle in talking and smoking; Mr. Balfour finds it in golf, and Mr.
Cleveland in fishing. Any pursuit or occupation which takes a man out of
the atmosphere of his work-room and away from his work, gives him
different interests, calls into activity different muscles or faculties,
brings back the spirit of play, recalls the spontaneous and joyous mood,
and re-creates through diversion, variety, and the appeal to another side
of the nature. To work long and with cumulative power, one must play often
and honestly; that is to say, one must play for the pure joy of it.