"Blessed," says Carlyle, "is the man who has found his work. Let him
seek no other blessing."
A man out of work is one of the saddest of all sights. There possibly is
a sadder one, the man who has lost the power to play. The child in whom
the spirit of play has been crushed out is saddest of all.
Work is natural. One who does not love to work is greatly to be pitied.
Fortunately, such people are rare. When a man finds his work and becomes
actively occupied with it he is happy. He, however, often overdoes it
and the difficulty is not to work but to play.
Usually it is thought that there is antagonism between work and play. On
the contrary, they are more alike than most people think.
According to William Morris, "Art is the spirit of play put into our
work." The union of work and play is absolutely necessary to human
nature.
By work we generally mean something that comes as a duty, something
which we are compelled to do or something which we must do from
necessity in order to win a livelihood.
Play is usually regarded as something that is pure enjoyment and
spontaneous. A recent cartoon pictured a boy complaining because his
mother had asked him to carry a small rug up to the top of the house,
then portrayed the same boy, after a ten-mile trudge, climbing a steep
hill with a load of golf sticks, the perspiration streaming down his
face, saying, "This is fine!"
The same task may therefore be regarded as work or play according to the
point of view. The difference is the degree of enjoyment, the attitude
or feeling toward the thing to be done.
We can control our attention, we can look for interesting things in
almost any effort. In either work or play we require a rhythmic
alternation between enjoyment and resolute endeavor.
The principles advocated in this book and its companion, "The Smile,"
should prepare a man for the work and the play of life. Exercises taken
at any time should serve as a remedy for the evil effects of hard work
of any kind.
The exercises give the best preparation for work and because many of
them are taken lying down they do not exhaust but accumulate energy.
They also stimulate and develop a harmony and activity of man's whole
being.
The shortest and best answer that can be made to the question "How to
work" is, to work rhythmically. This is the way Nature works. There is
action and reaction.
The law of rhythm, which has already been explained, must be obeyed in
our every-day tasks. It applies to every step we take.
One of the best results of these exercises is that they develop a sense
of rhythm.
There are many violations of rhythm. One is continuing along one line
too long. Work can be so arranged as to be varied. We can work at one
thing several hours and then we can deliberately drop it until the next
day and take up some other phase of work.
Without rhythm, work becomes drudgery. A more specific violation of
rhythm is a failure to relax and to use force only when needed.
The greatest effect of force comes through action and reaction.
Sometimes a man uses unnecessary parts and uses them continually. That,
of course, will cause weariness.
There are hundreds of questions regarding such discussions in as many
books in our day. Mr. Nathaniel J. Fowler, Jr., in "The Boy," a careful
book which is a treasure house of information, has gathered answers to
leading questions from two hundred and eighty-three prominent men. Many
of these, in fact, most of them, advise a boy, when he is not satisfied
with his work and is pretty sure that he is not adapted to it, to change
his occupation.
It is a difficult point upon which to give advice, but other things
being equal, work should be enjoyed. When not enjoyed there should be a
serious study of the man himself, a study of his attitude toward life, a
study of his possibilities, a study of his opportunities, and also a
study of what he is best fitted for, and an endeavor to find this.
It is surprising, however, how far men can adapt themselves, even change
their very nature in accomplishing a work which is laid upon them as a
duty. One of the greatest artists of New England took care of his
brothers and sisters and his father's farm, at a crisis, and kept a
little shed outside the house where he painted at odd moments. He had an
avocation as well as a vocation. He gave up his trip to study in Europe
as he wished to study; he did a vast amount of work which was regarded
by many as drudgery, and he was compelled to study his art only at odd
moments. Despite all this, George Fuller became one of the most
illustrious and original of American artists. Today his pictures are in
all the leading museums, and command a high price.
What is drudgery? Dr. James Freeman Clark defined it as "work without
imagination." Anything can be made drudgery. A man can study art, or
sing, paint pictures, edit newspapers, or write books and make his work
drudgery. Drudgery is working perfunctorily. It is work without
aspiration, work without an ideal.
No man can do anything well in life, without an ideal. If a man
undertakes a certain work he must begin it by awakening and realizing
the importance of that work in the world's life. He must form a definite
ideal of the best possible way of doing that work and of its relation to
the world.
In short, no man can accomplish anything in a negative, indifferent
attitude toward his work. He must look upon it from the side of its
importance, the side of its beauty, the side that is interesting to him,
the side that shows its influence and helpfulness toward the world.
Play, to the little child--and also to the hard working man--is more
serious than work. When work begins to be perfunctory, play is the only
remedy. In such a case a man is in a dangerous rut and must adopt a new
rhythm.
"All work, and no play, makes Jack," or any other donkey, "a dull boy."
The first principle of play must be to obey our higher impulses. To play
means the ability to change our occupation. It means the ability to
obey other impulses than perfunctory ones.
Some men regard play as something low. On the contrary, notwithstanding
the "recapitulation" theory, play should be a new aspiration, a deeper
assertion of freedom, a higher opportunity for suppressed energies.
To play, certain feelings and conceptions of our nature must be
awakened. Play reveals character even more than work because it shows
the latent impulses of the man. Therefore, if in college, in school, or
in childhood, in playing with companions, the right associations are
brought to bear, the right persons are received as mates, then the very
sympathy and contact with others will cause higher aspirations, deeper
enjoyments, more spontaneous endeavor, and renewal of life. Play is
sub-conscious, it is giving way in some sense, to instinct; but it is
deliberatively giving up. It implies enjoyment but it does not
necessarily imply the gratification of low desire.
Something can be said in favor of athletics. A story is told of a
gentleman who visited his nephew in a large private school. He went
around the athletic field and asked the trainers about his relative.
Then the uncle found the boy in his room, digging. He said, "What are
you doing here? None of the trainers see anything of you. What is the
trouble?" The student answered, "I have been sick and I have been
working hard to catch up." "Get out of this," replied the uncle, "I went
to preparatory school and to college to find friends, to get enjoyment,
to learn how to play, to come in contact with men. That is the serious
business of school and college."
There are some who consider this the very worst of heresies. I used to
think so myself; but contact with students in colleges and universities
has enabled me at least to see the point of view of this gentleman. Many
times I have met men who were not getting the most out of their college
or university course though you could not tell that from their
scholarship or so-called "standing." They lacked the spirit of
enjoyment, the power of initiative. They lacked the power of sympathetic
touch with other men that makes greatly for success in life.
To my mind there are some games which bring no sympathetic touch among
men. Mere games are not always worthy of the name of play. They become
drudgery, and they cause certain constrictions. They fetter the whole
life. They call for perfect silence, call for the exercise of great
mechanical skill. Frequently we find men playing games which are
analogous, if not identical, with their work. Games should be different
from work. They should bring sympathetic enjoyment. They should bring
exultation.
A noted physiologist sent by his government to examine into the physical
training of other countries visited a leading school in England and
found the pupils one morning, during the best hours of the day, at play.
Approaching one of the boys, he asked for the principal, and was
conducted very politely to the master. The visitor was greatly impressed
by the boys. He asked the principal why it was that his boys were
playing during the best part of the day. "Ah," said the principal, "that
is part of our method. We want the best time in the day to be devoted to
their outdoor exercises and sports. We take the utmost care that 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
spontaneously from the energy within. The sun that calls forth the
leaves on all the trees does so by warming the roots in the tree and
bringing the gentle south winds which fan the waving branches into
activity and cause the unfolding buds to be filled with spontaneous
life.
The whole world is full of joy and love. It is human ambition and
jealousies that bring the hindrances.
The rhythmic alternation and the necessary relation of work and play to
each other can be seen in the very constitution of man. Play alone may
develop obedience to lower impulses; while work alone tends to repress
the higher aspirations and spontaneous energies.
Even a man's health and strength as well as success depend upon the
rhythmic alternation of work and play.
While reading over the copy for this book for the last time, when in
that agonizing state which some writers know, undecided whether to throw
it into the fire or send it to the printers, I read at the suggestion of
a friend, Eleanor H. Porter's little book, "Pollyanna." That simple,
wholesome story has given me courage. The fundamental lesson in it is
that we should find always something about which to be glad, no matter
how severe the trial or how disappointing the event.
Goethe gave as rules for a life of culture:--"Every day see some
beautiful picture, hear some beautiful piece of music, read some
beautiful poem." These might develop culture in a narrow sense, but to
broaden and deepen our lives we need every day to see something
beautiful in nature, and in the lives and characters of our fellow
beings.
Dr. Howard Crosby once remarked that by giving ten minutes to the
telegrams of the newspapers any man should be able to keep in touch with
the life of mankind.
The Boy Scouts and the Campfire Girls are emphasizing some important
phases of education and life which have been too often overlooked.
One of the Boy Scout rules implies that every day a boy should perform
some kindly act for others.
The importance of a boy's stepping up to an elderly lady looking for an
electric car and giving her assistance, or carrying a lot of bundles for
someone cannot be too highly emphasized. These boys take no "tips." They
are trained to serve for the sake of the serving. These suggestions and
services awaken the higher nature of the boy or girl. Such movements
should be universally supported.
One of the most important helps to the boys should not be overlooked. In
offering their services they are led to express their best selves. It is
important that they should learn to approach strangers with polite
confidence and courage when offering assistance.
I gave my seat once to a woman in a street car and at first I felt a
little resentful because not by look or word did she express gratitude.
As I glanced at the woman, however, I saw that she really desired to
thank me but was embarrassed. She did not know how to do so. How few are
taught the languages!
If the Boy Scouts and the Campfire Girls do nothing else than to learn
to express their willingness to serve they have made a wonderful gain
for active, useful and successful lives.
Of course, the primary aim is the good deed, but are not the kind tone,
word and polite bow fully as necessary? Are they not the entering wedge
and do they not appeal to the higher nature in the same way that the
thought of being of service inspires the boy or girl?
While doing is the great thing, yet it is necessary to say in union with
doing. There is really no antagonism between expression in kind looks,
tones or words, and acts. They are inseparably connected.
These same principles apply also to the Campfire Girls. They must not
only be trained to do things but trained to realize their own
personalities and to draw out the best in others. Then the actions will
begin to be more expressive of the real personality of the boy or the
girl and the seeing, doing and becoming will form an organic unity.
Someone has said that the great law of education is, first, to know;
second, to do; third, to become. The doing implies not only action, but
expression. Certainly we do not become what we know till we do or
express through word, tone and action.
The most successful men in the world have certain principles to guide
their every-day life. If we could only smile instead of frown, when
people criticize or condemn us, how much more successful would be our
lives!
Every day we can discover something interesting in our fellow-men.
We can learn to listen.
We should work when we work and play when we play. We should not play in
a half-hearted way worrying about our work; and when we work we should
do so with all our might.
We ought to have regular periods of rest; we ought to avoid unpleasant
topics in conversation. Everyone should have a vocation as well as an
avocation.
May we not summarize all these suggestions into a few statements which
will enable us to co-ordinate work and play, and aid us in our daily
lives to obey the principles that should govern us from our first waking
moments? Every Day: