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."
Only gradually does "the-world-as-a-vale-of tears" and
"the-remnant-that-shall-be-saved" idea give place to a faith that claims
for God the entire world with its present life as well as individual
immortality in future felicity. Miracle and cataclysm and postmortem
glory--the ever-ready recourse of baffled hope and persecuted
Christianity--are giving place more and more to a Christian conquest
that is orderly and inclusive of the whole sweep of human life. The
church is but dimly conscious, as yet, that through the aid of science
she has attained this magnificent optimism; much less does she realize
its full implication for social service and the saving of the
individual, both body and soul.
The minister as the herald and exemplar of such an imperial salvation
cannot ignore the exceptional opportunities which the play interests of
boyhood offer. He whose task has been to reconcile men to God, to bring
them into harmony with the universe in its ultimate content, cannot
neglect those activities which more than anything else in the life of
the boy secure the happy co-ordination of his powers, the placing of
himself in right relation with others and in obedience to law. These are
the moral and religious accomplishments aimed at in the teaching of
reconciliation which bulks so large in Christian doctrine; and by
whatever means this right adjustment to self, to others, and to the will
of God is brought about, it always produces the sure harvest of service
and joy.
To some undoubtedly it will seem sacrilegious to suggest that play can
have anything to do in a transaction so deeply moral and so
fundamentally religious. Yet a psychological analysis of both play and
worship at their best will reveal marked similarities in spontaneity, in
self-expression for its own sake and free from ulterior ends, in
symbolism, semi-intoxication and rhythm, in extension and enrichment of
the self, and in preparation for the largest and most effective living.
That such a claim is not altogether extravagant may be demonstrated in
part by canvassing the moral reactions of a well-organized group engaged
in some specific game. For in merely discussing the play attitude, which
is applicable to every interest of life, there is the danger of so
sublimating the value of play that its importance, while readily
granted, will not affect pastoral or educational methods. This mistake
is only comparable with another which dwells upon the religious life of
the boy as dependent upon the use of some inherent religious faculty
that is quite detached from the normal physical and mental processes.
Such an attitude favors an easy escape from both the labor of character
building and the obligations of environmental salvation. Recognizing
these dangers and remembering that morality and religion are most valid
when acquired and incorporated in actual conduct, one may analyze a
standard game in search of its ethical worth.
Baseball, our most popular and distinctively national game, constitutes
a fair field for this inquiry. In order to evaluate this form of play
as an agency in moral training it is necessary to presume that one has a
company of nine or more boys grouped together on the basis of loyalty to
a common neighborhood, school, club, church, or the like. They elect a
manager who acts for the team in arranging a schedule of games with
their various rivals and who serves in general as their business agent;
also a captain, usually chosen because of his ability to play the game
and his quality of natural leadership. He directs his players in their
contests and in case of dispute speaks for his team.
The boys should also have in every case a trainer older than themselves,
a player of well-known ability and exemplary character. It is usually
through neglect of supervision of this sort that the ethical value of
baseball for boys of from twelve to fifteen years of age is forfeited.
Without the trainer to direct their practice games, and as a recognized
expert to try out the players for the various positions, the
possibilities of forming a team are few and those of unjust and harmful
conduct many.
If at the outset, the group, coming together in park or vacant lot,
cannot speedily agree upon a _modus operandi_, their energy is turned
into profane disputing about the chief positions, and usually a game
cannot be organized, or, if it is, lack of agreement as to put-outs,
runs, fouls, and debatable points soon ruins the attempt, with little
left to most of the boys except resentment of the might-makes-right
policy. On the other hand, whether one has in mind a team or a chance
group of players, the presence of a capable adult as an immediate and
final court of appeal guarantees fair play for all, prevents personal
animosities, and inspires each one to do his best in the presence of a
competent judge.
Wherever the team with proper supervision is a possibility the moral
value of the game will be at its maximum. Uniforms are not to be
despised. Loyalty to the school represented is but boyhood's form of
what in later life becomes ability to espouse a cause and to assume a
degree of social responsibility in keeping with that attitude.
Because of this loyalty the boy who expected to play in the prominent
position of pitcher takes his less conspicuous place in right field, if
by fair trials under the trainer another boy has demonstrated his
superior fitness to fill the much-coveted position. For the credit of
the community or school which he has the honor to represent, the match
game must be won; hence he surrenders his personal glory to the common
good. He does more. Under the excitement of the contest and with the
consequent strengthening of the team spirit, he encourages the very boy,
who would otherwise have been only his personal rival, to do his level
best, forgetting utterly any mean individual comparisons and all
anti-social self-consciousness, in what he has enthusiastically accepted
as the greater common good.
He goes to bat at a critical juncture in the game. The score is close.
He as much as anyone would like to have runs to his credit. But for the
sake of the team his chief concern must be to advance the base runner.
So he plays carefully rather than spectacularly, and makes a bunt or a
sacrifice hit, with the practical certainty that he will be put out at
first base, but with a good probability that he will thus have advanced
his fellow one base and so have contributed to the team's success.
The religious value of the principle here involved receives no little
attention in sermon and Sunday-school class, but how tame and formal is
its verbal presentation as compared with its registration in the very
will and muscles of a boy at play! Wherever a state has become great or
a cause victorious, wherever a hero--a Socrates or a Christ--has
appeared among men, there has been the willingness, when necessary, to
make the "sacrifice hit." The loyalty that has held itself ready so to
serve on moral demand has to its credit all the higher attainments of
humanity.
In the great American experiment of democracy, where the welfare of the
people is so often bartered for gold, and where public office is
frequently prostituted to private gain, there is a proportionately great
need of teaching in every possible way this fundamental virtue of
loyalty. Our future will be secure only in the degree in which
intelligent and strong men are devoted to the welfare of city and state
after the fashion of the boy to his team. It is because war, with all
its horrors, has stimulated and exhibited this virtue that its glory
persists far into our industrial age; and the hope of a lofty
patriotism, that shall be equal to the enervating influences of peace,
lies in an educated and self-denying type of loyalty.
The use of this loyalty in the reformation of boy criminals has been
remarkably demonstrated in the well-known work of Judge Ben B. Lindsey,
of Denver. In a particularly difficult case he says:
I decided to put my influence over him to the
test. I told him of the fight I was making for him,
showed him how I had been spending all my spare
time "trying to straighten things out" for him and
Heimel, and warned him that the police did not believe
I could succeed. "Now, Lee," I said, "you can run
away if you want to, and prove me a liar to the cops.
But I want to help you and I want you to stand by
me. I want you to trust me, and I want you to go
back to the jail there, and let me do the best I can."
He went, and he went alone--unguarded.
Here is a striking example of the team work of two with the play upon
loyalty and the spirit of contest.
Another lesson about boys I learned from little
"Mickey" when I was investigating his charge that
the jailer had beaten him. The jailer said: "Some
o' those kids broke a window in there, and when I
asked Mickey who it was, he said he didn't know. Of
course he knew. D'yu think I'm goin' to have kids
lie to me?" A police commissioner who was present
turned to Mickey. "Mickey," he said, "why did you
lie?" Mickey faced us in his rags. "Say," he asked,
"Do yoh t'ink a fullah ought to snitch on a kid?"
And the way he asked made me ashamed of myself.
Here was a quality of loyalty that we should be fostering
in him instead of trying to crush out of him. It was
the beginning in the boy of that feeling of responsibility
to his fellows on which society is founded. Thereafter,
no child brought before our court was ever urged
to turn state's evidence against his partners in crime--much
less rewarded for doing so or punished for refusing.
Each was encouraged to "snitch" on himself,
and himself only.
Another interview with a boy under sentence to the industrial school
emphasizes the same point:
"I can _help_ you, Harry," I said. "But you've
got to carry yourself. If I let boys go when they do
bad things, I'll lose my job. The people 'll get another
judge in my place to punish boys, if _I_ don't do it. I
can't let you go." We went over it and over it; and
at last I thought I had him feeling more resigned and
cheerful, and I got up to leave him. But when I
turned to the door he fell on his knees before me
and, stretching out his little arms to me, his face distorted
with tears, he cried: "Judge! Judge! If you let
me go, _I'll never get you into trouble again_!"
I had him! It was the voice of loyalty.... This
time he "stuck." "Judge," the mother told me
long afterward, "I asked Harry the other day, how it
was he was so good for _you_, when he wouldn't do it for
me or the policeman. And he says: 'Well, Maw, you
see if I gets bad ag'in the Judge he'll lose his job. I've
got to stay with him, 'cause he stayed with me.'"
I have used that appeal to loyalty hundreds of times
since in our work with the boys, and it is almost
infallibly successful.
In eight years, out of 507 cases of boys put upon their honor to take
themselves from Denver to the Industrial School at Golden, to which the
court had sentenced them, Judge Lindsey had but five failures. In view
of such facts, who will think for a moment that we have so much as begun
to turn the latent loyalty of boyhood to its highest ethical use?
No doubt much can be said against football, which ranks second in
popularity among American athletic games. For some years the elements of
hazard and rough treatment have been unhappily too prominent, so that
the suspicion is warranted that players have been sacrificed to the
bloodthirsty demands of the vast throng of spectators. The tension of
playing in the presence of thousands of partisan enthusiasts shows
itself in a reckless disregard of physical injury. Furthermore, for boys
in early adolescence the tax upon the heart constitutes a common danger
which is often rendered more serious by the untrained condition of the
players. It is to be hoped that in the further modification of the rules
from year to year, the players and their welfare will be kept more in
mind and the sensation-loving public, whose gate-fees have been too big
a consideration, will be measurably overlooked.
But with this concession, all of the virtue that attaches to baseball
will be found in football, only in accentuated form. Physical bravery
is, of course, more emphasized; while team loyalty, with all that it
implies, is more intense. The relation of the members to one another in
a well-organized team amounts to an affection which is never forgotten.
The words of cheer when the team is hard pushed and has to take a
"brace"; the fighting spirit that plays the game to a finish, no matter
what the odds; the hand extended to help to his feet the man who has
just advanced the ball; the pat on the back; the impulsive embrace; the
very tears shed in common after a lost game--all of this is a social and
moral experience of no small value. Basketball also offers a good field
for the subordination of personal glory to team success and, in point of
intensity, stands midway between baseball and football with the
elimination of the dangerous qualities of the latter.
[Illustration: THE NORMAL BOY IN THE ABNORMAL PLAYGROUND]
Games of this sort are also the most effective means of developing,
through expression, the boy's sense of justice or fair play. And this
sentiment will always be found strong and operative in him unless it has
been overcome by the passion to win or by imitation of the bad example
of certain debased athletes, popularly known as "muckers." Under proper
leadership, the boy soon learns that the true spirit of manly sport is
the farthest removed from that of the footpad and the blackguard.
Appreciation of successful opponents and consideration for the
vanquished can be made effectually to supplant the cheap, blatant spirit
which seeks to attribute one's defeat to trickery and chance and uses
one's victory as an occasion for bemeaning the vanquished. The presence
of a capable director of play is sure to eliminate this evil which has
crept in under the sanction of vicious ideals and through gross neglect
of boys' play on the part of adults in general and educators in
particular. The Decalogue itself cannot compete with a properly directed
game in enforcing the fair-play principle among boys. It is worth
something to read about fair play, but it is worth much more to practice
it in what is, for the time being, a primary and absorbing interest.
A large part of the morality which is most obviously desirable for human
welfare consists in bringing the body into habitual obedience to the
will. The amount of individual suffering and of loss and expense to
society due to failure in this struggle is nothing less than appalling.
The victims of emotional hurricanes, "brainstorms," neurotic excess, and
intemperate desire are legion. A nation that is overfed,
under-exercised, and notably neurasthenic should neglect nothing that
makes for prompt and reliable self-control. Lycurgus said, "The citizens
of Sparta must be her walls," and in building up a defense for the
modern state against forces more disastrous than Persian armies we must
turn to the ancient device of the playground and athletic games.
The moral value of play in this respect arises from the instant muscular
response to volition. Delay, half-hearted response, inattention,
preoccupation, whimsicalness, carelessness, and every sluggish
performance of the order of the will, disqualifies the player so that
when we take into account the adolescent passion to excel, and the fact
that 80 per cent of the games of this period are characterized by
intense physical activity, we are forced to place the highest valuation
on play as a moral educator; for this enthronement of the will over the
body, although having to do with affairs of no permanent importance, has
great and abiding value for every future transaction in life.
Indeed, the physical competency attained in athletic games has its
reaction upon every mental condition. Many boys who are hampered by
unreasonable diffidence, a lack of normal self-confidence and
self-assertion, find unexpected ability and positiveness through this
avenue alone and, on the other hand, the physical test and encounter of
the game serves to bring a proper self-rating to the overconfident.
Dr. George J. Fisher, international secretary of the Physical Department
of the Young Men's Christian Association, says, "An unfortunately large
number of our population haven't the physical basis for being good." No
one with even the slightest knowledge of sociology and criminology will
be disposed to deny such a statement. One might as well expect a
one-legged man to win the international Marathon as to expect certain
physical delinquents to "go right." Thousands of boys and girls sit in
our public schools today who are the unhappy candidates for this
delinquency, and we are monotonously striving to get something into
their minds, which would largely take care of their own development, if
only we had the wisdom to address ourselves to their bodies.
There is indeed not only a physical basis of _being_ good, but, what is
not less important, a physical basis of _doing_ good. Many people avoid
blame and disgrace who fail utterly in making a positive contribution to
the welfare of the community. They do not market their mental goods.
Thousands of men remain in mediocrity, to the great loss of society,
simply because they have not the requisite physical outfit to force
their good ideas, impulses, and visions into the current of the world's
life. For the most part they lack the great play qualities, "enthusiasm,
spontaneity, creative ability, and the ability to co-operate." Whenever
we build up a strong human organism we lay the physical foundations of
efficiency, and one is inclined to go farther and think with Dr. Fisher,
that muscular energy itself is capable of transformation into energy of
mind and will. That is to say that play not only helps greatly in
building the necessary vehicle, but that it creates a fund upon which
the owner may draw for the accomplishment of every task.
There is ground also for the contention that grace of physical
development easily passes over into manner and mind. The proper
development of the instrument, the right adjustment and co-ordination of
the muscular outfit through which the emotions assemble and diffuse
themselves, is, when other things are equal, a guaranty of inner beauty
and the grace of true gentility. A poor instrument is always vexatious,
a good instrument is an abiding joy. The good body helps to make the
gracious self. Other things being equal the strong body obeys, but the
weak body rules.
One should not overlook the heartiness that is engendered in games, the
total engagement of mind and body that insures for the future the
ability "to be a whole man to one thing at a time." Much of the moral
confusion of life arises from divided personality, and the miserable
application of something less than the entire self to the problem in
hand. Do not the great religious leaders of the world agree with the men
of practical efficiency in demonstrating and requiring this hearty
release of the total self in the proposed line of action? The demand of
Jesus, touching love of God and neighbor, or regarding enlistment in His
cause, is a demand for prompt action of the total self. Possibly no
other single virtue has a more varied field of application than the
ability for decisive and whole-souled action, which is constantly
cultivated in all physical training, and especially in competitive
athletic games.
It should be noted also that the hearty release of energy is, in every
good game, required to keep within the rules. This is particularly true
in basket-ball, which takes high rank as an indoor game for boys. While
the game is intense and fatiguing, anything like a muscular rampage
brings certain penalty to the player and loss to his team. So that,
while the boy who does not play "snappy" and hard cannot rank high,
neither can the boy who plays "rough-house." Forcefulness under control
is the desideratum.
Besides this there is always the development of that good-natured
appreciation of every hard task, that refinement of the true sporting
spirit, by which all the serious work of life becomes a contest worthy
of never-ending interest and buoyant persistency. In the midst of all
the sublime responsibilities of his remarkable ministry we hear Phillips
Brooks exclaim, "It's great fun to be a minister." An epoch-making
president of the United States telegraphs his colleague and successor,
with all the zest of a boy at play, "We've beaten them to a frazzle";
and the greatest of all apostles, triumphing over bonds and
imprisonment, calls out to his followers, "I have fought a good fight."
"It is doubtful if a great man ever accomplished his life work without
having reached a play interest in it."
The saving power of organized play, in the prevention and cure of that
morbidity which especially besets youth, can hardly be overestimated.
This diseased self-consciousness is intimately connected with nervous
tensions and reflexes from sex conditions and not infrequently passes
over into sex abuse or excess of some sort. So that the diversion of
strenuous athletic games, and the consequent use of energy up to a point
just below exhaustion, is everywhere recognized as an indispensable
moral prophylactic. Solitariness, overwrought nervous states, the
intense and suggestive stimuli of city life, call for a large measure of
this wholesome treatment for the preservation of the moral integrity of
the boy, his proper self-respect, and those ideals of physical
development which will surely make all forms of self-abuse or indulgence
far less likely.
The normal exhilaration of athletic games, which cannot be described to
those without experience, is often what is blindly and injuriously
sought by the young cigarette smoker in the realm of nervous excitation
without the proper motor accompaniments. Possibly if we had not so
restricted our school-yards and overlooked the necessity for a physical
trainer and organized play, we would not have schools in which as many
as 80 per cent of the boys between ten and seventeen years of age are
addicted to cigarettes. In trying to fool Nature in this way the boy
pays a heavy penalty in the loss of that very decisiveness, force, and
ability in mind and body which properly accompany athletic recreation.
The increased circulation and oxidization of the blood is in itself a
great tonic and when one reflects that, with a running pace of six miles
an hour the inhalation of air increases from four hundred and eighty
cubic inches per minute to three thousand three hundred and sixty cubic
inches, the tonic effect of the athletic game will be better
appreciated. This increased use of oxygen means healthy stimulation,
growth of lung capacity, and exaltation of spirit without enervation.
"Health comes in through the muscles but flies out through the nerves."
It was well thought and arranged by the ancients
[says Martin Luther] that young people should exercise
themselves and have something creditable and useful
to do. Therefore I like these two exercises and
amusements best, namely, music and chivalrous games
or bodily exercises, as fencing, wrestling, running,
leaping, and others..... With such bodily exercises
one does not fall into carousing, gambling, and hard
drinking, and other kinds of lawlessness, as are unfortunately
seen now in the towns and at the courts.
This evil comes to pass if such honest exercises and
chivalrous games are despised and neglected.
[Illustration: WHAT SHALL WE PLAY?]
The feeling of harmony and _bien-etre_ resulting from play is, in
itself, a rare form of wealth for the individual and a blessing to all
with whom one has to do. Every social contact tends to become wholesome.
And who will say that the virtue of cheerfulness is not one of the most
delightful and welcome forms of philanthropy? Play, rightly directed,
always has this result.
Possibly no social work in America is more sanely constructive than that
of the playground movement. In the few years of its existence it has
made ample proof of its worth in humane and beneficent results; and our
city governments are hastening to acknowledge--what has been too long
ignored--the right of every child to play. It is only to be regretted
that the play movement has not centered about our public schools for it
constitutes a legitimate part of education. The survivors who reach high
school and college receive relatively a good deal of attention in
physical training and organized play, but the little fellows of the
elementary grades who have curvatures, retardation, adenoids, and small
defects which cause loss of grade, truancy, and delinquency receive as
yet very meager attention.
In dearth of opportunity and in cruel oversight of the normal play-needs
of boyhood, there probably has never been anything equal to our modern
American city. But the cost of industrial usurpation in restricting the
time and area of play is beginning to be realized; and the relation of
the play-time and of the playground to health, happiness, morality, and
later to industrial efficiency, begins to dawn upon our civic leaders.
If "recreation is stronger than vice," it becomes the duty of religious
and educational institutions to contribute directly and indirectly to
normal recreative needs.
But what can the minister do? He can help educate the church out of a
negative or indifferent attitude toward the absorbing play-interests of
childhood and youth. He can publicly endorse and encourage movements to
provide for this interest of young life and may often co-operate in the
organization and management of such movements. Every church should
strive through intelligent representatives to impart religious value and
power to such work and should receive through the same channels
first-hand information of this form of constructive and preventive
philanthropy. He can partly meet the demand through clubs and societies
organized in connection with his own church. He can plead for a real and
longer childhood in behalf of Christ's little ones who are often
sacrificed through commercial greed, un-Christian business ambition,
educational blindness, and ignorance. He can preach a gospel that does
not set the body over against the soul, science over against the Bible,
and the church over against normal life; but embraces every child of man
in an imperial redemption which is environmental and social as well as
individual, physical as well as spiritual. In short, he can study and
serve his community, not as one who must keep an organization alive at
whatever cost, but as one who must inspire and lead others to obey the
Master whose only reply to our repeated protestations of love is, "Feed
my lambs."