PLAY
All peoples at all times have depended upon plays and games for a large
part of the education of children, especially of young children. Play
is so spontaneous and inevitable that few educational writers have
accorded to it in theory the place it held in practice, or have tried
to find out whether the natural play activities of children afforded
suggestions that could be adopted within school walls. Plato among the
ancients and Froebel among the moderns are the two great exceptions.
From both Rousseau and Pestalozzi, Froebel learned the principle of
education as a natural development. Unlike both of these men, however,
he loved intellectual system and had a penchant for a somewhat mystical
metaphysics. Accordingly we find in both his theory and practice
something of the same inconsistency noted in Pestalozzi.
It is easier to say natural development than to find ways for assuring
it. There is much that is “natural” in children which is also
naturally obnoxious to adults. There are many manifestations which
do not seem to have any part in helping on growth. Impatient desire
for a method which would cover the whole ground, and be final so as to
be capable of use by any teacher, led Froebel, as it has led so many
others, into working out alleged “laws” of development which were to
be followed irrespective of the varying circumstances and experiences
of different children. The orthodox kindergarten, which has often been
more Froebellian than Froebel himself, followed these laws; but now we
find attempts to return to the spirit of his teaching, with more or
less radical changes in its letter.
While Froebel’s own sympathy with children and his personal experience
led him to emphasize the instinctive expressions of child-life, his
philosophy led him to believe that natural development consisted
in the _un_folding of an absolute and universal principle already
_en_folded in the child. He believed also that there is an exact
correspondence between the general properties of external objects and
the unfolding qualities of mind, since both were manifestations of
the same absolute reality. Two practical consequences followed which
often got the upper hand of his interest in children on their own
account. One was that, since the law of development could be laid down
in general, it is not after all so important to study children in the
concrete to find out what natural development consists in. If they
vary from the requirements of the universal law so much the worse for
them, not for the “law.” Teachers were supposed to have the complete
formula of development already in their hands. The other consequence
was that the presentation and handling, according to prescribed
formulæ, of external material, became the method in detail of securing
proper development. Since the general relations of these objects,
especially the mathematical ones, were manifestations of the universal
principle behind development, they formed the best means of bringing
out the hidden existence of the same principle in the child. Even the
spontaneous plays of children were thought to be educative not because
of what they are, directly in themselves, but because they symbolize
some law of universal being. Children should gather, for example, in a
circle, not because a circular grouping is convenient for social and
practical purposes, but because the circle is a symbol of infinity
which will tend to evoke the infinite latent in the child’s soul.
The efforts to return to Froebel’s spirit referred to above have
tried to keep the best in his contributions. His emphasis upon play,
dramatization, songs and story telling, which involve the constructive
use of material, his deep sense of the importance of social relations
among the children--these things are permanent contributions which
they retain. But they are trying with the help of the advances of
psychological knowledge since Froebel’s time and of the changes
in social occupations which have taken place to utilize these
factors directly, rather than indirectly, through translation into
a metaphysics, which, even if true, is highly abstract. In another
respect they are returning to Froebel himself, against an alteration
in his ideas introduced by many of his disciples. These followers have
set up a sharp contrast between play and useful activity or work, and
this has rendered the practices of their kindergartens more symbolic
and sentimental than they otherwise would have been. Froebel himself
emphasized the desirability of children sharing in social occupations
quite as much as did Pestalozzi--whose school he had visited. He
says, for example, “The young, growing human being should be trained
early for outer work, for creative and productive activities. Lessons
through and by work, through and from life, are the most impressive
and the most intelligible, the most continuous and progressive, in
themselves and in their effect upon the learner. Every child, boy and
youth, whatever his position and condition in life, should devote,
say, at least one or two hours a day to some serious active occupation
constructing some definite external piece of work. It would be a most
wholesome arrangement in school to establish actual working hours
similar to existing study hours, and it will surely come to this.” In
the last sentence, Froebel showed himself a true prophet of what has
been accomplished in some of the schools such as we are dealing with in
this book.
Schools all over the country are at present making use of the child’s
instinct for play, by using organized games, toy making, or other
construction based on play motives as part of the regular curriculum.
This is in line with the vitalization of the curriculum that is going
on in the higher grades by making use of the environment of the child
outside the schoolroom. If the most telling lessons can be given
children through bringing into the school their occupations in their
free hours, it is only natural to use play as a large share of the work
for the youngest pupils. Certainly the greatest part of the lives
of very young children is spent in playing, either games which they
learn from older children or those of their own invention. The latter
usually take the form of imitations of the occupations of their elders.
All little children think of playing house, doctor, or soldier, even
if they are not given toys which suggest these games; indeed, half of
the joy of playing comes from finding and making the necessary things.
The educational value of this play is obvious. It teaches the children
about the world they live in. The more they play the more elaborate
becomes their paraphernalia, the whole game being a fairly accurate
picture of the daily life of their parents in its setting, clothed in
the language and bearing of the children. Through their games they
learn about the work and play of the grown-up world. Besides noticing
the elements which make up this world, they find out a good deal about
the actions and processes that are necessary to keep it going.
[Illustration: (1) Making a town, instead of doing gymnastic exercises.
(Teachers College Playground, N. Y. City.)]
[Illustration: (2) Gymnasium dances in sewing-class costumes.
(Howland School, Chicago.)]
While this is of real value in teaching the child how to live, it is
evident as well that it supplies a strong influence against change.
Imitative plays tend, by the training of habit and the turn they give
to the child’s attention and thoughts, to make his life a replica of
the life of his parents. In playing house children are just as apt
to copy the coarseness, blunders, and prejudices of their elders as
the things which are best. In playing, they notice more carefully and
thus fix in their memory and habits, more than if they simply lived
it indifferently, the whole color of the life around them. Therefore,
while imitative games are of great educational value in the way of
teaching the child to notice his environment and some of the processes
that are necessary for keeping it going, if the environment is not good
the child learns bad habits and wrong ways of thinking and judging,
ways which are all the harder to break because he has fixed them by
living them out in his play.
Modern kindergartens are beginning to realize this more and more.
They are using play, the sort of games they find the children
playing outside of school hours, not only as a method of making work
interesting to the children, but for the educational value of the
activities it involves, and for giving the children the right sort of
ideals and ideas about every day life. Children who play house and
similar games in school, and have toys to play with and the material to
make the things they need in their play, will play house at home the
way they played it in school. They will forget to imitate the loud
and coarse things they see at home, their attention will be centered
on problems which were designed by the school to teach better aims and
methods.
The kindergarten of the Teachers’ College of Columbia University
could hardly be recognized as a kindergarten at all by a visitor who
was thinking of the mechanism of instruction worked out by Froebel’s
disciples. The kindergarten is part of the training school of the
university, and from the start has been considered as a real part of
the school system, as the first step in an education, not as a more or
less unnecessary “extra.” With a view to laying a permanent basis for
higher education, the authorities have been developing a curriculum
that should make use of whatever was of real worth in existing systems
of education and in the experiments tried by themselves. To find what
is of real worth, experiments have been conducted, designed to answer
the following questions: “Among the apparently aimless and valueless
spontaneous activities of the child is it possible to discover some
which may be used as the point of departure for ends of recognized
worth? Are there some of these crude expressions which, if properly
directed, may develop into beginnings of the fine and industrial arts?
How far does the preservation of the individuality and freedom of the
child demand self-initiated activities? Is it possible for the teacher
to set problems or ends sufficiently childlike to fit in with the mode
of growth, and to inspire their adoption with the same fine enthusiasm
which accompanies the self-initiated ones?”
The result showed that the best success came when the children’s
instinctive activities were linked up with social interests and
experiences. The latter center, with young children, in their home.
Their personal relations are of the greatest importance to them.
Children’s intense interest in dolls is a sign of the significance
attached to human relations. The doll thus furnished a convenient
starting point. With this as a motive, the children have countless
things they wish to do and make. Hand and construction work thus
acquired a real purpose, with the added advantage of requiring the
child to solve a problem. The doll needs clothes; the whole class is
eager to make them, but the children do not know how to sew or even
cut cloth. So they start with paper and scissors, and make patterns,
altering and experimenting on the doll for themselves, receiving
only suggestions or criticisms from the teacher. When they have made
successful patterns, they choose and cut the cloth, and then learn to
sew it. If the garments are not wholly successful, the class has had a
great deal of fun making them, and has had the training that comes from
working towards a definite end, besides acquiring as much control over
scissors, paper, and needle, and manual dexterity as would accrue from
the conventional paper cutting, pricking, and sewing exercises.
The doll needs a house. In a corner of the room there is a great
chest of big blocks, so large that it takes the whole class to build
the house, and then it is not done in one day. There are flat long
blocks like boards for the walls and roof, and square blocks for the
foundations and window frames. When the house is done, it is big
enough for two or three children to go into to play with the doll.
One readily sees that it has taken a great deal of hard thinking and
experimenting to make a house that would really stand up and serve such
uses. Then the house needs furniture; the children learn to handle
tools in fashioning tables, chairs, and beds, from blocks of wood and
thin boards. Getting the legs on a table is an especially interesting
problem to the class, and over and over again they have discovered for
themselves how it can be done. Dishes for the doll family furnish the
motive for clay modeling and decoration. Dressing and undressing the
dolls is an occupation the children never tire of, and it furnishes
excellent practice in buttoning and unbuttoning and tying bows.
The changing seasons of the year and the procession of outdoor games
they bring furnish other motives for production that meet a real
need of the children. In the spring-time they want marbles and tops,
in the fall, kites; the demand for wagons is not limited to any one
season. Whenever possible the children are allowed to solve their
own problems. If they want marbles they experiment until they find a
good way to make them round, while if they are making something more
difficult where the whole process is obviously beyond them, they are
helped. This help, however, never takes the form of dictation as to how
to perform each step in its order, for the object of the work is to
train the child’s initiative and self-reliance, to teach him to think
straight by having him work on his own problems. The little carts which
the older children make would be beyond them if they had to plan and
shape the material for themselves; but when they are given the sawed
boards and round pieces for wheels, they find out by trying how they
can be put together, and thus make usable little wagons. Making bags
for their marbles, and aprons to protect their clothes while they are
painting the dolls’ furniture or washing the dishes after lunch, offer
additional opportunities for sewing.
From the needs of an individual doll the child’s interest naturally
develops to the needs of a family and then of a whole community. With
paper dolls and boxes, the children make and furnish dolls’ houses for
themselves, until all together they produce an entire village. On their
sand table the whole class may make a town with houses and streets,
fences and rivers, trees and animals for the gardens. In fact, the
play of the children furnishes more opportunity for making things than
there is time for in the school year. This construction work not only
fills the children with the interest and enthusiasm they always show
for any good game, but teaches them the use of work. In supplying the
needs of the dolls and their own games, they are supplying in miniature
the needs of society, and are acquiring control over the tools that
society actually uses in meeting these wants. Boys and girls alike take
the same interest in all these occupations, whether they are sewing
and playing with dolls, or marble making and carpentry. The idea
that certain games and occupations are for boys and others for girls
is a purely artificial one that has developed as a reflection of the
conditions existing in adult life. It does not occur to a boy that
dolls are not just as fascinating and legitimate a plaything for him as
for his sister, until some one puts the idea into his head.
The program of this kindergarten is not devoted exclusively to play
construction. It occupies the place of the paper folding, pricking and
sewing and the object lesson work of the older kindergartens, leaving
plenty of time every day to try their playthings and to take care of
their little gardens out of doors, as well as for group games, stories
and songs.
An interesting application of the play motive is being tried at the
Teachers’ College playground, by the same teachers who are conducting
the kindergarten. There is an outdoor playground for the use of the
younger grades after school hours. Instead of spending their time
doing gymnastic exercises or playing group games the children are
making a town. They use large packing cases for houses and stores, two
or three children taking care of each one; and have worked out quite
an elaborate town organization, with a telephone, mail and police
service, a bank to coin money, and ingenious schemes for keeping the
cash in circulation. Much of the time is spent in carpentry work,
building and repairing the houses and making wagons, furniture for
the houses, or stock for the two stores. The work affords almost as
much physical exercise as the ordinary sort of playground. It keeps
the children busy and happy in a much more effective way, for besides
healthy play in the open air they are learning to take a useful and
responsible share in a community.
A kindergarten conducted along the same lines exists in Pittsburgh as
part of the city university. It is called “The School of Childhood,”
and emphasizes the healthy physical development of the children. The
work is centered around the natural interests of children; and while
they apparently do not do as much construction work as in the Teachers’
College kindergarten, there is more individual play. The writer has not
visited the school, but it seems to embrace a number of novel elements
that ought to be suggestive to any one interested in educational
experiments.
The “Play School” conducted by Miss Pratt in New York City organizes
all the work around the play activities of little children. Quoting
Miss Pratt, her plan is: “To offer an opportunity to the child to pick
up the thread of life in his own community, and to express what he
gets in an individual way. The experiment concerns itself with getting
subject-matter first hand, and it is assumed that the child has much
information to begin with, that he is adding to it day by day, that it
is possible to direct his attention so that he may get his information
in a more related way; and with applying such information to individual
schemes of play with related toys and blocks as well as expressing
himself through such general means as drawing, dramatization, and
spoken language.”
The children are of kindergarten age and come from homes where the
opportunities for real activity are limited. Each child has floor space
of his own with a rug, and screens to isolate him sufficiently so that
his work is really individual. There is a small work shop in the room
where the pupils can make or alter things they need in their play. The
tools are full size, and miscellaneous scraps of wood are used. In
cupboards and shelves around the room are all sorts of material: toys,
big and little blocks, clay, pieces of cloth, needle and thread, and a
set of Montessori material. Each child has scissors, paper, paints, and
pencil of his own, and is free to use all the material as he chooses.
He selects either isolated objects he wants to make, or lays out some
larger construction, such as a railroad track and stations, or a doll’s
house, or a small town or farm, and then from the material at hand
works out his own execution of his idea. One piece of work often lasts
over several days, and involves considerable incidental construction,
such as tracks and signals, clay dishes, furniture or new clothes for
the doll. The rôle of the teacher is to teach the pupil processes and
control of tools, not in a prearranged scale but as they are needed in
construction. The teacher has every opportunity to see the individual’s
weaknesses and abilities and so to check or stimulate at the proper
time. Besides the motor control which the pupils develop through their
handling of material, they are constantly increasing their ingenuity
and initiative.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: Constructing in miniature the things they see around
them.
(Play School, New York City.)]
The elements of number work are taught in connection with the
construction; and if a child shows a desire to make letters or signs
in connection with his other work, he is helped and shown how. The
toys used are particularly good. There are flat wooden dolls about
half an inch thick, men, women, and children, whose joints bend so
that they will stay in any position; all sorts of farm animals and
two or three kinds of little wagons that fit the dolls; quantities of
big blocks that fasten together with wooden pegs, so that the houses
and bridges do not fall down. Everything is strongly made on the
simplest plan, so that material can be used not only freely but also
effectively. Each success is a stimulus to new and more complicated
effort. There is no discouragement from slipshod stuff. The pupils
take care of the toys themselves, getting them out and putting them
away. They also care for the classroom and serve their mid-morning
luncheon. This work, coupled with the fact that the constructions are
almost always miniature copies of the things that the pupils see in
their community, saves the work from any hint of artificiality. The
children’s constructions grow out of the observations already spoken of
(p. 100), and give a motive for talking over what they have seen and
making new, more extensive and more accurate observations.
The natural desire of children to play can, of course, be made the most
of in the lowest grades, but there is one element of the play instinct
which schools are utilizing in the higher grades--that is, the instinct
for dramatization, for make-believe in action. All children love to
pretend that they are some body or thing other than themselves; they
love to make a situation real by going through the motions it suggests.
Abstract ideas are hard to understand; the child is never quite sure
whether he really understands or not. Allow him to act out the idea and
it becomes real to him, or the lack of understanding is shown in what
is done. Action is the test of comprehension. This is simply another
way of saying that learning by doing is a better way to learn than
by listening--the difference of dramatization from the work already
described lies in the things the child is learning. He is no longer
dealing with material where _things_ are needed to carry an act to a
successful result, but with _ideas_ which need action to make them
real. Schools are making use of dramatization in all sorts of different
ways to make teaching more concrete. For older children dramatization
is used principally in the strict sense of the word; that is, by having
pupils act in plays, either as a means of making the English or history
more real, or simply for the emotional and imaginative value of the
work. With the little children it is used as an aid in the teaching of
history, English, reading, or arithmetic, and is often combined with
other forms of activity.
Many schools use dramatization as a help in teaching the first
steps of any subject, especially in the lower grades. A first year
class, for example, act the subject-matter of their regular reading
lesson, each child having the part of one of the characters of the
story, animal or person. This insures an idea of the situation as a
whole, so that reading ceases to be simply an attempt to recognize
and pronounce isolated words and phrases. Moreover, the interest
of the situation carries children along, and enlists attention to
difficulties of phraseology which might, if attacked as separate
things, be discouraging. The dramatic factor is a great assistance in
the expressive side of reading. Teachers are always having to urge
children to read “naturally,” “to read as they talk.” But when a child
has no motive for communication of what he sees in the text, knowing
as he does that the teacher has the book and can tell it better than
he can, even the naturalness tends to be forced and artificial. Every
observer knows how often children who depart from humdrum droning,
learn to exhibit only a superficial breathless sort of liveliness and
a make-believe animation. Dramatization secures both attention to the
thought of the text and a spontaneous endeavor, free from pretense
and self-consciousness, to speak loudly enough to be heard and to
enunciate distinctly. In the same way, children tell stories much more
effectively when they are led to visualize for themselves the actions
going on, than when they are simply repeating something as a part of
the school routine. When children are drawing scenes involving action
and posture, it is found that prior action is a great assistance. In
the case of a pose of the body, the child who has done the posing is
often found to draw better than those who have merely looked on. He
has got the “feel” of the situation, which readily influences his
hand and eye in the subsequent reproduction. In the early grades when
pupils fail in a concrete problem in arithmetic, it is frequently found
that resort to “acting out” the situation supplies all the assistance
needed. The real difficulty was not with the numbers but in failure to
grasp the meaning of the situation in which the numbers were to be used.
In the upper grades, literature and history, as already indicated, are
often reënforced by dramatic activities. A sixth grade in Indianapolis
engaged in dramatizing “Sleeping Beauty,” not merely composed the words
and the stage directions, but also wrote songs and the music for them.
Such concentration on a single purpose of studies usually pursued
independently stimulates work in each. Literary expression is less
monotonous, the phrasing of an idea more delicate and flexible, than
when composition is an end in itself; and while of course the music is
not likely to be remarkable, it almost always has a freshness and charm
exceeding that which could be attained from the same pupils if they
were merely writing music.
A shoe store in the second grade furnished the basis of the work for
several days. The children set up a shop and chose pupils to take the
part of the shoe clerk, the shoemaker, and the family going to buy
shoes. Then they acted out the story of a mother and children going to
the store for shoes. Arithmetic and English lessons were based on the
store, and the class wrote stories about it. This same class sang and
acted out to a simple tune a little verse about the combinations that
make ten. The same pupils were doing problems in mental arithmetic
that were much beyond the work usually found in a second grade, adding
almost instantly numbers like 74 and 57. They probably could not have
gone so rapidly if they had not had so much of the dramatization work.
It served to make their abstract problems seem real. In doing problems
about Mrs. Baldwin’s shoes they had come to think of numbers as having
some meaning and purpose, so that when a problem in pure numbers was
given they did not approach it with misgivings and uncertainty. One of
the fifth grades had installed a parcel post office; they made money
and stamps and brought bundles to school, then they played post office;
two boys took the part of postmen, weighed the packages, looked up the
rate of postage, and gave change for the customers. Tables of weights
ceased to be verbal forms to be memorized; consultation of the map was
a necessity; the multiplication table was a necessity; the system and
order required in successful activity were impressed.
The Francis Parker School is one of many using the dramatic interest
of the pupils as an aid in teaching history. The fourth grade studies
Greek history, and the work includes the making of a Greek house, and
writing poems about some Greek myth. The children make Greek costumes
and wear them every day in the classroom. To quote Miss Hall, who
teaches this grade: “They play sculptor and make clay statuettes of
their favorite gods and mould figures to illustrate a story. They model
Mycenæ in sand-pans, ruin it, cover it, and become the excavators who
bring its treasures to light again. They write prayers to Dionysius
and stories such as they think Orpheus might have sung. They play Greek
games and wear Greek costumes, and are continually acting out stories
or incidents which please them. To-day as heroes of Troy, they have a
battle at recess time with wooden swords and barrel covers. In class
time, with prayers and dances and extempore song, they hold a Dionysiac
festival. Again, half of them are Athenians and half of them Spartans
in a war of words as to which city is more to be desired. Or they are
freemen of Athens, replying spiritedly to the haughty Persian message.”
Besides these daily dramatizations, they write and act for the whole
school a little play which illustrates some incident of history that
has particularly appealed to them. History taught in this way to little
children acquires meaning and an emotional content; they appreciate
the Greek spirit and the things which made a great people. The work so
becomes a part of their lives that it is remembered as any personal
experience is retained, not as texts are committed to memory to be
recited upon.
The Francis Parker School takes advantage of the social value of
dramatizations in its morning exercises. Studying alone out of a book
is an isolated and unsocial performance; the pupil may be learning the
words before him, but he is not learning to act with other people, to
control and arrange his actions and thought so that other persons have
an equal opportunity to express themselves in a shared experience. When
the classes represent by action what they have learned from books, all
the members have a part, so that they learn to cherish socially, as
well as to develop, powers of expression and of dramatic and emotional
imagery. When they act in front of the whole school they get the value
of the work for themselves individually and help the growth of a spirit
of unity and coöperation in the entire school. All the children, big
and little, become interested in the sort of thing that is going on
in the other grades, and learn to appreciate effort that is simple
and sincere, whether it comes from the first grade or the seniors in
high school. In their efforts to interest the whole school the actors
learn to be simple and direct, and acquire a new respect for their work
by seeing its value for others. Summaries of the work in different
subjects are given in the morning exercises by any grade which thinks
it has something to say that would interest the other children.
The dramatic element is sometimes small, as in the descriptions of
excursions, of curious processes in arithmetic or of some topic in
geography; but the children always have to think clearly and speak
well, or their audience will not understand them, and maps or diagrams
and all sorts of illustrative material are introduced as much as
possible. Other exercises, such as the Greek play written by the fourth
grade, or a dramatization of one of Cicero’s orations against Cataline,
are purely dramatic in their interest.
The production of plays by graduating classes or for some specific
purpose is of course a well-known method of interesting pupils or
advertising a school. But recently schools have been giving plays and
festivals for their educational value as well as for their interest
to children and the public. The valuable training which comes from
speaking to an audience, using the body effectively and working with
other pupils for a common end, is present, whatever the nature of
the play; and schools usually try to have their productions of some
literary value. But until recently the resources of the daily work
of the pupils for dramatic purposes have been overlooked. Being for
purposes of public entertainment, plays were added on after school
hours. But schools are beginning to utilize this natural desire of
young people to “act something” for amplifying the curriculum. In
many schools where dramatization of a rather elaborate character is
employed for public performances, the subject-matter is now taken from
English and history, while writing the play supplies another English
lesson. The rehearsals take the place of lessons in expression and
elocution, and involve self-control. The stage settings and costumes
are made in the shop and art periods, the planning and management being
done by the pupils, the teacher helping enough to prevent blunders
and discouragement. At Riverside one of the classes had been reading
Tolstoi’s “Where Love Is There Is God” for their work in literature.
They rewrote the story as a play and rehearsed it in their English
lessons, the whole class acting as coach and critic. As their interest
grew they made costumes and arranged a stage setting and finally gave
the play to an audience of the school and its friends. At another
time the English class gave an outdoor performance of a sketch which
they had written, based on the Odyssey. The American history class at
the Speyer School give a play which they write about some incident in
pioneer history. During the rehearsal nearly all the children try the
parts, quite regardless of sex or other qualifications, and the whole
class chooses the final cast. The fifth grade was studying Irving’s
“Sketch Book” in connection with its history and literature work, and
dramatized the story of Rip Van Winkle, doing all its own coaching and
costuming.
[Illustration: Using the child’s dramatic instinct to teach history.
(Cottage School, Riverside, Ill.)]
The Howland School, one of the public schools of Chicago situated in
a foreign district, gave a large festival play during the past year.
The principal wrote and arranged a pageant illustrating the story of
Columbus, and the whole school took part in the acting. The story gave
a simple outline of the life of Columbus. A few tableaux were added
about some of the most striking events in pioneer history, arranged
to bring out the fact that this country is a democracy. The children
made their own costumes for the most part, and all the dances they
had learned during the year in gymnasium were introduced. Thus the
whole exhibition presented a very good picture of the outline of our
history and the spirit of the country, and at the same time offered
an interesting summary of the year’s work. Its value as a unifying
influence in a foreign community was considerable, for besides teaching
the children something of the history of their new country, it gave
the parents, who made up the audience, an opportunity to see what the
school could do for their children and the neighborhood. The patriotic
value of such exercises is greater than the daily flag salute or
patriotic poem, for the children understand what they are supposed
to be enthusiastic about, as they see before them the things which
naturally arouse patriotic emotions.
Exercises to commemorate holidays or seasons are more interesting
and valuable than the old-fashioned entertainment where individual
pupils recited poems, and adults made speeches, for they concentrate
in a social expression the work of the school. The community is more
interested because parents know that their own children have had
their share in the making of the production, and the children are
more interested because they are working in groups on something which
appeals to them and for which they are responsible. The graduating
exercises at many schools are now of a kind to present in a dramatic
review the regular work of the year. Each grade may take part,
presenting a play which they have written for work in English, dancing
some of the folk or fancy dances they have learned in gymnasium, etc.
Many schools have a Thanksgiving exercise in which different grades
give scenes from the first Thanksgiving at Plymouth, or present
dramatic pictures of the harvest festivals of different nations. In
similar fashion Christmas entertainments are often made up of songs,
poems and readings by children from different grades, or by the whole
grade, which have been arranged in the English and music classes. The
possibilities for plays, festivals, and pageants arranged on this plan
are endless; for it is always possible to find subject-matter which
will give the children just as much training in reading, spelling,
history, literature, or even some phases of geography, as would dry
Gradgrind facts of a routine text-book type.