The child has an artificial occupation named play through games.
Having the food as raw material for the body, that food can
be built into the physique only through the free play of the
legs and arms, through exercise and fresh air. In Prospect Park
we behold the maple bough pushing out a soft growth of one or
two feet, and then the sap coursing through the young growth
furnishes food; then comes the spring and summer winds to give
the sap and the bough its exercise; playing with the leaves in
the air, bending it, twisting it, hardening the young growth,
until it can stand up against the storms of winter. And not
otherwise does the growing child need its exercise. The little
boy flings out his arm with the ball, and so stretches the
arm. Then, when the arm is stretched, along comes the angel of
the blood and drops in a little wedge, so that the stretched
arm can not draw back. Thus the growth is permanent. This is
the function of all the games for little children, to stretch
the blood into the body and then by forcing the arterial blood
into the extremities to make the stretching permanent. One
thing, therefore, is vital, the playground. (Text.)--N. D.
HILLIS.
(2386)