How to Add Ten Years to your Life and to Double Its Satisfactions Part 15

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 a.s.sertion 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 a.s.sociations 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 scholars.h.i.+p 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 a.n.a.logous, 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 princ.i.p.al, and was conducted very politely to the master. The visitor was greatly impressed by the boys. He asked the princ.i.p.al why it was that his boys were playing during the best part of the day. "Ah," said the princ.i.p.al, "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, b.a.l.l.s, 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 n.o.ble 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 const.i.tution 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 a.s.sistance, 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 a.s.sistance.

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 grat.i.tude.

As I glanced at the woman, however, I saw that she really desired to thank me but was embarra.s.sed. 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:

1. Smile when tempted to frown; look for and enjoy the best around you.

2. See, hear or read, that is, receive an impression from something beautiful in nature, art, music, poetry, literature or your fellow-men.

3. Think, feel or realize something in the direction of your ideals and in some way unite your dreams with your every-day work and play.

4. Express the best that is in you and awaken others to express the best in them.

5. Serve some fellow-being by listening, by kind word or deed.

6. Share in some of the great movements of the race.

All these refer to an important point--that we should be teachable and should receive right impressions. This is of primary importance.

Breathing means the taking of breath. We should begin the day with joyous and glad acceptance of life and all that it brings. A spirit of thankfulness and acceptance is the true spirit of life.

We, however, need active expression. As breathing implies not only taking breath but giving it out, so impression and expression are necessary elements of the rhythm of life.

Hence even these six things are incomplete. We should also exercise our higher faculties and powers, especially those we are not habitually using in our work. Our whole nature should be active if we are truly to live. Our higher faculties should not be regarded as concerned only in mere dreaming. Our ideals should be connected with our daily work and contact with mankind if we are to cease drudging or working without imagination. Accordingly by word, thought or act, we should express every day the best that is in us. Moreover, fully as important as these, we should every day come into sympathetic touch with our fellow-beings and call forth the best in them.

Expression implies a neighbor,--some other being with whom we can communicate. Do not think for a moment that such expression is empty. Of course, we must go on and endeavor every day to serve someone by a kind act, but a kind word must not be despised. How many hearts are over burdened because they lack a sympathetic listener! To be a polite listener is one of the beautiful things in human life. Remember, also, that many who have seen an opportunity and desired to do a kind act have failed from inability to express the wish by word, smile or bow.

Expression is not separate from impression. We must receive our impressions from every source, then we must express to others the best that is in us and become such sympathetic listeners that others will unfold the best in themselves and thus come into that plane where we can sympathetically partic.i.p.ate in the lives of others.

VIII