Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 207, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 September 1911 — HIS SPORTS [ARTICLE]

HIS SPORTS

His sports are the most serious thing in his early life; the funnier and louder they are, the more serious. They rank with the solemnities and, if they are at all what they ought to be, their value is beyond calculation. Physically,' he is adapted to sport and then developed by it His growing muscles and bones and his' unstable nervous require play. He has several million neurons already, and each one is jumping—all of them in different directions. “Gsn’t you keep still?" asks the Impatient mother, when she ought to know from memory that he cannot. He is manufacturing energy so fast it must be taken care of, and play is the very jray nature has devised for that' Play gives each muscle and neuron a chance and train them all to work together. « ‘ Vf* But the chief value of play is not physical; it is mental and ethical and social and emotional. It shows what is in a boy; helps to correct hlmf then discovers great truths and principles to him. He expresses all of himself in play. The psychical as well as physical leeks that form of expression. He sspresses his emotions first In foodgetting; next in - play. His whole mind gets into it. Imitation and Imagination; reason and religion; love \md hate; courage and comradeship—all are there. From seven to thirteen be learns to coordinate motion and emotion.—f He learns law, not alone Hie laws or the game, but the great law of cause and effect He learns, perforce, to respect the rights of others. Team work establishes social fellowship. He learns to accept defeat cheerfully and get ready for the next opportunity. Defeats are turned Into achievements and obstacles Into opportunities, by sueh a- spirt The skill which the requires he always acquires, training all his powers to help each other, like soldiers In a well-drilled army. Here, then, are three great qualities disciplined by his sportsfairness, pluck and skill. Into the gaining of them go self-control, espedally the control of the temper, defiance of temptation, the altruistic Sentiments of comradeship, self-confi-dence and obedience. As a baby, bis play developed his muscles; next, his skill; then from twelve on, it trained the will power and the social sentiments. Nature has graded the school just right As the spirit of comradeship rises hs him, he enjoyc his fellow players as well aa the play itself, sometimes more.

Both play and talk are natural and pleasing to him, while work and conversation are artificial and irksome. Both have to be acquired and sometimes he neter succeeds in completely mastering'them. But be learns them both easily and eagerly when they can be put Into the form of play. Most boyhood tasks can be dramatized. Trimming the lawn or cutting wood or carrying In cod can he made competitive and thereby playful. History can be dramatized, especially where It involves war and heroic adventure. Impersonating Indians or any other of the attractive characters is always' a pleasure to him. Apparently he la learning mostly how to wrangle and yell and charge his opponents with being unfair, andls cultivating a narrow class spirit as fast as possible. But something very encouraging is going on. He Is learning loyalty, not to himself alone, hut to his cause, and each year hla cause la growing larger, till, by and by; he will Identify himself with the cause of man as such, and hs will be loyal. Obedience to the laws of the game Is embryo obedience to file laws of the state and the laws of Ilfs. It la even claimed that the aesthetic and artlatlo sense is developed In play. Play Is constructive qpless it is brutal. Progress is sometimes an anticlimax —quarterback, halfback, fullback, hunqhback, the latter for Ilfs. But grace and rhythm of motion, balance and proportion of schemes, courtesy and kindness in team work—these can grow" out of well-played games. In these games, constructed for the times, hs is growing out of tho crude Into the arts of civilisation. There la peculiar power In each boy. to adopt a hobby and thus prepare himself, through the combination of work and play, for bis own proper tty* cation. From fiddling to photography, from gardening to fuming, from dramatic reading to writing stories, from raising pups sad rabbits to running cattle and sheep ranches—such is often the course. . To his parents or guardians, greetr ing: 1. Co-operate with nature in letting him play all ha can. .1. Give the play instinct expression in sports, that develop cleanness, comradeship, courage and conscience. St Turn the play Isto service, by turning service into play. 4. Find his special aptitudes and let them follow that 11ns toward vocation:V _ >• />.