Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 February 1917 — TRAINING TODAY’S BOYS AND GIRLS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

TRAINING TODAY’S BOYS AND GIRLS

Shall You Let Your Children! “Play Soldier?” ARE DRAMATIC BY INSTINCT t ' — ■ Impersonating Pirate* and Robbers Not Necessarily Harmful and AntiMilitarizm Is Not Encouraged by Forbidding Military Toys.

By SIDONIE M. GRUENBERG. IN TIMES of peace many of us can visualize the horrors of war clearly enough to make us oppose everything that encourages militarism. But with half of the civilized world bleeding, the horrors are before the minds of all of us constantly, and we are moved to do something more effective than shutting our eyes. We realize the importance of inculcating in the young a type of patriotism that is free from aggressiveness or jingoism. Confident of our patriotism, we turn our attention to a crusade against “military” toys and the playing of soldiers by the children. There Is, of course, no use in overstimulating children in these plays. Nothing is to be gained by urging a more lively interest in details of military campaigns or in making the children more familiar with the instruments of destruction. But neither is it wise to forbid to boys the playing of soldier. - When boys plays soldier it is in response to two facts which cannot be entirely" removed. The child, at a pertain age, will not only imitate what he sees going on around him, but he will dramatize all the activities of which he learns. This Instinct is there if the child is normal, and any outside regulation, to be effective, must consist not of rules regarding what may or what may not be played/ but it must take the form of selecting all the ideas that are to enter the child’s mind. This is obviously an impossible task. With all his devices and resources, the father of the Buddha failed in his efforts to keep from the child all knowledge of suffering and death. Nor can we hope to keep our children long in ignorance of suffering and death, or war and murder, or robbery and other crimes. And whatever they learn they win Incorporate in their plays just as certainly as they have an opportunity to play at all. Forbidding certain types of play will not modify the natural Impulses to imitate and to dramatize. Neither will it destroy the child’s-natural interest in the unusual and in the “dramatic.” On the contrary, forbidding is one of the surest ways of arousing interest, one of the surest ways of -tempting -to action. But even if we could prevent the children’s participation in these mimic paradiAgs and warrings, it is very doubtful whether it would be worth while to do so. The injury that may come from playing soldier has been exaggerated. The fact is that children doall their paying, at least during the years before adolescence, entirely without prejudice. They are alternately Indians and Puritan Pilgrims; they impersonate the parish priest or Captain Cook with equal sincerity and abandon. When they. enact a stage robbery there is no moral implication in the assignment of roles, and as they view the drama of life from the unsophisticated level of three to four

feet, every character has -hi* proper place and is worthy of h fair presentation. The perfect naivete of the child in adopting the character which he Ts, for the time being, impersonating is shown by the answer that little Francis gave when his prim Aunt Sabrina discovered him dancing about the nursery without a scrap of clothing on. “Whatever are you doing in this state, child?” asked the aunt in a tone that was meant to express reproach as well as disapproval. “Don’t you see ?’ r returned Francis, pointing to his ankles, which were ornamented with bits of colored worsted. “I am one of the Early Sea People.” Francis., had hot invented the character; he had merely adopted him from the bqok they had been reading in school. The question of the moral effect of impersonating the soldier is very much like the older question of what happens to the acjor whg takes the part of the villain In tfie'play. Should the children’s play-hfe ; quite without Its. villain's orbad fairies? Then it lii incomplete and not sufficiently true to life to be interesting, to be satisfying. On the other hand, if the evil spirit la

to appear, will it harm your child or mine to play his roleT Experience shows that children may play robber and pirate with great gusto, and yet grow up to be upright and honored citizens, and even judges; In the same way it is quite possible for children to play soldier, and then become advocates of “peace at any price.” The literary editor of a well-known woman's magazine, the editor of an educational magazine, and a prominent minister, all told me that they had ambitions toward a military career — not during childhood, but during late adolescence. The editors both made strenuous but futile efforts to get into the West Point Military academy, and the minister actually Joined the army. All three are now spending a considerable portion of their time combating militarism. And thousands of similar cases can no doubt be found in all parts of our population. When there is so much constructive work that may be done in the developing of the child’s character, the worry about playing soldier seems a pitiful waste of energy. It is a pity to snatch

from Bobby his tin soldiers, or to look daggers at him when he admires a toy gun; let the child have his play and he will be a better man for it. What is needed is not the hiding of drums and muskets, but the positive cultivation of ideals of peace and humanity. Moreover, at each stage of interest the play of the child affords an opportunity to formulate standards and ideals of gonduct that should be seized and utilized. It is when he is playing soldier that the child can learn the meaning of loyalty and devotion and self-sacrifice and. fortitude, and these may remain when the drum and tinsel are discarded for another character.

“I Am One of the Early Sea People.”

May Play Robber and Pirate, Yet Grow Up an Upright Citizen.