CHAPTER IV
The Educational Value of Play

" Don't let your son's schooling interfere too much with his
Education." — Mask Twain.
Whatever definition of education we may take,
and there have been some hundreds, we find one
element common to all, and that is the funda-
mental idea of development. Every normal
child is developing inevitably from the day of its
birth, and the most common view of education
regards it as directing or supervising this develop-
ment. From one point of view, however, all
development is self-development, and it becomes
a question how far education can assist this self-
development. It has long since been recognised
that education means more than the provision
of an environment, yet most school systems aim
at little more, and consequently play a compara-
tively insignificant part in education. The aim
of education is to bring every individual self to



94 CHILDREN'S PLAY

the fullest possible development of which he or
she is capable. In order for the self to develop
it must be active and must express itself. The
power of self-expression among children varies
enormously, and is hardly ever cultivated in the
classroom. The kindergarten and the industrial
and reformatory schools are often providing,
with their manual occupations, real education ;
but most of our elementary schools, of necessity,
are pledged to the task of imparting information.
