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Show FwHY WE BEHAVE LIKE HUMAN BEINGS Sf CEORCt DOMCY, tk. 0 U- Dv B t Do You Smllo Wben Tickled I SMILE when yon tlckls me; I cannot can-not help It it la a reflex. If you smile back, I will learn to smile when yog smile. The drive In life Is hunger. hun-ger. The action In life Is to secure food and mates to satisfy bunger. Play Is preliminary action trying out, testing the capacity of range of action. It differs from the reactions of adult life In that It lacks the consummation con-summation response or adjustment The action has no ulterior motive. Play Is not an Instinct; nor Is It unique In human beings or Identical In the human race. It Is a form of acquired behavior. The stimulus back of play whether of puppies, children, or adults Is a motor mechaulsm which was built for action, glows with action, ac-tion, and In childhood grows best by action. Weeding the garden or picking potato po-tato bugs Is action. But there are drawbacks. Repetition same stira-nlua, stira-nlua, same response; and no end In sight there seem to be so many weeds, so many bugs; If they are to be cleared out, the pace must be kept up. That means that the Impulse Im-pulse to respond to other stimuli that may rise and do keep rising up to beckon the child aside must be repressed. re-pressed. Play is generally actions of several kinds at the same time. Even In a game of marbles a half-dozen different differ-ent activities may function together. The difference between marbles and professional baseball Is chiefly years: the men have their game better organized; or-ganized; are better players because more habituated to It; and stick closer to their game. But sometimes their game becomes lost In a fight with words, catcalls, and pop bottles. impulse to action; gratification of that Impulse; hang the consequences: of such Is the play of chl'dren, the daydreams and castles-ln Spain of adult What man tied to his job all day does not yearn now and then to be a Dick Deadeye, a Jesse James, or a Captain Klddl Boys can be. They rob, they hold up trains, they capture cap-ture ships, they bury and dig up chests of gold. We come from a long line of freebooters. There Is nothing In our Inheritance which savors of factory, treadmill, or office stool. We must acquire these priceless boblta, and often at the loss of our entire original Inheritance, which Included freedom to fight or run, and everlastingly ever-lastingly to fool around. The sheer Joy of being altve, the supreme Joy of action In the child I Watch a four-year-old work off his surplus steam. Not only Is every muscle of his body in action, but his face and bis speech box are at work. It Is as though his entire being were so sensitive to excitation that the slightest wind that blows excites blm to new effort Why not? He has only Just discovered dis-covered the most wonderful, the most excitable, the most Insatiable mechanism mech-anism In the world: a growing human being, himself) That mechanism discovered, dis-covered, the boy or girl now seta out to discover the world, and does easier than later In life. Life's Innate In-nate curiosity has not yet been crushed; nor bas Imagination, the rapacity to make believe, yet been killed by the "realities", that grownups grown-ups cling to like shipwrecked mariners to a rotting spar In mldocean. Play Is the beginning of knowledge. Banging tbe rattle on the crib or getting get-ting a toe In o.ie's mouth Is an early lesson In wisdom. Which means that there Is no sharp line between playing Jesse James and being Jesse James. But the child who stops with a stick for a gun will bring down no bigger game In later years than he can kill with a daydream. Those of us who live only in hopes build only castles In our own air. The practical application Is this: two boys will pick more than twice as many potato bugs as one and pick them faster if a definite goal Is set a quart, or a quarter. Still better results re-sults can be had by setting a phonograph phono-graph near by with n good rhythmic swing to It say, the "Sambre et Meuse" or the "Washington Post March." Life bates monotony, but loves rhythm; In heartbeat, in Intestinal In-testinal contraction. In canoeing. In poetry. In music. But do not expect the child to be like you through mere Imitation. The child will smile when smiled at, laugh when others laugh, yell when others yell, look at what others are looking at listen when others listen, run with or after or from others, snd duck when others duck. One sheep over the fence, all over. Not a sound at night; one dog barks; tn five minutes min-utes fifty dogs are yelping. We also applaud, hiss, whistle, yawn, light up, with the crowd. Stimulus and response. re-sponse. Tour lighting up Is stimulus for the same reaction on my part There Is also a more direct conditioned condi-tioned stimulus. I cut my Cnger: It bleeds. It hurts; I wince. You cut your finger; I see blood, I wince. Watch the crowd at a prize fight They duck, they dodge, they "Ouch!" They are only less affected by the blows than the receivers, or only less Jubilant than the man who delivered deliv-ered them. There Is much human nature on exhibition at the prize ring and swimming hole. (3 by Qeorae A. Doner.) |