THE NECESSITY FOR PLAY.--But why is play so necessary? Why is this
impulse so deep-rooted in our natures? Why not compel our young to
expend their boundless energy on productive labor? Why all this waste?
Why have our child labor laws? Why not shut recesses from our schools,
and so save time for work? Is it true that all work and no play makes
Jack a dull boy? Too true. For proof we need but gaze at the dull and
lifeless faces of the prematurely old children as they pour out of the
factories where child labor is employed. We need but follow the
children, who have had a playless childhood, into a narrow and barren
manhood. We need but to trace back the history of the dull and brutish
men of today, and find that they were the playless children of
yesterday. Play is as necessary to the child as food, as vital as
sunshine, as indispensable as air.
