One of the most stirring books that I have read recently, "The Spirit of
Play and the City Streets," is an appeal written by Miss Addams, of
Chicago, whose noble work has been for years among the people who live
close by Marquette's portage hut--an appeal for the recognition of the
play instincts and their conversion into a greater permanent human
happiness. There are statistics which intimate that the per-hour
efficiency of men in some parts of America, whose number of hours of labor
has been lessened, has also been diminished--diminished because of their
imprudent use of their leisure, of their play time. So the thought of
social experts is turning to teaching children to play wisely, they whose
ancestors were compelled to leave off playing.
I speak of this here to intimate how far in its thought of the man of the
future, the nation of to-morrow, that valley has travelled-first of all in
its elementary training, and within much less than a half century, from
chalk to grand pianos, and from inexpensive tuitions in reading, writing,
and arithmetic to the dearer tuitions in singing, basket-weaving, cooking,
sewing, carpentering, drawing, and the trained teaching of the old
elementary subjects, with the addition of history, algebra, physiology,
Latin, and modern languages.
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