Part 25

The law of rhythm, which has already been explained, must be obeyed in our every-day tasks. It applies to every step we take.

One of the best results of these exercises is that they develop a sense of rhythm.

There are many violations of rhythm. One is continuing along one line too long. Work can be so arranged as to be varied. We can work at one thing several hours and then we can deliberately drop it until the next day and take up some other phase of work.

Without rhythm, work becomes drudgery. A more specific violation of rhythm is a failure to relax and to use force only when needed.

The greatest effect of force comes through action and reaction. Sometimes a man uses unnecessary parts and uses them continually. That, of course, will cause weariness.

There are hundreds of questions regarding such discussions in as many books in our day. Mr. Nathaniel J. Fowler, Jr., in "The Boy," a careful book which is a treasure house of information, has gathered answers to leading questions from two hundred and eighty-three prominent men. Many of these, in fact, most of them, advise a boy, when he is not satisfied with his work and is pretty sure that he is not adapted to it, to change his occupation.

It is a difficult point upon which to give advice, but other things being equal, work should be enjoyed. When not enjoyed there should be a serious study of the man himself, a study of his attitude toward life, a study of his possibilities, a study of his opportunities, and also a study of what he is best fitted for, and an endeavor to find this.

It is surprising, however, how far men can adapt themselves, even change their very nature in accomplishing a work which is laid upon them as a duty. One of the greatest artists of New England took care of his brothers and sisters and his father's farm, at a crisis, and kept a little shed outside the house where he painted at odd moments. He had an avocation as well as a vocation. He gave up his trip to study in Europe as he wished to study; he did a vast amount of work which was regarded by many as drudgery, and he was compelled to study his art only at odd moments. Despite all this, George Fuller became one of the most illustrious and original of American artists. Today his pictures are in all the leading museums, and command a high price.

What is drudgery? Dr. James Freeman Clark defined it as "work without imagination." Anything can be made drudgery. A man can study art, or sing, paint pictures, edit newspapers, or write books and make his work drudgery. Drudgery is working perfunctorily. It is work without aspiration, work without an ideal.

No man can do anything well in life, without an ideal. If a man undertakes a certain work he must begin it by awakening and realizing the importance of that work in the world's life. He must form a definite ideal of the best possible way of doing that work and of its relation to the world.

In short, no man can accomplish anything in a negative, indifferent attitude toward his work. He must look upon it from the side of its importance, the side of its beauty, the side that is interesting to him, the side that shows its influence and helpfulness toward the world.

Play, to the little child--and also to the hard working man--is more serious than work. When work begins to be perfunctory, play is the only remedy. In such a case a man is in a dangerous rut and must adopt a new rhythm.

"All work, and no play, makes Jack," or any other donkey, "a dull boy."

The first principle of play must be to obey our higher impulses. To play means the ability to change our occupation. It means the ability to obey other impulses than perfunctory ones.

Some men regard play as something low. On the contrary, notwithstanding the "recapitulation" theory, play should be a new aspiration, a deeper assertion of freedom, a higher opportunity for suppressed energies.

To play, certain feelings and conceptions of our nature must be awakened. Play reveals character even more than work because it shows the latent impulses of the man. Therefore, if in college, in school, or in childhood, in playing with companions, the right associations are brought to bear, the right persons are received as mates, then the very sympathy and contact with others will cause higher aspirations, deeper enjoyments, more spontaneous endeavor, and renewal of life. Play is sub-conscious, it is giving way in some sense, to instinct; but it is deliberatively giving up. It implies enjoyment but it does not necessarily imply the gratification of low desire.

Something can be said in favor of athletics. A story is told of a gentleman who visited his nephew in a large private school. He went around the athletic field and asked the trainers about his relative. Then the uncle found the boy in his room, digging. He said, "What are you doing here? None of the trainers see anything of you. What is the trouble?" The student answered, "I have been sick and I have been working hard to catch up." "Get out of this," replied the uncle, "I went to preparatory school and to college to find friends, to get enjoyment, to learn how to play, to come in contact with men. That is the serious business of school and college."

There are some who consider this the very worst of heresies. I used to think so myself; but contact with students in colleges and universities has enabled me at least to see the point of view of this gentleman. Many times I have met men who were not getting the most out of their college or university course though you could not tell that from their scholarship or so-called "standing." They lacked the spirit of enjoyment, the power of initiative. They lacked the power of sympathetic touch with other men that makes greatly for success in life.

To my mind there are some games which bring no sympathetic touch among men. Mere games are not always worthy of the name of play. They become drudgery, and they cause certain constrictions. They fetter the whole life. They call for perfect silence, call for the exercise of great mechanical skill. Frequently we find men playing games which are analogous, if not identical, with their work. Games should be different from work. They should bring sympathetic enjoyment. They should bring exultation.

A noted physiologist sent by his government to examine into the physical training of other countries visited a leading school in England and found the pupils one morning, during the best hours of the day, at play. Approaching one of the boys, he asked for the principal, and was conducted very politely to the master. The visitor was greatly impressed by the boys. He asked the principal why it was that his boys were playing during the best part of the day. "Ah," said the principal, "that is part of our method. We want the best time in the day to be devoted to their outdoor exercises and sports. We take the utmost care that the boys shall come into the most sympathetic spirit with each other, and anything that happens wrong on the playground is to us fully as serious as what happens in their studies."

There is a universal conception that play is not serious. Children are allowed to do just as they please. This is a mistake. Froebel has taught the true spirit and importance of play. Some people consider his explanations as being purely speculative, if not insane; but the great majority of those who have really studied child life agree with him.

It is important what games the child is given. The play must be enjoyed. It should awaken creative energy. It should appeal to the imagination and feelings and not be a purely mechanical exercise of will. It is absolutely necessary for the unfoldment of character that the child come into touch with other minds, and also into contact with things.

Someone has summed up the whole principle in a sentence: "Bring such objects before the child as will stimulate spontaneous activity." The objects may be animals, birds, leaves, flowers, balls, sticks, anything which can awaken human faculties or be turned into a tool.

Arts are given us rather for avocations, for our enjoyment, as a test of our ability to appreciate the different points of view. Each art, as I have often tried to say, expresses something that no other art can say, and he is a cultivated human being who can read all the arts and enjoy them. The aim of art is to guide our energies in higher directions, and to stimulate our ideals. Art develops attention and trains us to become interested in a great variety of directions.

As a proof of this observe the great beauty of nature. We are stirred to go out of doors, to go into the woods and note the beautiful scene and the music of the pines that calls us. Nature everywhere seems at play, seems to invite men to come out into her unlimited playground, the playground of universal principles and fullness of life.

The poet, Schiller, explained all art as being derived from the play instinct. It has been said that play is the overflow of life. Life, love, joy, all noble ideals, must awaken spontaneity or they will not grow. All parts of man's nature must have expression and not be repressed. Play is given to stimulate and to express the spontaneous in us, to manifest emotion and imagination and a sense of freedom. Freedom is a necessity of all unfoldment. Even the flower must bloom spontaneously from the energy within. The sun that calls forth the leaves on all the trees does so by warming the roots in the tree and bringing the gentle south winds which fan the waving branches into activity and cause the unfolding buds to be filled with spontaneous life.

The whole world is full of joy and love. It is human ambition and jealousies that bring the hindrances.

The rhythmic alternation and the necessary relation of work and play to each other can be seen in the very constitution of man. Play alone may develop obedience to lower impulses; while work alone tends to repress the higher aspirations and spontaneous energies.