value. It may be that within any given field of work, it will do no harm to give more praise for the better work.

CHAPTER V.

IDEALS OF PLAY.

WORK is a means to an end; play is an end in itself. Work is important because in work we must pay for valuable possessions. Play is the antithesis of work. We work because we must; we play because we can not help it. Play is the free expression of our nature, our inmost and oldest self. In play we more truly and fully live than in any other activity, because more of our nature goes into play. We work in order that the fruits of our labor may supply our bodily and spiritual needs; play itself supplies many of these needs directly. Work is great because through it come many of the good and necessary things of life; play is great because it is a good thing itself.

While work is the most glorious word in our language, play and childhood are the sweetest. After our early days are over, throughout all the years of toil, trouble, sorrows, and disappointments of our mature life and old age, sweet are the memories of infancy and childhood. Treasured, holy and hallowed are the recollec

tions. How often in memory we live that early life over again.

The world of our infancy was small, a house, a yard, a cat and a dog, father and mother. In this world we lived and played. From morning till night we were ceaselessly busy, exploring the virgin mysteries of our little world. The tools of our craft were a stick, an old pan, a ball, and some blocks. Every day, every hour, presented some new mystery, some new problem. We gradually enlarged the boundaries of cur world which in childhood came to include the barn and barnyard with their wonderful inhabitants-horses, cows, hogs, and chickens. What is childhood without a barn with its hay mow? No palace in a city can equal a country barn for childhood.

It

Our little world of infancy grew fast. soon extended to the creek, the hills, the woods, with their interesting wild creatures. In this larger world, our life expanded. The days were not long enough. What day could be long enough for us to learn all we wanted to know about the fishes, the frogs, the snakes, the crows. the jaybirds, and the squirrels? We came to possess a knife and at once gained a new control over the world. We carved our name on the old sycamore, cut switches from the birch,

made whistles from the elm and hickory. At last we made a bow and arrow, and became a full-blooded Indian. We made a trap, set it in the thicket by the creek and caught quail and rabbits. We possessed a gun in early youth, and in the deep snows, over the fields and through the woods we trudged, with our bellowing hound, hunting rabbits. Across the years that intervene, I hear that deep, bass bellow still, and on its sweet notes my soul is carried back to those dear days that are no more.

How intense are the experiences of early life. Every day something transpires that makes its indelible impression. The world is to us then a virgin world. Each experience is new. Later, life becomes monotonous; each day like the one before. We search often in vain for new experiences. Not so with childhood and youth. If we could prolong childhood; if we could retain its spirit through life, the world would be different. In a measure this can be done. The secret lies in play. Let us play all our life. Let us go down to our graves with a toy in our hands, and all our lives we shall be as children.

Beautiful is the play of children about the family fireside. In all the scenes of life from birth to death, there is none so sweet, so divine, so holy, as that of a happy family in the home,

gathered around the lamp before an open fire, reading, talking, and playing games. Such, scenes are as near heaven as any we have on earth. There is the dear grandmother, filling her honored place in the easy chair, holding on her lap the infant grandson. The father intermittently reads the newspaper, the mother brings in the doughnuts and the apples, and joins in the games of the children.

The

Parents should live with their children and play with them much more than they do. In the country the relations of fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, are still very intimate; but in the city, this is often not the case. city home frequently is no home at all. Family relations are loose or non-existent. Civilization rests upon the home. There can be no home unless the members of the family are bound together by the strongest and most intimate of ties. In the country the members of the family can both work together and play together; in the city they can at least play together. When the day's work is over, the family should be united for the evening's entertainment, for the family play. The evening should be planned for. We make plans for everything else, why not make plans for our family life? If we are in the poultry business, we make extensive plans and take great