ambitions of youth die, one by one. There is nothing left to look forward to but the end of the journey. Our face lengthens out, becomes furrowed with wrinkles, our eyes become lusterless and lose their fire. This is all unnecessary. We can remain young; we can still be boys and girls at eighty if we will only play. Play for adults is recreation in the true sense of re-creation. Our work, particularly professional work, uses up our nervous energy at too fast a rate. We need to fall back upon our older self for a part of the time each day, renew our youth, and let the ancestral man within come forth and express himself. It is not enough that we take an annual vacation; we should take a vacation each day. For at least a short time each day we should throw off the age that is trying to grow up within us, forget the grey that is coming in our hair, laugh and romp and play with children and with our fellows, and be young again. Whenever we play, we are children; if we al ways play, we shall remain children in spirit.

We should take a lesson from the ancient Greeks, in whose lives play was an important factor. It is no accident that the Greeks, the greatest of all peoples, were the greatest players. In those ancient days, whole populations would

come together for athletic and intellectual games. Their many and various festivals were important events in their lives.

It is as important that a man have a life-time play interest as that he should have his profes sional or occupational interest. Every man should have some sort of play or hobby into which he can, for a part of each day, throw himself with the vigor, enthusiasm, and abandon of youth. For a city man this can be gardening, poultry raising, or some line of investigation, an interest in insects, or flowers, or trees, or birds. It makes little difference what it is, if it is an interest that can wholly possess him and last through his life.

We have opposed work to play; we have considered them as antithetical, and in a measure they are. There are certain characteristics that inhere in work that set it apart as different from play. Nevertheless, our work is never very ef fective unless we can throw into it some of the spirit which is characteristic of play. As long as our work is drudgery, as long as we approach it with distaste and aversion, we never do our best. It is only when we approach it with the same feeling that a boy has in his base ball game that we do our most effective work. In other words, our best work is done when it is play,

when we can delight in the work itself. This outcome will be the result of two factors. By remaining young through play, we are able to approach our work in the play spirit. We can also study our work, find ways to improve it, increase our skill in it, and get the joy that comes from work well done.

It is evident that if play is to be a large part of the life of a community, the teachers should be the greatest of players. They should not only be skilled in all the games and participate in them, but should be young in spirit, and should be in sympathy with childhood and youth. Teachers should be strong and perfect in body; this is quite as important as is the matter of their intellectual fitness. After teachers have lost their youthful spirit and youthful sympathies, they should not remain in the school room, for they will destroy life instead of creating it.

CHAPTER VI

IDEALS OF DEMOCRACY.

THE American public schools should be the temples of democracy; the teachers, its high priests. No one who is not sound in his democracy should be allowed to teach our children. The spirit of democracy is equality. When will the world learn the true meaning of the word? It has been nearly a century and a half since the founders of our republic declared that "all men are created free and equal." It has been nineteen centuries since Jesus taught that we should love one another. The unthinking may wonder why ethical progress is so slow, but the reason is not far to seek. The inborn nature of man today is essentially the same as that of the men who listened to the words of Jesus. We are the same at heart as our ancestors of long ago. And at heart we are selfish. The teaching of the Bible that we must be born again is true. Our natures must be materially changed before we are fit to live together in any degree of harmony and happiness. All the virtues on which democracy rests must be developed in us or strengthened by training.

Nearly all the pain and suffering and sorrow in the world arise directly or indirectly out of selfishness, unkindness and lack of sympathy.

In one sense, the Declaration of Independence is wrong-we are not created equal. To the student of human nature, nothing is more conspicuous and striking than the fact of individual differences. Some of us are tall; others, short; some of us have good eyes and ears; others, poor. So also, we differ in every aspect and detail of our minds. Nature has been kind to some of us, unkind to others. No, we are not equal, nor can we be made equal, but in a democracy, we should have equal rights.

Every child has the right to be trained, educated, nurtured physically and mentally so as to attain the highest manhood possible. Every man has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in whatever manner he may desire, if the attainment of the desire does not involve the unhappiness of others. Every man has the right to be treated as a man, whatever may be his occupation or station in life, whatever the kind of clothes he may wear. Every man has the right to his beliefs and convictions, and the right to carry them out in his actions so long as they do not interfere with such equal