most common misconception about play. It is not surprising that those
who have given the subject no special consideration should regard play
from the ordinary adult standpoint, and think of it as entirely opposed
to work, as relaxation of effort. But the play of a child covers so much
that it is startling to find a real psychologist writing that "education
through play" is "a pernicious proposition."[10] Statements of this kind
spring from the mistaken idea, certainly not derived from observation,
that play involves no effort, that it runs in the line of least
resistance, and that education through play means therefore education
without effort, without training in self-control, education without
moral training. The case for the Kindergarten is the opposite of this.
Education through play is advocated just because of the effort it calls
forth, just because of the way in which the child, and later the boy or
girl, throws his whole energy into it. What Froebel admired, what he
called "the most beautiful expression of childlife," was "the child that
plays thoroughly, with spontaneous determination, perseveringly, until
physical fatigue forbids--a child wholly absorbed in his play--a child
that has fallen asleep while so absorbed." That child, he said, would be
"a thorough determined man, capable of self-sacrifice for the promotion
of the welfare of himself and others." It is because "play is not
trivial, but highly serious and of deep significance," that he appeals
to mothers to cultivate and foster it, and to fathers to protect and
guard it.

[Footnote 10: _The Educative Process_, p. 255 (Bagley).]

The Kindergarten position can be summed up in a sentence from Dr.
Clouston's _Hygiene of Mind_: "Play is the real work of children."
Froebel calls activity of sense and limb "the first germ," and
"play-building and modelling the tender blossoms of the constructive