impulse"; and this, he says, is "the moment when man is to be prepared
for future industry, diligence and productive activity." He points out,
too, the importance of noticing the habits which come from spontaneous
self-employment, which may be habits of indolent ease if the child is
not allowed to be as active as his nature requires.

There were no theories of play in Froebel's day, but he had certainly
read _Levana_, and in all probability he knew what Schiller had said in
his _Letters on Aesthetic Education_. The play theories are now too well
known to require more than a brief recapitulation.

It will generally be allowed that the distinctive feature of play as
opposed to work is that of spontaneity. The action itself is of no
consequence, one man's play is another man's work. Nor does it seem to
matter whence comes the feeling of compulsion in work, whether from
pressure of outer necessity, or from an inner necessity like the
compelling force of duty. Where there is joy in creation or in discovery
the work and play of the genius approach the standpoint of the child,

Indulging every instinct of the soul,
There, where law, life, joy, impulse are one thing.

In the play of early childhood there may be freedom, not only from adult
authority, but even from the restrictions of nature or of circumstances
since "let's pretend" annihilates time and space and all material
considerations.

Among theories of play first comes what is known as the Schiller-Spencer
theory, in which play is attributed to the accumulation of surplus
energy. When the human being has more energy than he requires in order