no means rare, even among older boys. Thirteen young lads were brought
into the Municipal Court in Chicago during the first week that
"Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman" was upon the stage, each one with an
outfit of burglar's tools in his possession, and each one shamefacedly
admitting that the gentlemanly burglar in the play had suggested to
him a career of similar adventure.

In so far as the illusions of the theater succeed in giving youth the
rest and recreation which comes from following a more primitive code
of morality, it has a close relation to the function performed by
public games. It is, of course, less valuable because the sense of
participation is largely confined to the emotions and the imagination,
and does not involve the entire nature.

We might illustrate by the "Wild West Show" in which the onlooking boy
imagines himself an active participant. The scouts, the Indians, the
bucking ponies, are his real intimate companions and occupy his entire
mind. In contrast with this we have the omnipresent game of tag which
is, doubtless, also founded upon the chase. It gives the boy exercise
and momentary echoes of the old excitement, but it is barren of
suggestion and quickly degenerates into horse-play.

Well considered public games easily carried out in a park or athletic
field, might both fill the mind with the imaginative material
constantly supplied by the theater, and also afford the activity which
the cramped muscles of the town dweller so sorely need. Even the
unquestioned ability which the theater possesses to bring men together
into a common mood and to afford them a mutual topic of conversation,
is better accomplished with the one national game which we already
possess, and might be infinitely extended through the organization of