Children's ways : being selections from the author's "Studies of childhood," with some additional matter / James Sully.

  • James Sully
Date:
1897
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Children's ways : being selections from the author's "Studies of childhood," with some additional matter / James Sully. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    39/212 page 27
    on seriousness by reason of the earnestness which the child’s mind brings to it. Coming now to active play, we find here, too, in the region which seems to owe its very existence to the childish instinct of enjoyment, traces of the same seriousness. For most children, one suspects, play would become a tame thing were there not the fear- ful to conjure with. The favourite play-haunts, the dark corners under the table, behind the curtains, and so forth, show what a vital element of play is supplied by the excitement of the state of half- dread. It is in the games which set the young nerves gently shaking, when a robber has to be met or a giant attacked in his cave, that one sees best, I think, how terribly earnest children’s play may become. Even where play has in it nothing alarming it is apt to take on a serious aspect. This has been illus- trated in what has been said about the doll and other play-illusions. Most of children’s play is imitative of the serious actions of grown-up folk. In nursing her doll the little girl is taking to her domestic duties in the most serious of moods ; similarly when the little boy assumes the responsibilities of coachman or other useful functionary. The imitative impulse of child- hood is wont in these cases to follow out the correct and prescribed order with punctilious exactness. The doll must be dressed, fed, put to bed, and so forth, with the regularity that obtains in the child’s own life ; the coachman must hold the whip, urge on the horses, or stop them in the proper orthodox manner. And the same fidelity to model and prescription shows itself in those games which reproduce the page of
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3