School, Church, and Home Games | Page 2

play environment; if
we are to lead the child or educate the child we have first to enter into
his environment and into fellowship with him therein, and adapt our
methods to that environment. The processes of education which have
taken to themselves those things which are natural to children will meet
deserved success. The schoolroom, the Sunday school room, or home
in which a play atmosphere is experienced, small though this
experience may be, is operating on a sound basis. Play is nature's
method of education. As a kitten in chasing the leaves in the road is
playing, it is also learning to catch the bird or the mouse essential for
the maintenance of life. So the child, by nature, learns to live by play.
Activity is life. Directed activity means directed life. The body is but
the means of activity and is developed only in accord with the activity
demands of the individual. Character is but the trend of the activities of
an individual. So the activities are more the individual than is the flesh
and bone which we see.
If we recognize that in play the child is under the tutorship of nature,
we should seek to encourage rather than discourage the process. By
directing the play we are training for life--yes, more, we are creating
life.
As play creates in the child, it re-creates in the adult. Activity is
essential to growth. Having attained physical growth, the adult does not
demand as much physical activity as does the child and as years
increase the tendency toward physical activity decreases. There is real
danger in this becoming too meager to maintain efficiency, and we
recognize more and more the necessity for vacation periods when some
of the old spirit of play or of joyful activity may be indulged in and a
re-creation process be set up. This recreation is simply reawakened
activity, making for greater abundance of life.
The spirit of play and the spirit of youth travel hand in hand. If we
allow the spirit of play to depart from our life, we lose our grip upon

life itself. Every man and woman should cultivate and vigorously
maintain a play spirit. This might be done through some hobbies,
games, or art into which they can throw themselves with abandon for
periods of time, frequent, if brief. They should thoroughly enjoy the
experience. For the wealthy, to whom all things are possible, this may
be hard to find. To those of limited means and of little free time,
opportunity is more abundant. To them joy shines forth from even the
so-called commonplace things of life.
The joy on the faces of those who are playing games, the merry
laughter, the jest, the shouting, place this type of activity on a pinnacle
among those producing happiness.
This volume has been prepared, in order that the young and old may
find greater opportunity for joyful activity, and experience the good
fellowship, the kindly feeling, the exhilaration and life resulting from
playing games, and that those fundamental agencies of civilization, the
Church, the school, and the home, may be better equipped to serve
mankind and to add to the sum of human happiness.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This collection of games has been selected from material sent in to the
author, by Y.M.C.A. Physical Directors, playground directors, and
school and college athletic directors, to which has been added some
original material and games that have been seen by the author in his
travels about the country.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
The author would suggest the following books on games:
GAMES FOR THE PLAYGROUND, HOME, SCHOOL AND
GYMNASIUM, Jessie Bancroft, Macmillan Co., N.Y.
GAMES FOR EVERYBODY, Hofmann, Dodge Publishing Co., N.Y.

SOCIAL GAMES AND GROUP DANCES, Elsom and Trilling, J.B.
Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia.
ICEBREAKERS, Edna Geister, The Womans Press, N.Y.
SOCIAL ACTIVITIES, Chesley, Association Press, N.Y.
PLAY, Emmett D. Angell, Little, Brown & Co., Boston.
HANDBOOK FOR PIONEERS, Association Press, N.Y.
CAMP AND OUTING ACTIVITIES, Cheley and Baker, Association
Press, N.Y.
COMMUNITY RECREATION, Draper, Association Press, N.Y.



Part I
GAMES FOR SCHOOLS


CHAPTER I
SCHOOLROOM GAMES
For Primary Pupils
Cat and Mouse
One pupil is designated to play the role of cat, another that of mouse.

The mouse can escape the cat by sitting in the seat with some other
pupil. Thereupon that pupil becomes mouse. Should the cat tag a
mouse before it sits in a seat, the mouse becomes cat and the cat
becomes mouse, and the latter must get into a seat to avoid being
tagged.
Aviation Meet
Three pupils constitute a team. Two are mechanicians, one the aviator.
Each team is to have a piece of string about 25 feet long, free from
knots. A small cornucopia of paper is placed upon each string. The
mechanicians hold the ends