Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium by Jessie Hubbell Bancroft (bearly read books .TXT) 📖

a brief sketch of games and their uses without reference to the topic of origins. This has been studied chiefly from two different viewpoints, that of ethnology, in which the work of Mr. Stewart Culin is preëminent, and that of folklore, in which in English Mrs. Gomme and Mr. Newell have done the most extensive work. Both of these modes of study lead to the conclusion that the great mass of games originated in the childhood of the race as serious religious or divinitory rites. Indeed, many are so used among primitive peoples to-day. Very few games are of modern invention, though the development of many to the high point of organization and skill in which we know them is very recent. Basket Ball was a deliberate invention, by Dr. James Naismith, then of Springfield, Mass., in 1892; Base Ball and Tennis, as we know them, were developed during the last half century from earlier and simpler forms; Indoor Base Ball was devised by Mr. George W. Hancock, of Chicago, in 1887; Battle Ball and Curtain Ball, both popular gymnasium games, were devised by Dr. Dudley Allen Sargent, of Harvard University.

In ethnology the study of the origin and distribution of games "furnishes," says Mr. Culin, "the most perfect existing evidence of the underlying foundation of mythic concepts upon which so much of the fabric of our culture is built." The most scientific work on the entire subject of games lies in this direction. As revealed by board and other implement games the element of sport does not originally inhere in a game, the procedure being a rite of magic or religion, pursued mainly as a means of divination. In Mr. Culin's opinion, "the plays of children must be regarded apart from games, being dramatic and imitative, although copying games as they [the children] copy other affairs of life, and thus often preserving remains of ceremonials of remote antiquity."

From the folklore viewpoint Mrs. Gomme and Mr. Newell have brought to bear on games a wealth of knowledge of old customs and beliefs, discerning thereby a significance that might otherwise pass unnoticed and unappreciated. Thus we have the recognition of old well-worship rites in the little singing game "Draw a Bucket of Water"; of ancient house ritual in some of the dramatic games; in others the propitiation of deities that preside over the fertility of the fields; survivals of border warfare; of old courtship and marriage observances, and many other rites and customs. Sometimes this recognition is merely one of analogy or association, leading to a surmise of the origin of a game; sometimes it is supported by old records and drawings or references found in early literature. While often not so exact as the strictly scientific method, this folklore study throws a flood of light on the heritage of games that passes from child to child, giving to the subject added dignity and worth. One comes to appreciate that the childhood bereft of this heritage has lost a pleasure that is its natural right, as it would if brought up in ignorance of Jack the Giant Killer, Beauty and the Beast, or Robinson Crusoe.

The class of games studied by the folklorists mentioned includes mainly those of active and dramatic character as distinguished from the board and implement games. Mrs. Gomme sees in their form, method of playing, the dialogue often included, and the fact of their continuance from generation to generation, an expression of the dramatic instinct, and considers them a valuable adjunct in the study of the beginnings of the drama. The student of games must find of great interest Mrs. Gomme's classification by formation, the line form being considered to represent, or to have grown out of, a contest between people from different countries or localities; the circle formation a representation of customs prevailing in one village, town, or tribe, and so on, with the arch form or tug of war, the winding-up games (as in Snail), etc.

Viewed in this light of their origin, games are especially fascinating. They take one back to the atmosphere that pervades romance: to quaint chronicles of kings and courtiers setting forth in brilliant train for some game that is the heritage of the child of to-day; to ladies-in-waiting on the Queen playing Babylon; to shepherds congregating on the moors, or early village communities dividing, over some forerunner of our college Football; to village lads and lasses dodging through the cornstalks with Barley Break, or milkmaids playing Stool Ball with their stools. For while it is rightly said that the serious occupations of adults at one period become the games of children at another, the statement omits an intermediate fact that strongly impresses the student of games: namely, that these activities, which at first were serious rites have been used for sport by adults themselves before being handed down to children; as though the grown folk should masquerade for a time in their outworn garments before passing them on to following generations. Considering the varied interests that find expression in these games, one is further impressed with the fact that humanity passes thus in review its entire range of experience, transmuting into material for sport the circumstances of love and hatred, sorrow and rejoicing, fear and veneration. Nothing is too exalted or humble, too solemn or fearsome, to be the subject of these frolic events. Nature in all her panoply is here in dramatized form or reference—earth, stone, fire, and water; verdure and the kingdom of living things from beast to man; the seasons and the planets. Industry, love and war, fiends and deities, death itself and the hereafter, all pass in review, for one who sees the hidden significance, like a panorama of existence, as they passed, a plaything and a jest, before the gods of Olympus. It would seem as though humanity, viewing in long perspective its own experiences, had found them all at last fit subjects to