Charlotte Mason on Play (Even more relevant a century later!)
From School Education by Charlotte Mason (1907):
There is a little danger in these days of much educational effort that children’s play should be crowded out, or, what is from our present point of view the same thing, should be prescribed for and arranged until there is no more freedom of choice about play than about work. … (She then goes on to talk about games, by which she means organized sport, which she credits with being very useful for developing character such as resourcefulness and moral stamina.)
But organized games (sports) are not play in the sense we have in view. Boys and girls must have time to invent episodes, carry on adventures, live heroic lives, lay sieges and carry forts, even if the fortress be an old armchair; and in these affairs the elders must neither meddle nor make. They must be content to know that they do not understand, and, what is more, that they carry with them a chill breath of reality which sweeps away illusions. (School Education, p. 37)
There is a little danger in these days of much educational effort that children’s play should be crowded out, or, what is from our present point of view the same thing, should be prescribed for and arranged until there is no more freedom of choice about play than about work. … (She then goes on to talk about games, by which she means organized sport, which she credits with being very useful for developing character such as resourcefulness and moral stamina.)
But organized games (sports) are not play in the sense we have in view. Boys and girls must have time to invent episodes, carry on adventures, live heroic lives, lay sieges and carry forts, even if the fortress be an old armchair; and in these affairs the elders must neither meddle nor make. They must be content to know that they do not understand, and, what is more, that they carry with them a chill breath of reality which sweeps away illusions. (School Education, p. 37)
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