School, Church, and Home Games | Page 2

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 of the string while the aviator, at the signal to go, blows the cornucopia along the string. The string must be held level by the mechanicians. The aviator first succeeding in doing this, wins for his team.
Button, Button
The pupils sit or stand in a circle with their hands in front of them, palms together. The one who has been selected to be "It" takes a position in the center of the circle, with his hands in a similar position. A button is held between his hands. He goes around the circle and places his hand over