Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium Part 1

Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium.

by Jessie H. Bancroft.

INTRODUCTION

PURPOSE AND PLAN.--This book aims to be a practical guide for the player of games, whether child or adult, and for the teacher or leader of games. A wide variety of conditions have been considered, including schools, playgrounds, gymnasiums, boys' and girls' summer camps, adult house parties and country clubs, settlement work, children's parties, and the environment of indoors or out of doors, city or country, summer or winter, the seash.o.r.e, the woodland, or the snow. The games have been collected from many countries and sources, with a view to securing novel and interesting as well as thoroughly tried and popular material, ranging from traditional to modern gymnasium and athletic games. An especial effort has been made to secure games for particular conditions. Among these may be mentioned very strenuous games for older boys or men; games for the schoolroom; games for large numbers; new gymnasium games such as Nine Court Basket Ball and Double Corner Ball; games which make use of natural material such as stones, pebbles, sh.e.l.ls, trees, flowers, leaves, gra.s.ses, holes in the sand or earth, and diagrams drawn on the ground.

The description, cla.s.sification, and arrangement of the games have been made with the steadfast purpose of putting them into the most workable form, easily understood, with suggestions for getting the most sport and playing value out of them, and with means of ready reference to any cla.s.s of games for use under any of the conditions mentioned. The series of indexes which accomplish this last-mentioned purpose make it possible to cla.s.sify the games in many different ways, sparing the reader the necessity for hunting through much unrelated material to find that suited to his conditions. The index for schools is essentially a graded course of study in games.

The ball games requiring team play have been described according to an a.n.a.lytic scheme not before used for the cla.s.s of games given in the present volume, which makes it possible to locate at a glance information about the laying out of the ground, the number, a.s.signment, and duties of players, the object of the game, rules and points of play, fouls, and score. The various kinds of b.a.l.l.s are described with official specifications. Diagrams for all kinds of games have been supplied unsparingly, wherever it seemed possible to make clearer the understanding of a game by such means, and pictorial ill.u.s.tration has been used where diagrams were inadequate. The music for all singing games is given with full accompaniment. Suggestions for the teaching and conduct of games are given, with directions for floor formations. Means of counting out and choosing sides and players are described, and one section is devoted to forfeits.

Under each of the main divisions chosen--miscellaneous active games, quiet games, singing games, bean-bag games, and ball games--the material has been arranged in alphabetic order to facilitate ready reference, although a general alphabetic index is appended. In short, the book aims to bring together all related material and every available device for making it readily accessible and easily understood.

[Sidenote: Original research]

SOURCES AND NATURE OF MATERIAL.--The material in this volume, aside from that acc.u.mulated through a long experience in the teaching and supervision of games, has been collected through (1) special original research, and (2) bibliographical research. The original research has been made among the foreign population of New York City, where practically the entire world is accessible, and in other sections of the United States. This has resulted in some entirely new games that the writer has not found elsewhere in print. From among these may be mentioned the Greek Pebble Chase, the Russian Hole Ball, the Scotch Keep Moving, the Danish Slipper Slap, and, from our own country, among others, Chickadee-dee from Long Island, and Hip from New Jersey.

Entirely new ways of playing games previously recorded have been found, amounting not merely to a variation but to a wholly new form.

Such is the method here given for playing Babylon, a form gathered from two different Scotch sources. Another example is the game of Wolf, for which additional features have been found that add greatly to its playing value, especially the rule whereby the wolf, when discovered by the sheep who are hunting for him, shall take a jump toward the sheep before his chase after them begins; or, should he discover them first, the requirement that they take three steps toward him before the chase begins. Such points add greatly to the sport of a game, and with the spoken formulas that accompany them form a rich find for both student and player.

One may not well refer to the original research without mention of the charm of the task itself. It has been one of the sunniest, happiest lines possible to follow, attended invariably with smiling faces and laughter on the part of old or young, native or foreign, the peasant people or those more sophisticated.

[Sidenote: Bibliographical research and results]

The bibliographical research has covered a wide field. Heretofore the princ.i.p.al sources in English for the collector of games have been the invaluable and scholarly folklore compilations of Mr. William Wells Newell (_Songs and Games of American Children_) and Mrs. Alice B.

Gomme (_Traditional Games_ in the _Dictionary of British Folk Lore_).

The earlier British collection by Strutt (_Sports and Pastimes of the English People_) has also been a source of great value. In the United States considerable collecting and translating of games have from time to time been done by the physical training magazine, _Mind and Body_.

For all modern athletic games an invaluable service has been rendered by Messrs. A. G. Spalding and Brothers in the publication, since 1892, of the _Spalding Athletic Library_, under the direction of Mr. A. G.

Spalding and Mr. James E. Sullivan. The author is greatly indebted to all of these sources. In addition, hundreds of volumes have been consulted in many fields including works of travel, reports of missionaries, etc. This has resulted in games from widely scattered sources, including European countries, the Orient, the Arctic regions, and the North American Indians. While in such a ma.s.s of material there are some games that are found in almost all countries, so that one is continually meeting old friends among them, a very considerable harvest of distinctive material has been gathered, eloquent of environment, temperamental, or racial traits. Such, among many others, are the j.a.panese Crab Race; the Chinese games of Forcing the City Gates, and Letting Out the Doves; the Korean games with flowers and gra.s.ses; the North American Indian games of Snow Snake and Rolling Target; and the poetic game of the little Spanish children about the Moon and Stars, played in the boundaries marked by sunshine and shadow.

[Sidenote: Standard Material]

But the object of the book has been by no means to present only novel material. There is an aristocracy of games, cla.s.sic by all the rights of tradition and popular approval, without which a collection would be as incomplete as would an anthology of English ballads without _Robin Hood_, _Sally in our Alley_, or _Drink to me only with thine Eyes_.

These standard games are amply represented, mingled in the true spirit of American democracy with strangers from foreign lands and the new creations of modern athletic practice.

[Sidenote: Local color and humor in games]

The games, old and new, are full of that intimation of environment which the novelist calls local color, often containing in the name alone a comprehensive suggestiveness as great as that of an Homeric epithet. Thus our familiar Cat and Mouse appears in modern Greece as Lamb and Wolf; and the French version of Spin the Platter is My Lady's Toilet, concerned with laces, jewels, and other ballroom accessories instead of our prosaic numbering of players. These changes that a game takes on in different environments are of the very essence of folklore, and some amusing examples are to be found in our own country. For instance, it is not altogether surprising to find a game that is known under another name in the North called, in Southern States, "Ham-Ham-Chicken-Ham-Bacon!" The author found a good example of folklore-in-the-making in the game usually known as "Run, Sheep, Run!" in which a band of hidden players seek their goal under the guidance of signals shouted by a leader. As gathered in a Minnesota town, these signals consisted of colors,--red, blue, green, etc. This same game was found in the city environment of New York under the name of Oyster Sale, and the signals had become pickles, tomatoes, and other articles strongly suggestive of a delicatessen store. The b.u.t.terfly verse for Jumping Rope is obviously another late production of the folklore spirit.

The lover of childish humor will find many delightful examples of it among the games, as where little Jacky Lingo feeds bread and b.u.t.ter to the sheep (Who Goes Round My Stone Wall?); or the Mother, trying the Old Witch's apple pie, discovers that "It tastes exactly like my child Monday!" The tantalizing "nominies" or "dares," as in Fox and Geese, and Wolf, and the ways in which players are trapped into false starts, as in Black Tom, are also highly amusing.

PRINCIPLES OF SELECTION.--In the selection of material for this work, a marked distinction has been made between games, on the one hand, and, on the other, the unorganized play and constructive activities included in many books of children's games. While the term "play"

includes games, so that we "play games," it applies also to informal play activities, such as a child's "playing horse," "playing house,"

or playing in the sand. In such unorganized play there are no fixed rules, no formal mode of procedure, and generally, no climax to be achieved. The various steps are usually spontaneous, not predetermined, and are subject to individual caprice. In games, on the contrary, as in Blind Man's Buff, Prisoners' Base, or Football, there are prescribed acts subject to rules, generally penalties for defeat or the infringement of rules, and the action proceeds in a regular evolution until it culminates in a given climax, which usually consists in a victory of skill, speed or strength. In a strictly scientific sense, games do not always involve the element of sport or play, being used in many forms among primitive peoples for serious divinatory purposes. It is perhaps needless to say that all of the games in the present collection are for the purpose of sport and recreation.

[Sidenote: Playing values]

The four hundred games here published are selected from a far larger number. No game has been included that has not been considered to have strong playing values, by which term is meant, in addition to other qualities, and above all others, the amount of sport and interest attending it. The points of play that contribute to the success of a game have been secured from experience, and unfamiliar games have been thoroughly tested and the points of play noted for older or younger players, large or small numbers, or other circ.u.mstances.

[Sidenote: Elements of games]

Games may be a.n.a.lyzed into certain elements susceptible of cla.s.sification, such as the elements of formation, shown in the circle form, line form, or opposing groups; other elements are found in modes of contest, as between individuals or groups; tests of strength or skill; methods of capture, as with individual touching or wrestling, or with a missile, as in ball-tag games; or the elements of concealment, or chance, or guessing, or many others. These various elements are like the notes of the scale in music, susceptible of combinations that seem illimitable in variety. Thus in the Greek Pebble Chase, the two elements that enter into the game--that of (1) detecting or guessing who holds a concealed article, and (2) a chase--are neither of them uncommon elements, but in this combination make a game that differs in playing value from any familiar game, and one affording new and genuine interest, as evidenced by the pleasure of children in playing it. Indeed, the interest and sport were fully as great with a group of adult Greek men who first demonstrated this game for the author. This element of guessing which player holds a concealed article is found again in a different combination in the Scotch game of Smuggling the Geg, where it is used with opposing groups and followed by hiding and seeking. This combination makes a wholly different game of it, and one of equal or even superior playing value to the Pebble Chase, though suited to different conditions.

Because of this wonderful variety in combinations, leading to entirely different playing values, the author has found it impossible to agree with some other students of games, that it is practicable to select a few games that contain all of the typical elements of interest. Such limitation seems no more possible than in painting, poetry, music, or any other field of spontaneous imitative or creative expression.

There will doubtless always be some games that will have large popular following, playing on the "psychology of the crowd," as well as on that of the players. Thus we have the spectacle of so-called national games, Baseball and Football in America, Handball in Ireland, Pelota in Spain, and so on; but natural expression through games has always been and probably always will be infinitely varied, and should be if the psychology of the subject is to be taken as a guide.

In the arrangement of material there has many times been a strong temptation to cla.s.sify the games by their historic, geographic, psychologic, or educational interests; by the playing elements contained in them; or by several other possible methods which are of interest chiefly to the academic student; but these have each in turn been discarded in favor of the original intention of making the book preeminently a useful working manual for the player or leader of games.

[Sidenote: Varying modes of play]

The same games are found not only in many different countries and localities, but under different names and with many variations in the form of playing them. This has necessitated a method of a.n.a.lytical study which has been followed with all of the games. A card catalogue has been made of them, and in connection with each game notation has been made of the various names under which it has been found, and details of the differences in the mode or rules of play. The choice of rules or directions has been determined chiefly by the playing values previously alluded to, those directions having been selected which experience has shown to make the most interesting game. Sometimes these differences are so great as to amount to a different game, or one suited to different ages of players. In a few instances, as with Prisoners' Base, Captain Ball, Zigzag Ball, etc., it has seemed best to present several typical forms of the same game with an a.n.a.lytic statement of the differences, leaving the leader to select the form best adapted to his conditions. At no time, however, has there been any attempt to present all games or all forms of any one game. That would be merely to make a compendium of all possible material. A purposeful selection has been made throughout.

The choice of names could not well be made on any one principle.

Wherever feasible, the name that has seemed to have the widest vogue has been adopted. In other instances it has appeared best to make a different selection to avoid too great similarity in names. Some games, especially those from foreign sources, came without names and have had to be christened. In the case of several modern adaptations of old games, a name bestowed by some previous worker has been continued, if especially descriptive or appropriate.

[Sidenote: Games for boys and girls]

No distinction has been made in general between games for boys and girls. The modern tendency of gymnasium and athletic practice is away from such distinctions, and is concerned more with the time limits or other conditions for playing a game than with the game itself. This is a question that varies so much with the previous training and condition of players on the one hand, and on personal opinion or prejudice on the other, that it has been thought best to leave it for decision in each individual case.

THE USES OF GAMES.--The use of games for both children and adults has a deep significance for the individual and the community through the conservation of physical, mental, and moral vitality.

[Sidenote: Sense perceptions]

Games have a positive educational influence that no one can appreciate who has not observed their effects. Children who are slow, dull, and lethargic; who observe but little of what goes on around them; who react slowly to external stimuli; who are, in short, slow to see, to hear, to observe, to think, and to do, may be completely transformed in these ways by the playing of games. The sense perceptions are quickened: a player comes to see more quickly that the ball is coming toward him; that he is in danger of being tagged; that it is his turn; he hears the footstep behind him, or his name or number called; he feels the touch on the shoulder; or in innumerable other ways is aroused to quick and direct recognition of and response to, things that go on around him. The clumsy, awkward body becomes agile and expert: the child who tumbles down to-day will not tumble down next week; he runs more fleetly, dodges with more agility, plays more expertly in every way, showing thereby a neuro-muscular development.

[Sidenote: Social development]

The social development through games is fully as important and as p.r.o.nounced. Many children, whether because of lonely conditions at home, or through some personal peculiarity, do not possess the power readily and pleasantly to cooperate with others. Many of their elders lack this facility also, and there is scarcely anything that can place one at a greater disadvantage in business or society, or in any of the relations of life. The author has known case after case of peculiar, unsocial, even disliked children, who have come into a new power of cooperation and have become popular with their playmates through the influence of games. The timid, shrinking child learns to take his turn with others; the bold, selfish child learns that he may not monopolize opportunities; the unappreciated child gains self-respect and the respect of others through some particular skill that makes him a desired partner or a respected opponent. He learns to take defeat without discouragement and to win without undue elation. In these and in many other ways are the dormant powers for social cooperation developed, reaching the highest point at last in the team games where self is subordinated to the interests of the team, and cooperation is the very life of the game.

[Sidenote: Will training]

Most important of all, however, in the training that comes through games, is the development of will. The volitional aspect of the will and its power of endurance are plainly seen to grow in power of initiative; in courage to give "dares" and to take risks; in determination to capture an opponent, to make a goal, or to win the game. But probably the most valuable training of all is that of inhibition--that power for restraint and self-control which is the highest aspect of the will and the latest to develop. The little child entering the primary school has very little of this power of inhibition. To see a thing he would like is to try to get it; to want to do a thing is to do it; he acts impulsively; he does not possess the power to restrain movement and to deliberate. A large part of the difficulty of the training of children at home and at school lies in the fact that this power of the will for restraint and self-control is undeveloped. So-called "willfulness" is a will in which the volitional power has not yet been balanced with this inhibitive power.

One realizes in this way the force of Matthew Arnold's definition of character as "a completely fashioned will."

There is no agency that can so effectively and naturally develop power of inhibition as games. In those of very little children there are very few, if any, restrictions; but as players grow older, more and more rules and regulations appear, requiring greater and greater self-control--such as not playing out of one's turn; not starting over the line in a race until the proper signal; aiming deliberately with the ball instead of throwing wildly or at haphazard; until again, at the adolescent age, the highly organized team games and contests are reached, with their prescribed modes of play and elaborate restrictions and fouls. There could not be in the experience of either boy or girl a more live opportunity than in these advanced games for acquiring the power of inhibitory control, or a more real experience in which to exercise it. To be able, in the emotional excitement of an intense game or a close contest, to observe rules and regulations; to choose under such circ.u.mstances between fair or unfair means and to act on the choice, is to have more than a mere knowledge of right and wrong. It is to have the trained power and habit of acting on such knowledge,--a power and habit that mean immeasurably for character. It is for the need of such balanced power that contests in the business world reach the point of winning at any cost, by fair means or foul.

It is for the need of such trained and balanced power of will that our highways of finance are strewn with the wrecks of able men. If the love of fair play, a sense of true moral values, and above all, the power and habit of will to act on these can be developed in our boys and girls, it will mean immeasurably for the uplift of the community.

[Sidenote: Evolution of play interests]

The natural interests of a normal child lead him to care for different types of games at different periods of his development. In other words, his own powers, in their natural evolution, seek instinctively the elements in play that will contribute to their own growth. When games are studied from this viewpoint of the child's interests, they are found to fall into groups having p.r.o.nounced characteristics at different age periods.