“But it is not only the impulse to use and to measure his power that urges the boy to roam and to climb--it is the need to widen his mental horizon.… The same desire holds him to the plain … he occupies himself with water and with plastic materials. For he seeks now _because of the feeling of power over material already gained_ to master these. Everything must serve his impulse towards construction.… And so each forms for himself his own world, _for the feeling of his own power demands his own space and his own material_.…”--_E., pp. 102-107._ “But all the plays and occupations of boys do not by any means aim at representing objects and things. On the contrary, _in many pure exercise of strength and measuring of strength predominate_, and many have no further aim than the display of strength. Yet the play of this age has always its peculiar characteristic, namely, as during the period of childhood, the aim of play consisted simply in activity as such, so now its aim is always a definite conscious purpose, which characteristic develops more and more as the boys increase in age. This is observable even with all games of bodily movement, of running, boxing, wrestling, with ball-games, goal, hunting, and war games, etc.” “_It is the sense of sure and reliable power, the sense of its increase_ both as an individual and as a member of the group _that fills the boy with all-pervading jubilant joy_ during these games.”--_E., p. 113._ It is evidently difficult even for practised thinkers to grasp the importance of what we so glibly call play in the case of the young child. Mr. Kirkpatrick, for instance, fully recognizes its importance in regard to children somewhat older, and he makes a suggestive distinction between play and amusement, calling play active, while amusement is passive. Others, he says, work for our amusement. But when he speaks of the infant, he slips into the mistake of saying that the infant, even though active, “amuses” itself. To the ordinary observer the whole life of a young child is play, but it would be as correct to say that it is all work.