The writer might have added, it represented in most distinct form the dramatic instinct. One reason why playground leaders have begun to add theatricals to the play-shelters connected with the Chicago playgrounds is because they believe that the origination called forth by story-playing will overcome the dead inertia of the oversupervised and overdictated playgrounds. It is through environment and the adequate supply of implements, rather than direction, that the dramatic impulse of these years can best be developed. There is “imitation of nearly every occupation or custom known to children,” says Johnson in Education by Plays and Games. He lists “such plays as firemen, expressmen, conductors, soldiers, Indians, cowboys, store, school, house, doll play of infinite variety, traveling, calling, party,” as typical of middle childhood. They suggest to us an important use of the dramatic impulse during the period when the child is becoming acquainted with the world outside his home. ITS EXPRESSION IN LATER CHILDHOOD There comes a time in the life of most children, at about the tenth year, when they take pleasure in expressing dramatic ideas to an audience. The earliest expression of this instinct in the two previous eras was individualistic; this is social. The other two were quite unconscious; this is self-conscious from the beginning. Such expression of the dramatic instinct would seem to have a close relation to and be a preparation for the theatrical profession. On the contrary, however, the desire for dramatic expression belongs to children who have the very slightest dramatic ability. Its organized expression, instead of encouraging young people to become professional actors, usually quite satisfies that fever and is somewhat of an antidote for it. The plays, therefore, include attempts at circus-playing, minstrel shows, wild West shows, etc. The constructive instinct is now so well developed that rather elaborate “properties” can be made to help stage these productions. The intense physical activity of this “Big-Injun” age makes such imitative plays as Indian, hunter, trapper, etc., especially appealing. Though the main ideas for these plays and for those given before an audience have been gained from observation and reading, there is much originality and creativeness exhibited if the dramatic instinct has been allowed to develop in previous years. In later childhood and youth young people begin to organize themselves into clubs and societies, which represent the people and customs of another age or the social organizations of adults. This instinct is seen even among grown people in the secret lodges, where men, who have apparently outgrown the play spirit, find a genuine satisfaction in being known as “knights,” engaging in secret rites reproductive of magic and mystery, and banding themselves into fraternities which bring down the names, traditions and ideals of mediæval guilds and chivalric orders.