GAMES. Games are an expression of the play instinct, a distinct species or form of play. A study of them includes a definition of games as distinguished from play; and a considera tion of games from historical, educational and recreative viewpoints. While the term play in cludes games, so that we °play games,B it is technically applied to informal play activities, such as playing horse, playing house and play ing in the sand. In such play there are no fixed rules, no formal mode of procedure and generally no climax to be achieved. The vari ous steps are spontaneous, not predetermined, and are subject to individual caprice. In games, on the contrary, as in blindman's buff, prisoner's base or football, there are prescribed acts, sub ject to rules, generally penalties for the in fringement of rules and the action proceeds in a formal evolution until it culminates in a given climax; which generally consists of a victory of skill, speed or strength. This definition applies to games that require considerable bodily ac tivity, such as those mentioned, and to so called quiet games, as dominoes, cards, jack straws, chess, .checkers and other board games. Our concern in this article is chiefly with ac tive games.
Among the simplest of active games are sing ing games, in which the action is mainly a repetition of dance movements, or of some dramatic or descriptive motions, as when the farmer sows his seed or London bridge falls down upon its victim. More strenuous are the games of chase, such as tag, cat and rat, and Red Rover; or competitive games of skill, strength or speed, illustrated by relay races and athletic contests. Highest of all, both in their organization and their demands upon the varied powers of players, are team games, of which baseball and football are popular examples. Team games are peculiar to the Anglo-Saxon race; nearly all games of the other classes are of very ancient origin and of wide distribu tion among the races and nations of men. In deed, the games of children form a distinct branch of anthropology, ethnology and folk lore and throw much light on early customs from which they are descended; for they come trooping out of the past unconsciously bearing the relics of primitive civilizations, of old re ligious rites and grim superstitions, of mar riage and May-time festivals and °battles long ago? °Oats, peas, beans and barley grows* had its origin in a religious rite intended to increase the fertility of the fields; °London bridge,' in the offering of a human sacrifice at the building of a bridge; °Here we go round the mulberry hush° is the survival of a custom, still practised by some of the European peasan try and known to have existed at least as far back as the Greeks, of celebrating May day or spring time with the gathering of flowers and marching iti procession. This
usage prevailed among the American colonists and from it have come our May basket and May pole customs. Indeed, most of these singing games and many other active parlor games now played by children, such as stage coach and going to Jerusalem, were used in stead of the dance by the young people of the Puritan era. Among the games of religious or superstitious origin tag should be mentioned, which, in its earliest form of iron tag, repre sented flight from an evil spirit, against whose influence iron was a protection. The little kindergarten game, °I put my right hand in;° is very ancient and with its chorus "Looby loop gives evidence of having been part of a religious rite to some deity. In time it became a stately court dance, which rank it held a century ago. From the superstitious customs of divination by lot have come the doggerel "counting out* rhymes used by children the world over for choosing the principal players in games. Fami liar are the stanzas of this kind beginning °Ena, mena, mina, mo' and 'Onery, twoery, tickery, tee.* Of similar derivation is the custom of assigning parts by Tholders,° in which one child holds a pebble in the closed hand and another guesses which hand contains it. Courtship and marriage customs are perpetuated in "Round and round the village' and °Little Sallie Waters.* Still other games, for example, °Uncle Jchn is very sick,' come from the ballad days when a versified narrative was sung and acted at the same time;— days when to °sing a dance° and °dance a song° were interchangeable terms.