Teachers are often inclined to overlook or undervalue the training of girls in games. The fact is that girls especially need this training as the woman's sphere in present-day life is widening. Men have always had contact with the world. Women have in times past had to content themselves with a single interest involving contest--the social game.
How far we may safely go in utilizing the game element--that is, the contest or competition element--in school work is a question for thought. The "rules of the game" are less easy to enforce here; jealousies are harder to control; handicaps are more in evidence and less easy to make allowance for in contests; the discouragement of failure may have more serious results. The mere fact of class grouping involves a natural competition, healthful and beneficial and wisely preparatory for future living. More emphasis than this upon rivalry may produce feverish and unhealthful conditions, far removed from the mental poise we desire for our girls. The school can give the girl few things finer than the ability to attack work quietly and yet with determination and a sense of power to meet and overcome obstacles.
The school and the playground form the growing girl's community life. In them she must learn to practice community virtues, to shun community evils, and to accept community responsibilities. For her the school and the playground are society. Here she will take her first lessons in the pride of possessions, in the prestige accompanying them, in the struggle for social supremacy, in doubtful ideals brought from all sorts of doubtful sources. Here she will find exaggerated notions of "style" and its value, impure English, whispered uncleanness in regard to sex matters, and surreptitious reading of forbidden books. Here also she will find worthier examples--clean, pure thought, honesty and fair dealing, pride of achievement rather than of externals, fine ideals exemplified in the best homes. And no finer or more delicate task lies before teacher and mother than the guidance of the girl in her choice.
[Illustration: Photograph by Brown Bros. A school playground. The school and the playground form the growing girl's community life]