GET YOURSELF RUNNING . . .
High, Wide and Deep. By C. Madeleine Dixon. (Allen and Unwin. I25. 6d.) THIS book is an account of the play of a group of ten children, aged from two to five, at a school in America. The group is typical: most parents will recognise their children in it. In some of the communal games the central idea was suggested
by the author, but the majority were devised by the children themselves. The record is valuable because it tells what children do, pours light on what they think, shows the supreme importance to them of play as an emotional outlet, and suggests how, by inventing games that dramatise their problems, a teacher may help the less adaptable children to solve them.
The therapeutic value of play has long been recognised, and the results obtained in this country by, for instance, Dr. Margaret Lowenfeld, have .attracted wide interest. This book should supplement it. Miss Dixon shows no sign of starting from the deep philosophic roots of Dr. Lowenfeld, nor does she express curiosity about such phenomena as the recurrence of identical patterns in the play of children who seem to have nothing in common. She is an empiricist, and, in dealing with children, that is not a bad thing to be. She describes the child's first attempts to adapt himself to community life, his small, defiant efforts to attract attention, his dis- couragement, his withdrawals, his slow discovery that the
excitements of combining with others in a game that would be impossible for him by himself are worth some sacrifice of privacy and initiative. I have read few chapters more con- vincing than that which describes the making of the ship, its
voyages, the swift changes of mood and imagery, the rush from fantasy to rough-and-tumble, and, above all, the un- expected way in which children check their imaginings by reality.
Miss Dixon proceeds to examine the difficulties of the separate children in adapting themselves to the groups, giving each child's history, to account for peculiarities. The cure of the bully is especially interesting. Such tactics, involving use of the child's own weapons, needed courage, and were justi-
fied in the result. The physically timid child, who had been bitten by a dog; the little girl who got on perfectly with adults, but would not co-operate with children ; the one who sat tight and clutched her toys, and the one who made scenes and shrieked herself ill ; all receive sympathetic, objective treat- ment, and all benefit. Parents visiting the school were shocked at the freedom given Judith to dance and sing. Her songs were all about God and death, and they complained that they weren't " childlike." But Judith had suffered a blow that wasn't childlike. She had lost her father. She sang while she danced, and, whenever she got tired, " died " and fell on the floor for a rest. Here is the refrain of her song:
" God will come in all the midnight Get yourself running to heaven for God He'll come and he'll come Then all the midnight you have to watch out for God.
All the midnight All the red night."
Miss Dixon points out the close likeness to a Negro spiritual, and adds a very valuable comment :
"In our adult approach to religion with children, we suggest that they r say their prayers ' ; for the child this is an experience for his mind only. But Get yourself running to heaven to God '—that is a language suggesting functioning of bodies and emotions parallel with minds working."
Collective difficulties are dealt with as sensibly. Curiosity about sex, fears, combativeness, and that terrible weapon of the group, exclusion, are met, countered, and, best of all, are used for the common and the individual good. Miss Dixon accepts the child as he is, and tries to make him, not a good little adult, not even a good child, but a good child of his own sort. She wants him to develop what he has. All she seeks to take from him are the false characteristics he has adopted in reaction to unfortunate experience.
It is to be hoped that High, Wide and Deep will find many readers among parents and teachers, and that they will not allow themselves to be put off by Miss Dixon's indifference to her own language. Often, it must be confessed, she writes abominably : sentences like " adult admonitions may help some, but in general they are not much more than words to him," and " To Mary Marot my note of gratitude as a pupil getting initial ideas for recording from her extensive experi- menting in incisive and pertinent note-taking on children's activities " are frequent; but they are the only flaws in a most
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