ourse. Then it affords
a stimulus to effort very different from that arising from the thought
of results which have nothing to do with the intervening action. As
already mentioned, the absence of economic pressure in schools supplies
an opportunity for reproducing industrial situations of mature life
under conditions where the occupation can be carried on for its own
sake. If in some cases, pecuniary recognition is also a result of an
action, though not the chief motive for it, that fact may well increase
the significance of the occupation. Where something approaching drudgery
or the need of fulfilling externally imposed tasks exists, the demand
for play persists, but tends to be perverted. The ordinary course of
action fails to give adequate stimulus to emotion and imagination. So in
leisure time, there is an imperious demand for their stimulation by any
kind of means; gambling, drink, etc., may be resorted to. Or, in less
extreme cases, there is recourse to idle amusement; to anything which
passes time with immediate agreeableness. Recreation, as the word
indicates, is recuperation of energy. No demand of human nature is more
urgent or less to be escaped. The idea that the need can be suppressed
is absolutely fallacious, and the Puritanic tradition which disallows
the need has entailed an enormous crop of evils. If education does
not afford opportunity for wholesome recreation and train capacity
for seeking and finding it, the suppressed instincts find all sorts of
illicit outlets, sometimes overt, sometimes confined to indulgence
of the imagination. Education has no more serious responsibility than
making adequate provision for enjoyment of recreative leisure; not only
for the sake of immediate health, but still more if possible for the
sake of its lasting effect upon habits of mind. Art is again the answer
to this demand.

Summary. In the previous chapter we found that the primary subject
matter of knowing is that contained in learning how to do things of a
fairly direct sort. The educational equivalent of this principle is the
consistent use of simple occupations which appeal to the powers of youth
and which typify general modes of social activity. Skill and information
about materials, tools, and laws of energy are acquired while activities
are carried on for their own sake. The fact that they are socially
representative gives a quality to the skill and knowledge gained which
makes them transferable to out-of-scho