games, as hockey,
conduce to all the attitudes and movements which are least to be
desired, and that others, as basket-ball, on the contrary tend--if
played with strict regard to rules--to attitudes which are in themselves
beautiful and tending to grace of movement. This word belongs to our
side of the question, not that of the children. It belongs to our side
also to see that hoops are large, and driven with a stick, not a hook,
for the sake of straight backs, which are so easily bent crooked in
driving a small hoop with a hook.

In connexion with movement comes the question of dancing. Dancing comes,
officially, under the heading of lessons, most earnest lessons if the
professor has profound convictions of its significance. But dancing
belongs afterwards to the playtime of life. We have outlived the grim
puritanical prejudice which condemned it as wrong, and it is generally
agreed that there is almost a natural need for dancing as the expression
of something very deep in human nature, which seems to be demonstrated
by its appearance in one form or another, amongst all races of mankind.
There is something in co-ordinated rhythmical movement, in the grace of
steps, in the buoyancy of beautiful dancing which seems to make it a
very perfect exercise for children and young people. But there are
dances and dances, steps and steps, and about the really beautiful there
is always a touch of the severe, and a hint of the ideal. Without these,
dancing drops at once to the level of the commonplace and below it. In
general, dances which embody some characteristics of a national life
have more beauty than cosmopolitan dances, but they are only seen in
their perfection when performed by dancers of the race to whom their
spirit belongs, or by the class for whom they are intended: which is
meant as a suggestion that little girls should not dance the hornpipe.

In conclusion, the question of play, and playtime and recreation is
absorbing more and more attention in grown-up life. We have heard it
said over and over again of late years that we tire a nation at play,
and that "the athletic craze" has gone beyond all bounds. Many facts are
brought forward in support of this criticism from schools, from
newspapers, from general surveys of our national life at present. And
those who study more closely the Catholic body say that we too are
sharing in this extreme, and that the Catholic body though small in
number is more responsible and more