IN AND OUT WITH SUGGESTIONS FOR ENTERTAINMENTS BY MRS. BURTON KINGSLAND "No pursuit or pleasure can be carried on in the best spirit without -LORD CHESTERFIELD New York SULLY AND KLEINTEICH SG 3009.04 Sun 171917. Sargat gift TRANSFERRED TO MARVARD COLLEGE LIBK26* June 12, 1929 Copyright, 1904, by Doubleday, Page & Company W A FOREWORD IN PRAISE OF GAMES E are probably all believers that "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine," or to paraphrase it-that "Merriment is the best medicine," and hold that fun enjoyed in common exorcises bad tempers, banishes blues, and "happifies people generally. We may therefore find it time not ill employed to consider such games and pastimes as may prove conducive to these beatific results. Wellington's famous statement that the battle of Waterloo was first won on Eton playground has been often quoted, but not every one realises how essentially play is youth's rehearsal for the acts of mature life. A boy that is earnest in play is apt to be earnest in work, and games of skill aid much in his development. They quicken the perceptive faculties, sharpen the wits, increase the imaginative powers, and social games that involve intelligence and information stimulate ambition to excel in these lines. One meets obstacles, and is taught patience in overcoming them the pleasure of success leading to renewed effort. When sides are taken, the mistake of one is the common loss of all-and esprit de corps is educated. New problems are continually arising, the conditions are never quite the same, and ingenuity is called upon to meet them. One must keep one's temper, play absolutely fairly-careful to take no unlawful advantage and as umpire be strictly impartial to friends and foes alike, and never lose one's wits for a moment. One not too timid to make a venture but careful not to be rash or over-confident, amiable under defeat, and a generous antagonist-ready to acclaim the victor whoever he be, is one to be trusted in matters of graver import. On the other hand, games of chance, where there is any material advantage to be won, have, as we know, the contrary effect. The easy success encourages a love of accumulation without effort, the excitement of the hazard fosters the greed of gain that costs nothing and makes no demand upon the will-power-relegating the responsibility of success or failure to "luck." But aside from moral effects, fun-sheer fun-is part of the heritage of the human race, an instinct when we are happy, and few things at our command call forth such spontaneous, fresh-hearted laughter as a good game. As a means of bringing the members of a household together, establishing companionship between old and young, there is nothing more effective than the common interest and merry emulation enlisted in favourite games. No parents can afford to let any other place contain more attractions for their children than their own home, nor should they fail to make themselves a part of those attractions. The family fireside on long winter evenings, or moon-lit gatherings on home piazzas in the pleasant summer air, have been the scenes of frolics, tussles of wits and plays of fancy that have helped to endear home life and to lay up happy memories. The entertainment of many guests for a week or more at a country house is with us a comparatively |