ABSTRACT
For almost as long as children have been considered worth studying separately from the total man, the phenomenon of play has engaged the attention of philosophers and psychologists. Its function has been variously explained. Spencer saw it chiefly as the means by which the surplus energy of childhood was discharged. 1 Groos explained it in terms of instinctive modes of action through which both animal and human young developed and improved their skills in preparation for their mature role. 2 G. S. Hall believed that the child tended to repeat in his individual history activities typical of the evolution of the race:
