ABSTRACT
The need for rest has not always been properly understood. Scottish, English, and American Puritans thought that work and nothing but work constitutes the essence of life. The German Pietists had similar beliefs. August Hermann Francke claimed in the eighteenth century that entertainment, whatever forms it might take, should be forbidden. On his recommendation, children were taught that play was a waste of time and a mere foolishness. Frederick the Great beat walkers with a stick in Unter den Linden in Berlin in order to drive them to work.
