Regular readers will recognise in this wonderfully simple and suggestive article a continuation of the series previously entitled “Healthy Brains.” The author of “The Children All Day Long” is an intimate disciple of one of the greatest living psychologists, and she has a message of the first importance to all who realise that true health depends as much on poise of mind as on physical fitness.—[Eds.]

The fruit of imagination ripens into deeds actually done in the service of man: its flower brightens the whole of life and makes it fragrant, from the budding-time of children's play and laughter to the developed blossoms of the creative imagination which we call painting or poetry or music.

Play and art have this in common, that they are activities pursued for the sake of the activity itself, not as a means to any other object, not aiming at any material usefulness. Actually, of course, there is nothing more useful, on every scale of usefulness, than the development of the individual in art or play, but these would never be really themselves while an ulterior purpose formed a background to them in consciousness.

Physical exercises devised for the sake of health are a more or less pleasant form of work; they do not take the place of play. Our ordinary work is usually more or less one-sided and unbalanced in the demands it makes upon us; we therefore try to find what other set of movements will undo this unbalancement and give us back unbiased bodies. When that is done, and not till then, we get freedom, and it is at that moment that real “play” begins—the use of the freed muscles according to our own will and pleasure.

The same thing is perhaps true in connection with our minds. We all see the fallacy of the old-fashioned hustlers' cry, “Make your work your hobby; think of nothing else; let every moment be subordinated to the dominating idea of your career; put aside all sentimentalism, all laziness and self-will, all enthusiasm about things not in your own line of work.”

We have come to see that this kind of effort leads often to nervous breakdown and early death; always to a certain narrowing of sympathy and hardening of method even in the career itself. So we conscientiously “take up” a hobby or a sport and set aside some hour or day for indulgence in it. We make it a duty to lay aside for the time being all idea of duties; part of our work is to learn to rest.

So far so good. But does all this go far enough?

Work imposed by any set of outer needs puts the whole being under a certain strain. The aim of remedial exercises, prescribed rest-times and legal holidays is to undo this strain, to unwind us from our coil by twisting us the other way.

When this has been satisfactorily done, too often the person responsible thinks that this is enough. But it is really and truly at this moment that one is beginning one's real life.

When the body is freed from strain and weariness is the time to leap and dance and sing and wrestle.

When the mind is free from prejudice and weariness is the time for its original activity to begin; new thoughts spring up unbidden and the creative imagination lives and grows.

(In the sphere of will, many great sages have said that an analogous sequence holds good. When the whole emotional and moral nature has thrown itself in a particular direction, and then an unwinding has taken place, the moment of completed renunciation has been said to be the dawn of some great new spiritual light.)

Who does not know the peaceful activity of a Sunday evening, the fruitful quiet of a long railway journey or sea-voyage at the end of a holiday? Two friends walk slowly home together after an exciting expedition or debate; two girls give each other their confidence while brushing their hair after a dance.

Why is this so? Nowadays people are very ready to answer the question by refusing the fact. It is waste of time not to be doing something strenuously. Rest is almost as strenuous as everything else; it is to be thorough while it is the duty on hand and is to fit exactly on to the work time, without overlapping but without interspace.

In this way too often the imagination, the really individual part of the mind, is starved and atrophied. Especially in childhood there ought to be a space left between useful work and ordered play for the individually invented games, the pursuits that are not for any definite end, for dreams and lived-out tales, when the child may make what he likes, do what he likes, and in imagination be what he likes. If we scrupulously respected this growing-time we should soon have a race of sturdier mettle altogether. Just now this particular want is probably most nearly supplied among elementary school children than among those who have more “educational advantages”; they “go out to play” in the streets for hours every day, and one cannot help thinking that it is the vitality thus evolved that keeps most of them healthy and happy in spite of many hardships.

In later life, if we really want to make something of our lives, we shall do well to insist an keeping such a margin of free time to ourselves. It need not be long. Five minutes, if one really sails away in the ship of imagination, will take us to fairyland and back again. But the five minutes (or the day in the country, or the week of quiet, or whatever we take or can get) must really and truly be free; we must have the courage to seek for what we really want, and we shall have the inestimable reward of finding what we really are.

E.M. Cobham.