The bodies, as well as the minds of children, require exercise for their
growth: and as their disposition is thus lively and sportive, such
exercises, as are amusing, are necessary, and such amusements, on
account of the length of the spring which they enjoy, must be expected
to be long.
The Quakers, though they are esteemed an austere people, are sensible of
these wants or necessities of youth. They allow their children most of
the sports or exercises of the body, and most of the amusements or
exercises of the mind, which other children of the island enjoy; but as
children are to become _men_, and men are to become _moral characters_,
they believe that bounds should be drawn, or that an unlimited
permission to follow every recreation would be hurtful.
The Quakers therefore have thought it proper to interfere on this
subject, and to draw the line between those amusements, which they
consider to be salutary, and those, which they consider to be hurtful.
They have accordingly struck out of the general list of these such, and
such only, as, by being likely to endanger their morality, would be
likely to interrupt the usefulness, and the happiness, of their lives.
Among the bodily exercises, _dancing_, and the _diversions of the
field_, have been proscribed; among the mental, _music_, _novels_, the
_theatre_, and all games of _chance_, of every description, have been
forbidden.
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