GAMETANGIUM
735
GANGES
portant one educationally. With primitive races the festival, with its games, has been the principal agency for social intercourse on a large scale. Games were used to celebrate and cement alliances. They were early associated with religious observances, both having the same social and ethical function. From them sprang choral song, tragedy and comedy. Indeed, Schiller regarded the art-impulse as essentially the outgrowth of the tendency to play. Especially with social peoples like the Greeks has the game been allowed a great part in the life both of adult and child. With them it was the principal form of education.
The growth of a mass of learning which it was felt necessary to teach the young involved the substitution of the confinement and restraint of hard work for the freedom and spontaneity of play. This change in educational method was promoted by Christianity, which substituted the ideals of individual salvation and other-worldliness for that of racial and national prosperity and happiness. Asceticism despised the game as pleasant, and glorified the life of the hermit. In modern times the game has again received recognition as a most valuable educational agency, because of the emphasis thrown on the importance of interest (q.v.) and the fact that play affords the teacher a chance to introduce a living motive for learning what the school has to teach (see TEACHING, METHOD OF). Basedow (1723-1790) and Froebel (1782-1832) among educational reformers may be said to have done most to resurrect the game and give it a place in education. The latter was, of course, interested most in little children, but modern educators see that the use of the game in the school-room need not be confined to them. Indeed, reformers like Professor Dewey suggest that the life of the school may best take the form of social or group-activity in what may properly be called games. From this problems may be caused to spring, the solution of which may involve all the learning that the school desires to give. Reading, writing, arithmetic, science, history etc. as well as music, art and physical culture may thus be learned through the game. Even though not all school-life may be thus organized, it is recognized that the game may occasionally offer a very effective means of instruction. Finally, educators now realize the great importance of supervision of the play-ground sports of children (see PLAYGROUNDS). For, while the game is the greatest school of social aptitude, it may corrupt as well as build up character. Children need to be taught how to play «*> well as how to work. Such instruction to be effective must, however, be given in so tactful a way as not to destroy the
spontaneity 01 the game. See CHILD STUDY, INTEREST, METHOD OP TEACHING, PLAYGROUNDS. Consult Gross: The Play of Animals and The Play of Man, published by Appleton & Co. E. N. HENDERSON.
Gametangium (gam'e-tan'ji-tim) (in plants) the organ in which the gametes or sexual cells are formed. Usually, it is applied only in case the gametes are alike in appearance and cannot be distinguished as male and female. In reality, however, the antheridium, oogonium and archegonium are all gametangia. See GAMETES.
Garnet'es, the sexual cells of plants, which fuse in pairs to form the oospores or fertilized eggs. ^ In the lower plants gametes are alike in size and activity, but in higher plants they become unlike. One kind remains small, usually has cilia, can swim actively and is known as the male cell or sperm (spermatozoid, antherozoid). The other kind becomes relatively very large, has no cilia and remains motionless, and is known as the female cell or egg (o5sphere).
Gametophyte (gamfe-to-fit') (in plants), in alternation of generations (which see), the phase of the plant or generation which bears the sex-organs, that is, produces the gametes. In the mosses the gametophyte is the leafy plant, the most conspicuous part; in the ferns it is a very small, prostrate, heart-shaped body which is not usually seen; while in the flowering plants it is concealed from ordinary observation, although the endosperm of most seeds is part of a female gametophyte, that is, a gametophyte which produces the egg.
Gam'opet'alous Flowers, those in which the petals are more or less coalescent. Now mostly replaced by the word sympetalous, which see.
Gando (gdn'do) in western Sudan once an independent sultanate but now partly a British and partly a French possession, is on the upper Niger near the Sahara. It is inhabited chieny by the Fulah, and is an exceedingly fertile region, the rainfall being abundant. The population is estimated at 5,000,000, and their religion is Mohammedanism.
Ganges (gan'jez), the great river of northern India, rises in Gahrwal, on the southern slope of the Himalaya Mountains, issuing under the name of the Bhagirathi from an ice-cave 13,800 feet above the level of the sea. Its general course is southeasterly. At Allahabad it is joined by the Jumna, and farther down by the Son, Gandak and Kusi. At a distance of 220 miles in a straight line from the Bay of Bengal it begins to throw out the branches which inclose the level delta. The main channel, called the Padma or Padda, joins the Brahmaputra, and between this, the most easterly, and the Hugli, the most westerly mouth, lies the delta, with a multitude of moutHs and channels. The
