—Kate Douglas Wiggin.
The Toy Age. When the baby first begins to grasp objects and stare at them, the toy age begins, that is, at about four weeks. It increases rapidly in force during the first year, and from two to about ten years is in its height. It declines with the approach of adolescence and by twelve is devoted chiefly to apparatus for games. It wanes With the decline of imaginative play and gives way to the interest in reading and industries.
Education through Toys. Toys, as the child’s constant, most intimate companions and most used implements during these impressionable years, inevitably have a marked influence upon his character and development. Froebel was the first great modern educator to appreciate the significance of a child’s toys, and to apply himself to the task of selecting and inventing those that would best develop his creative self-activity, his personality and happiness. The blocks or “gifts” that he devised are valuable for their simplicity, their variety of form, and their purpose of giving to the child an increasing number of forms as he grows in imaginative and constructive ability. Froebel did not appreciate, as modern biology has taught us, that the little child is in the stage of fundamental muscle activity, and that the accessory muscles (finer muscles, of fingers and eyes) do not develop completely for steady use until after six or seven years. Froebel, therefore, used the 1-inch cubes, which hygienists to-day discard for the larger size,—at least 2-inch for table use and paving-block size for floor use.
How far are children’s expressions of desire for toys, as they visit a toy shop, an index to the value of these toys, or their permanent interest in them at home? Relatively slight. Here again it is necessary to distinguish between the child’s passing whim and his vital interest. Children are momentarily attracted by the gorgeous, the vivid-colored, by noise, rhythm, motion, the imitation of adult activities. This explains their superficial interest, while in a toy shop, in the realistic French doll with wonderful clothes and a speaking voice, in the mechanical toys, the flimsy little nonentities. At home, in the playroom, the flimsy nonentities are soon broken and cast away without more than a ripple of emotion, and the realistic French doll languishes alone in her glory, while plain Mary Jane receives the daily ministrations of affection and comradeship.
It is these factors of glitter, noise, rhythm, imitation, physical activity, combined with the possibilities of movement and counter-movement, augmented by the attitude and remarks of their elders, who, assuming the reasonableness of war, praise military activities, that explain the child’s interest in military toys. Any other toys that have these same qualities will hold the child’s enthusiasm as well. Engines, trains and their crews, fire engines and firemen, steamboats and sailors, life-savers, fishermen, policemen, mines and miners, steeplejacks, divers, carpenters, painters, farmers,—there is a great range of possibilities. It is true many of these are not yet to be had in the toyshops, but they will be found there as soon as the demand is sufficient. It should be noted, in passing, that the military toys have been imported from foreign countries, where war has been considered the climax of virtue, and where little children, especially in the royal families, were systematically imbued with a spirit of military prowess. The consequences are written so large that “the wayfaring man though a fool cannot err thereby.” International peace will begin in the nursery, in the training in ideals of activity and heroism that are constructive and helpful, not destructive.
In “A Story of a Sand Pile”, Doctor G. Stanley Hall comments: “It is a striking feature, to which I have observed no exception, that the more finished and like reality the objects became, the less interest the boys had in them. As the tools, houses, etc., acquired feature after feature of verisimilitude, the sphere of the imagination was restricted, as it is with too finished toys, and thus one of the chief charms of play was lost.”
Dolls. In a questionnaire-study made by Clark University of children’s interest in dolls, eliciting returns from nearly a thousand children, the following interests were noted.
| (a) | The favorite dolls were simple, even rude, with few accessories, curly hair, four to twelve inches in size, could be washed and handled in every way, taken everywhere. |
| (b) | Dolls representing children or adults were preferred to baby dolls. |
| (c) | Interest in very small or very large dolls, and paper dolls, developed after eight or nine years. |
| (d) | Boys preferred dolls representing monkeys, animals, heroes, dragons, etc. |
Quoting from Doctor Hall’s comments on this study:
The educational value of dolls is enormous. It educates the heart and will even more than the intellect, and to learn how to control and apply doll-play will be to discover a new instrument in education of the very highest potency. Every parent and every teacher who can deal with individuals at all should study the doll habits of each child, now discouraging and repressing, now stimulating by hint or suggestion.