Mechanical Toys. Doctor Hall comments on this:
Mechanical toys, more than any others, seem to have the shortest existence in the hands of bright, active children, a fact which suggests that toys so constructed as to show principles of motion and elementary physical laws, without involving their own destruction, are an educational need yet to be supplied. This destructive form of curiosity, due to normal development of mentally active children, needing guidance, and to be furnished with a proper outlet, but not repressed, is not to be confused with the careless destruction of toys, due to lack of interest, which is unfortunately common in children whose interests and powers of appreciation have been weakened and dissipated by overloading them with toys and diversions until it has bred in them an ennui which has sapped their power of attention and left them incapable of self-entertainment. Healthy children, if allowed to develop under normal conditions, find interests and amusements for themselves, and the child who has been so reared that he wants to be constantly amused, and has no keen desires because they have been too frequently anticipated, has been deprived of one of the rights of childhood.
A baby’s early motor interests are in the things which he himself can do, and disappointed friends and relatives have often found their gifts of mechanical toys a failure, simply because they have too far anticipated the natural development, and the toy has proved either a source of fear or failed to excite special interest. In fact, even at a later period, mechanical toys which are too complicated in construction or too delicate to bear investigation, which are apt to be clumsy, soon lose their attractiveness, while something that can be taken to pieces and put together by unskilled fingers, so that it will “go again” may prove of continued interest.
And Kate Douglas Wiggin writes: “Every thoughtful person knows that the simple, natural playthings of the old-fashioned child, which are nothing more than pegs on which he hangs his glowing fancies, are healthier than our complicated modern mechanisms, in which the child has only to press the button and the toy does the rest.”
The Treatment of Toys. The right treatment of toys has far-reaching educational values in orderliness, thrift, prudence, depth of emotion, generosity, genuineness. The child who has a small number of durable toys that will stand the strain of usage and therefore accumulate years of associations and emotions, is having an education in genuineness and emotional strength, while the child who has a great number of flimsy toys that rapidly disappear is being trained in superficiality and shallowness. The child whose toys are promptly repaired when broken is being trained in prudence and orderliness, and still more so when, even during his second year, he is responsible for keeping them orderly and neat. The child who is surfeited with gifts, or who is allowed to spend his pennies prodigally for cheap jimcracks, is being trained in extravagance, shortsightedness, and discontent; while the one who is given a reasonable number of gifts and is taught to save his pennies and think carefully of worth-while toys to buy, is being trained in thriftiness, foresight, and satisfaction.
A Guide to Toys for Children
First Year. Utilizing hand, forearm, upper arm.
Sensory and Motor Experience
1 to 4 months:
Rod to grasp
Rubber or celluloid ball or doll
Semi-sphere of rubber or wood
4 months:
Celluloid dumb-bell
5 months:
Montessori sand boxes
Paper to crumple
Small enamel or tin cup
6 months:
Wooden ball
Mirror, pocket size, in frame
Spoon
Leather reins to pull upon, with musical bells
Rubber balls, each covered with one of primary colors (crocheted of cotton or silk)
8 months:
Picture book, linen, large, colored pictures
Small hand bell
Water toys—fish, swans
9 months:
Kitchen utensils in variety of shapes, sizes (no sharp edges or points, non-breakable)
Rolling pin, pie tins, Clothespins
Football
10 months:
Hard vegetables and fruits; potato, apple, squash, cucumber, carrots, eggplant (shapes, sizes, colors)
12 months:
Japanese gong
Tube
Rubber, wooden, or celluloid toys, e.g., doll, dog, cat
One to Two Years. Large size implements for forearm, whole arm, trunk; sensory and motor experience; color, sound, experimentation.