It would be very desirable if all the skill and enterprise that is devoted to the development of the toy industry were applied to making toys simpler, more durable, and cheaper, instead of making them more elaborate, more realistic, and more flimsy. However, the desirable kinds of toys will not be manufactured in larger quantities until an enlightened parenthood both demands them and refuses to buy the glittering heart-breakers that look so charming in the shop, but go to pieces in the child's hands.
It is far better to have fewer and better toys than more of an inferior quality. The thing to keep in mind is that a toy is neither an artistic model, an aesthetic ornament, nor a mechanical spectacle, but should be a stimulus to call forth self-activity, invention, ingenuity, imagination, and skill.
X.
CHILDREN'S GANGS, CLUBS, AND FRIENDSHIPS
"What a plague boys are!" sighed Mrs. Brown. "That White boy has been getting our Harry into all sorts of mischief, and I can't make Harry give up that gang."
Mrs. Green agreed that boys were a plague. Her Jack went with a lot of boys, too, and they were always up to some sort of tricks which she was quite sure her boy would never do if it were not for those other boys. And Mrs. Green was right. Any boy will do things when he is with the gang that he never would think of doing alone— and that he wouldn't dare to do alone, if he did think of them. Even your boy—and mine, too, I hope. That's the way of boys.
What we mothers will have to do is to stop fretting about the other boys in the gang who spoil our boys, and about the mischief and noise and dirty boots and staying away late for meals, and get down to a practical way of making all the boys in the gang as we find them into a lot of decent young men. We shall have to stop trying to make boys do what it is impossible for them to do; and we shall have to stop trying to keep the boys from doing what it is absolutely necessary that they should do, if they are to develop into the decent young men we have in mind.
The modern way, the efficient way, of treating children is to find out their instincts and then use these almost irresistible forces of nature as a means of directing their development. And that is what we shall have to do with the boy and his gang, and that is what we shall have to do with the girl and her set. The boy is a more serious problem because, under the promptings of his instincts, he soon becomes indifferent to the attractions and amusements of the home and seeks the companionship of boys of his own age, and he seeks activities that cannot, for the most part, be carried on in the home. The girl, on the other hand, remains much longer subject to the will of her mother and to the conventions and standards of the home; she remains for a longer period satisfied with the kinds of activities that can be carried on at home.
We have been told over and over again that the instincts of childhood are all for activity, and a few of us have trained ourselves not to expect the children to be still all the time. Of course, there are times when we simply must have them be still, and, of course, we allow the teachers to insist upon the children being still in school. But we recognize that they must play and romp and run and shout, and we are willing even to spend public funds for playgrounds. This shows that we can learn, and that we can make use of our knowledge. It is necessary only that we extend our knowledge of the instincts of our children just as fast as we can make use of more.
Up to the age of about ten, boys are apparently satisfied to play games by themselves, or to play with others in ways that let each look out pretty much for himself. At this age, however, a change begins to appear. Now the boy tends to associate himself with others of the same age, and before you know it your son "belongs" to some "gang." Every street in a town and every corner in a city has its gang. And if your boy has red blood and hard grit in him, he is a member of one of these gangs. He can't help it. He does not join because it is the fashion, or because he is afraid to keep out, or because he has social ambitions. He joins because it is his instinct to join with others in carrying on the activities to which other instincts drive him. If you stand in the way of the gang, you are fighting against one of the strongest forces in human nature.