“Choose his toys wisely and then leave him alone with them. Leave him to the throng of emotional impressions they will call into being. Remember that they speak to his feelings when his mind is not yet open to reason. The toy at this period is surrounded with a halo of poetry and mystery, and lays hold of the imagination and the heart.
“When we have restored playthings to their place in education—a place which assigns them the principal part in the development of human sympathies—we can later put into the hands of children objects whose impressions will reach their minds more particularly.”
—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.
Too many accessories lessen the educational value of this play in teaching children to put themselves in the parents’ place, in deepening love of children, and of motherhood. Children with French dolls incline to practice their little French upon them; can this tendency be utilized in teaching a foreign language to young children?...
The rudest doll has the great advantage of stimulating the imagination by giving it more to do than does the elaborately finished doll. It can also enter more fully into the child’s life, because it can be played with more freely without danger of being soiled or injured. With rude dolls, too, the danger both of hypertrophy and of too great prolongation of the doll instinct is diminished. The child’s interest is opposed to large, elegant French dolls which teach love of dress and suggest luxury, and dolls with too many mechanical devices, as for winking, walking, speaking, and singing, against which the Russian Toy Congress has so strongly protested. Rather small and durable dolls, soft enough not to hurt, flexible, with two or three colors and not more than two or three garments, along with plenty of hints regarding clothespins, flowers, and other varied material,—something like this seems to be the suggestion for a first doll, with increasing variation in size, material, elaborateness, and number till the doll passion vanishes in two dimensions, with innumerable paper dolls, towards adolescence.
That boys are naturally fond of and should play with dolls as well as girls, there is abundant indication. One boy in a family of girls, or boys who are only children, often play with dolls up to seven or eight years of age. It is unfortunate that this is considered so predominantly a girl’s play. Most boys abandon it early or never play, partly because it is thought girlish by adults as well as by children. Of course, boy life is naturally rougher and demands a wider range of activities. The danger, too, of making boy milliners is of course obvious, but we are convinced that, on the whole, more play with girl dolls by boys would tend to make them more sympathetic with girls as children, if not more tender with their wives and with women later. Again, boys as well as girls might be encouraged to play with boy dolls more than at present, with great advantage to both. Boys, too, seem to prefer exceptional dolls, clowns, brownies, colored, Eskimo, Japanese, etc. Boys, too, seem fonder than girls of monkey and animal dolls, and are often very tender of these, when they maltreat dolls in human shape. Again, dolls representing heroes of every kind and non-existent beings, dragons, and hobgoblins find their chief admirers among boys.
It seems to be about the age of six, three years before the culmination of the doll passion, that the conflict between fancy and reality becomes clearly manifest. Abandonment to the doll illusion and the length of the doll period decreases as dolls and their accessories become elaborate. With every increase of knowledge of anatomy or of the difference between living tissue and dead matter, between life and mechanism, this element of doll play must wane.
Tests of Good Toys
Lovable
Durable in composition and workmanship
Stimulating to imagination, analysis, invention, initiative, activity, workmanship
Adapted to experimentation, investigation or constructive purposes
Adapted to the child’s stage of development, viz., his motor ability, his interests, his mental development
Sanitary, washable; without inaccessible corners to harbor dirt and germs
Artistic in form, color, expression; that is, simple in design, harmonious in color, genuine, without either sentimentality or thorough realism
The purpose of toys is not merely to amuse the child but to call forth fuller expression of his self-activity.
Harmful Toys
Unpardonable Defects
Physical:
Dangerous: having sharp edges, corners or points; pins or tacks, small bells, buttons, ornaments, that may be pulled off and swallowed
Unhygienic: not washable; paint or dye that runs; made in unsanitary factory; too small for child’s stage of development
Inartistic: jangling, harsh, metallic, discordant sounds; unsymmetrical, poorly proportioned, ugly shapes; unharmonious or harsh colors; simpering, ugly, or unwholesome expressions on dolls or animals.
Flimsy in material or workmanship
Psychological:
Mechanical, merely amusing the child, making him only a spectator instead of providing a means for his own creative activity
Military, demoralizing for the following reasons:
(a) they cultivate the spirit of destructiveness rather than constructiveness;
(b) they foster callousness toward the value of human life;
(c) they give a wholly wrong impression of the meaning of war, omitting its destructive social and industrial effects, and overemphasizing the joy of its enthusiasm and rhythm.
Over-realistic, super-refined,—especially dolls
Unhygienic, Inartistic, Anti-social Toys.
Hygienic, Durable, Constructive, Social Toys.
Especially to be avoided under six years are toys having:
sharp points, corners, edges;
small bells or detachable ornaments;
paint which easily comes off;
flimsy toys easily broken;
woolly animals (unless washable and washed);
popguns;
fine material, sometimes sold as “Kindergarten material”, e.g., sewing cards, paper mats, straws, small beads, sticks, peg boards, crayons, blocks.
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.
Wooden mallet, large nails, and bar of soap
Sand box and stones
Bucket and spoons, dipper
Variety of balls
Football
Wooden blocks 2 × 4 inches
Nests of balls, dolls
Spools
Kitchen utensils
Hard fruits and vegetables
2 or 3 dolls; 2 or 3 toy animals (rubber, celluloid, or wood)
Chair swing
Stationary ladder, 4 to 6 rungs
Rope to pull up weight
Montessori wooden cylinders
Two to Four Years. Utilizing fundamental muscles, sensory and motor activities, imagination, construction.
Imaginative Play
Dolls: Unbreakable, washable, 4 to 12 inches long
baby and adult dolls; girl and boy dolls
Doll accessories: Pewter or enamel dishes, cooking
utensils, stove
Laundry equipment, especially tub and flatiron;
broom
Doll cradle
Doll’s house
Noah’s Ark: Dogs, horses, cats, bears, in rubber,
celluloid, wood
Jack-in-box
Nested balls, dolls
Outdoor, Active
Wheelbarrow, wagon
Train of cars, boat
Velocipede
Fire engine
Horse reins
Garden tools; pail and shovel
Balls: Football, large rubber with pictures; wooden;
small rubber with spectrum colors
Tenpins
Rubber balloons
Constructive
Four to Six Years. Fundamental muscles. Imagination, construction, measuring; experimenting with mechanical principles, simple chemistry, electricity; making toys.
Imaginative Play
Dolls (for both girls and boys)
Unbreakable, washable
Representing children of different races, countries
Doll accessories:
Carriage, trunk
Doll houses more complete
Stove and cooking utensils more ample
Laundry equipment that can be used
Indian suits (fireproof)
Punch and Judy
Toy theater
Kaleidoscope; magnets
Musical
Continue those of previous period
Wind harp, bugle or flute, tambourine, musical bells and glasses, toy piano
Outdoor, Active
Continue those of previous period
Garden tools, usable
Watering can, trowel
Tenpins, top, hoop, ringtoss
Balls (add bouncing ball, volley ball)
Constructive
Continue those of previous period
Blocks as previous period; add round, triangular,
cylindrical; variety of geometric shapes
Stone mosaics (1 to 2-inch size) for parquetry
Picture puzzles
Paint book, drawing paper
Blunt scissors
Paste
Foot rule, yardstick
Gill, gallon, peck, bushel measures
Counter or small spring scales, weighing accurately
Thermometer
Meccano, interlocking blocks
Apparatus for constructing toy telephones, signals,
motor toys
Six to Nine Years. Accessory muscles utilized. Imagination, imitation, construction, measuring, industrial play, making many toys.
Imaginative Play
Dolls (add china, bisque, paper)
Dolls representing other nationalities, historic or
literary characters; stunt dolls
Doll accessories, both smaller and larger sizes;
china dishes
Dominoes, checkers
Toy store
Toy theater
Toy money, stamps
Musical
Whistles, bugle, flute, mouth harp (care for mouth
hygiene)
Autoharp or zither, toy piano (musical quality);
violin or cello
Toy notes and bars; music note blocks
Outdoor, Active
Balls (add volley, hand, medicine, football, rubber
bouncing)
Baseball and bat
Marbles, jackstones, tops
Kites, bow and arrows, battledore, grace hoops,
jumping rope
Skates (both feet), stilts
Croquet, tennis racket, punching bag
Substantial wagon, trains, garden tools
Constructive
Blocks: Anchor, 1-inch sizes; dominoes, checkers
Knife, modeling clay, sand, paints, paint book, small crayola
Weaving frame; small beads, raffia, reed
Scrap pictures; straws, pasteboard parquetry
Stencil blocks
Apparatus for making toys, as in previous period
Camera
Radiopticon
Stereoscope
Clock that can be taken apart