Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1871-01-27
Amusing Children,

AS the cold weather advances, and the
little ones are obliged more and more TO
seek amusement indoors, the mother looks
around for ample sources of entertainment
to keep the busy fingers employed, yet out
OF mischief. If she can have her family
room in perfect order, with four or five
children playing round and happy all the
time, she Is very remarkable women, and
the secret of her management would be
worth knowing. II seems to be necessary
in order TO keep the temper of the little
ones unruffled, that chairs should stand up
side down, toys be scattred hlther and
yonder, and offerings continually made to
the Goddess of Disorder, or laid on the
Shrine of Chaos. The smashing of cups,
plates, window-panes ,playthings, lamps and
dolls heads is also essential to their perfect
felicity. Allowances should be made for all
these things, just as is made for their growth
when new clothes are cut out for them.
One corner of the sitting room or kitchen
should be given up to the children, where
they may have liberty to do everything
not absolutely sinful A peck of clean
sand in tight box, with funnel and tin
cups, is capable of giving some children a
great deal of pleasure. Hammer and tacks
with bar of soap instead of wood, are also
good things for boys. An ounce of parti-
COlOlCu UCduS, uOlCu Oub u low NJ a blluG,
with needle and thread to string them, will
amuse most little girls and boys for many
hours. Slate and pencil, or paper and pen
Gil, with set of cheap drawing cards for
models, are very fascinating to children
four or five years old. A set of building
blocks, costing from one to three dollars,
is an excellent investment for bevy of
juveniles.
Investment of some sort there must be
if peace and quiet are to be preserved, either
of money in the purchase of toys, or of
time in making them, or, greater than all,
of patience and good temper in bearing the
penalties that the parent must suffer who
makes no adequate provision for keeping
idle hands out of the mischief Satan will
surely find for them to do. Dolls, tea sets,
hobboy-horses, picture books-these are
as indispensable in the nursery as are milk
cribs, and fannels. There must also be
due proportion of fingers-marks on the
doors, thumps on little heads, scratches
and bruises on little bodies, to make up
the perfect round of child life.
The mother may fancy that she will be
happier when her boys and girls are grown
from under her constant watchfulness; but
the general testimony is, that the period of
playthings, ofmeasles and whooping cough,
of walkingstick horses, and tonges and
poker ponies, is happest for the mother
and often for the child. When her off
spring are all about her, their noise may
distract, their incessant wants weary the
mother but she does not worry over them
then, as when, later in life, they go, she
knows not where, and they do she knows
not what. 1t is best, therefore, to enjoy the
period of infancy and childhooda as it passes,
numbering only its joys and forgetting
its annoyances, smoothing rugged paths
for tender feet, and helping young hearts
to choose the good, and growing minds to
sesk and love true WISDOM EpchanQe.