The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1878-05-02
The influence Of Toys.


of life, and the little owners learn un-
consciously what it is to confer ideal
qualities on very commonplace objects.
Some writer's wish to see in the childish
way of taking thistles for armies of
foemen to be cut down with a sword,
and in the childish power of fancying
that chairs are horses, and tables ele-
plants, the remains, the survival of
animism. Man must have felt and rea-
soned like this, they urge, when he
.worshiped sticks and stones. When
children beat their dolls they are like
the defeated pagans who in the song of
Roland break the image of Mahound
in their anger. 1t is more certain that
children are learning one of our human
ways of being "well deceived" into an
interest in life. To fancy that u chair
is a prancing charger, that q piece
of stuffed rag is a fairy princess, that
certain little shells are of priceless
value, is to be apprentice to two of the
mysteries of later existence-the pas
sions of love and of collecting. If a
child is to be happy, he must fall in
love at one part Of his future course,
and must perhaps haye his hobbies at
another. He must see an enchanting
being, all beauty and wit, in a young
lady very like another, and must cher
ish decisions as dear and absurd as any
that find center in dolls and doll-houses.
The season for putting false value on
inanimate trif1es comes later, when it
is great consolation. In this matter
men are more like children with their
toys than in any other. Collections of
this or that-of worthless books bound
and stamped with the coats of arms
of the seventeenth century, of early
and illegible editions, Of hideous
pots and pans-help to make us
forget the insignifcance of our in
terests. Perhaps people would never
catch the fashionable enthusiasts or
invent new hobbies for themselves,
were it not for the early teaching and
initiation through toys. We hear Occa-
sionally of taste which found its or
igin in toy theaters, and Goethe is not
singular in an innocent childish love of
marionettes which developed into love
of the drama. As all childhood's vo-
cation is dramatic, ian endless imita-
tion," toy theaters are like the play
within the play, in Hamlet or 1.-THE
Or itic." It may be doubted whether
scientific toys can be trusted to make
men of science. A child of scientific
turn, using science in the usual sense,
is rather nuisance in a family. He
wants to clean his fathers watch with
soap and water; he watches a chance
of dissecting the hall clock; he makes
experiments in acoustics on the piano,
and tries to discover how long gold.
fishes will live out of water. To divert
him from these investigations, fond
aunts may give him scientific toys and
books that tell him all about the dy-
namics of pea-shooters. or drag tops
into the theory of curves. These things
are too tediously systematic for the
scientific child, who devotes himself, by
preference. to original research. He
soon finds out all that he cares to know
about the common pump, and he goes
and drops stones down the example in
the garden. It does not take him long
to explode the toy steam-engine-av very
expensive toy-and then he makes ex-
periments on the domestic boiler. With
a burning-glass out of his toy-telescope
he inflicts tortures on his little sisters
and burns holes in the sleeves of his
jacket. It is the best policy to divert
his attention entirely from experiment.
al science, not to stimulate his talents
by presents Of scientific toys.
Toys bring outin very young children,
not otherwise scientific, the metaphys-
ical eagerness which they share with
savages. It is true that this noble
curiosity, eternally searching, eternally
doomed to search, is prosecuted in the
nursery. How are you to get nurse,
or even Mr.. Grant Duff's ideal nursery
governess, who knows all about botany,
to distinguish between mischief and
metaphysics? A child is haunted by
the undying desire to know the cause
of things. Causes he unconsciously,
but perhaps correctly, reasons are
identical with the very nature of things
in themselves. Let us take q tin trum-
pet, for example, or a doll that opens
and shuts its eyes. It is plain to q
child that he does not, scientifically
speaking, enjoy more than mere en-
pirical opinion about the winking doll,
or about the condition of the music in
the trumpet. He therefore gouges the
doll, and, much to the relief Of his fam
lily. breaks the mouth-piece of the trum-
pet. These investigations are always
pursued in solitude, the inquirer having
IN inherited suspicion that metaphys-
les. and indeed all attempts to see be-
low the surface of things, are frowned
on by the party of moral order. It has
always been 80. Philosophers have al
ways been branded and often burned a.
heretics, for their presumptious curios-
ity. As we all 60 through the stage of
breaking toys to learn the hidden causes
of their existence, and as we never find
out, and are frequently punished, it is
plain that toys exercise q vast and
healthy influence in the education of
the world. Metaphysics are checked,
so to speak, in the cradle. MANY =
nursery governess has effectually ex-
tinguished taste for "getting the alb
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