The Arizona sentinel., 1886-10-23
fifth day of the fifth month. After

The ways of children are, it seems,
 beginning to be studied from a scientific
 standpoint. An American lady has
 elicited from two hundred and twenty
 seven Boston schoolboys particulars
 of their tastes in collecting Out of the
 entire number, only nineteen had ab-
 stained from making collections.
 Stamps were the most popular objects;
 then marbles, business cards, minerals,
 woods, leaves or flowers, autographs,
 buttons, birds nests, and many other
 articles.
 There is often a great contrast be- | tween the ways in which boys and girls
 try to amuse themselves. Games which
 demand small exertions are generally
 girls favorites, though the more active
 take kindly to rounders, whiptop, and
 even cricket. But as rule they are
 soon tired; every thing ''isn't fair, and
 they wont play" Boys games are
 more successful Boys stick much more
 to rules, and are less careful of their
 clothes. Their games are often accom-
 panied by loud threats and fierce recrim-
 nations, threats which if executed
 would speedily make the playground
 present the appearance of battlefield.
 It is the grown-up people who write
 the stories, and the children carefully
 preserve the text What boy has not
 had his Crusoe raft or cave, or has not
 attempted to build 8 log hut? The busi- ness, pleasures, misfortunes, and adven- lures of life are all .rehearsed by the romantic little people.5 There is a story of Michael Angelo making a statue of snow in garden, the, beauty and pro- portion of which delighted his compan- ions and gave promise of the genius he was afterward to display. Charles Dick ems tells us of wandering through rooms make-beli that he.was an African trav- eler expecting to be attacked at any mo- ment by wild beasts, or savages, and therefore holding himself ready to sell his life as dearly as possible.
 This innate tendency to mimicry is sometimes even displayed amonst the melancholy surroundings of hospital. It must, indeed, be sadly dull for the poor little patients in children hos pital, but there are rays of sunshine that gleam upon the scene. A kind-hearted
  Among the boys I saw one merry little fellow gravely putting out his tongue, while another felt his pulse. Playing at doctors seemed a fit game for a chil- dren's hospital; and I could picture to myself how mock prescriptions were made up with sham solemnity of man. ner, and how fanciful experiments with imaginary stethoscopes were attempted by young actors, to beguile the weary time. One little girl spoke to seemed quite proud of her acquaintance with the ailments of her neighbors, and serious ly took me to a bed to see a bad case of 'brOncheetus;' and to cot contiguous, where what she called 'new-money- here was waiting to be cured. To lisp out big words like 'toobercoolcrosus' to give great pleasure to the solemn little doctress, and I fancied the patients felt some pride in being point ed out as victims of such tine-sounding complaints.
 Children who have few toys are thrown on their own resources for amusement, and frequently develop great ingenuity and cleverness in their play. We have in the young Brontes, busy at their desks and playing at beng editors. like the girls in Little 1 Women when producing their weekly paper, the IfckDick PorgoEio. But when our little. actors, in their 1 to secure properties, develop | the bump of destructiyeness, the results | are not so amusing. Captain Marryat l that children are great bless ing when they are kept in the nursery; | but they certainly do interfere with the | papa who has the misfortune to be an | author. He little thought, when his youngest girl brought him whole string Of paper dolls, hanging together by the arms, that they had been cut off | his memoranda. But so it was; and | when he had satisfactorily established the fact, and insisted upon an ''inquisi- 5ion" to recover his invaluables, he tound that they had had an auto da .te, and that the whole string of dolls, which contained on their petticoats his whole string of bewitching ideas, had been burnt like so many witches.
 The monkey-like propensity for imi- tation which makes an infant try to shave himself on getting hold of papa's 'azors, when developed in boyhood, -akes the form of surreptitious smoking md swaggering, more for the purpose of acting the man than for any thing else. The same idea of acting the wom- m is shown when little girls improvise | long train out of newspaper or shawl, and sweeping in dignified way about the room, exclaim: 'rm man. nar'
 The importance of a child when lent lny article of dress, stick, or an um- ,rella to play with, is very noticeable. Little boy,' said a gentleman, 'why To you hold that umbrella over your lead? It's not raining"
 "No."
 And the sun is not shining"
 "No."
 "Then why do you carry it?'
 ''Cause when it rains, father wants it; md when the sun shines, mother wants t; and it's only when it's this sort of weather that l can get to use it at all."
 Children possessed of mimetic quali- ies are happier without any playthings han are their opposites, even when pos essed of the costliest scientific toys. Town boys are fond of imagining them elves to be trains and horses, the noise if the former and motions of the latter 'eing often very amusingly represented. dark Twain has given lively descrip ion of an American lad initiating a iver steamer with all proper accom- 'animents of bell-ringing, going ahead nd astern, and whirling one arm round or an imaginary forty-feet side-wheel oming alongside the wharf. The same description of some boys out on an island, and covering