Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-10-29
A REFORM IN TOYLAND.
Reaction Against the Realistic Play
things of the Present,

From the Philadelphia Record.
A movement to reform the character and
making of childrens toys is attracting con-
siderable attention in Germany and has
peen given much sympathy by educators
Those back of the movement have set their
faces against the kind of toys with which
tie market is flooded at present, realistic
things turned out by the thousand about
which there is a halo of strangenesS or 70
nance, and which, for the most part are
extremely ugly The child's imagination
has very little room for play because the
toy aims to be exact counterpart of the
thing in nature.
1t is this that the new Dresden toys"
are designed to remedy; to hold the child's
attention by the beauty and simplicity of
design, and by some fantastic deviation
from the real.
Dresden toys are the work of men
strongly interested in the inculcation of an
art instinct In the young. AS toys go now,
not only Is the child's inherent feeling for
beauty and harmony not foostered but 1t Is
actually marred and repressed by the ugli-
ness and staleness, conventionality and lack
of delightful freshness of most toys in
use. Now look at one of the single figures
OF the new Dresden toys"-the cat 1t is
simple and strong, durable and inexpensive
1t will take a tremendous knocking before
1t will break The child may seize the cat
by head or tail and wrench it into any posi-
ton he desires, but pussy will always
emerge sound. But now look at the cat,
now IL SPEAKS 10 the CnllQ In q language
most Ineligible of all to children. 1t
strongly resembles the native wood carving
of primitive peoples, whose imaginative fac
ulties were strikingly in accord with those
of children of today.
All the toys manufactured on this plan
seem to breathe an atmosphere foreign to
the machine. They possess a freshness or
novelty, an individuality, that is in har-
mony with the freedom and wildness of the
| child. Besides such single figures, there are
many groups designed on the same plan
| farmers, village or theatrical group,
| such as is seen here. All these toys exer-
| else a powerful educating stimulus, infu-
| encing the imagination and getting the
| child's love by it's beauty.
In each of the Dresden toys" the general,
| the typical, has ben seized with great firm
| ness, and yet the individual characteristics
| of each figure or group is strikingly evident
| even to the youngest mind. Each speaks and
breatheS a healthy humor;- the characteri-
| cation of every figure is finely done; the
adjoining colors are tremendously arranged.
The influence exerted upon the child is al
ways striking and vivid, but at the same
| time always harmonious and quiet Every
| toy of the series possesses style. 1t is typi-
cal of it's class without ever being conven-
tional; it always has individuality.
Picture a village of Dresden group,
| We see farmers, houses, trees, wagon and
even an intrusive automobile. We see the
stiff strutting of soldier, the farmer feed
| ing his hog, the buxom housewise attending
to the dinner of several tired laborers in
| their shirt sleeves. The healthiness, the
| broad humor, the open-air quality of coun-
| try life is strikingly brought home to the
| eager and delighted child. Moreover-and
| this is one of the underlying principles in
| the entire Dresden" series-the whole is
| colored on simple and effective basis of
| color harmony. The childs taste is educat-
| ed from the beginning to cherish the SIM
| pie and the beautiful in color. and to avoid
! the loud, the shrieking and the tasteless.
| The subject of the earliest training of
! children has received much more attention
| in Germany than anywhere else. Most
| prominent as reformer of children's toys is,
perhaps, the well-known author, Frank We
| derkind who is also the inventor of the
| German discus and the bicycle swing, -
| intended to develop in older children agility,
| as well as control of the body's movements
| through will power and sureness of eye.