The Palatka news and advertiser. [volume] (Palatka, Fla.) 1908-19??, 1912-12-20
SANTA CLAUSE HELPS
THE CHILD.

The healthy child enjoys the play of
Make-Believe. From the second until
at least the ninth year, children live,
as it were, in two worlds, the world of
realism and the world of Make-Be-
lieve. If fairy tales, myths and leg
ends are ruled out because they are
not absolutely and really true, the
child is deprived of much fsod for its
development. 1t is like clipping the
wings of the mind.
The Santa Claus myth may be told
to the children in the spirit of Make
Believe. There can be no deception.
The position of the parent is this:
The child must not be deceived, nor
prematurely awakened from his nat
ural world of Make-Believe.
You ask when should the world OF
Make-Believe end for the child? The
later the better. The time will come
all too soon, perhaps, when the grow
ing intellect will demand explanation,
and then it must be given; but pa
rents should never arrest a child's
imagination during the growing per
iod-that is to say, from 2 to 9 or 10.
Why should parents be so anxious to
make their children little men anG
women?
Sometimes parents are worried
about too imaginative children, child
rem who appear to give rein to their
imagination at the expense Of truth
By all means let him see that you ur.
derstand that he is living in world
of fun and frolic. All too soon he
will pass out of it.
The child should be encouraged to
ask questions, and he ought to have
his questions answered. The child
asks questions because he is curious;
if not curious, he would be next to an
idiot. Curiosity is one of the most
precious gifts with which a child is
endowed.
The girl-child learns more of the
real duties in the home through her
make-believe play with her dolls, tea
sets, cooking stoves, ETC., than she
will learn in all the schools Of domes-
tic economy ever established.
The child through its toys, the dolls,
wagons, drums, ETC., has its thoughts
turned in certain direction. They
play that they are mothers and IA
theirs, or storekeepers, or soldiers, ana
through their dramatic play they be-
come interested more and more in
those phases of life which they have
initiated. That this play develops a
reverence for law and order is the
DRY advanced by Prof. E. P. St. John
of New York in an exceedingly inter
esting chart, and who found that while
from the age of to 7 the young child
occupies itself almost entirely with
individual play-blocks, sand castles,
running, shooting, and machinery
etc-the child from to IL turns its
attention to competitive group games,
such as tag, hide and seek, marbles,
and ball. Then from IL to "a comes
the later stage Of development, when
the growing child plays baseball, foot
ball, tennis, etc, games that induce
cooperation and bring the child int :
right relations with his fellows. The
cooperative spirit, it will be noticed,
does not develop largely until after
the twelfth year.
Toys are often thoughtlessly chos-
en-. When purchasing them parents
should aim to get those that will keen
the child busy. Mechanical toys
which only interest while the novelty
remains should be avoided on this
account.
Lengthen the childhood of the child
and keep him in the world Of play
and Mako Relieve