The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram., 1921-11-23
Militarism In the Nursery
BY FREDERICK J. HAskIN

WASHINGTON, D. c., Nov. %. -
That the toy soldier in the nursery is
a powerful influence for war is the
opinion of Mrs. Winifred Sackville
Stoner, the we'll known educator.
Mrs. Stoner holds the opinion that
what the average child in a country is
| playing with is an index of the way
the country in heading-whether to-
ward peaceful progress or another
war Scrapping battleships, she says,
f! VIII not insure peace if the children Of
the coming generation grow up with
The belligerent ideas that destructive
toys are bound to instill.
Right now" she points out, chill
| dren are doing terrible things. Some
French children stabbed their mother
to death recently. And from other
! countries stories of child criminals
have been coming. Why? All through
the war children have seen and heard
about destruction, and, besides, have
had SO many destructive toys.
All through history the characters
and careers of men have been shaped
| by their playthings. Napoleon played
! with toy cannon. Hannibal as a little
| boy, held sword bigger than himself
and swore vengeance against the Rom
ans. Frederick the Great had weap-
ons for toys.
! 'On the other hand, the boy Mozart
played with violin, and Titan played
! in the woods, painting with juice of
berries"
Further light on the importance Of
| the apparently trivial toy soldier was
! shed several years before the recent
war by Mrs. f. n. Jackson in her book
on toys.
She quotes many instances of the
toy soldiers or princes of several cen
turies ago. Thus, Louis XIV paid 5000
frances for "an army of cardboard SOL
dlers finely painted, for His Majesty,
the King TO give to Monseigneur le
Dauphin. This miniature army con-
sisted of 90 squadrons of cavalry. 10
battalions of infantry. They were later
on replaced by the little silver army
made by Merlin, the silversmith, in the
seventhteenth century, from artistic
models. Not only were the men and
horses made, but also guns and other
machines of wars
These silver men-at-arms and their
toy cannon were later melted for their
silver when the king began to play
with human soldiers and cannon and
needed money for his wars
Royal Infants had Soldier Toys
Nearly all kings have played with
soldiers and guns when they were
children. Now that kings are almost
obsolete. what the modern princeling
plays with is not especially important.
The toys of the average child are what
count.
Mrs. Stoner thinks that parents are
mainly responsible for child's inter
ests. Children would not be so eager
to play with toy pistols and soldiers if
their parents did not when they are
very small begin to encourage them by
gifts of such toys.
Thus the soldier idea is implanted
To be soldier, the child insists on
having gun. And when he grows up
with the desire to exchange the toy
gun for soldiers bayonet, the dis
tracted mother walls that her boy al
ways seemed to take TO weapons.
This is the disasterous effect, we
are told, of the destructive toy. The
influence of the constructive toy is
found by Mrs. Stoner to be as strong
IN another direction.
To be constructed" she saws, "a
toy must be more than merely not de-
structive. 1t should develop the child
in some way, but not necessarily in an
obviously educational way. So simple
a thing as a box of paints will deveIop
control OF muscles and use of colors.
Balls and balloons are constructive
fnVS Nv ho hIr YN1o W.T.
tied to her wrist in the cradle. She
learned to love ,colors and to recognize
them in these colored balls. Later she
learned to remember facts set to jim
giles, bouncing the ball as she sang
them.
Dolls and doll houses. too. are con-
structlve. They teach girl the ele-
ments of housekeeping and sewing
Just as the toy soldiers teach the boy
the principals of warfare. A new doll
not yet on the market. has a phono-
graph motor inside. This has the end
less possibilities of the phonograph for
teaching the child.
"A further extension OF this idea to
toy animals is also being planned. The
head of the New York Geological park
is, believe, going to make records Of
the exact animal cries, so that instead
of the COW, bird, and lion all making
similar mechanical squawks, the toy
lion will roar and the bluebird will
give its own trill. This is a construct
i've development"
Typewriter as Toy
Mrs. Stoner's favorite toy for child
Ten and adults alike is the typewriter.
She holds that child of two be taught