suppressed, and set deeper in its flesh and blood than scholastic
ideas.... The children who have no toys seize realities very late, and
never form ideals.... The nations rendered famous by their artists,
artisans, and idealists have supplied their infants with many toys,
for there is more philosophy and poetry in a single doll than in a
thousand books.... If you will tell us what your children play with,
we will tell you what sort of women and men they will be; so let
this Republic make the toys which will raise the moral and artistic
character of her children."

Froebel's educational toys do us one service, in that they preach a
silent but impressive sermon on simplicity.

It is easy to see that the hurlyburly of our modern life is not wholly
favorable to the simple creed of childhood, "delight and liberty, when
busy or at rest," but we might make it a little less artificial than
we do, perhaps.

Every thoughtful person knows that the simple, natural playthings of
the old-fashioned child, which are nothing more than pegs on which he
hangs his glowing fancies, are healthier than our complicated modern
mechanisms, in which the child has only to "press the button" and the
toy "does the rest."

The electric-talking doll, for example--imagine a generation of
children brought up on that! And the toy-makers are not even content
with this grand personage, four feet high, who says "Papa! Mamma!" She
is _passée_ already; they have begun to improve on her! An electrician
described to me the other day a superb new altruistic doll, fitted
to the needs of the present decade. You are to press a judiciously