relationships. There is a philosophy underlying the
production of toys as old as the world and as broad as life, a
philosophy which, until recent years, has been little studied
and cultivated.

Playthings are as necessary a constituent of human life as
food or medicine, and contribute in a like manner to the
health and development of the race. Like the science of
cooking and healing, the business of toy-making has been
driven by the stern teacher, necessity, to a rapid
self-development for the general good of the little men and women
in whose interests they are made.

They are the tools with which children ply their trades;
the instruments with which they carry on their professions;
the goods which they buy and sell in their business, and the
paraphernalia with which they conduct their toy society.
They are more than this. They are the animals which serve
them, the associates who entertain them, the children who
comfort them and bring joy to the mimic home.

Toys are nature's first teachers. The child with his little
shovels, spades and hoes, learns his first lessons in
agriculture; with his hammer and nails, he gets his first
lessons in the various trades; and the bias of the life of many a
child of larger growth has come from the toys with which he
played. Into his flower garden the father of Linnaeus
introduced his son during his infancy, and "this little garden
undoubtedly created that taste in the child which afterwards
made him the first botanist and naturalist of his age, if not