frequently heard from the child who is unimaginative or who has had
the play of his imagination curbed. For the child can _be_
whatever he wishes, and _have_ whatever he likes, his heart's
desire is at his finger's end, once his imagination is free. The
rocking-chair can be a great big ship, the carpet a rolling sea, and
at most a suggestion is needed from the busy mother. A few chairs
can be a train of cars and keep him occupied for hours. A wooden box
is transformed into a mighty locomotive--in fact, give an
imaginative child almost anything, a string of beads, or a piece of
colored glass, and out of it his imagination will construct great
happiness.

A normal child does not need elaborate toys. The only function of a
toy, as someone has well said, is "to serve as lay figures upon
which the child's imagination can weave and drape its fancy."

Although parents have not always understood what goes on in the
child's mind when he is so busy with his play, our poets and lovers
of children have had a deeper insight. Stevenson, in his poem "My
Kingdom," shows us how, with the touch of imagination, the child
transforms the commonplace objects of his surroundings into material
for rich romance:

Down by a shining water well
I found a very little dell,
No higher than my head.
The heather and the gorse about
In summer bloom were coming out,
Some yellow and some red.