Page:Every Woman's Encyclopedia Volume 1.djvu/743

 ■15 CHILDREN This section tells everything that a mother ought to know and everything she should teach her children. It will contain articles dealing with the whole of a child's life from infancy, to womanhood. A few of the subjects are here mentioned : The Baby Clothes How to Engage a Nurse rreparing for Baby Alotherhood What Every Mother Should Know, etc. Education How to Engage a Private Governess English Schools for Girls Foreign Schools and Convents Exchange with Foreign Fam Hies for Learn - ing Langziages, etc. Physical Training Use of Clubs Dumb-bells -'^^ ' Developers Chest Expanders Exercises without Apparatus Breathing Exercises Skipping, etc. Amusements How to Arrange a Children's Party Outdoor Games Indoor Games How to Choose Toys for Children The Selection of Story Books, etc. DOLLS By Mrs. J, xNEVILL JACKSON Their Antiquity— Their Place in the Life of a Child— The Doll as an Educator— Heredity and Dolls r^OLLS provide the outlet for a perfectly natural instinct in childhood ; the " mother- ing " of a doll by a little girl may seem pretty or foolish play to the adult, but to the child herself it is 'a serious business in life. A girl of three or four is often on as intimate and friendly terms with an old and battered doll as with her own mother, father, or attend- !ant. She first invents the life ,of the doll, basing the events in its career on the happen- ings in her own nursery. She shares in those events, rejoicing in the doll's joys, sympathising in her sorrows, and confiding all troubles to the toy to whom she has not only given a personality but also a tem- perament. Strangely enough, it is not necessarily the child lacking companionship and receiving the least home sympathy who craves the most intimate com- panionship from dolls — it is a matter which has to do en- tirely with temperament. A little girl surrounded by ^"^'V Victorian doll, face of wax, glass eyes, > ,1 J • i J '^il human hair, kid arms and hands, shot brown brothers and sisters, and with striped silk skirt, black velvet bodice a mother full of s>Tnpathy, may yet demand from her play the means of projecting herself beyond her own world. Dolls provide such a means. The little girl who mothers her doll and loves it is sub- consciously preparing herself for what should be the glory of a duty properly fulfilled. She is developing her character without undue strain, she is building up her own experience in play, and heredity makes the matter easy for her. Boys, who have no ances- tral history with regard to the special care of children, seldom care for dolls. Their ancestors fought, hunted, and explored, therefore they love the games where warfare, the chase, and adventure bulk largely. Even the boy of the " mean street," who has never seen a wild rabbit alive, needs only to be shown once the incidents of the chase to fall into it readily and show himself equal to in- venting further adventures on the same lines, his imagination leaping at once to the hunting of lions, tigers, bears, and other exciting quarr>