Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/834

814 can do show us where great successes lie, but what we most need at present are the common things showing us how and where the multitudes of children walk, or rather stumble, along. And we would here respectfully suggest the advisability of securing such lists from exhibitions of this kind that may be held in different sections of the country, to be kept among the records of this Association for reference, until we shall have obtained data sufficient to guide us in our work. In such a collection there will doubtless be much worthless material and many duplicates, but will not the suggestive facts be worth the trouble of gathering them? That a thing is many times duplicated by children of the same age will indicate it as something suited to that age; that at certain other ages the work is below the average as to number of articles, or unsuited to the growth of the children, will indicate a want of proper occupation or true development of children of that age.

Among the specimens of the work of the first year in school, by children five or six years old, we observed, in the girls' department, a doll's muff of white fur; dolls' aprons, one of silk trimmed with lace; dressed dolls; a doll's bonnet, creditably made up of scraps of fur, lace, and ribbon, and a tiny feather; a doll's apron, with high neck, long sleeves, and a yoke; a cushion and a lamp-mat in colors; coarse lace-work of different kinds; a child's apron, and a child's petticoat.

Among the most noteworthy articles in the boys' department were a boat hollowed out, with rudder and seats; a bob-sled, made by connecting two tiny sleds by a strip of board, which was fastened with two screws and nuts; a cube of wood, with a number of squares engraved on each face; bow and arrow; a ladder of thirteen steps evenly adjusted; a rake, made of two pieces of other toys, with bits of iron wire for teeth—the wood had split in the making, and was mended with screws; a screen window; a chair and table, apparently made from kindling-wood with a penknife; a wagon, made of a rough box, with ends of spools for wheels; a toy pump, quite equal to those of its kind that are sold in the shops, with spout and handle correctly inserted.

In the second school year, the children of which were six or seven years old, the boys exhibited a rake, more laboriously made, but showing less ingenuity than the rake previously mentioned; several ladders, of different patterns, but with steps of uniform length and spacing correct in all; an invention—a gun made from two triangular pieces of unplaned board, a piece of old bucket-hoop, and the top of an old pepper-box, with a little stick for a projectile; a tip-cart—a box with two old furniture-rollers for wheels, two screws, two small strips of wood to hold the tongue, and two bits of twine serving as hinges to the tail-board; a shapely keel-boat, of sharp model, with mast, sail, and pennant, standing in two supporting blocks, and the whole easily held in a lady's hand; a handsome bracket, made by a