Page:The Chinese Boy and Girl.djvu/102

Rh 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 Linnæus 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 of his race."

No experiments in any chemical laboratory will excite more wonder or be carried on with more interest, than those which the boy performs with his pipe and basin of soapy water. The little girl's mud pies and other sham confectionery furnish her first lessons in the art of preparing food. Her toy dinners and playhouse teas offer her the first