One of the mistakes common in every part of the world is that parents, when buying toys for their children, consult their own point of view without regard to the opinion of the child who is going to play with them — that is, they buy the toys that please and appeal to themselves.

The purpose of buying toys should not be to keep the child quiet and keep him away from wrecking the household things. In choosing toys, care should be taken that their purpose is to help the child develop his various natural faculties and gifts. The child learns life through his toy, and if something puzzling confronts him he keeps at it until he explains it and its secrets open up before him by degrees. Entertaining playthings draw the child to take them up all the time, and thereby his energy and vitality increase. If we do not let the child think for himself, and do his think-ing for him instead, we are in fact harming him by putting his faculty of thought out of action, so that he grows accustomed to idleness and laziness. And if we solve his problems for him and smooth away the difficulties that face him in the most trivial matters, we are in fact weakening his ability and his desire to solve his problems by himself.

If we give the child kinds of toys selected on a sound psychological basis, the child not only becomes accustomed to using his hands but learns also to think and to decide what he wants to do; it likewise teaches him to appreciate different implements, to know their properties, and what use he may make of them.

One of the most important points in this matter is to help the child's ability to keep steadily absorbed in a given piece of work until he has finished it; for if this quality can be planted in the child's soul in his earliest years, it will have a direct effect in making him a person who relies on himself and is confident of his own competence, and he grows accustomed to accomplishing all sorts of things by himself.

And although the child has many toys, what he loves most and

prefers above everything else is unscrewing the threaded knobs on the drawers and wardrobes of the bedroom, or undoing the cap of any bottle he finds in front of him. From this it is clear that toys built on the principle of the screw and the spiral are useful and serve the purpose, and many models of them can be found in the toy shops. It does not matter in the

least if the child at first takes hold of the toy and plays with it in whatever way pleases him, without understanding the correct way to use it — and beware of constantly telling him that he is not following the correct method; that is a common mistake, as we said at the beginning of the article. It is better to leave him to work the toy out in his own way; and when he loses his desire to play with it — then, and only then, may you explain to him the correct way. And that will arouse his interest in the toy all over again.

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