WORLD OF MAKE-BELIEVE

Otago Witness, Issue 3829, 2 August 1927, Page 16

WORLD OF MAKE-BELIEVE

TOYS OF TO-DAY. Tho changing years bring changes everywhere. The ‘ grown-up world’s modes, manners, and customs are in a continual state of flux, and at times wc wonder just what is what. It is not surprising, therefore, that, when we pause a while to glance into the nursery, we find everything" so different from what it was when the same little room was used by us many years ago to while away happy and carefree hours. The changes are iust as drastic and just as noticeable in the world of make-believe as they are in the great outside world.

The- old and effete no longer have the power to please the grown-ups. Only the quickest, the easiest, and simplest methods will do. And so we find that the old rag doll, the lifeless menagerie, and the wooden blocks no longer have the power to keep the infant mind from seeking some mischief for its tiny hands to do ; The toys that charmed his grandfather's childhood days are no longer sufficient for Master 1927. Play is the child’s business of life, a.nd his toys are the material with which ho works.* What wonder then that he refuses his miniature hoise and cart (which he must draw along on a string), when his father daily sets out for the office in the latest thing in motor cars? Long before he is ready for the duties and responsibilities of life, a child assumes them in childish miniature through the medium of the toys with which he plays. The boy of live or six is even then an engine driver, who must at all costs pilot his tinv engine to its destination, warning the public of its approach by the clang and clamour of its imaginary bell. The game of pretence and make-believe brings him face to face with tiny responsibilities that will confront him again. The little girl is just as careful and concerned over the health and happiness of her babydoll as she would be of a real live child, and if the doll’s nursing and washing and going to bed lack a little of the regularity that characterises real life in children, it is every bit as zealous and sincere. Imaginary illness must be combatted just as realistically as make-believe naughtiness must be punished. The toys of to-day instruct and bring health just as surely as they amuse, and especially is this so in the case of boysBut what strikes us most about the nursery equipment of to-day is the fact that toy manufacturers have recognised the desire of every normal boy and girl for a truthful representation of a real motor car, railway engine, or other vehicle. To be sure, these toys are on a tiny scale and without engines, but to the child who owns one they are as real and as important as a grown-up’s. Toys ca be taken as a reflection of the times and localities in which they are used, and in this respect we can watch the changing tendencies of the child mind and read into them a reflection of the life of this young country of ours. Just a glance at the great array of toys to be seen in the toy shops of Dunedin is sufficient to impress upon one's mind several easily observable facts. The toys of to-day are sturdy; they have action ; they are realistic; they have a praci tical value-unthought of-by the toy manufacturers of the day when “granny danced the minuet.” They are made for the child of to-day, for whom it is not enough that a toy be pretty. It must be more ; it must be something with which the child can build or perform. Even the toys for very little children must have action, some semblance of realism, and withal that ever-present

necessity—durability. The toys in the form of ducks, rabbits, and teddy bears, attractively finished in bright reds, yellows, and greens, such as never adorned any fowl or beast, are nevertheless truo to shape and movement. The duck has a real waddle : the rabbit can really jump ; and the woolly bear will walk and grunt. And yet they are sturdy, so much so that a full-grown man can often trample on them without destroying these functions.. And what of dolls? They are prettier than ever, and sturdier, even z to being non-breakable. The flat-faced rag doll, limp and lifeless-looking, has been replaced by smiling beauties who go to sleep, say “Mamma,” and walk. Composition heads and tinted faces, flaxen curls and jet black tresses and beady eyes with drooping lids, are none too good for little Miss To-day. And the little mother in the nursery can make the doll’s clothes herself on her own sewing machine, incidentally mastering the elementary principles of machine sewing. Then there are flatirons and ironing boards, kitchen cabinets in aluminium, and tea sets and paraphernalia that laugh to shame the pessimist's fears about the tendency towards the ultimate disappearance of the gentle art of housekeeping. But a glance at the boy’s playbox explains why so many little girls wish they had been born boys. The little brothers are much better off when it comes to mechanical toys, and those which provide vigorous exercise and call for ingenuity and a constructive faculty. Not only are these toys of great educational value, but they are possessed of a neverfailing attraction. Moreover, they are built to stand the wear and tear of young barbarism. Little mechanical replicas ot the big devices they see in the world outside have a great appeal, and toy manufacturers know it, and the shop windows are for ever being filled with miniatures of almost every implement and vehicle ever devised.

Toy people in Dunedin, asked how it is that these mechanical playthings can be produced as cheaply as they are, say that this sort of thing has become as much of an industry as any one of Henry Ford’s enterprises. And when the child has tired of running about and pulling things round there is a long list of toys to suit his taste, running the gamut of appeal from the toddler to the boy in his teens. The modelling sets and hobbies of a hundred varieties are to be had in abundance. The boy with an engineering bent has construction sets, ranging from tiny boxes to fully-equipped chests, complete with nuts and bolts and wheels and everything. Scooters, trolleys, coasters, velocipedes, and miniature motor cars, propelled by foot power, are just a few of the toys that move and keep the child mind interested. They bring good health, develop self-reliance, and nuture a desire for the great outdoors, and these days i they are the only sort the wise parent j buvs.

It is just what was to be expected. The old order changed in the world of reality, and it had to change a’so in the child’s realm of make-believe. The toys of to-day are toys that endure. They are the ones that develop the tiny muscles and sinews of the child’s body, fire his imagination, and quicken his constructive instinct. leaving behind them in the mind that later contemptuously ignores them, the seeds of ambition and aspiration.