58o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



a living companion. Sometliing alive there must be, or at least 

 something to simulate life, if only a railway engine. And here 

 we meet with what is perhaps the most interesting feature of 

 childish play the transmutation of the most meager and least 

 promising things into complete living 'forms. I have already al- 

 luded to the sofa. How many forms of animal life, vigorous and 

 untiring, from the patient donkey up to the untamed horse of the 

 prairies, has this most inert-looking ridge served to image forth 

 to quick boyish perception ! 



The introduction of these living things seems to illustrate the 

 large compass of the child's realizing power. Mr. Ruskin speaks 

 somewhere of " the perfection of childlike imagination, the power 

 of making everything out of nothing. . . . The child," he adds, 

 " does not make a pet of a mechanical mouse that runs about the 

 floor. . . . The child falls in love with a quiet thing, with an ugly 

 one nay, it may be with one to us totally devoid of meaning. 

 The hesoin de croire precedes the hesoin d'aimer." 



The quotation brings us to the focus where the rays of childish 

 imagination seem to converge, the transformation of toys. 



The fact that children make living things out of their toy 

 horses, dogs, and the rest is known to every observer of their ways. 

 To the natural, unskeptical eye the boy on his rude-carved wooden 

 " gee-gee," slashing the dull flanks with all a boy's glee, is realiz- 

 ing the joy of actual riding ; is possessed for the moment with 

 the glorious ideas that the stiff, least organic-looking of structures 

 which he strides is a very horse. 



The liveliness of this realizing imagination is seen in the ex- 

 traordinary poverty and meagerness of the toys which to their 

 happy possessors are wholly satisfying. Here is a pretty picture 

 of child's play from a German writer : 



" There sits a little charming master of three years before his 

 small table, busied for a whole hour in a fanciful game with shells. 

 He has three so-called snake-heads in his domain a large one 

 and two smaller ones ; this means two calves and a cow. In a 

 tiny tin dish the little farmer has put all kinds of petals that is, 

 the fodder for his numerous and fine cattle. When the play has 

 lasted a time the fodder dish transforms itself into a heavy wagon 

 with hay ; the little shells now become little horses, and are put 

 to the shaft to pull the terrible load." * 



The doll takes a supreme place in this fancy-realm of play. 

 It is human, and satisfies higher instincts and emotions. As a 

 French poet says, the little girl 



"Eeve le nom de m^re en berant sa poupee." 

 * Goltz, Buch der Kindheit, pp. 4, 5. 



