TOXINS 



5852 



TOYS 



example, in the case of a sudden and suspicious 

 death, it is the toxicologist's duty to determine 

 whether death was from poison; if so, what the 

 poison was, and whether it was administered 

 knowingly or was accidentally taken. See POI- 

 SON; ANTIDOTE. 



TOXINS, tok' sinz, poisonous substances cre- 

 ated in the body by germs. According to a 

 generally accepted theory these poisons are the 

 cause of anthrax, diphtheria, meningitis, lock- 

 jaw and various other so-called germ diseases. 

 Toxins are of special interest to the scientist 

 because the study of their poisonous properties 

 has made possible certain preparations called 

 antitoxins, which neutralize or prevent their 

 evil effects. 



Related Subjects. The reader is referred to 

 the following articles in these volumes : 

 Antitoxin Disease, subhead Germ 



Bacteria and Bacteri- Theory of Disease 



ology Life Extension 



Medicine and Drugs 



TOYS. The desire to imitate the action of 

 his elders is born in every child. The tiny 

 girl must "mother" something, must play the 

 housewife or the teacher; the little boy must 

 be an engineer or a fireman, a farmer or a po- 

 liceman; and it is of this universal desire that 

 the necessity for toys is born. Toys are arti- 

 ficial helps in this universal mimicry, and if 

 they are not furnished, substitutes for them, 

 however crude, will be devised by the children. 

 If the little girl has no cups and saucers for her 

 afternoon tea party, acorns and leaves can be 

 made to take their places ; if the small brother 

 has no hobbyhorse, a chair and a rope furnish 

 an acceptable substitute. 



The Right Kind of Toys. The judgment of 

 those who have made a study of children and 

 their play favors decidedly the acorn cups and 

 the chair horse rather than too elaborate sub- 

 stitutes. Occasionally a child is found who 

 seems to be completely lacking in the happy 

 faculty of "make-believe." He can see only 

 what is there, can hear only actual sounds. He 

 cannot in imagination clothe the broken kitchen 

 chair with glossy hair and waving mane, or hear 

 the fierce growls of the dragon that lurks in 

 the dark under the table. Such a child de- 

 mands elaborate toys that leave no details to 

 be supplied. 



But the ordinary child is not thus handi- 

 capped. Give him a hint, and the rest follows 

 as if by magic. The sofa can be a ship or a 

 cave in the desert, a soldier's cot or a king's 

 throne, all in the course of an hour; the 



roughly-hewn wooden figure Can be a robber 

 chief or an Indian, a hero or a villain, and can 

 Actually look, to the child's eyes, like every one 

 of these in turn. To give to such a child toys 

 too elaborately wrought is to do him a real 

 injury. Creative imagination is all too rare, 

 and it should be fostered, not stifled, in every 

 child. 



The best kinds of toys, then, are those that 

 suggest rather than fulfil, and those with which 

 the child can really do something. Mechanical 

 toys, which supply their own energy, should 

 never be allowed to take the place of those 

 into which the child must infuse a part of his 

 own life and energy. 



The Home-Made Toy. It follows from this 

 that the toys which are made by the children 

 themselves are the ideal ones. Expensive ma- 

 terials and tools are neither necessary nor de- 

 sirable; an array of boxes of various sizes, 

 spools, paper, string and cigar-box wood, to- 

 gether with a hammer, scissors and small nails 

 and a bottle of glue will keep the ingenious 

 child happy indefinitely. The doll's house may 

 be furnished throughout with furniture made 

 of pasteboard or heavy paper (see KINDERGAR- 

 TEN, pages 3242 and 3243), and the doll inmates, 

 with all their changes of costume, can be fash- 

 ioned easily according to suggestions made on 

 pages 1831 to 1834. Clothespin men afford 

 much amusement, and spools and match boxes 

 provide material for all sorts of carts and 

 wagons. The child who is "handy" and has a 

 fair degree of ingenuity can manage to make 

 use of many of the odds and ends which are 

 thrown into the wastebasket. 



The making of such toys furnishes an excel- 

 lent introduction to the manual training work 

 of the schools; and any boy who has taken 

 manual training should find no difficulty in 

 making, for the delight of his younger brothers 

 and sisters, the wooden toys shown in the color 

 plate herewith. 



History of Toys. Just because toys are imi- 

 tative and reflect the fashions and the interests 

 of the day in which they are made, they are of 

 real interest to students. The jointed wooden 

 dolls and the crocodile with movable jaws 

 found in the tombs of ancient Egypt make that 

 far-away time and country seem much closer 

 and more human, while the tops and hoops 

 with which the Roman children played prove 

 that child nature and child desires have 

 changed little through the centuries. Doubt- 

 less the Roman boys played at chariot racing 

 with improvised chariots, and the boys of the 



