is of home
manufacture, the jardiniere too, is of modelling clay, gaily painted
with water colors. The tea table and stove are improvised from blocks
as is the bath room, through the door of which a block "tub" may be
seen. The screen used as a partition at the back is one of the Play
School "properties" with large sheets of paper as panels. (See cut p.
20.)

There are some important differences, however, between the content of
a play scheme like this and one of the kind we have been considering
(see cut page 30). These result from the size and character of the
initial play material, for dolls like these invite an entirely
different type of treatment. One cannot build villages, or provide
extensive railroad facilities for them, nor does one regard them in
the impersonal way that the "Do-with" family, or Mr. Wells' soldiers,
are regarded, as incidentals in a general scheme of things.

These beings hold the centre of their little stage. They call for
affection and solicitude, and the kind of play into which they fit is
more limited in scope, less stirring to the imagination, but more
usual in the experience of children, because play material of this
type is more plentifully provided than is any other and, centering
attention as it does on the furnishings and utensils of the home,
requires less contact with or information about, the world outside and
its activities to provide the mental content for interesting play.

[Illustration: A "Furnished Apartment" at the Ethical Culture School]

In the epochs of play development interest in these larger scale toys
precedes that in more complicated schemes with smaller ones. Mr.
Wells' stress on the desirability of a toy soldier population really
reflects an adult view. For play on the toy soldier and paper doll
scale develops latest of all, and because of the opportunities it
affords for schemes of correspondingly greater mental content makes
special appeal to the adult imagination.

Play material smaller than the "Do-with" models and better adapted to
this latest period than are either soldiers or paper dolls remains one
of the unexplored possibilities for the toy trade of the future.

[Illustration: Supplementary (A small toy train.)]

[Illustration: A play laundry.]*

HOUSEKEEPING PLAY

Materials for housekeeping play are of two general kinds, according to
size--those intended for the convenience of dolls, and those of larger
scale for children's use. The larger kin