ongs or play it. The children must
guess what it is and then act out their guess in pantomime, so that
she can see what they mean. Perhaps it is a windmill song; their
arms fly around and around in time to the music, now fast, now slow.
Perhaps it is a Spring song; the children are birds building their
nests. Other songs turn them into shoemakers, galloping horses, or
soldiers.

[Sidenote: Dramatic Plays]

Dramatic plays, whether simple, like this, or elaborate, are,
as Goethe shows in _Wilhelm Meister_, of the greatest possible
educational advantage. In them the child expresses his ideas of the
world about him and becomes master of his own ideas. He acts out
whatever he has heard or seen. He acts out also whatever he is
puzzling about, and by making the terms of his problem clear to his
consciousness usually solves it.

[Sidenote: Dancing]

As for dancing, Richter exclaims: "I know not whether I should most
deprecate children's balls or most praise children's dances. For the
harmony connected with it (dancing) imparts to the affections and the
mind that material order which reveals the highest, and regulates the
beat of the pulse, the step, and even the thought. Music is the meter
of this poetic movement, and is an invisible dance, as dancing is a
silent music. Finally, this also ranks among the advantages of his
eye and heel pleasure; that children with children, by no harder canon
than the musical, light as sound, may be joined in a rosebud feast
without thorns or strife." The dances may be of the simplest kind,
such as "Ring Around a Rosy," "Here We Go, To and Fro," "Old Dan
Tucker" and the "Virginia Reel." The old-fashioned singing plays, such
as "London Bridge," "Where Oats, Peas, Beans, and Barley Grow," and
"Pop Goes the Weasel" have their place and value. Several collections
of them have been made and published, but usually quite enough
material may be found for these plays in the memories of the people of
any neighborhood.

[Sidenote: Toys]

All these plays, it will be noticed, call for very simple and
inexpensive apparatus, in most cases for no apparatus at all.
Nevertheless there is a place for toys. All children ought to have
a few, both because of the innocent pleasure they afford and because
they need to have certain possessions which are inalienably their own.
A simple and inexpensive list of suitable toys adapted to various ages
is given at the end of this section. Most of them are exactly the