toys
that parents usually buy. But it will be noticed that none of them are
very elaborate or expensive, and that the patrol wagon is not among
them. This is because the patrol wagon directly leads to plays that
are not only uneducational but positively harmful in their tendencies.
The children of a whole neighborhood were once led into the habit of
committing various imitation crimes for the sake of being arrested
and carried off in miniature patrol wagon. It any such expensive and
elaborate toys are bought, it may well be the plain express wagon or
the hook and ladder and fire engine. The first of these leads to plays
of industry, the second to those of heroism.

LIST OF TOYS SUITABLE FOR VARIOUS AGES.

Ball, rubber ring, soft animals and rag dolls ......... Before 1 year
Blocks and Bells ............................................. 1 year
Small chair and table ....................................1 1/2 years
Noah's Ark .................................................. 2 years
Picture books ............................................... 2 years
Materials and instruments .............................. 2 to 3 years
Carts, stick-horses, and reins ..................... 2 1/2 to 3 years
Boats, ships, engines, tin or wooden animals, dolls,
dishes, broom, spade, sand-pile, bucket, etc ................ 3 years
Hoop, games and story books ................................. 5 years

OCCUPATIONS

[Sidenote: Home Kindergarten]

There are a number of books designed to teach mothers how to carry the
Kindergarten occupations over into the home; but while such books may
be helpful in a few cases, in most cases better occupations present
themselves in the course of the day's work. The Kindergarten
occupations themselves follow increasingly the order of domestic
routine. For example, many children in the Kindergarten make mittens
out of eiderdown flannel in the Fall, when their own mothers are
knitting their mittens, and make little hoods either for themselves
or for their dolls. At other periods they put up little glasses of
preserves or jelly, and study the industry of the bees and the way
they put up their tiny jars of jelly. Their attention is called also
to the preparations that the squirrels and other animals make for
winter, and to that of the trees and flowers. In other words, the
occupations in the Kindergarten are designed to bring the children
into conscious sympathy with the life of natu