with
many, when alternated with study, is amusing. And yet, after all, unless
such labors are performed in company, where light and cheerful
conversation is sure to keep the mind away from the subjects about
which it has just been engaged, I am afraid that the purposes for which
amusements were designed, are very far from being _all_ secured.

But perhaps I am dwelling too long on the general principle that people
of every age, and children in particular, need, and must have
amusements, whether they are of a productive kind or not; and that it is
very far from being sufficient, were it either practicable or desirable,
to turn all study and labor into amusement. [Footnote: I will even say,
more distinctly than I have already done, that however popular the
contrary opinion may be, neither study nor work ought to be regarded as
mere amusement. I would, it is true, take every possible pains to render
both work and study agreeable; but I would at the same time have it
distinctly understood, that one of them is by no means the other; that,
on the contrary, work is _work_--study, _study_--and amusement,
_amusement_.] My business is with those who direct the first dawnings
of affection and intellect. Principles are by no means of less importance
on this account; but the limits of a work for young mothers do not admit
of anything more than a brief discussion of their importance.

I will now proceed to speak of some of the more common amusements of the
nursery.

I have seen very young children sit on the floor and amuse themselves
for nearly half an hour together, with piling up and taking down small
wooden cubes, of different sizes. Some of them, instead of being cubes,
however, may be of the shape of bricks. Their ingenuity, while they are
scarcely a year or two old, in erecting houses, temples, churches, &c.,
is sometimes surprising. Girls as well as boys seem to be greatly amused
with this form of exercise; and both seem to be little less gratified in
destroying than in rearing their lilliputian edifices.

Next to the latter kind of amusement, is the viewing of pictures. It is
surprising at what an early age children may be taught to notice
miniature representations of objects; living objects especially.
Representations of the works of art should come in a little later than
those of things in nature. I know a father who prepares volumes of
pictures, solely for this purpose; though he usually regards them not
only as a sou