overlooked in this manner, and it requires something in the nature of a new symptom of the tendency to call our attention to it, and induce us to analyse it. Of this kind is the love which children, and men and women too, bear to their respective toys. The photographic mania which has seized some of our friends was the new symptom wanting; it is in many respects analogous to the love that children bear to their toys, and our big friends play with their cameras much in the same way as our little ones do with their drums and whistles. Being therefore put upon investigation, we arrived at some results which we believe to be of practical utility in the science of education; if so, they cannot be unimportant, and will not, we hope, be uninteresting to such as will accompany us through the course of our analysis.

But first it would, perhaps, be well to state as nearly as possible what we mean by toys and toying, since without a definition of some sort it will be difficult to arrive at any clear deduction. If, then, we closely examine our ideas on the subject, it will probably be found that what most of us mean by toying is the exercise of some pursuit, or the use of some external and inanimate object, for the mere pleasure derivable from the particular pursuit or use, without reference to any ulterior end. The word toy, too, though usually applied to the external and inanimate object itself, is also sometimes, or at least might be not inaptly, applied to a pursuit so followed, and might thus be rendered completely correlative to the word toying.

If these definitions be accepted, the ordinary opinion that toys belong peculiarly to children will at once appear to be crroneous. There is, in fact, very little difference in kind between the toys of children and those of men, except that the former are more generally the objects of natural and original tastes, while most of the latter are the results of tastes acquired by habits.

This similarity is urged not from any wish to depreciate the pursuits of men; we are not setting up those platitudes, false as they are trite, "that gold is dross" and "honor a bubble." Gold will exchange for much more than dross, and if not a

means to happiness is, at least, a means of destroying much misery. Honor-had it no higher advantages than the good treatment consequent on the good opinion of others-is considerably more valuable than the gaudiest of soap bubbles on the sunniest of days; and because "all is not gold that glitters," it by no means follows that nothing that glitters is gold. But we urge the similarity rather with a view of showing that the tendency to toying, being common to child and man, must be worthy of consideration; it is universal, it must therefore be natural-and, if natural, must have been designed for some purpose. Some persons may be satisfied with the explanation that this tendency was implanted with the mere object of giving us pleasure, but others, no doubt, will desire to go deeper than this; the analogy of our other pleasures,-which are for the most part linked by indissoluble bonds with some machinery for the improvement or supply of our nature will lead many to suppose that in this case also a like connection, though not immediately apparent, may still exist. We shall endeavour to trace it out, and for this purpose we begin with the toys of children, as their motives are commonly less complex and more openly displayed than those of adults.

Children's toys may then in general for the purposes of analysis be divided as follows. First come the representatives of living things, as dolls, wooden horses, &c., and this class may most strictly be termed toys, for in this case the child is found to love the individual toy, while in others he loves playing with the toys only, and does not prefer one to another exactly similar. Next in order we may place objects peculiarly suggestive of a particular character or occupation; this class may be represented by the drum, tin sword, &c. Thirdly may be ranked mechanical toys: and, lastly, those which are merely vehicles of physical pleasure, or little more, as hoops, tops, &c. Of course no such division can be complete, nor can the parts be entirely distinct. There are many toys which partake of the nature of two or more of the above classes; the rocking-horse for instance, though in some respects allied to the first class in our division, comes

more properly under the last, and a child generally feels a greater love for a ride on his rocking-horse than for the horse itself. Again, the drum, though a good example of the second class, partakes in some degree of the character of a mechanical toy, and is, as we shall hereafter have occasion to remark, often treated accordingly.

These classes we have arranged in the order in which, according to our observation, they stand ranked for the most part in the affections of their youthful patrons: in some cases, indeed, the order may be changed, but as a general rule the first class is liked best and most widely; the second next, and so on to the fourth, which usually comes last. Upon these facts and numerous others, some of which may hereafter be mentioned, we are bold enough to ground a theory of our own; it is as follows. The love felt for toys is greater or less in proportion to the degree in which they educate and stimulate the powers, to the number of the powers so stimulated, and their sensitiveness.

The first or representative class stimulates not only the affections but also the creative or poetic part of our nature. There never was a child who did not speak to its doll or its horse; it imagines a character for the toy, and is forced to do so for the simple reason that it never knew a man, woman, or child, or a horse, without one; and then, having endowed the object with a character, it is compelled to like or dislike it accordingly. The imagination is thus exercised in a twofold manner-first, in the creation so to speak of an external being; next, in the modification of internal character. The relations which on the creation of such an external being would necessarily arise between it and the child, are immediately supplied by the child's imagination, and the feelings or emotive parts of his nature are by the same process also exercised and developed. The imagination and the emotions are precisely those portions of human nature which are freshest and most vigorous in childhood; they are those which are the earliest developed; and this may be the reason why the first class of toys gives, as a general rule, the most pleasure to children.

The double functions of the imagination above mentioned may, per

haps, be rendered more obvious by a comparison of the first with the second or characteristic class of toys, which last exercises one of these functions only to any great extent. The power of modifying internal character, which may be called the power of subjective creation, is strongly developed by the characteristic class, but that of external or objective creation far less so. A boy does indeed draw his sword, and march as he imagines to glory, but there the creation ends; he does indeed imagine himself in other circumstances, and conceives the emotions and ideas which those circumstances would naturally suggest; but he creates no being external to himself, his own character and its modifications are the objects of his fancies, he projects no individuality other than his own.

The combination of these thingsviz., the existence of the new external creation, and the consequent modification of the child's own feelings which occurs in the first class of toysoften reacts on the objective faculty, and time, place, and other accidents purely fictitious are supplied by the young romancer. In such a case you may often hear a long conversation between a child and its doll-if that can be called a conversation where you can almost understand what the silent party was supposed to have said by the retort of the speaker. We remember a curious illustration of these remarks. We once knew a doll rudely constructed of a painted block, without limbs, and with a battered nose, but a high favourite notwith standing, owing, we suppose, to high moral and intellectual qualities. On one occasion, in a drawingroom, in broad daylight, we heard the following remonstrance addressed to this favourite :-"Oh Bob! such a ting, Bob! To put a gridiron in my bed and the candle out!" We do not remember the defence offered, but it was, we believe, quite satisfactory, for the friendship continued for a long time as strong to all appearance as

ever.

On the whole it seems that the emotions, or, at least, the relative emotions, are far less exercised by the characteristic than by the representative toys, and a much smaller and less important part even of the imagination is stimulated or developed

by the former than by the latter: the training given by the first would tend to produce a Shakspeare or a Homer; that imparted by the second class could get no higher than a Byron.

Coming now to the third class, one can hardly fail to be struck with the very marked difference between the use which children make of mechanical toys, and the treatment experienced at their hands by toys of the other classes. The latter when broken are so generally by accident; the former are always broken, and are broken from design. It is true that a drum is often destroyed on purpose, but this is to see whence the sound proceeds; it is in so far as it partakes of the nature of a mechanical toy that it comes under a similar treatment, and the child having broken one or two designedly, does not go on breaking more of them, but he nevertheless continues to like and play with them in the character of toys of the second class.

It is an axiom in political economy that consumption is the end and object of production, and there is a proverb about promises and piecrusts, but both these sayings, however true with regard to other things, are doubly so if applied to mechanical toys. If a child do not break up these, he is worth little, and will, moreover, care little for them (except so far as they may partake of the nature of another class); it is, therefore, a most mistaken as well as a useless part which some parents take to give injunctions to their children not to break such toys. These in

junctions-useless if disregarded, as they always are-would be positively prejudicial if they were obeyed; for the secret of the toy's attraction seems to be the stimulus thereby given to the scientific invention, that is, the invention of means to arrive at a given end, the discovery of causes producing a given effect.

Considering, then, what sort of exercise would be most likely to stimulate this faculty, it will probably occur to one that the best means for so doing will be to practise as much as possible the habit or process of thought made use of in scientific invention, and this we shall find to be the very habit or process to which nature itself points-viz., the way of analysis, proceeding from the effect to the

cause, [from the end to the means. This we shall see also is the very habit of thought induced by mechanical toys. The child sees a movement produced by turning a handle, which yet to his eyes has no connection with the particular motion produced he conjectures how this is brought about, and he either arrives at some conclusion or he does not. In the first case, he breaks open the toy to test whether he is right or not. In the second, he breaks it open to satisfy his curiosity; in either case it is destroyed, and it is in its destruction that it gives pleasure-it is by its destruction that it does good. The first inducement to inquiry in the child's mind, in such a case, is the wonder caused by seeing two movements apparently unconnected and yet always concurrent. The inquiry, when commenced, is prosecuted, as far as may be, in mere thought; but when a conclusion is arrived at-if it be ever arrived at-so surely open goes the toy to test the correctness of such conclusion; and, if none be arrived at, then the duration of the toy depends on the patience of the child. Some persons will remain longer than others without giving up a conundrum, and some children will puzzle longer than others without breaking open a toy.

The pleasure and the advantage arising from the fourth class of toys are both, as it would seem, purely physical, except so far as a certain amount of mental or moral cultivation—a certain degree of endurance and perseverance is required for the attainment of skill. With this remark, we may leave this class, which is so simple as to need no further comment for it is sufficiently ob vious that physical exercise gives physical pleasure, and that physical exercise improves physical powers.

Having thus examined children's toys, it may be interesting to see if the theory suggested by the examination will bear the test which its ap plication to the toys of adults will afford. Sporting, then, which is perhaps the best instance of adult toying, may be first submitted to the test. Here our analysis leads us to believe that the sources of pleasure are-First, the exercise of manual skill in the use of the weapon or instrument; of mental skill in the knowledge of the habits

of the game and of the beasts used as the sportsman's allies. Next, the uncertainty of the result and the intellectual exercise in the rapid calculation of probabilities; the data varying much in different sports, and one of them being frequently your own amount of skill-and this source we may call ancipitation. Thirdly, emulation with others. Again, in some sports the sympathy felt for or with the exertion and skill of others, whether men or beasts. And lastly, the physical exercise, and the scenes which are in general incidental to sporting. We are aware that destructiveness is supposed by some to be a source of pleasure, and perhaps so far as destruction is a striking and obvious evidence of power, it may have a slight share in the pleasure of sporting; but that such share, if any, must be very small, is manifest if we consider the source of it apart from the other sources above mentioned. It may give pleasure to break a bottle with a rifle bullet, or even with a stone hurled at it, but the amount of enjoyment afforded by taking the same bottle and throwing it on the ground, is almost infinitesimal. However, we have no objection to such a source of pleasure standing for what it is worth, especially as it in nowise invalidates our pet theory. Whoever likes may, therefore, rank it a sixth element in the pleasures of sporting.

But of the other elements, the first -viz., the exercise of skill, is so plain in most cases, that no more need be said upon it. It forms a large part of the pleasure in shooting, hunting, fishing, and many other sports; and that it does so will appear at once by considering that, in general, other things being the same, the less skill is required for any sport the less is the pleasure derived from it. For instance, there is less sport in shooting rooks than shooting snipe, and less in shooting even rooks with small shot than with bullet. In all these cases it is difficult, if not impossible, to climinate the second item of pleasure above noticed-we mean ancipitation--for in every case in which less skill is required, the chance of your having a sufficient amount is in

creased, and the odds on the result less evenly balanced; but they are, nevertheless, different items, for a sportsman can often arrive at an almost certain estimate of his own skill, and yet the more difficult sport will afford him the greater pleasure. We find also that in some pursuits which are called sports, the first item is altogether absent, and the second then shows in bold relief. Of such a kind are horse-racing, coursing, and that almost exploded brutality-cockfighting-not to speak of gambling generally at games of chance. Indeed, perhaps, by no examples are the existence and the distinctions of these two sources of pleasure more clearly shown, than by considering the pleasure that men take in chess and in dice.*

The educational effect of both these sources of pleasure may be easily apprehended: the former obviously induces a discipline of perseverance, and excites to the habit of overcoming difficulties. The latter tends, though not so obviously, to make one judge rapidly as to a course of action on an emergency, and to act decidedly on such judgment; this would, on a mere examination, appear to be its tendency, but testing such conclusion experimentally it is found borne out in fact; the best sportsmen are, as a general rule, those who when tried in critical circumstances, turn out the most self-possessed, the most rapid in decision, and the most decided in action. It was not without reason that by almost every military people hunting was considered as the school of war.

Emulation is so eminently an educational stimulus, that it is ordinarily the feeling of our nature which is most made use of for the purposes of education: its further consideration may, therefore, be neglected here, and we may pass at once to the remaining sources of pleasure. Of the fifth, too, viz. the physical pleasure of exercise, &c.-we need say nothing more; but the fourth requires a few words of comment. Sympathy for the skill and exertion of others, eithermen or beasts, is by no means common to all sports; in some, however, it is

the largest source of the pleasure derived from them, and, perhaps combined with ancipitation forms the whole of that properly arising from racing or coursing. It enters largely into hunting and fishing, and somewhat into shooting also. In hunting, the sympathy felt for the pack, and for individual dogs in it, is almost the characteristic difference between the sportsman and the mere horseman; a `considerable sympathy is also felt even for the fox if he runs well -something akin to "the stern joy which warriors feel in foemen worthy of their steel." In shooting, the sympathies are less brought out; and if one shoots alone, there is nothing to sympathise with except one's dog; for in shooting there is no struggle, the trigger is drawn, and all is over; the game is either hit or missed, there is no time for sympathy; but with our dogs we do sympathise with their skill, with their excitement, with their caution, as they throw themselves back, their tails stiffened, and slowly and noiselessly advance with neck outstretched, nostril distended, and eye fixed, and we watch them road " up the scent to where the game lies, with an interest the most intense, for which, we confess, it puzzles us to account in any other way than by supposing it is a mixture of sympathy and ancipitation. In shooting with a companion however, which is a much pleasanter occupation than solitary sport, the sympathies are of course more developed, and then we may say with Locksley, "I always add my hollo, when I see a good shot or a gallant blow." Fishing remains; and in that sport, as the struggle is more direct between the sportsman and the game during the "play," and is moreover a struggle of skill against strength, of mind against matter, the sympathy, viz., the "stern joy," and the ancipitation, raise the excitement higher than that of any other sport in our opinion, hardly excepting hunting itself. Now, it is hardly worth while to stop in order to show the value of the stimulus given to the sympathies. Anything which draws us out of ourselves in this toiling, selfish world, is an advantage; and we believe, therefore, that there is no such renovator of

the constitution, moral, mental, and material, as, after labour in reek and fog during the year, to abandon it with a spring, and to enjoy clear sky, fresh air, heather, and sport.

Even the artificial tastes, whose gratifications become toys, have something in them of an educational character. Let us, for instance, take the one most commonly abhorred, most commonly the butt of satire-avarice. A vice it is no doubt, as the exclusive pursuit of almost anything becomes a vice; it is a vice, too, whose ill-effects are wide spread, and whose influence is destructive to most of the loveable and estimable qualities of the mind; but, still, a vice which has at its root tendencies that, well-directed, go a long way to make one good and great. Perhaps we are going too fast-we are assuming that the gratification of avarice is toying. Well, we hope we can prove it. Money is a toy to the miser. Does he love it for anything but itself? Where is his enjoyment in it? We answer Itself is his enjoyment. Thinking of it, brooding over it, making it, these are his enjoyments in it; and what then should prevent our calling it a toy? It is a serious sort of toying, but toying it is. It has been said that avarice is a phase of the love of power. This we cannot concede. The desire of wealth may be caused by the desire of power; but the ambitious man is rarely avaricious. Morey with him is a means, he acquires power by spending it, and gratifies his passion; but the miser never acquires power, nor does he seek it. Money with him is the end : he acquires it by saving it, and so gratifies his passion. Nay, he will barter power for wealth, in the same way as the ambitious barter money for power; and how then can avarice and ambition be called the same passion?

But qualities lie at the bottom of both, many of which are similar, and most of which are good, if well applied. There is much that is educational even in avarice; for instance, self-restraint is exercised and strengthened to a greater degree by avarice and ambition, than by almost any other discipline. The gratification of avarice is a constant series of sacrifices of present pleasures for remote