Abstract
Children’s toys are the material culture that reflects their play, games are the form their play takes, and stories articulate their play. Archaeological finds are not always clear about the artifacts they give up, and what we see as toys may have had some other purpose. If no explanatory documentation exists, and only the artifact or a single image exists, we can only guess at the purpose of the “toy” or how a game may have been played. Fortunately, many toys and games have a long history, and how children play today, and how they played centuries ago, are strikingly similar.
He who is good at anything as a man must practice that thing from early childhood, in play as well as earnest, with all the attendant circumstances of the action. Thus, if a boy is to be a good farmer, or again, a good builder, he should play, in the one case at building toy houses, in the other at farming, and both should be provided by their tutors with miniature tools on the pattern of real ones. We should see to use games as a means of directing children’s tastes and inclinations toward the station they are themselves to fill when adult.
Plato ~ Laws 1.643B
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Notes
- 1.
See http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/timelines/topics/games.htm for more information and images of toys and games from Ancient Egypt.
- 2.
Music was a broad term that encompassed singing, poetry, playing an instrument, and dancing.
- 3.
Citizens were expected to sing and dance in choruses all their lives (Bobonich).
- 4.
The exhibit Coming of Age in Ancient Greece , held in 2003 at the Hood Museum at Dartmouth, brought together images from collections in Europe, Canada, and the U.S. See at http://hoodmuseum.dartmouth.edu/explore/exhibitions/coming-age-ancient-greece and http://www.dartmouth.edu/~hood/exhibitions/coa/re_high_games.html.
- 5.
0–7: infancy (infantia)
7–14: childhood (pueritia)
14–28: adolescence (adolescentia)
28–50: youth (inventus)
50–70: maturity (gravitas)
70–: old age (senecturs)
- 6.
The Pilgrimage of the Soul, British Library MS Egerton 615, 1413. Found at http://www.larsdatter.com/toys.htm. Translated from the Old French Le Pèlerinage de l’Âme by Guillaume de Deguileville . One of the works printed in England by William Caxton . See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pilgrimage_of_the_Soul.
- 7.
A list of the games can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Games_(Bruegel).
- 8.
More images can be found at http://irisharchaeology.ie/2013/02/a-hoard-of-16th-and-17th-century-childrens-toys/.
- 9.
Luther’s treatises on education, An address to the magistrates and common councils of all the cities of Germany in behalf of common schools (1525) and Sermon on the Duty of Sending Children to School (1530), are available at http://media.sabda.org/alkitab-8/LIBRARY/LUT_WRK4.PDF.
- 10.
Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th Edition, vi. 182. Syracuse, NY.: C.W. Bardeen, Publisher. 1887. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/28299/28299-h/28299-h.htm.
- 11.
Jane Johnson Manuscript Nursery Library, ca. 1740–1750, Johnson, J. mss., Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.
- 12.
- 13.
The Girl’s Own Book on “entertainment for girls” became an essential reference for physically engaging activities during the nineteenth century. First printed in 1830 by S. Colman in Boston and New York, by 1832 it was in its 4th Edition with the publisher Thomas Tegg and Son in London. The 15th Edition from 1850 was completely re-edited with many new additions. From that time the book was regularly updated until 1885 when a final edition that was “considerably enlarged and modernized” with new games and activities was published. A complete record of the many published versions can be found at http://www.worldcat.org.
- 14.
This edition of the book is available at https://archive.org/stream/girlsownbook00chil#page/n3/mode/2up.
- 15.
- 16.
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Madej, K. (2016). Toys and Games. In: Physical Play and Children’s Digital Games. SpringerBriefs in Computer Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42875-8_4
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