"The French toy represents the versatility of the nation, touching
every topic, grave or grotesque.
"From Berlin come long trains of artillery, regiments of lead, horse
and foot on moving tramways.
"From the Hartz and the Alps still issue those wooden herds, more
characteristic of the dull feelings of their makers than of the
instincts of the animals they represent.
"The American toys justify the rule we have found good elsewhere, that
their character both reveals and prefaces the national tendencies.
With us, toys refer the mind and habits of children to home economy,
husbandry, and mechanical labor; and their very material is durable,
mainly wood and iron.
"So from childhood every people has its sympathies expressed or
suppressed, and set deeper in its flesh and blood than scholastic
ideas.... The children who have no toys seize realities very late, and
never form ideals.... The nations rendered famous by their artists,
artisans, and idealists have supplied their infants with many toys,
for there is more philosophy and poetry in a single doll than in a
thousand books.
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