MISCELLANEOUS

Relative frequency of some forms of doll play. In the supplementary reports to question 27, 266 children mention a fondness for dressing dolls; 218 like to wash them; 189 have a love of doll parties; 183, a love of sewing for them; 176, a love of playing school; 169, love of putting to sleep; 137, love of weddings; 93, of nursing; 82 mention treating them as companions, telling secrets, etc.; 79 love to feed them; 49, to punish them; 36, to play funerals.

The relations of doll and baby. If the wig comes off dolls, they are often treated as babies; sometimes they are made bald-headed to be babies. For some little children dolls with hair have no charm, and as children grow older they dislike baby dolls. Transference of affection from dolls to a new baby is often noted. Some are afraid of dolls till acquainted with babies and then become very fond of them. Some children think babies, like dolls, are filled with sawdust. Some experiment on babies, putting fingers in their eyes, etc., and treat them generally as they have been used to treating dolls.

Paper dolls. Some children never care for paper dolls; some think them best to play or act fairy stories. Of 27 boys, aged seven, 5 played with and preferred paper dolls. Some children prefer them to all others and play with them longer. As they grow older paper dolls have a peculiar fascination. One girl of seventeen ended doll play by putting her paper dolls in a scrapbook as a house. School, collective games, and families are more often played with paper dolls.

Maimed dolls. If dolls lose their heads, eyes, or get otherwise deformed, little children are often afraid of them. Some are horrified if the wig comes off; some little children fear everything in human shape, perhaps, till they make the acquaintance of a new baby and then love dolls. Some suddenly conceive lifelike wax dolls as real dead persons and have

sudden aversions for them. Some like to maim dolls, pulling off their limbs, perhaps killing them, in order to have a funeral. Sometimes it is thought rather disgraceful to both doll and owner to have new heads, limbs, etc. Accidents to dolls sometimes cause sensitive children to faint.

Influence of age. Very rare are those who begin doll play in the cradle and keep it up through life. The doll passion seems to be strongest between seven and ten, and to reach its climax between eight and nine.

In the supplementary papers 55 stopped playing dolls because they liked other things better; 50 ceased to care for them without being able to give a reason; 46 stopped because they were too old; 44, because too large; 22, because too busy and had no time; 15, because ashamed; II, because they loved a real baby. Others gave their dolls away, preferred new playmates, were made to stop, dolls were worn out, etc.

Persius tells us how the young Roman girl, when ripe for marriage, hung up her childhood's dolls as a votive offering to Venus.

Froude, in his life of Carlyle, tells how Mrs. Carlyle at the age of nine made an end of doll play. It had been intimated to her, by one whose wish was law, that a young lady reading Virgil must make an end of doll play. She decided that dolly should die like Dido, so with her many sumptuous dresses, her four-post bed, a faggot or two of cedar allumettes, a few sticks of cinnamon, a few cloves, and a nutmeg, her funeral pyre was built, and "the new Dido having placed himself in the bed, with help, spoke through my lips the last sad words of Dido the first, which I then had all by heart as pat as A, B, C. The doll having thus spoken, kindled the pile, and stabbed herself with a penknife by way of a Tyrian sword. Then, however, in the moment of seeing my poor doll blaze up (for being stuffed with bran she took fire and it was all over in no time), in that supreme moment my affection for her blazed up also, and I

religious, prone to run away, democrat, Presbyterian, rich, Baptist, idiotic.

that

Of the 579 answers to the supplementary syllabus, question 26 foots up as follows: 230 children thought their dolls good; 202 thought they felt cold; 185, that they could love; 183, that they felt tired; 161, that they could be hungry; 135, they were sometimes bad; 77, that they were jealous; 58, that they hated. The smallest proportion of girls ascribing these qualities to dolls were over thirteen, and next least come the feeble-minded children.

Although these sixty-five terms can hardly be designated as so many qualities, they, too, open a rich field for psychology. Interesting essays are waiting to be written on such topics as modesty for dolls, what constitutes their goodness and badness, its relation to good and bad looks, being good and bad all the time and alternating, doll penalties, their sense of fatigue, their power to sit still, their stupidity and obstinacy, their propensity to sleep or be wakeful, their affection, etc. Out of 45 children specially cross-questioned, aged six to eight, 8 boys and 22 girls thought dolls felt cold, I boy and 13 girls thought not. Out of 34 children of the same age 4 boys and 18 girls thought dolls felt tired, 2 boys and 10 girls thought not. Out of 48 children of the same age, specially questioned, 3 boys and 8 girls thought dolls got angry, 6 boys and 25 girls said no, and 6 were in doubt. Of 45 children asked whether their dolls loved them, 10 boys and 29 girls thought yes, none no, 6 did not know. Of 45 children questioned I boy and 2 girls said dolls hated some one, 8 boys and 24 girls thought not, 2 boys and 8 girls were in doubt. Psychic qualities are often suggested by looks, dress, or fancied resemblance to some one thought to have good or bad qualities, while colored dolls, brownies, German, Chinese, and other dolls are often fancied, especially by boys, because they are "funny" or exceptional.

Influence of dolls on children. All opinions received are rudely classified as follows: 44 adults simply report the influence of dolls on children as good; 41 think dolls help parenthood; 39 think rude dolls best to cultivate the imagination; 38 think dolls fit for domestic life; 38 think they develop moral qualities; 35, that they cultivate taste in dress; 35, that they teach to sew; 29, that they teach tidiness; 25 like rude dolls best; 25 think that they develop the social nature; 24, that they teach to make clothes; 24, that they teach thoroughness; 24 report that there was no regularity in the care of dolls; 23 thought the religious nature strengthened; 21, that they teach neatness; 21 say dolls are better cared for if lifelike; 13, that they are better loved when lifelike; 12, that they teach carefulness; 7, that the care of dolls helps in care of children; 6 think the doll passion makes no difference with children; 6 report great regularity in care of dolls; 6 say that it develops love of children; 6, that doll play is better for children in every way; 5, that imitation is stimulated; 4 each specify that playing with dolls' clothes helps children to combine colors, makes them more obedient, keeps them quiet, keeps them out of mischief, keeps them from bad company, makes them more tender, more thoughtful of others, and that expensive dolls are best. Three each specify improvement in dress, knowledge of color, say that children are more affectionate, more orderly, more sympathetic, that they never learn anything from doll play, that they have spells of regularity in caring for dolls, and that lifelike dolls are best. Two each think that dolls teach children to appreciate parents' care, make them more cheerful, help power of conversation, help design, teach knitting, to make patterns, make the child more observing, more persevering, more stylish, more gentle, more refined, exercise a softening influence, and that dolls should be in kindergarten. One each thinks that dolls help to care for baby, housekeeping, industry, kindness, that the finer senses and emotions are developed by them, and that they make children more courteous, that they teach embroidery, inspire desire for motherhood, philanthropy, love of beauty, memory, mending, originality, patience, power, womanliness, truthfulness, show mother the child's traits, make pure in thought, respectful, that there is danger of too many accessories, that the child's attitude toward dolls is harmed by too light treatment and remarks by parents, and that care for the doll's body helps children to know and care for their own.

Some individual opinions of parents and teachers are quite fully expressed: "they keep children from growing old"; "best of all is the reflex influence on the child of trying to teach her doll and of

trying to set a good example"; "nice dolls make children more careful of them and they ascribe human qualities to them, while rude dolls that can be banged about and made to take any part stimulate a more elementary type of imagination"; "to imagine the rug an ocean and have a stick doll with a frock that can be washed, gives the fancy something to do"; "she learned to read in order to read her doll a story"; "I had a strong wish to be as good as I thought my dolls were "; "children who care least for dolls love their own babies most later"; "dolls hurt my health by making me sit indoors and care too little for the company of other children, but they help me put myself in my parents' place"; "too fine dolls check fancy, beget restlessness and desire for everything, so there is a limit beyond which dolls should not go"; "when mothers fail to impress certain virtues they need but to say, 'How would you like to have your doll do it?' to score their point"; "dolls might aid in teaching geography, language, history, and drawing, by playing journeys to different countries, the use of foreign money, dress, food, or being engineers, sailors, etc."; "dolls might be brought to school and by teaching them children could learn their own lessons better"; "doll play reveals character and ideals"; "excess of the doll passion makes excitement, nervousness, worry, and some girls are teased into nervousness by their brothers for playing dolls."

The number and vast variety of objects more or less dollified well illustrate the remark of Victor Hugo- that as birds may take almost every material for a nest, so nothing resists the childish instinct to find or make dolls out of everything, and stones, books, balls, buttons, stove hooks, nails, bricks, washboards, flowers, pins, articles of food, objects with no trace of anything that can be called face, limbs, or head, are made dolls. Hugo's Cossette dressed, hugged, and put to sleep a naked sword. Occasionally immovable things like posts, stumps, and even trees are more or less dollified. The quick imagination of childhood makes an eye out of a speck or dot, and perhaps imagines the other features. This instinct cannot be entirely explained as nascent parenthood, but must include some elements of the widespread animism, if not fetichism, of children and savages. The valuable study of Dr. Fewkes, the Roman