[Gutenberg 45775] • Toy-Making in School and Home

I. EXTERNAL EVIDENCE

Women are often limited in their amusements and in their hobbies for lack of power or of knowledge to use the requisite implements. We may wield the needle, the brush, kitchen utensils, even the spade and the trowel, but what knowledge have we of the chisel, the plane, the saw, or even the friendly gimlet and the screw-driver?

The scissors answer many purposes until the points are broken, but how helpless we are with a screw or a saw, how futile are our attempts to adjust a loose door-handle, or to set the knives of a mowing machine! It is humiliating to call for help in such simple jobs, and tantalising not to be able to enjoy the carpenter's bench as our men-folk do in their hours of leisure.

A really active hobby, one entailing exercise of many muscles, otherwise resting, does help to keep a well-balanced mind and a healthy body. It saves one from fretfulness, from too great introspection; it keeps one cheerful and changes one's attitude of mind when change is needed.

It is possible that the management of big things falls into men's hands because from babyhood they have dealt with larger things than women, and through handling manageable things from an early age have developed the constructive faculty more thoroughly. The little girl deals with 'wee' things: stitches are small, dolls are small; there is a fatal tendency sometimes to 'niggle,' to 'finick'—not that men-folk are immune from this—to love uniformity and tidiness for their own sakes, to seek regularity rather than utility. The little girl, however, must, unless she is too thoroughly supervised, exercise some ingenuity in planning a doll's dress out of a cutting from the rag-bag; but her amusements and hobbies tend to pin her down to small things, and she does not rise far enough from her immediate surroundings. The dress of her little doll will follow the prevailing fashion. Originality in dress is eccentricity.

The girl takes pains to carry out her work (neatness is often the sole aim put before her), the boy finds methods. The girl hovers round the well-known place, the boy makes a bee-line to fresh fields. See how this affects reading: the girl still hankers after What Katy Did, What Katy Did Next, while the boy of her age is reading Jules Verne or Ballantyne or Henty, or if there is open access to shelves in the Free Library near him, you see him finding books on Airships, Submarines, Carpentry, or Engineering.

We started our voluntary classes with these ideas in mind, and at first allowed girls to choose an indoor occupation in the two winter terms instead of outdoor games. Many girls preferred games,

CONTENTS

Toy-making and its Educational Possibilities

General Principles; Materials

Paper Work for Infants

More Paper Toys

Match-box Toys

More Complicated Match-box and Cork Toys

Cork Animals harnessed to Sledges, etc.

More Cork Toys

Cardboard and Paper Ships

Cardboard and Paper Toys

Simple Woodwork

Materials

Some Difficulties in Toy-making

Merry-go-round, Swinging Boats, and Great Wheel

Flying Airships, Gondolas, and Birds

Fire-engine, Motor-lorry, and Steam-roller

Gipsy Caravan and Bathing Machine

A Train and Railway Station

Red Cross Motor and Taxi-cab

Swinging and Jointed Animals

Additional Tools

Capstan, Dreadnought, Liner

Motor-car, Swinging Cradle, Deck-chair

A Tram-car

A Crane

Windmill, Water-wheel, Well

Drawbridge and Siege Tower

War Engines Past and Present

A Fire-escape

Castle, Tournament, and Fair

An Old Chariot and some Quaint Dolls' Furniture

Railway Signal and Signal-box

Lighthouse, Transporter Bridge

Yachts and Boats: The Use of the Chisel

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