To tell the history of toy-making from its earliest days it would be necessary to follow the story back through many centuries, for the archaeologists, in delving among the tombs of ancient Greece and Egypt, have made the surprising discovery that children played with dolls, and jointed dolls at that, more than five thousand years ago.

Moreover, by the side of these dolls scientists have unearthed other playthings that children still crave: doll's furniture, animal toys and toys with wheels, illustrating the methods of transportation of those early days.

These same scientists claim that the custom of playing with dolls and other toys is as old as the world itself and that playthings are, and always have been, just as necessary a constituent of human health and development as either food or medicine.

They claim that the reason that boys and girls crave toys is that nature requires them, and to deprive children of such playthings would be to retard their mental growth and development.

The Latin word trochus means a hoop for children. The hoops of Roman children were made of bronze and iron and were rolled by a sort of a crooked stick and sometimes had small bells attached.

Pupa, the Latin word meaning "a little girl," applies to dolls which were made from rags, wood, wax, ivory and terra cotta. When the Greek girls of that time married they dedicated their dolls to Artemis; the Roman girls, to Venus; but, if they died before marriage, their dolls were buried with them.

The Latin word crepundia meant children's playthings, such as rattles, dolls, toy hatchets and swords.

The toys made during the middle ages for the children of noble families and rich merchants, show special care and fine workmanship. Many of them were of a religious nature in the form of the Cross of the Crusaders, or military in origin, like miniature knights on horseback. The toys of this period were generally carved by goldsmiths.

The American Indians and the Esquimaux made dolls from bits of skin and fur of wild animals and gaily decorated them with shells, beads and feathers. They also carved small models of animals and human beings from wood and bone.

The oldest European toy manufacturing center is Nuremberg, Germany. This town is especially noted for its metal playthings, like the lead soldiers, which were the delight of our childhood. Sonneberg, in Germany, is the greatest European center for the manufacture of wooden toys.

Winchendon, Mass., is the greatest toy manufacturing center in the United States, nearly every enterprise in that town being toy-making.

In spite of the early origin of toys the progress of manufacturing playthings has been so slow that, even as late as one hundred years ago, the types of toys were few in number, simple in construction and extremely expensive, especially in the United States.

There was no systematic manufacture of such articles, and, as the cost of importation was very high, comparatively few persons could afford such means of amusement for their children.

The children of those days accepted more primitive things, dolls that were often merely pieces of cloth folded and pinned in such a manner as to suggest the outline that was not there.

A few other toys such as hoops, jumping-jacks, tenpins, marbles, battledore-and-shuttlecock and alphabet blocks, represented the limit of the toy-makers' stock.

In America the toy-making industry is of quite recent origin. Before 1875 more than ninety per cent of the toys sold in this country were of foreign manufacture, and those that were made here were never exported to other countries. Today, however, about five per cent of the toys sold here are made abroad and the rest are manufactured here in our own country. Up to 1875 there was not a doll factory in the United States.

Today, while we import some dainty toys from France, Germany and Switzerland, nearly all the newest, unique and mechanical productions are made in America.

Simple toys are mostly made of wood and metal, and the same principles employed by mechanical engineers, in duplicating parts of machinery, are used in making duplicate parts of toys.

When a design has been decided on, it is reduced to its most simple element. Jigs are then made so that each piece will be an exact duplicate of every similar piece, and the construction is pushed through on the American factory system.

Some toys are very elaborate, costing several hundred dollars. These are readily purchased, however, by people of means.

In the author's opinion the best kind of toys are those which suggest rather than fulfill, and those with which the child can really do something. Mechanical toys, which supply their own energy, should not be allowed to take the place of those into which the child must infuse part of his own life and energy. It follows naturally, then, that the toys made by the children themselves are the ideal ones.