Amusements properly belong to children. A child needs to be amused while he is a child, and because he is a child. It may be a question whether a grown-up person, of average intelligence and of tolerable moral worth, does really need amusements, however much he may need diversion or recreation within due limits; but there can be no fair question as to the need of amusements for a child. And if a child has need of amusements, he has need to be trained in his choice and use of amusements.

How to amuse a child wisely and with effectiveness, is a practical question with a nurse or loving parent, from the time that the little babe first begins to look up with interest at a ball or a trinket swung before his eyes just out of reach of his uplifted hands, or to look and listen as a toy rattle is shaken above him,—all the way along until he is old enough to choose his own methods of diversion and recreation. And on the answering of this question much depends for the child’s character and happiness; for amusements have their influence in shaping a child’s estimates of life and its purposes, and in fitting or unfitting him for the duties he has to perform in life.

There is a wide range in a child’s amusements; in their nature, in their tendency, and in the companionships which accompany them. The differences between some of these which may seem but slight at the start, involve differences of principle as well as of method; and they need to be looked at in view of their probable outcome, rather than as they present themselves just now to the surface observer. Indeed, it is the looking for the underlying principle in the attractiveness of a given form of amusement, and for the obvious trend of its influence, that is the primary duty of a parent who would train his children wisely in their amusements, from the earliest beginning of effort to amuse those children.

The center of companionships in a child’s amusements ought to be the parents themselves. In the nature of things it is impossible for the parents to be a child’s only companions in this line, or to be always his companions; but parents ought, in some way and at some time, to evidence such an interest in their every child’s amusements that he will feel that he is as close to his parents, and that his parents are as much to him, in this thing as in any other. If, indeed, a child had no companionship with his parents in his amusements, there would be reared a sad barrier between him and his parents in that sphere of his life which is largest and most attractive while he is at an age to be most impressible.

“One of the first duties of a genuinely Christian parent,” says Bushnell, “is to show a generous sympathy with the plays of his children; providing playthings and means of play, inviting suitable companions for them, and requiring them to have it as one of their pleasures, to keep such companions entertained in their plays, instead of playing always for their own mere self-pleasing. Sometimes, too, the parent having a hearty interest in the plays of his children, will drop out for the time the sense of his years, and go into the frolic of their mood with them. They will enjoy no other time so much as that, and it will have the effect to make the authority, so far unbent, just as much stronger and more welcome, as it has brought itself closer to them, and given them a more complete show of sympathy.”

A true mother will naturally incline to show a hearty interest in her child’s amusements, and she ought to encourage herself to feel that the time taken for this exhibit of her loving sympathy with him is by no means lost time. It may be harder for the father, than for the mother, to give the time or to show the interest essential to this duty; but he ought to secure the benefit of it in some way. A few minutes given to the little ones, as they are privileged to clamber into the father’s bed before he is up in the morning, and romp with them there, will do much to connect him pleasantly with their play-time. So, again, will a brief season at the close of the day, when he becomes acquainted with their special amusements, and shows that they are much to him, because they are much to his dear ones.

No companionship should be permitted to a child in his amusements that is likely to lower his moral tone, or to vitiate his moral taste. There are cases in which a parent is tempted to allow his children to be taken into a portion of the home establishment, or of the immediate neighborhood, in order that they may be amused by or with the children or the grown persons there, when he would be unwilling to have them under such influences or in such surroundings for any other purpose. This is a great mistake. The companionships of a child in the stable or at the street corner, while he is merely being amused, are likely to be quite as potent and pervasive as those which are around him in the parlor or the dining-room, at a time when his nature is not so actively and freely at its fullest play. In fact, the companionships which accompany a child’s amusements are an important feature in the training forces of this sphere.

Amusements may be, and ought to be, such as will aid in developing and upbuilding a child’s manliness or womanliness. Again, they may be such as will prove an injury to the tastes and character of the child. Even the simplest forms of amusement may have in them the one or the other of these tendencies. A child’s earlier playthings and games may have much to do with training his eye and ear and hand and voice and bodily movements. They ought all to be watched and shaped accordingly. This truth is the fundamental one in the kindergarten system; and a study of the methods of that system may be of service to a parent who would learn how to guide a child in his amusements in this direction.

Peculiarly is it important that a child’s amusements should not have in them any element of chance, as tending to give him the idea that his attainments or progress in life will depend in any measure upon “luck.” From his play with building-blocks or with jack-straws, up to his games of ball or of chess, every movement that a child is called on to make in the sphere of his amusements ought to be one in which his success or his failure is dependent on his skill or his lack of it. A child may be harmed for life by the conviction that his hope of success in the world rests on that “streak of luck” which seemed to be his in the games of chance he played in boyhood. And a child may be helped for life by the character which was developed in him in his boyhood’s games of skill. It was an illustration of this principle, when the Duke of Wellington pointed to the playground of Eton, and said, “It was there that the battle of Waterloo was won.”

Children’s amusements should be such as do not of themselves involve late hours, or tend directly to the premature developing of their young natures. They should not be such as are likely to become permanent occupations rather than temporary amusements; such as gain a stronger and stronger hold with the passing years instead of being outgrown with childhood; or such as open the way to the child’s becoming a professional amusement-maker. They should be such as will have a centripetal rather than a centrifugal force, as related to the home circle.

It ought to be so, in every well-ordered home, that a child can find more pleasure at home than away from home; and this state of things will depend very much upon the kind of amusements that are secured in a child’s home. It is not enough that there be amusements at the home, but the amusements there must be those that cannot be engaged in elsewhere as well as there. Many a parent makes the mistake of trying to keep his children at home by introducing amusements there that arouse in the children a desire to go elsewhere for something of the same sort in greater freshness or variety. But wiser parents secure to their children such home amusements as cannot be indulged in to the same advantage outside of that home.

A child may have such a “baby-house,” such a collection of dolls and doll-furniture, such a “playcloset,” such a store of building-blocks and mechanical toys, such a cellar or such a garret, in his or her own home, as cannot be found in any other home. To be at home with these will be more attractive than to be in another home without them. There may be such an interest excited in scrap-book making, in picture-painting, in candy-making, with the advantages for carrying it on, at the child’s home, that to go away from home would be a loss, so far, instead of a gain. Singing and music may be such a feature in the home life that the loss of it will be felt outside of that home. So it may be with those social games that involve a measure of intelligence and information not to be found in ordinary homes elsewhere. All such amusements partake of the centripetal rather than the centrifugal force, as related to the children’s home; and they have their advantage accordingly. It is for the parents to secure these for the children, or to incur the penalty of their lack.

Children will have amusements, whether their parents choose their amusements for them, or leave the children to choose them for themselves. The amusements of children will tend to the gain or to the loss of the children. It is for parents to decide whether the children shall be left to choose their own amusements, with the probability of their choosing to their own harm; or whether the parents shall choose helpful amusements for their children, and shall make these amusements more attractive than the harmful ones. The result of this choice is an important one to the parents, and a yet more important one to the children.