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[Pg 156] 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,[Pg 157] 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 compan[Pg 158]ions 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,[Pg 159] 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............