Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 March 1886 — PARENTS AND CHILDREN. [ARTICLE]

PARENTS AND CHILDREN.

A Terrible Mistake. —The monstrous. horrible lios that are told chiliren to make them obedient by workng upon their fears are numbered by scores. Such children are easily identified, for they are almost paralyzed when they see the strangely craw.ing snake; a rat or mouse, of interesting habits, may set them into convulsions; that charming feature of the country, the woodland, where many a happy hour may be spent, is the home of bears that live on innocent little children; that interesting object, the worm, about which Darwin wrote a whole volume, causes a shudder of repulsion; and various other creations of nature that children love to be told about become sources of the keenest pain. We once knew a mother who tried to govern her children by telling them that “the old man will be after von;” in consequence of this, in fear and trembling, they shunned all old men — those fellow-beings of ours who are particularly fond of children. Young people grow out of these fears in time, but many of them haunt them through life. The most lasting of these are caused by peopling darkness with ghosts, hobgoblins, and dangerous men, thereby filling with terror the darkness of night, whether outdoors cr in the unlighted room of a house.— Deli-oit Free Press. Household Games. —It is not necessary that a great amount of money be spent in toys and games. If the children are properly encotiraged, and directed a little, they may prepare the materials for their own games, thus accomplishing two desirable things—acquiring manual and mental facility in the manufacture and production of something with which to be afterward instructed and amused. Iu the card games many can be prepared on plain bristol board cards in manuscript, involving simple facts in history, botany, geography, etc., or the always valuable and interesting word-making game can be prepared on small bits of cards by drawing the letters with pen and ink, or pasting on letters cut from hand bills, newspapers, etc. In board games the cover of a paper box serves well for the surface to be decorated with the pen, pencil, or water-colors. In “ye olden times,” when this country was not cursed with manufacturers of games, our grandfathers cut the lines of fox-and-geese, twelve-men-morris, and checkers on the side of pine boards, coloring the spaces, when necessary, with red chalk, and using buttons, red and white corn, or colored beans for counters or men, and it is related by those who claim to know that more pleasure was derived from these rude constructions than the children of ! the present generation get from their most elegant editions in gold and colors. Many most valuable and interesting games have gone out of the market, and are not to be bought, but which may be reproduced under the instructions of some older persons who may have played them in their youth; and if the details are not fully remembered, others equally good may be originated.

All games are made by some one, or by a number of persons, either at once or by slow growth, with practice and various changes, modifications, and additions, so that there is no reason whv any one may not originate others as good as the best in the market, and in one sense a home made game is much more valuable to its originator or possessor than another which in other rospects is equally good or better—as an original painting may be more valuable than a jar in ted copy of a much better picture, because no one has a duplicate of it. The invention of games and social amusements is as good mental exercise as anything the schools offer, because it requires the exercise of the inventive faculties, in the combination and adaptation of knowledge already possessed, or which must be hunted up for this purpose. Original thought in any direction exercises the inventive faculties, and the construction of games, puzzles, anagrams, rebuses, etc., is one of those exercises which are fascinating and pleasing when once understood and practiced. —Good Hotisekeeping.