Explore "Christmas Tide" by Charles Dickens on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
As Christmas is peculiarly the season for toy-giving and toy-receiving, it may be well for the mother to consider this subject.
Old Homer, back in the past ages, shows us a charming picture of Nausicaa and her maidens, after a hard day's washing, resting themselves with a game of ball. Thus we see this most free and graceful plaything connected with that free and beautifully developed nation which has been the admiration of the world ever since. Plato has said, "The plays of children have the mightiest influence on the maintenance or non-maintenance of laws"; and again, "During earliest childhood, the soul of the nursling should be made cheerful and kind, by keeping away from him sorrow and fear and pain, by soothing him with sound of the pipe and of rhythmical movement. " He still further advised that the children should be brought to the temples, and allowed to play under the supervision of nurses, presumably trained for that purpose.