ore i | ee 2 eT

There's a lot to
know about toys

es and puzzles, planes
and cars, trains and trac-
tors, walking dolls, talking
dolls — no generation of Can-
adian youngsters has ever had
such a choice of toys. The only
limitation is that set by the
price tags.

But, when you empty your
wallet or add another item
to that strained credit account
this Christmas, what will you
have in mind? To amuse the
youngsters? To develop their
ideas and attitudes?

If you want an expert opin-

ion, you can do no better than
to listen to Otto Keil, director
of the Toy Museum at Sonne-
berg in the German Demo-
cratic Republic.
Sonneberg Toy Museum has
few counterparts. It’s a mu-
seum devoted to toys from all
parts of the world and from
the stone age to the present.
In staid scientific words is
“the presentation of the child
and its play within the history
of man.” That is the rather
fascinating institution.

Here are the toy stone tools
with which the children of the
Stone Age in Europe played
with thousands of years ago.

Here is a set of toy dishes,
made of terracotta, taken from
the ruins of Pompeii, here a

i

The association of children with animals is a good basis

toy ship from ancient India
and here wooden dolls from
Africa.

“Children of Stone Age men
had little stone hatchets and
stone picks,’ says Otto Keil in
Women of the Whole World,
magazine of the Women’s In-
ternational Democratic Fed-
eration, “and with these they
occupied themselves as_ ser-
iously as the adults.

“A particularly impressive
example of the desire to get
to grips with life and the tasks
of society can be seen in a
comparison of the various toy
ships.

“Wherever water transpor-
tation was important to live-
lihood, the children played
with ships and the ships were
exact models of those in use
at that time and place.

“Ever since primitive times
dolls have been the means of
introducing girls to the moth-
ers’s duties of rearing her chil-
dren and the fact that little
girls quite independently want
to play with dolls may repre-
sent the pattern of an occupa-
tion practised by mothers over
tens of thousands of years in
rearing their children.”

Do children play to amuse

for their education in a humanitarian attitude.

themselves? Not as an end in
itself, says Keil.

“For children, play is always
a serious occupation,” he
writes. “Children by nature
accept things happily and with
open minds and so some of the
play may appear to grown-ups
as amusement.

“Childern are always hap-
piest over knowledge they have
gained and in applying this to
perfect their achievements,
for this means progress to them
and they are conscious of it.

“Children always want to do
things by themselves. Adults
make use of their knowledge,
their © surroundings, experi-
ences and learning when they
do anything, but children lay
much greater stress on discov-
ering new possibilitties.

“The many setbacks and dis-
appointments, which must be
taken for granted, do not
weaken children’s determina-
tion — they are a stimulation
to them to try once more.”

Children can only draw their
knowledge from reality, Keil
points out, and the toys they
get should have some relation
to their surroundings if they
are to be of any value in their
development.

Keil notes that all cultures
which were able to develop
under peaceful conditions
showed a preference for do-
mesticated animals as toys, and
birds particularly became the
symbol of a peaceful life, as
the dove is today.

“The association of children
with animals is a good basis
for their education in a human-
itarian attitude,” he believes.
“Tf they have a good relation-
ship with animals, then it can
be expected that they will

Multiple

= Robe tiny packages recently

were shipped with care to
a Moscow airport and put
aboard an airliner for Stock-
holm. Destined for Holland
and Switzerland, they weigh-
ed 3.5 ounces each. They were
the lightest cargo on the plane

. . . but by far the most val-
uable.

Each of the two packets con-
tained ten ampules of vaccine
against disseminated sclerosis.

Multiple or disseminated
sclerosis has always been con-
sidered an incurable disease.
Its etiology was being looked
for in all the ‘clinics of the
world but research failed to
reveal the secret of its origin.

“A great number of people
tortured by disseminated scler-
osis applied to us, but we are
powerless to help them,” wrote
the outstanding Paris physi-
cian Victor Laffite.

Suddenly, reports came from

If you’re thinking of giving mechanical toys, make sure
they are not beyond the children, they are intended for.

have a good relationship with
people and in society.

“Where it isn’t possible for
children. to be brought up
around animals, then it’s a
good thing for them to have
toy animals. Very often all
the love which otherwise
would be shown to the real
animal is showered on the

toy.”
@

If you’re thinking of giving
construction sets or mechani-
cal toys, make sure they are
not beyond the children they
are intended for. Whatever
the toy, its purpose should be
clear, the children should be
able to use it without adult
supervision’ and it should be
a stimulus to creative imagina-
tive play.

“The imitation of reality or
a model provides children with
a world which they are cap-
able of surveying and by
means of which they can cre-

ate a world of their own which
to them is reality,” says Keil.
“This helps to prepare them
for later life.

“In the last 50 years, technl-
cal progress has developed 0?
a scale such as no other gen
eration ever experienced. Wé
have become people of an ab-
solutely new epoch and our
children will continue the dé
velopment.

“So we must provide them
with toys which give them the
right help at the correct m0

-ments in their development.

The toys are there — in pro"
fusion. Not the jet bomber®
and the tanks. Keil has some"
thing to say about those a2
about parents, educated to
think of them as “natural,
helping to transfer this at:
tude to their children by 8!¥
ing them similar toys.

If you look for a peaceful
future, then the toys you 8i¥@
should reflect a peaceful real

ity.

sclerosis conquered

the town of Tourcoing, in the
north of France, on the mirac-
ulous healing of Roland De-
gryze who had suffered from
the disease.

Thirty months ago this man,
full of strength and still young
in years, lost the use of his left
then his right leg. Some time
passed, and his fingers ceased
to move. Soon the disease af-
fected his sight, and he be-
came blind. The doctors diag-
nosed his illness as dissemin-
ated sclerosis, which meant
that there was-no hope.

Friends of Degryze wrote
to many countries, including
the Soviet Union. Soviet doc-
tors.asked their Tourcoing col-
leagues to .confirm the diag-
nosis of the patient. Two weeks
later, the vaccine sent from
Moscow was tried on Degryze
for the first time.

Since then the Soviet Insti-
tute of Virology has received

DECEMBER 21, 1956 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PA

letters and telegrams froM
Chile, Morocco, Switzerlat 4
Egypt, Greece, Poland, ©

United States, Czechoslovak!
Italy, Albania, Finland. he
Tatiana Ivanova, head of # t
department which sends Sovié
medical preparations.to every
part of the world has been kep
busy answering requests. -
Ministers of health of f0
countries — France, Belgium
Sweden and Norway — ine
already approved the vacch is
of the Soviet doctors Maré
and Shubladze. The phat
ceutical firms of these or
tries have concluded agree
ment for wholesale supply :
the vaccine. The Kharkov en
um and vaccine institute Be
send 5,000 ampules of the bie
cine to Belgium this pee
French firms “have rece? x
this year over 4,000 ampules ‘
the request of the Frep
health ministry itself.
GE 10

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