Repairs Neatly Executed

Extract

The baby, new to sky and earth, surrounded by toys and playthings, extracts the keenest pleasure from throwing them about, picking them to bits, thumping them flat, pulling them awry, squeezing them out of shape.

Although this early impulse is not necessarily an evidence of original sin, it does show a twisted instinct which will need correction. That correction comes, partly through parental discipline, partly from a dawning sense in the tiny brain that things are made to be kept and used.

So, somewhere about the age of six or seven, the boy or girl sets greater store by doll or tin soldier, picture book or toy train, even taking means to preserve them from injury, and being worried if they spoil. Thus there emerges in the child consciousness the notion of repair, and an inkling of the part it plays amongst us. Then follows the training of school to drive home the lesson.