Dolls in Babylon's Ruins

1905

Children of Ancient Greece, Too, Were Amused With the Playthings

The first dolls of which there is any knowledge were found among the treasures unearthed from the ruins of Babylon. They are small figures in terra cotta and ivory, beautifully carved and must have been fascinating playthings for the little Assyrian children.

The little girls of Syria had mechanical dolls. The arms and legs were moved by pulling strings much after the fashion of jumping jacks.

The dolls the classic Greek children played with were made of wax and clay decorated with bright colors. One kind had movable limbs and its clothes were made to take off and put on. Every doll had a bed of its own. These dolls represented gods and heroes, but whatever they were made to represent, they were dressed with loving care by the little Greeks.

As these children married when they were very young they played with their dolls until just before the wedding day. Then they made a sacrifice of all their toys, dolls and clothes included. They dedicated them as a pious offering to some deity. If the little girl died before she was grown up her dolls were buried with her.

Thus it happens that the kind and fashion of dolls which comforted these ancient children is known. All the specimens which are kept with so great care behind glass doors in various museums were taken from some tiny tomb.

Clergyman Refuted: Teddy Bears Don't Kill Maternal Instinct

1907

THE MATERNAL INSTINCT

A Chicago clergyman, who frankly states his belief that sensationalism is a good thing for the church, has hired a brass band to play at intervals during the service. Another clergyman, with apparently the same ideals but less nerve — he doesn't live in Chicago — shouts vehemently to a waiting world to beware the "Teddy bear," it promotes race suicide by killing the maternal instinct in little girls. As between these two we vastly prefer the brass band disciple as the more straightforward as well as intelligent of the two.

As for the maternal instinct, we have not supposed it was so slight and weak a thing as to be endangered by the most formidable assaults of the "Teddy bear," even though assisted by all the other animals of Noah's ark. In fact the maternal instinct seems to have resisted for many generations all the little girlish, as well as little boyish, fondness for all the animals that went in two by two.

The maternal instinct appears indeed a pretty comprehensive and pretty reliable thing, about as comprehensive and reliable as any feeling of emotion in unstable humanity.

It is also very generally and generously distributed among women, being by no means confined to those who are the actual mothers of children.

In mothers it is not confined to their own children, but reaches to all other children as well. It is not even confined to children, since the love which women feel for men is largely maternal. Often women have the same brooding tenderness for animals, especially if they are sick or suffering, or even for plants and flowers.

Kill a little girl's tenderness by giving her a "Teddy bear" to fondle? Ridiculous! A little girl will mother a "Teddy bear" just as naturally as she will mother some rags or a bit of china in the shape of a doll, or a kitten, or a little green frog, or a really, truly, baby, or anything else animate or inanimate that happens to appeal to her. And her fondness and care for any of these develops, instead of destroying her maternal instinct.

-The Waukesha Freeman, Waukesha, Wisconsin, July 11, 1907, page 4.