de.

"Madame Celnart, a recognized authority on etiquette, compiled in 1830
a very curious complete manual of society games recommending them as
recreation for _business men_.... 'Their varying movement,' she
says, 'their diversity, the gracious and gay ideas which these games
inspire, the decorous caresses which they permit, all this combines
to give real amusement. These caresses can alarm neither modesty
nor prudence, since a kiss in honor given and taken before numerous
witnesses is often an act of propriety.'"

The old ballads and nursery rhymes doubtless had much of innocence and
freshness in them, but they only come to us nowadays tainted by the
odors of city streets. The pleasure and poetry of the original essence
are gone, and vulgarity reigns triumphant. If you listen to the words
of the games which children play in school yards, on sidewalks, and in
the streets on pleasant evenings, you will find that most of them,
to say the least, border closely on vulgarity; that they are utterly
unsuitable to childhood, notwithstanding that they are played with
great glee; that they are, in fine, common, rude, silly, and boorish.
One can never watch a circle of children going through the vulgar
inanities of "Jenny O'Jones," "Say, daughter, will you get up?" "Green
Gravel," or "Here come two ducks a-roving," without unspeakable
shrinking and moral disgust. These plays are dying out; let them die,
for there is a hint of happier things abroad in the air.

The wisest mind of wise antiquity told the riddle of the Sphinx, if
having ears to hear we would hear. "Our youth should be educated in a
stricter rule from the first, for if education becomes lawless and
the youths themselves become lawless, they can never grow up into
well-conducted or meritorious citizens; and _the education must begin
with their plays_."

We talk a great deal about the strength of early impressions. I wonder
if we mean all we say; we do not live up to it, at all events. "In
childish play deep meaning lies." "The hand that rocks the cradle is
the hand that rules the world." "Give me the first six years of a
child's life, and I care not who has the rest." "The child of six
years has learned already far more than a student learns in his entire
university course." "The first six years are as full of advancement as
the six days of creation," and so on. If we did believe these things
fully, we should begin education with conscious intelligence at the
cra