I will now proceed to speak of some of the more common amusements of the nursery.

I have seen very young children sit on the floor and amuse themselves for nearly half an hour together, with piling up and taking down small wooden cubes, of different sizes.  Some of them, instead of being cubes, however, may be of the shape of bricks.  Their ingenuity, while they are scarcely a year or two old, in erecting houses, temples, churches, &c., is sometimes surprising.  Girls as well as boys seem to be greatly amused with this form of exercise; and both seem to be little less gratified in destroying than in rearing their lilliputian edifices.

Next to the latter kind of amusement, is the viewing of pictures.  It is surprising at what an early age children may be taught to notice miniature representations of objects; living objects especially.  Representations of the works of art should come in a little later than those of things in nature.  I know a father who prepares volumes of pictures, solely for this purpose; though he usually regards them not only as a source of amusement to children, but as a medium of instruction.

Battledoor or shuttlecock may be taught to children of both sexes very early; and it affords a healthy and almost untiring source of amusement.  It gives activity as well as strength to the muscles or moving powers, and has many other important advantages.  There is some danger, according to Dr. Pierson [Footnote:  See his Lecture before the American Institute of Instruction] of distorting the spine by playing at shuttlecock too frequently and too long; but this will seldom be the case with little children in the nursery.  Neither shuttlecock nor any other amusement will secure their attention long enough to injure them very much.

Perhaps this exercise comes nearer to my ideas of a perfect amusement than almost any which could be named.  The mind is agreeably occupied, without being fatigued; and if the amusements are proportioned to the age and strength of the child, there is very little fatigue of the body.  It gives, moreover, great practical accuracy to the eye and to the hand.

A rocking-horse is much recommended for the nursery.  I have had no opportunity for observing the effects of this kind of amusement; but if it is one half as valuable as some suppose, I should be inclined to recommend it.  But I am opposed to fostering in the rider lessons of cruelty, by arming him with whips and spurs.  If the young are ever to learn to ride, on a living horse, the exercises of the rocking-horse will, most certainly, be a sort of preparation for the purpose.

Tops and marbles afford a great deal of rational amusement to the young; and of a very useful kind, too.  Spinning a top is second to no exercise which I have yet mentioned, unless it is playing at shuttlecock.