In the third year more precise tasks, such as stringing beads,
drawing, and painting, will play their part, while at the same time
the increased imaginative powers will give attraction to toy soldiers
or a toy tea-service. Playing at shop, robbers, and rafts are
developments of still later growth. In the child's games we recognise
the instinct of imitation--playing with dolls, sweeping and dusting,
playing at shop or visitors; the instinct of constructiveness--making
mud pies and sand castles, drawing or whittling a stick; and the
instinct of experiment--letting objects fall, rattling, hammering,
taking to pieces. All this activity must be encouraged, never unduly
repressed or destroyed. But whatever form it takes, the bulk of the
play must be carried on without the intervention of grown-up persons,
or it will lose its educative value and prove too exacting. If
grown-up people attempt to take part, the child will lose interest in
the play and turn his attention to them.

Children differ very much in their attitude towards books. One child
quite early in the second year will be happy poring over picture
books, while another will seldom glance at the contents and finds
pleasure only in turning over the pages, opening and shutting them,
and carrying them from place to place. Such differences are natural
enough and foreshadow perhaps the permanent characteristics that
divide men and women, and produce in later life men of thought and men
of action, women who are Marthas and women who are Marys.
Nevertheless, we should bear in mind that there is danger in a
training that is too one sided, and that books and toys have both
their part to play in developing the powers of the child. All the
activities of the child should be used in as varied a way as possible.
The eye is but one doorway to knowledge and understanding, the ear is
another, the hand a third.