Toys have always served the double purpose of amusement and education. Years before kindergarten methods were adopted--although unknown, probably, to parents--scientific and philosophic toys were doing good work, and driving home elementary truths. There were curious cylindrical mirrors, the inevitable kaleidoscope, and the water imps, an amusing toy, for the imps, inserted in a bowl or bottle of water, bobbed about in a curious way when the india-rubber cap which covered the neck was pressed and manipulated by the fingers. The modern picture theatre, with all its attractions to grown-up folks, was foreshadowed in the very primitive magic lantern, which threw a cloudy disc and an almost undiscernible picture, by the aid of an evil-smelling oil lamp, on an old sheet hung up in the nursery. Old Games. There are many curios reminding us of indoor games and winter amusements now obsolete, and of the change which has gone on in games still played. When we recall the number of new games which have been introduced during the last quarter of a century, it is surprising how few have survived. New games come and go, and their accessories are discarded as but toys of the moment. Most of the popular games are those which have been handed down throughout the ages, many of them of great antiquity, especially scientific games and games of skill. Among these games, or rather the apparatus for playing them, are often curios, for they are quite different to and often more decorative than those used in playing similar games to-day. We are accustomed to plain leather or wood chess and draught boards and the regulation patterns of the men nowadays, but formerly much time was expended in decorating and enriching chess boards and men. The boards often served other purposes too, many being beautifully inlaid and reversible; thus the older game boards were fitted with slides for backgammon, provision being made for chess, merelles, and fox and geese, the oak of which they were often made being relieved with rich marqueterie (_tarsia_) of ebony, ivory, and silver.