‘The first principle,’ he says, ‘in relation both to the body and the soul of very young creatures is that nursing and moving about by day and night is good for them all, and that the younger they are the more they will need it. Infants should live, if it were possible, as if they were always rocking at sea. Exercise and motion in the earliest years greatly contribute to create a part of virtue in the soul: the child’s virtue is cheerfulness, and good nursing makes a gentle and a cheerful child.’ Greek ears were very sensitive to sounds, and the noise of the uncheerful infant protesting against life was doubtless very trying to the father in the few hours that he spent at home. We have no information of Plato’s practical experience of children, for, as far as we know, he never married, but both he and Aristotle love to criticize the customs of their native city. In the _Politics_, for example, as in the _Republic_, the importance of the child is emphasized. ‘Young children,’ says Aristotle, ‘should be kept healthy by exposure: to accustom children to the cold is an excellent practice which greatly conduces to health and hardens them for military service. Children should be amused till they are five years old, but the amusement should not be vulgar or tiring or riotous. Their sports should be imitations of the occupations which they will hereafter pursue in earnest. Crying and screaming should not be checked, for they contribute to growth, and in a manner, exercise the body. The Directors of Education must keep a careful eye even upon young children, who will stay at home until they are seven; and they must see that they are left as little as possible with slaves. Formal education will begin after seven years; it will be the same for all, given in public, and directed to promote the good of all. Nature requires that we should be able not only to work well but to use leisure well. Work and leisure are both necessary, but the latter is the more important; and it is the chief function of education to teach us how to use our leisure rightly. Gymnastics and music are the chief branches of education; but for children gymnastic exercises should be of a light kind. Children should not be brutalized, as they are at Sparta, by laborious toil. Music should be studied both for its intellectual and its ethical virtue. Children should be encouraged to sing and play, for it will keep them out of mischief; but the flute should be forbidden as over-exciting, and musical studies should cease at manhood.’ It will be seen that Aristotle recognizes the necessity of amusement, and Greek children seem to have had most of the toys familiar to our nurseries. Little girls played with their terra-cotta dolls, boys with their hoops and balls, and with the knuckle bones that took the place of our marbles. An Alexandrian epigram (_Anth. Pal._ VI, 309) records the dedication to Hermes of one such playbox.