Kate Douglas Wiggin says, “Every mother knows the development of tenderness and motherliness that goes on in her little girl through the nursing and petting and teaching and caring for her doll.”[30] If we agree with an axiom laid down in the first chapter (p. 7) of this book, that one of the inalienable rights of every child is to follow his instinct for healthful play, it is now our privilege and pleasure to watch the little ones of many lands with their tripping feet and merry voices and lithe little bodies. We instinctively turn to Japan, “the paradise of children,” where annually at the “Feast of Dolls” the whole home becomes a big playhouse for the girls of the family, and where the “Feast of Flags” is the day dedicated to the boys of the nation. We certainly must stop long enough to see what is done at these feasts. [Sidenote: Feast of Dolls.] And then there is the feast most loved in the whole year, the Feast of Dolls, when on the third day of the third month the great fire-proof store-house gives forth its treasures of dolls,--in an old family, many of them hundreds of years old,--and for three days, with all their belongings of tiny furnishings, in silver, lacquer, and porcelain, they reign supreme, arranged on red-covered shelves in the finest room of the house. Most prominent among the dolls are the effigies of the Emperor and Empress in antique court costume, seated in dignified calm, each on a lacquered dais. Near them are the figures of the five court musicians in their robes of office, each with his instrument. Beside these dolls, which are always present and form the central figures at the feast, numerous others, more plebeian, but more lovable, find places on the lower shelves, and the array of dolls’ furnishings which is brought out on these occasions is something marvelous.... [Sidenote: Feast of Flags.] As the Feast of Dolls is to the girls, so is the Feast of Flags to the boys,--their own special day, set apart for them out of the whole year. It comes on the fifth day of the fifth month.... When the great day at last arrives, the feast within the home is conducted in much the same way as the Feast of Dolls. There are the same red-covered shelves, the same offerings of food and drink; but instead of the placid images of the Emperor and Empress and the five court musicians, the household furnishings, and toilet articles, there are effigies of the heroes of history and folk-lore.... Behind each figure stands a flag with the crest of the hero in miniature. The food offered is mochi wrapped in oak leaves, because the oak is among trees what the carp is among fishes, the emblem of strength and endurance. The flower of the day is the iris or flag, because of its sword-shaped leaves,--hence the name, Shobu Matsuri, feast of iris or flag.[31] [Sidenote: Playground movement in Japan.]