Having described, as far as possible, the management of infants and young children, it may not be uninteresting to notice briefly their toys, sports, and pastimes; for, though children have been substantially the same in all ages and countries, the forms of their amusements have been infinitely varied, and where they have resembled each other it is not the less instructive to note that resemblance. The ancients[455] have, however, bequeathed us but little information respecting the fragile implements wherewith the happiness of the nursery was in great part erected. Even respecting the recreations which succeeded and amused the leisure of boys our materials for working out a picture are scanty, so that we must content ourselves with little more than an outline. Nevertheless, though the accounts they have transmitted to posterity are meagre, they attached much importance to the subject itself; so that the greatest legislators and philosophers condescended to make regulations respecting it. Thus Plato, with a view of generating a profound reverence for ancient national institutions, forbade even the recreations of boys to be varied with reckless fickleness; for the habit of innovation once introduced into the character would ever after continue to influence it, so that they who in boyhood altered their sports without reason, would without scruple in manhood extend their daring hands to the laws and institutions of their country.[456] Footnote 455: Plato had the utmost faith in the power of education over both mind and body; but his system embraced much more than is usually comprehended under the term, even taking charge of the infant before its birth, and immediately afterwards, in the hope of wisely regulating its physical developement. As the child grows most during the first five years, its size in the following twenty being seldom doubled, most care, he thought, should then be taken that the great impulses of nature be not counteracted. Much food is then consumed, with very little exercise; hence the multitude of deaths in infancy and diseases in after-life, of which the seeds are then sown. For this reason he would encourage the violent romping and sports of children, that the excess of nourishment may be got rid of. De Legg. vii. t. viii. p. 2. seq. Footnote 456: Plat, de Legg. vii. t. viii. p. 21. seq.