Toys between the ludic and the pedagogical perspective in late 19th century romania1

Abstract

The paper proposes to identify what the 19th century brought as novelties in the "life" of toys, seen as items dedicated explicitly to children; I have focused, naturally, on the Romanian case. By correlating the accounts to which I had access, I was able to outline certain evolutions in the manufacture, use, purchase, and characteristics ascribed to toys in that period. I have noted, first of all, the social differentiation in terms of toy consumption. The lower classes - defined by their views of childhood, material resources and well-delimited systems of gratification/rewarding - used more or less the same games and toys. Wealthier classes recorded a more diversified consumption, with urban influences, while the children of the elites became increasingly familiar with the offers of the Western world, brought directly from the source or just copied here. Another highlighted aspect is the increase in standardisation and even the industrialisation of toy production. The "merchandise-toy" no longer followed the logic of uniqueness, of perishable character, and functionalities predicted by children, for their personal use. Indeed, such toys had to play by the market rules set by adults, thus leading to imitation and to a more rigid toy than the "authentic" one, which was spontaneous and personalised. Such toys have messages, restrictions, and deformations that are highly relevant for the evolution of the relationships between adults and children. A third observation is that the school establishments and the pedagogical ethos of the time left their mark. "Educational" toys were not innocent, because they aimed to speed up the maturation of children, to enable them to develop academic and professional skills, limiting a child's freedom concerning the use of toys. The ideas of pre- and para-school education that used such items were adopted mainly by the "upper class" families, but they also acquired the direct support of the state, through the teaching institutions that the state controlled.