Dolls have so long been one of the chief toys of children, and are now so nearly universal among both savage and civilized peoples. that it is singular that no serious attempt has ever been made to study them. The topic of this paper is not only relatively new, but the field it opens is one of vast complexity, many sided interest and of the greatest significance, both for psychology and pedagogy. When a thoughtful mother asks what is the best form, size, material, amount of elaborateness or mechanical devices, dress, paraphernalia, degree of abandon in doll play, proper and improper imitations of human life, whether doll play was instinctive with, and good for boys as well as girls, or for any generalizations concerning dolls' names, doll families, dolls' diseases. the age at which the doll instinct is strongest, when it legitimately declines, whether paper dolls precede, follow or coexist with dolls of three dimensions, doll anatomy, doll psychology, the real source of the many instincts that are expressed in doll play, its form among savage races, whether it is related to idolatry, and if so, how i-for answer to nearly all these problems, one would search the meager and fragmentary doll literature in vain. Indeed, this paper, imperfect as it is, is the first to call attention to the importance of a strangely neglected, new, but exceedingly rich psychogenetic field. It was considerations like these that led one of us (GSH), after a careful preliminary survey, based on informal examinations of many children of different ages, in which he was greatly aided by Miss Sara E. Wiltse, to print and circulate among about eight huudred teachers and parents the following questionnaire:

The data desired are juvenile feelings, acts, or thoughts towards any object which represents a baby or a child. I. Describe your dolls and get children to do the same; whether of wax, rags, paper, pasteboard, rubber, china, wood, stone, etc., and give instances where clothes pins, nails, bottles, vegetables, sticks, flowers, keys, button hooks, etc., have been regarded as dolls in any respect or in any degree.