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Though most educators emphasize the cognitive, educational, or motoric worth of toys, it is as probable that toys' solitary function is actually like that of "homework," that is, to habituate children to the "solitariness" of a preoccupation with personal "imaginary" skill. But toys are also remarkable in the modern world because they are decreasingly self-evident tools. The more traditional the society, the more likely the toy is a simulacrum of an adult occupation (a miniature spear, a doll); the more modern the society, the more likely it is a negation of everyday realism. It is fundamentally inversively symbolic. One can consider, as a simple example, the Play Path toys of the Johnson and Johnson Company, most of which have more to do with the mental fantasies of the great genetic philosopher Piaget about infant cognitive development than about the more mundane forms of reality. The infant toys even look like Bauhaus plumbing. At the other end of the age span, children are being increasingly immersed in the virtual realities of video games, computers, and virtual worlds. These are all admittedly crutches for the development and standardization of fantasy, but they also permit the promotion of internal (and therefore unpredictable) solitary fantasy.

Brian Sutton-Smith, The Ambiguity of Play (1997), p155

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The selection of toy materials should never be haphazard nor casual. A good toy leaves room for the free exercise of a child's imagination. It can be used in different ways. It is handsome in shape and color and is good to touch, beautiful in line, and interesting in texture. It is sturdy and will take heavy use. ... We especially like the way Joseph Lee put it in his book [1919] Play in Education: 'Toys, not fiz-jigs; it is the child's own achievement, not that of the clever man who made the toy, that counts. A toy with very small children is chiefly a peg to hang imagination on. It is the child's alter ego, to whom he assigns the parts that he cannot conveniently assume himself. And literal resemblance to their originals is the last thing he requires in his subordinates. An oblong block will be successively a cow, a sofa, a railway train, and will discharge each part with perfect satisfaction to its impresario. Too much realism is indeed a disadvantage.'

Frank and Theresa Caplan, The Power of Play (1973), p43

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