Figure 1.-- These French school boys show off a Meccano boat they have built. There is no informtion on the snpshot, but it looks like the 1930s to us. This appears to be somekind of school project as the boys are wearing front-buttoning school smocks.

The idea of building things tends to appeal to boys across cultures. Girls tend to be much less interested. There may be differences among countries as a result of wider cultural patterns. We susepect, however, that this is an inate difference built into our DNA. Cultural factors surely play a role in establishing gender expectations, but it is difficult not to believe tht there are innate determents drawig boys and not girls to construction. Of course this is not to say that girls can not be interested in construction andthat none are. fter all some boys enjooy playing with dolls and otheractivities associated with girls. It is to say that most boys would like to see a meccano/erector srt under the Chritmas trees and most girls would not be excited. There are countries which are known for engineering genius. And this probably is reflected in both the interests of children as well as the activities offered to children. We are not sure just how France fits into this pattern. There are notable French engineering triumphs such as Delesseps' Suez Canal, although he famously failed in Panama. This effort resulted in one of the greates financial scandals of the 19th century.) And of course Eifel's Tower looks rather like a mamouth Meccano project. It is notable that the French erector sets were Meccano, a toy licensed from the British company. One photograph suggests that Meccano was being used in schools (figure 1).

Created: 11:13 PM 10/31/2017
Last updated: 4:21 AM 11/1/2017