The vast collection of the Metropolitan Museum is effectively arranged and integrated on the www.metmuseum.org website. Navigation of the site is straightforward, enabling efficient browsing or research. Although no specific essays or exhibits on children and youth are found on the site, several hundred artworks relevant to the topic can be located by searching the Collection Database or the Timeline of Art History (TOAH)—more than sites dedicated to the subject.

The Collection Database of 129,022 objects can be searched as a whole, by subject, by curatorial department, or by exhibit. The collection database search is comprehensive, and returned 3629 entries under "children." Childe Hassam is a distracter in this keyword search, but the search "Children NOT Childe" reduced the return to 319 items. "Boy" returned many distracters, but "girl" returned 954 items, and "infant" returned 252 items. "Toys" returned only 21 items, indicating a limitation of the museum's collection in that area. "Youth" returned 186 works and "young" 1741 items. The biggest drawback of the collection search was that many of the works are associated with placeholder images, although the metadata may help locate images elsewhere. As digitization of the collection proceeds, this may improve.

The TOAH is an unmatched resource for educators. The 6,000 included artworks are organized by three integrated elements: maps, timelines, and thematic essays. World and regional maps correlate artwork to eleven world eras and locate it in ten world regions. Timelines place the artworks in historical context, and include key events, political, stylistic and technological periodization. Eight hundred thematic essays provide historical context for groups of artwork and discuss characteristics, techniques, and significance. The essays reveal connections among civilizations and regions, and provide material for comparative study.

Educators searching for information on children in art can locate artworks featuring children and youth by a search of the TOAH, which seems more rewarding than the database search because all of the works are associated with images, and they are easily placed in context by TOAH's features. The searches are conveniently shown by category, so the user can bring up all relevant artworks, essays, timelines or other occurrences with one click.

A TOAH search of "children" found the term in 23 timelines, 153 thematic essays, and 396 works of art. "Figure, Child" in the Subject Index returned 21 essays and 80 works of art, each shown as a thumbnail image with titles. On the subject of childbirth, 15 artworks can be viewed. Terms such as "girl" (97 works), "boy" (9) and "young" or "youth" (4) returned artworks from across the globe and the eras.

An activity using the 97 artworks under "girl" might compare the relative age connoted by the term in various cultures and periods. Some depict small children, while others are clearly young women. A selection of western European drawings and paintings could focus on the changing definition of girlhood over time or explore symbols and objects associated with girlhood. Some of the artworks show girls in active social roles, playing sports and games, fulfilling ritual roles, or being mourned in funerary works. Some of the works are expressions of girls' work in various societies, such as needlework, preparation of trousseaus, or manual labor at home. In short, the collection can be used to gather ideas about girlhood over time and across cultures. Similar explorations about youth and boys could be made. Educators will find many ways to place childhood in historical context using this website.

A propos of distempers, I am going to tell you a thing, that will make you wish yourself here. The small-pox, so fatal, and so general amongst us, is here entirely harmless, by the invention of engrafting, which is the term they give it. There is a set of old women, who make it their business to perform the operation, every autumn, in the month of September, when the great heat is abated. People send to one another to know if any of their family has a mind to have the small-pox; they make parties for this purpose, and when they are met (commonly fifteen or sixteen together) the old woman comes with a nut-shell full of the matter of the best sort of small-pox, and asks what vein you please to have opened. She immediately rips open that you offer to her, with a large needle (which gives you no more pain than a common scratch) and puts into the vein as much matter as can lie upon the head of her needle, and after that, binds up the little wound with a hollow bit of shell, and in this manner opens four or five veins. The Grecians have commonly the superstition of opening one in the middle of the forehead, one in each arm, and one on the breast, to mark the sign of the Cross; but this has a very ill effect, all these wounds leaving little scars, and is not done by those that are not superstitious, who chuse to have them in the legs, or that part of the arm that is concealed. The children or young patients play together all the rest of the day, and are in perfect health to the eighth. Then the fever begins to seize them, and they keep their beds two days, very seldom three. They have very rarely above twenty or thirty in their faces, which never mark, and in eight days time they are as well as before their illness. Where they are wounded, there remains running sores during the distemper, which I don't doubt is a great relief to it. Every year, thousands undergo this operation, and the French Ambassador says pleasantly, that they take the small-pox here by way of diversion, as they take the waters in other countries. There is no example of any one that has died in it, and you may believe I am well satisfied of the safety of this experiment, since I intend to try it on my dear little son. I am patriot enough to take the pains to bring this useful invention into fashion in England, and I should not fail to write to some of our doctors very particularly about it, if I knew any one of them that I thought had virtue enough to destroy such a considerable branch of their revenue, for the good of mankind. But that distemper is too beneficial to them, not to expose to all their resentment, the hardy wight that should undertake to put an end to it. Perhaps if I live to return, I may, however, have courage to war with them. Upon this occasion, admire the heroism in the heart of
Your friend, etc. etc.

One of the most comprehensive online collections of Egyptian material culture, the Eternal Egypt website provides invaluable information and photos of many thousands of artifacts from all historical eras of the Egyptian past. Fortunately for scholars and educators of childhood, there is an easy-to-use portion of the website devoted to games and toys, bringing to life the leisure pursuits of children who have lived in Egypt through history.

The Games and Toys component of the Eternal Egypt website is an easy-to-navigate collection of 21 artifacts, mostly from the Pharaonic era, used as toys or games by children of the past. Visitors may click on any artifact to be taken to a new page dedicated to explaining the toy or game in question. Expert information is provided, including the era of the toy, the materials from which it was made, where it was discovered, and in which museum or collection it currently resides. Clear images are provided as well, along with descriptions of the toy in question and explanations about how it might have been used. A handy zoom feature allows viewers to explore the item up close, making small details very clear. Moreover, IBM Text-to-Speech technology has been integrated into the site, making it possible to listen to descriptions while you are exploring the zoom imagery. These are the same descriptions given to visitors of the Egyptian Museum of Cairo, giving remote viewers a similar experience to those fortunate enough to encounter these artifacts first-hand.

Each page also provides links for more information about the time during which the toy was made and enjoyed, as well as the technique used for manufacturing it and the materials from which it was created. For example, the "child's spinning toy" from the 18th Dynasty allows modern children to compare and contrast their own spinning tops by interacting with those of ancient Egyptian children. Maps and timelines are also provided, as well as key topics for further exploration of the society and history of the toy’s era. All of these features are fantastic teaching tools and will serve educators well. Students and teachers may also register to create and store their own "collections" of artifacts on the website. This allows visitors to save items most interesting to them and helps them curate their own virtual museum of Egyptian artifacts.

An interesting classroom exercise might include an examination of the popular themes of historical Egyptian toys. For example, students visiting the site will quickly notice that monkeys and other primates were popular themes for historical children's entertainment. They may compare their own society's fascination in primate-themed toys and try to determine the reasons for this similarity. Another productive exercise may be to recreate some of the popular toys of the past—such as Senet and Backgammon—in a classroom setting, giving students a hands-on experience related to the pastimes of their historical counterparts.

Beyond the section on Games and Toys, there are additional resources available through the search function. A search on "child" yields 112 results; "girl" returns 33 items and "boy" returns 23.

This site is a fantastic resource for educators who want to infuse their classrooms with a sense of humanity. Teaching the past—particularly the ancient past of a foreign country—can be a challenge, but by integrating the material culture of entertainment, and especially that of children, teachers can better humanize their subjects for their students. Eternal Egypt is a wonderful resource for those educators and scholars who would like to get "up close and personal" with the material culture of the Egyptians in the comfort of their own classrooms.

Read a review of the entire Eternal Egypt website on World History Matters, http://chnm.gmu.edu/worldhistorysources/d/241.html.