Lewis Carroll gave his pupils puzzles to make logic and mathematics instruction more interesting. He might have sprung on them the well-known river crossing problem which goes something like this… There was a man who had to get a goat, cabbage, and wolf across the river in a boat too small to hold all four of them. What was he to do? 
The goat was sure to eat the cabbage if left alone with it and the wolf the goat if given a chance. With a little quick thinking, the task can be successfully completed.
People have been solving this problem at least since the 12th century, when an illumination featuring a wolf, a sheep, and a vegetable that looks like kale appears in the Ormesby Psalter. Since the 12th century, many variations on the river crossing problem have been noted in at different times, places, and sources.
The Schoolmasters Assistant. London: Richard and Henry Causton, (1773). (Cotsen 33112)
Between 1705 and 1801, there were seventeen occurrences with a fox, a goose, and a bag of oats, five for a fox, a goose, and a bag of wheat, and three for the more familiar goat, cabbage, and wolf. The majority appeared either in Jacques Ozanam’s famous Recreations for Gentlemen and Ladies or well-established school books like Thomas Dilworth’s Schoolmaster’s Assistant, under the heading “pleasant and diverting questions.”
Jeux Nouveaux Réunis. Paris: JJF, [1904]. (Cotsen)
Players who couldn’t work it out in their heads could experiment with the figures plotting a sequence of trips across the river that would preserve cabbage and goat.
It’s been speculated that the Jeux nouveaux reunis was a salesman’s sample. Jerry Slocum, the great historian and collector of puzzles shows in Puzzles Old and New that dexterity and disentanglement puzzles became an increasingly popular family entertainment in early twentieth century. He photographs the box of his copy of Puzzle Parties (1911) sold by a Connecticut firm which contains many of the same French puzzles in the box Cotsen acquired. Perhaps boxes were sold in France for puzzle parties as well as for sale overseas. 
