Part 11

Isaiah Thomas may be taken as representative of our Revolutionary period, even as the “New England Primer” may typify the chief literary product of our Colonial life. Peter Parley marks for us the war of 1812. It was after this that our country began to expand, that the South and the Southwest unfolded their possibilities, that the East began the Westward move that led to the craze of ’49. The Indian, the scout, the cowboy, the Yankee trader have been the original contributions of America to juvenile literature. A close study will indicate that Cooper was the creator of this _genre_ of story,--more painstaking, more effulgent, more detailed than the Indian story-writer of to-day, but none the less a permanent model. So, too, he will be found, in his accounts of the navy, in his records of common seamen, in his lives of naval officers, to be no mean, no inaccurate, no dry historian; in fact, Cooper, as one of our first naval critics, has yet to be accorded his proper estimate.

American history, American development being of a melodramatic character, it is natural that the opposite to Sunday-school literature should rapidly take root as soon as begun. A period of the ten-cent novel flourished about 1860, when the Beadle Brothers, who were finally to be merged into the publishing house of George Munro, began the publication of their series of cheap volumes--the sensationalism of Cooper raised to the _n_th power. To-day there are men who glow with remembered enthusiasm over Colonel Prentiss Ingraham and the detective stories of A. W. Aiken--whose record was often one a week--as they do over the name of Hemyng _alias_ Jack Harkaway, or Mayne Reid, with his traditional profanity. Edward S. Ellis (b. 1840) was one of the young members of this group of writers. He became inoculated, but was forced, when the milder process came into vogue, to soften his high lights, and to accord with the times. What such early “wild cat” literature did, however, for present upholders of the “series” books, was to exemplify that, by a given pattern, a tale could be made to “go” to order. There was then, as there is now, a certain type of book, neither moral nor immoral, and not at all educational, but only momentarily diverting; written without motive, without definite object, but whose ground plan and mechanism were workable.

The increase of the public-school system was the chief opponent of the Sunday-school book, as it likewise, by its educational emphasis, fought against the dime-novel vogue. And with the inception of the public school on its present large scale we reach the immediate stage, the era of over-productivity, with its enormous average taste, with its public regard for readers in the libraries, for scholars in the class-rooms, for the poor in settlements, and for the emigrant on the high seas.

After an experience of five years in reviewing juvenile books of the past and in estimating the varied stories of the present, I do not think it sweeping to assert that while education has snatched the child’s book from the moralist and taken away from writing a false standard of right doing, it has not, as yet, added any worthy attribute of itself. It has not taught the child to judge good literature from the bad; it has supplied, in a prescribed course, certain isolated books or stereotyped poems, with which the child is wearied in the class-room, and from which, once outside, the child turns with natural dread. I am judging solely from the standpoint of juvenile taste. And so, with the entrance of a new consideration--the children’s reading-rooms--it may well be queried at the outset: What will this institution add to the creative force? How far will it seek to improve conditions? Will there be an increased demand for the good and for the best books? Will there be a more careful art manifested in the writing of stories? Will the gaps in the field be filled up? For an examination of the past and of the present tells me that children’s literature, generally speaking, has yet to be conquered.

With these remarks in view, the table that follows may, on examination, bear some significance.

AMERICAN TABLE

NOAH WEBSTER. Ct. 1758–1843. Cf. Mavor in England. Author: New England Spelling Book; American Dictionary. Reference: Memoir by Goodrich (in Dictionary); Life by H. E. Scudder; Appleton.[45]

JEDIDIAH MORSE. Ct. 1761–1826. Congregational minister; wrote first school text-books of any importance in America. His son was S. F. B. Morse. Author: Geography Made Easy, etc. He is called the “Father of American Geography.” Reference: Life by Sprague; Appleton.

THOMAS HOPKINS GALLAUDET. Ct. 1787–1851. Minister. Educator of deaf mutes; in this work assisted by wife, Sophia Fowler (1798–1877), and two sons. Author: The Child’s Book of the Soul; The Youth’s Book of Natural Theology; Bible Stories for the Young. Reference: Life by Humphrey; Tribute to T. H. G. by Henry Barnard (Hartford, Conn., 1852); Appleton.

ELIZA LESLIE. Pa. 1787–1857. Wrote cook books, girls’ books, and juvenile tales for _The Pearl and The Violet_, which she edited annually. She also edited _The Gift_. One of her brothers, a well-known artist. Author: The Young Americans; Stories for Adelaide; Stories for Helen; The Behaviour Book. The Wonderful Traveller consisted of altered versions of tales from Münchausen, Gulliver, etc. Reference: Appleton.

MRS. SARAH JOSEPHA (BUELL) HALE. N. H. 1788–1879. It was through her efforts that Thanksgiving became an American national observance. Her son, Horatio, was an author. Author: The famous “Mary had a little lamb.” Edited _Lady’s Book_ for forty years from 1837. Reference: Appleton.

CATHERINE MARIA SEDGWICK. Mass. 1789–1867. Author: The Boy of Mount Rhigi, a tale of inspired goodness; Beatitudes and Pleasant Sundays; The Poor Rich Man and the Rich Poor Man; A Love Token for Children; Morality of Manners; Lessons without Books. Reference: Hart’s Female Prose Writers of America; Life and Letters, ed. Mary E. Dewey; Appleton.

MRS. SUSAN (RIDLEY) SEDGWICK. Mass. 1789–1867. Author: Walter Thornley; Morals of Pleasure; The Young Emigrants. Reference: Appleton.

MRS. LYDIA HOWARD (HUNTLEY) SIGOURNEY. Ct. 1791–1865. Author: Letters to Young Ladies; Poetry for Children; Tales and Essays for Children. Reference: Griswold’s Female Poets; Hart’s Female Prose Writers; Life and Letters; Parton’s Eminent Women; Appleton.

MRS. CAROLINE (HOWARD) GILMAN. Mass. 1794–1888. Took great pride in her children’s books. Began writing in _Southern Rosebud_ (Charleston), afterward called _Southern Rose_ (1832–1839). This magazine has been credited as the first juvenile weekly in the United States. Her daughter, Caroline H. (b. S. C. 1823), also wrote for the young. Author: Oracles for Youth; Mrs. Gilman’s Gift Book. Reference: Autobiographical sketch in Hart’s Female Prose Writers; Recollections; Appleton.

MRS. LOUISA C. (HUGGINS) TUTHILL. Ct. 1798–1897. Wrote moral tales; with others prepared Juvenile Library for Boys and Girls; her daughter, Cornelia (T.) Pierson (1820–1870), wrote Our Little Comfort; When Are We Happiest? Author: I will be a Gentleman; I will be a Lady; I will be a Sailor; Onward, Right Onward. Edited the Young Ladies Reader (New Haven, 1840). Reference: Hart; Appleton.

JOHN TODD. Vt. 1800–1873. Invented Index Rerum. Author: Religious works, mainly for young people; also educational works. Reference: Life; _Harper’s Magazine_, Feb., 1876.

LYDIA MARIA CHILD. Mass. 1802–1880. Foremost in the ranks of anti-slavery; influenced by Garrison. In 1826, founded the _Juvenile Miscellany_, forerunner of Harper’s _Young People_. Author: Flowers for Children (graded). Reference: Hart; Nat. Cyclo. Am. Biog.

MARIA J. MCINTOSH. Ga. 1803–1878. Quiet and domestic tone to her books. Author: Series known as the Aunt Kitty Tales, the first one being Blind Alice, published in 1841. Reference: Hart.

DR. HARVEY NEWCOMB. Mass. 1803–1866. Congregational clergyman. Wrote moral and religious books for young. Author: How to be a Man; How to be a Lady; Young Ladies’ Guide. Reference: Appleton.

REV. JACOB ABBOTT. Me. 1803–1879. Divinity school; Professor at Amherst; Congregationalist. Travelled extensively. Author: Rollo books (28 vols.); Lucy books (6 vols.); Jonas books (6 vols.); Franconia books (10 vols.); histories with brother (_vide_ p. 160). Reference: A Neglected N. E. Author (_N. E. Mag._, n. s. 30:471); Writings (_Lit. and Theol. R._, 3:83); (_Chr. Exam._, 18:133; 21:306); Appleton.

REV. ABIJAH RICHARDSON BAKER. Mass. 1805–1876. Congregationalist. Graduate of Amherst; a teacher. With his wife, Mrs. H. N. W. Baker, edited _The Mother’s Assistant_ and _The Happy Home_. Author: School History of the U. S.; Westminster Shorter Catechism--Graduated Question Book. Reference: Appleton.

J. S. C. ABBOTT. Me. 1805–1877. Brother of Jacob Abbott. Congregational minister. Author: The Mother at Home; histories with brother. Reference: _Cong. Q._, 20:1; Appleton.

SARAH TOWNE (SMITH) MARTYN. 1805–1879. Wife of a minister. Wrote Sunday-school books and semi-historical stories. Published through American Tract Society. Established _Ladies’ Wreath_, and edited it, 1846–1851. Author: Huguenots of France; Lady Alice Lisle. Reference: Appleton.

MRS. ELIZABETH OAKES (PRINCE) SMITH. Me. 1806–1893. One of the first women lecturers in America. Moved later to South Carolina. By her book, The Newsboy, public attention was drawn to that class of child. Supervised, _circa_ 1840, annual issuance of the _Mayflower_ (Boston). Author: The Sinless Child; Stories for Children; Hints on Dress and Beauty. Reference: Hart; Nat. Cyclo. Am. Biog.

MARY STANLEY BUNCE (PALMER) (DANA) SHINDLER. S. C. 1810–1883. Wife of a clergyman, Episcopal. Author: Charles Morton; or, The Young Patriot; The Young Sailor. Reference: Appleton.

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. Ct. 1811–1896. Author: Dred; Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Reference: Life work of,--McCray; E. F. Parker in Parton’s Eminent Women; Life compiled from letters and journals by C. E. Stowe; Life and Letters, ed. Annie Fields.

ELIJAH KELLOGG. Me. 1813-. Congregational minister. Famed for “The Address of Spartacus to the Gladiators.” Author: Elm Island series; Forest Glen series; Good Old Times series; Pleasant Cove series. Reference: Bibliog. Me.; Appleton.

MARY ELIZABETH LEE. S. C. 1813–1849. Not a distinctive juvenile writer, but contributed many juvenile tales to _The Rosebud_. (_Vide_ Gilman.) Reference: Hart.

REV. ZACHARIAH ATWELL MUDGE. Mass. 1813–1888. Methodist-Episcopal minister; teacher. Fiction for Sunday-schools. Author: Arctic Heroes; Fur Clad Adventurers. Reference: Appleton.

MRS. HARRIET V. CHENEY. Mass. _Circa_ 1815. Daughter of Hannah Foster, an early American novelist. Her sister, Mrs. Cushing, wrote Esther, a dramatic poem, and “works” for the young. Author: A Peep at the Pilgrims; The Sunday-school; or, Village Sketches. Reference: Appleton.

MRS. HARRIETTE NEWELL (WOODS) BAKER. Mass. 1815–1893. Pseud. Madeline Leslie. Wife of Rev. A. R. B. Author: About two hundred moral tales, among them Tim, the Scissors Grinder. Reference: Appleton.

LYDIA ANN EMERSON (PORTER). Mass. 1816-. Second cousin of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Contributed mostly to the Sunday-school type of book. Author: Uncle Jerry’s Letters to Young Mothers; The Lost Will. Reference: Appleton.

CATHERINE MARIA TROWBRIDGE. Ct. 1818-. Author: Christian Heroism; Victory at Last; Will and Will Not; Snares and Safeguards.

SUSAN WARNER. N. Y. 1818–1885. Pseud. Elizabeth Wetherell. Books noted for strained religious sentimentality. With her, the school of Hannah More came to an end. Author: The Wide, Wide World (1851); Queechy (1852); Say and Seal (in collaboration with her sister). Reference: Appleton.

REV. WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THAYER. Mass. 1820–1898. Congregational minister; member of legislature. Author: Youth’s History of the Rebellion; The Bobbin Boy; The Pioneer Boy; The Printer Boy; Men Who Win; Women Who Win. Edited _The Home Monthly_ and _The Mother’s Assistant_. Reference: Appleton.

WILLIAM TAYLOR ADAMS. Mass. 1822–1897. Pseud. Oliver Optic. In early life ed. _Student and School-Mate_. In 1881, ed. _Our Little Ones_. Then ed. _Oliver Optic’s Magazine_. Author: About one hundred volumes; first one published 1853, Hatchie, the Guardian Slave. Reference: Appleton.

CHARLES CARLETON COFFIN. N. H. 1823–1896. Self-educated. Varied career as a war correspondent during the Civil War. Author: The Boys of ’76. Reference: Life by Griffis; Appleton.

WILLIAM HENRY THOMAS. 1824–1895. Belonged to the school of dime novelists. Boys in the 60’s eagerly devoured the Beadle and (later) Munro books. Author: The Belle of Australia; Ocean Rover; A Whaleman’s Adventure. Reference: Appleton.

MRS. ALICE (BRADLEY) (NEAL) HAVEN. N. Y. 1828–1863. Pseud. Alice G. Lee. Wrote for Sunday-schools. Author: No such Word as Fail; Contentment Better Than Wealth. Reference: Memoir in _Harper’s Magazine_, Oct., 1863; Appleton.

JANE ANDREWS. Mass. 1833–1887. Author: Seven Little Sisters who live on the Round Ball that Floats in the Air; The Stories Mother Nature Told.

CHARLES A. FOSDICK. N. Y. 1842-. Pseud. Harry Castlemon. Went through the Civil War. Author: Gunboat series; Rocky Mountains series; Roughing It series; Frank series; Archie series.

MRS. ANNIE M. MITCHELL. Mass. 1847-. Religious books for children. Author: Martha’s Gift; Freed Boy in Alabama.

MRS. MARY L. CLARK. Fairford, Me. 1831-. Religious juveniles. Author: The Mayflower series; Daisy’s Mission.

MRS. CAROLINE E. DAVIS. Northwood, N. H. 1831-. Sunday-school tales, about fifty or more. Author: No Cross, No Crown; Little Conqueror Series; Miss Wealthy’s Hope; That Boy; Child’s Bible Stories. Reference: Appleton.

SARA H. BROWNE. Author: Book for the Eldest Daughter (1849).

MARIA J. BROWNE. Author: The Youth’s Sketch Book (1850). Reference for both: Hart (Bibl.).

III. THE PRESENT SITUATION.

The essential difference between the past and the present is not so much a difference, after all; in both instances the same mistaken emphasis is placed upon two separate phases of the child’s make-up. The moral tale took no cognisance of those spiritual laws which are above teaching, which act of themselves; it did not recognise the existence of the child’s personality. But when the impetus toward the study, scientific and intensive, of adolescence was begun, the teacher lost sight of the free will by which that growth advanced; anxious to prove the child’s development to be but a series of stages marked by educational gradings, he reserved no place for the self-development through which the personality finds expression. In both cases an unconscious injustice was done juvenile nature. The moral questioning warped the spirit, the educational questioning chokes the imagination and fancy, starving the spirit altogether. How many will agree with Emerson’s assertion that “what we do not call education is more precious than that which we call so”? The pessimist who challenges children’s books for children has reasons to doubt, after all.

Time changes not, ’tis we who change in time. Emerson speaks in terms of evolution; by this very change from generation to generation, the vitality of a book is tested. Again, in terms of our mentality, Emerson says that when a thought of Plato becomes a thought to us, Time is no more. Truth is thus an annihilator of the fleeting moment. The survival of the fittest means the falling away of the mediocre. The Sunday-school book was no permanent type; its content was no classic expression. It filled a timely demand--that was its excuse for being. Once this demand became modified, the book’s service was at an end; hence Mr. Welsh’s indication of the decline of the Sunday-school story through secularisation,--from sectarianism to broad religious principles, thence to “example rather than direct teaching.”[46]

We still have the religious tract and the church story-paper; yet the books of advice deal with the social and ethical spirit, rather than with the denominational stricture. “The less a man thinks or knows about his virtues, the better we like him,” wrote Emerson, while Stevenson, in his “Lay Sermons,” placed the stress thus: “It is the business of life to make excuses for others but not for ourselves.”

To-morrow new topics may be introduced into our juvenile literature, but change takes longer than a day to become apparent. The student who attempts to reach any scientific estimate of the present trend will be disappointed; the mass is too conglomerate, and there are too many authors writing children’s books for money rather than for children. I have followed the course as carefully as I could, noting the slight alterations in concepts to accord with the varying conditions. But there is no principle that can be deduced, other than the educational one. The changes are confined to points of external interest, not of spiritual or mental significance. For instance, there was a time when girls’ literature and boys’ literature were more clearly differentiated, one from the other; their near approach has been due to a common interest in outdoor exercises. Again, things practical, things literal have crowded out the benignant figure of Santa Claus; and in the stead, the comic supplement of the Sunday newspaper furnishes pictures that well-nigh stifle the true domain once occupied by “Mother Goose.”

What would a parent do, asked suddenly to deal with a promiscuous collection of juvenile books? Would she unerringly reach forth for the volume most likely to please her son’s or her daughter’s taste? If she were to claim little difference between the one college story she had read, and the several hundred she had not read, she would not be far from wrong. But we cannot tell how deep an impression the present activity among writers for children will have on the future. Our temptation is to make the general statement that the energy is a surface one, that no great writing is being done for children because it has become an accessory rather than an end in itself. Education saved us from the moral pose; it must not deny us the realm of imagination and fancy.

FOOTNOTES:

[41] In education, the influence of Froebel, in direct descent from Rousseau, is to be considered.

[42] D. N. B.--Dictionary of National Biography.

[43] The student who desires to investigate the history of American school-books will find much valuable material in the Watkinson Library of Hartford, Conn., to which institution Dr. Henry Barnard’s entire collection of school-books was left. _Vide_ Bibliotheca Americana, Catalogue of American Publications, including reprints and original works, from 1820 to 1852, inclusive, together with a list of periodicals published in the United States, compiled and arranged by Orville A. Roorbach, N. Y., Oct., 1852. Includes Supplement to 1849 ed., published in 1850.

_Vide_ also Early English School-books. Educational Library, South Kensington Museum.

[44] _Vide_ Recollections of a Life-time; or, Men and Things I have Seen: in a series of familiar Letters to a Friend. Historical, Biographical, Anecdotal, and Descriptive. S. G. Goodrich. (2 vols.) New York, 1857. [Contains a valuable list of the real Parley books; also the names of the spurious Parleys. The volumes describe many small characteristics of American life during the early years of the nineteenth century.]

[45] Cyclopædia.

[46] Mr. Welsh states that between 1706–1718, 550 books were published in America, of which 84 were _not_ religious, and of these 84, 49 were almanacs!

V. THE LIBRARY AND THE BOOK

_THE LAND OF STORY-BOOKS_

_At evening when the lamp is lit, Around the fire my parents sit; They sit at home and talk and sing, And do not play at anything._

_Now, with my little gun, I crawl All in the dark along the wall, And follow round the forest track Away behind the sofa back._

_There, in the night, where none can spy, All in my hunter’s camp I lie, And play at books that I have read Till it is time to go to bed._

_These are the hills, these are the woods, These are my starry solitudes; And there the river by whose brink The roaring lions come to drink._

_I see the others far away As if in firelit camp they lay, And I, like to an Indian scout, Around their party prowled about._

_So, when my nurse comes in for me, Home I return across the sea, And go to bed with backward looks At my dear land of Story-books._ --_Robert Louis Stevenson, in_ “A Child’s Garden of Verses.”

I. CHILDREN’S BOOKS: THEIR CLASSIFICATION; THEIR CHARACTERISTICS.

There is nothing more variegated in its colour than a large assemblage of children’s books; the cover-designers revel in their rainbow conceits, sprinkling gold across the cloth as generously as fairies scatter star-dust; the artists fill their brushes with delicate tints of red and blue and orange, and sketch the progress of a story in spiral traceries of imagination. The mechanical perfection of book-making is genuinely pleasing; the form, like that of the glass-blown vase with its slender outlines, is fitted for the worthiest content. The excellence of binding, the distinctness of type, the spirit of the drawing--these points strike our senses, these are the subterfuges of the publishing trade, these the artistic features that hide the shallowness beneath. You may arrange your blue books together, and your red, your brown, your white or green in rows; you may mix them all up again, and marshal them in regiments of equal sizes; the persistent query stares you in the face,--the stinging fact of ignorance--what of the story you are about to buy?

In the public library, the shelves are empty; you are told, as the librarian, to fill them. Not for yourself alone is the choice to be made, or even for your own children, whom you are supposed to know; but for every one who wishes to read. You have little right to assume much homogeneity of taste or desire among young folks; you must balance your dreams with facts, your ideals with human accomplishment. We are all as grains of sand in the general scheme of the universe; we are all supposed to have equal chances before the law; but what we are is the measure of what we read. You are the custodian of a public trust, not of your private book-case. A row of children--the poor by the side of the rich, the newsboy by the side of the patrician--you are to supply them every one. Have you then the privilege of assuming an autocratic policy of exclusion? Can you say to yourself, The newsboy must read Homer!--and refrain from buying him his penny-dreadful?

Each man’s standard of excellence differs from his neighbour’s. Matthew Arnold’s idea of the best ignored your opinion and mine. The world has put a face value on certain books; they live because the universal in them and the universal in us is constant and persistent. And though we each stand upon a different pivot of existence, though the wind blows with less fury around you than around me, on calm nights we may each see the same star, however different the angle of vision.