Chapter 11

1790-1800

_The Child and his Book at the End of the Century_

Any attempt to trace the slow development of the American child's story of the nineteenth century must inevitably be made through the school-books written during the previous one. Before this, English books had been adapted to the American trade. But now the continued interest in education produced text-books pervaded with the American spirit. They cannot, therefore, be ignored as sporadically in the springtime of the young Republic, they, like crocuses, thrust forward in the different states their blue and yellow covers.

Next to clergymen, schoolmasters received the veneration of the people, for learning and godliness went hand in hand. It was the schoolmaster who reinforced the efforts of the parents to make good Americans of the young folks, by compiling text-books which outsold the English ones hitherto used. In the new editions of the old "New England Primer," laudatory verse about General Washington replaced the alphabet rhyme:

"Whales in the Sea God's Voice obey."

Proud parents thereafter heard their infants lisp:

"By Washington Great deeds were done."

For older pupils Noah Webster's speller almost superseded Dilworth's, and his "Little Readers' Assistant" became the First Reader of many children. Webster as schoolmaster in a country district prepared this book for his own scholars. It was printed in Hartford in seventeen hundred and ninety, and contained a list of subjects suitable for farmers' children:

I. A number of Stories mostly taken from the history of America, and adorned with Cuts.

II. Rudiments of English Grammar.

III. The Federal Catechism, being a short and easy explanation of the Constitution of the United States.

IV. General principles of Government and Commerce.

V. Farmers' Catechism containing plain rules of husbandry.

Bennington, Vermont, contributed in "The Little Scholar's Pretty Pocket Companion in Rhyme and Verse," this indirect allusion to political affairs:

"'Twas a toy of royalty, of late almost forgot, 'Tis said she represented France On English Monarchies arms, But lately broke his chains by chance And widely spread alarms."

But the most naïve attempt to inculcate patriotism together with a lesson in obedience is found in "The Child's Instructor," published about seventeen hundred and ninety-one, and written by a Philadelphian. Philadelphia had become the residence of the President--a fact that may account for one of the stories in this book about an infant prodigy called Billy. "The child at five years of age was always good and obedient, and prone to make such a remark as, 'If you would be wise you must always attend to your vowels and consonants.' When General Washington came to town Billy's mama asked him to say a speech to the ladies, and he began, 'Americans! place constantly before your eyes, the deplorable scenes of your servitude, and the enchanting picture of your deliverance. Begin with the infant in his cradle; let the first word he lisps be _Washington_.' The ladies were all delighted to hear Billy speak so well. One said he should be a lawyer, and another said he should be President of the United States. But Billy said he could not be either unless his mama gave him leave."[123-A]

Another Philadelphian attempted to embody political sentiment in "A Tale--The Political Balance; or, The Fate of Britain and America Compared." This juvenile has long since disappeared, but it was advertised by its printer, Francis Bailey, in seventeen hundred and ninety-two, together with "The History of the Little Boy found under a Haycock," and several other books for children. One year later a "History of the American Revolution" for children was also printed in Philadelphia for the generation who had been born since the war had ended. This was written in the Biblical phraseology introduced and made popular by Franklin in his famous "Parable against Persecution."

This enthusiasm over the results of the late war and scorn for the defeated English sometimes indeed cropped out in the Newbery reprints. An edition (1796) of "Goody Two-Shoes" contains this footnote in reference to the tyranny of the English landlord over Goody's father:

_"Such is the state of things in Britain. AMERICANS prize your liberty, guard your rights and be happy._"[123-B]

In this last decade of the century that had made a nation of the colonial commonwealths, the prosperity of the country enabled more printers to pirate the generally approved Newbery library. Samuel Hall in Boston, with a shop near the court-house, printed them all, using at times the dainty covers of flowery Dutch or gilt paper, and again another style of binding occasionally used in England. "The Death and Burial of Cock Robin," for instance, has a quaint red and gilt cover, which according to Mr. Charles Welsh was made by stamping paper with dies originally used for printing old German playing-cards. He says: "To find such a cover can only be accounted for by the innocence of the purchasers as to the appearance of his Satanic Majesty's picture cards and hence [they] did not recognize them." In one corner of the book cover is impressed the single word "Münch," which stamps this paper as "made in Germany." Hall himself was probably as ignorant of the original purpose of the picture as the unsuspecting purchaser, who would cheerfully have burned it rather than see such an instrument of the Devil in the hands of its owner, little Sally Barnes.

Of Samuel Hall's reprints from the popular English publications, "Little Truths" was in all probability one of the most salable. So few books contained any information about America that one of these two volumes may be regarded as of particular interest to the young generation of his time. The author of "Little Truths," William Darton, a Quaker publisher in London, does not divulge from what source he gleaned his knowledge. His information concerning Americans is of that misty description that confuses Indians ("native Americans") with people of Spanish and English descent. The usual "Introduction" states that "The author has chose a method after the manner of conversations between children and their instructor," and the dialogue is indicated by printing the children's observations in italics. These volumes were issued for twenty years after they were introduced by Hall, and those of an eighteen hundred Philadelphia edition are bound separately. Number one is in blue paper with copper-plate pictures on both covers. This volume gives information regarding farm produce, live-stock, and about birds quite unfamiliar to American children. But the second volume, in white covers, introduces the story of Sir Walter Raleigh and his pipe-smoking incident, made very realistic in the copper-plate frontispiece. The children's question, "_Did Sir Walter Raleigh find out the virtues of tobacco?_" affords an excellent opportunity for a discourse upon smoking and snuff-taking. These remarks conclude with this prosaic statement: "Hundreds of sensible people have fell into these customs from example; and, when they would have left them off, found it a very great difficulty." Next comes a lesson upon the growth of tobacco leading up to a short account of the slave-trade, already a subject of differing opinion in the United States, as well as in England. Of further interest to small Americans was a short tale of the discovery of this country. Perhaps to most children their first book-knowledge of this event came from the pages of "Little Truths."

Hall's books were not all so proper for the amusement of young folks. A perusal of "Capt. Gulliver's Adventures" leaves one in no doubt as to the reason that so many of the old-fashioned mothers preferred to keep such tales out of children's hands, and to read over and over again the adventures of the Pilgrim, Christian. Mrs. Eliza Drinker of Philadelphia in seventeen hundred and ninety-six was re-reading for the third time "Pilgrim's Progress," which she considered a "generally approved book," although then "ridiculed by many." The "Legacy to Children" Mrs. Drinker also read aloud to her grandchildren, having herself "wept over it between fifty and sixty years ago, as did my grandchildren when it was read to them. She, Hannah Hill, died in 1714, and ye book was printed in 1714 by Andrew Bradford."

But Mrs. Drinker's grandchildren had another book very different from the pious sayings of the dying Hannah. This contained "64 little stories and as many pictures drawn and written by Nancy Skyrin," the mother of some of the children. P. Widdows had bound the stories in gilt paper, and it was so prized by the family that the grandmother thought the fact of the recovery of the book, after it was supposed to have been irretrievably lost, worthy of an entry in her journal. Careful inquiry among the descendants of Mrs. Drinker has led to the belief that these stories were read out of existence many years ago. What they were about can only be imagined. Perhaps they were incidents in the lives of the same children who cried over the pathetic morbidity of Hannah's dying words; or possibly rhymes and verses about school and play hours of little Philadelphians; with pictures showing bait-the-bear, trap-ball, and other sports of days long since passed away, as well as "I Spie Hi" and marbles, familiar still to boys and girls.

From the fact that these stories were written for the author's own children, another book, composed less than a century before, is brought to mind. Comparison of even the meagre description of Mrs. Skyrin's book with Cotton Mather's professed purpose in "Good Lessons" shows the stride made in children's literature to be a long one. Yet a quarter of a century was still to run before any other original writing was done in America for children's benefit.

Nobody else in America, indeed, seems to have considered the question of writing for nursery inmates. Mrs. Barbauld's "Easy Lessons for Children from Two to Five Years old," written for English children, were considered perfectly adapted to gaining knowledge and perhaps amusement. It is true that when Benjamin Bache of Philadelphia issued "Easy Lessons," he added this note: "Some alterations were thought necessary to be made in this ... American edition, to make it agree with the original design of rendering instruction easy and useful.... The climate and the familiar objects of this country suggested these alterations." Except for the substitution of such words as "Wheat" for "Corn," the intentions of the editor seem hardly to have had result, except by way of advertisement; and are of interest merely because they represent one step further in the direction of Americanizing the story-book literature.

All Mrs. Barbauld's books were considered excellent for young children. As a "Dissenter," she gained in the esteem of the people of the northern states, and her books were imported as well as reprinted here. Perhaps she was best known to our grandparents as the joint author, with Dr. Aikin, of "Evenings at Home," and of "Hymns in Prose and Verse." Both were read extensively for fifty years. The "Hymns" had an enormous circulation, and were often full of fine rhythm and undeserving of the entire neglect into which they have fallen. Of course, as the fashion changed in the "approved" type of story, Mrs. Barbauld suffered criticism. "Mrs. and Miss Edgeworth in their 'Practical Education' insisted that evil lurked behind the phrase in 'Easy Lessons,' 'Charles wants his dinner' because of the implication 'that Charles must have whatever he desires,' and to say 'the sun has gone to bed,' is to incur the odium of telling the child a falsehood."[128-A]

But the manner in which these critics of Mrs. Barbauld thought they had improved upon her method of story-telling is a tale belonging to another chapter. When Miss Edgeworth's wave of popularity reached this country Mrs. Barbauld's ideas still flourished as very acceptable to parents.

A contemporary and rival writer for the English nursery was Mrs. Sarah Trimmer. Her works for little children were also credited with much information they did not give. After the publication of Mrs. Barbauld's "Easy Lessons" (which was the result of her own teaching of an adopted child), Mrs. Trimmer's friends urged her to make a like use of the lessons given to her family of six, and accordingly she published in seventeen hundred and seventy-eight an "Easy Introduction into the Knowledge of Nature," and followed it some years after its initial success by "Fabulous Histories," afterwards known as the "History of the Robins." Although Mrs. Trimmer represents more nearly than Mrs. Barbauld the religious emotionalism pervading Sunday-school libraries,--in which she was deeply interested,--the work of both these ladies exemplifies the transitional stage to that Labor-in-Play school of writing which was to invade the American nursery in the next century when Parley and Abbott throve upon the proceeds of the educational narrative.

Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe" and Thomas Day's "Sanford and Merton" occupied the place in the estimation of boys that the doings of Mrs. Barbauld's and Mrs. Trimmer's works held in the opinion of the younger members of the nursery. Edition followed upon edition of the adventures of the famous island hero. In Philadelphia, in seventeen hundred and ninety-three, William Young issued what purported to be the sixth edition. In New York many thousands of copies were sold, and in eighteen hundred and twenty-four we find a Spanish translation attesting its widespread favor. In seventeen hundred and ninety-four, Isaiah Thomas placed the surprising adventures of the mariner as on the "Coast of America, lying near the mouth of the great river Oroonoque."

Parents also thought very highly of Thomas Day's "Children's Miscellany" and "Sanford and Merton." To read this last book is to believe it to be possibly in the style that Dr. Samuel Johnson had in mind when he remarked to Mrs. Piozzi that "the parents buy the books but the children never read them." Yet the testimony of publishers of the past is that "Sanford and Merton" had a large and continuous sale for many years. "'Sanford and Merton,'" writes Mr. Julian Hawthorne, "ran 'Robinson Crusoe' harder than any other work of the eighteenth century particularly written for children." "The work," he adds, "is quaint and interesting rather to the historian than to the general, especially the child, reader. Children would hardly appreciate so amazingly ancient a form of conversation as that which resulted from Tommy [the bad boy of the story] losing a ball and ordering a ragged boy to pick it up:

"'Bring my ball directly!'

"'I don't choose it,' said the boy.

"'Sirrah,' cried Tommy, 'if I come to you I will make you choose it.'

"'Perhaps not, my pretty master,' said the boy.

"'You little rascal,' said Tommy, who now began to be very angry, 'if I come over the hedge I will thrash you within an inch of your life.'"

The gist of Tommy's threat has often been couched in modern language by grandsons of the boys from whom the Socratic Mr. Day wrote to expose the evils of too luxurious an education. His method of compilation of facts to be taught may best be given in the words of his Preface: "All who have been conversant in the education of very young children, have complained of the total want of proper books to be put in their hands, while they are taught the elements of reading.... The least exceptional passages of books that I could find for the purpose were 'Plutarch's Lives' and Xenophon's 'History of the Institution of Cyrus,' in English translation; with some part of 'Robinson Crusoe,' and a few passages from Mr. Brooke's 'Fool of Quality.' ... I therefore resolved ... not only to collect all such stories as I thought adapted to the faculties of children, but to connect these by continued narration.... As to the histories themselves, I have used the most unbounded licence.... As to the language, I have endeavored to throw into it a greater degree of elegance and ornament than is usually to be met with in such compositions; preserving at the same time a sufficient degree of simplicity to make it intelligible to very young children, and rather choosing to be diffuse than obscure." With these objects in mind, we can understand small Tommy's embellishment of his demand for the return of his ball by addressing the ragged urchin as "Sirrah."

Mr. Day's "Children's Miscellany" contained a number of stories, of which one, "The History of Little Jack," about a lost child who was adopted by a goat, was popular enough to be afterwards published separately. It is a debatable question as to whether the parents or the children figuring in this "Miscellany" were the more artificial. "Proud and unfeeling girl," says one tender mother to her little daughter who had bestowed half her pin money upon a poor family,--"proud and unfeeling girl, to prefer vain and trifling ornaments to the delight of relieving the sick and miserable! Retire from my presence! Take away with you trinket and nosegay, and receive from them all the comforts they are able to bestow!" Why Mr. Day's stories met with such unqualified praise at the time they were published, this example of canting rubbish does not reveal. In real life parents certainly did retain some of their substance for their own pleasure; why, therefore, discipline a child for following the same inclination?

In contrast to Mr. Day's method, Mrs. Barbauld's plan of simple conversation in words of one, two, and three syllables seems modern. Both aimed to afford pleasure to children "learning the elements of reading." Where Mrs. Barbauld probably judged truly the capacity of young children in the dialogues with the little Charles of "Easy Lessons," Mr. Day loaded his gun with flowers of rhetoric and overshot infant comprehension.

Nevertheless, in spite of the criticism that has waylaid and torn to tatters Thomas Day's efforts to provide a suitable and edifying variety of stories, his method still stands for the distinct secularization of children's literature of amusement. Moreover, as Mr. Montrose J. Moses writes in his delightful study of "Children's Books and Reading," "he foreshadowed the method of retelling incidents from the classics and from standard history and travel,--a form which is practised to a great extent by our present writers, who thread diverse materials on a slender wire of subsidiary story, and who, like Butterworth and Knox, invent untiring families of travellers who go to foreign parts, who see things, and then talk out loud about them."

Besides tales by English authors, there was a French woman, Madame de Genlis, whose books many educated people regarded as particularly suitable for their daughters, both in the original text and in the English translations. In Aaron Burr's letters we find references to his interest in the progress made by his little daughter, Theodosia, in her studies. His zeal in searching for helpful books was typical of the care many others took to place the best literature within their children's reach. From Theodosia's own letters to her father we learn that she was a studious child, who wrote and ciphered from five to eight every morning and during the same hours every evening. To improve her French, Mr. Burr took pains to find reading-matter when his law practice necessitated frequent absence from home. Thus from West Chester, in seventeen hundred and ninety-six, when Theodosia was nine years old, he wrote:

I rose up suddenly from the sofa and rubbing my head--"What book shall I buy for her?" said I to myself. "She reads so much and so rapidly that it is not easy to find proper and amusing French books for her; and yet I am so flattered with her progress in that language, that I am resolved that she shall, at all events, be gratified." So ... I took my hat and sallied out. It was not my first attempt. I went into one bookseller's after another. I found plenty of fairy tales and such nonsense, for the generality of children of nine or ten years old. "These," said I, "will never do. Her understanding begins to be above such things." ... I began to be discouraged. "But I will search a little longer." I persevered. At last I found it. I found the very thing I sought. It is contained in two volumes, octavo, handsomely bound, and with prints and reprints. It is a work of fancy but replete with instruction and amusement. I must present it with my own hand.

Yr. affectionate A. BURR.

What speculation there must have been in the Burr family as to the name of the gift, and what joy when Mr. Burr presented the two volumes upon his return! From a letter written later by Mr. Burr to his wife, it appears that he afterward found reason to regret his purchase, which seems to have been Madame de Genlis's famous "Annales." "Your account," he wrote, "of Madame Genlis surprises me, and is new evidence of the necessity of reading books before we put them in the hands of children." Opinion differed, of course, concerning the French lady's books. In New York, in Miss Dodsworth's most genteel and fashionable school, a play written from "The Dove" by Madame de Genlis was acted with the same zest by little girls of ten and twelve years of age as they showed in another play taken from "The Search after Happiness," a drama by the Quakeress and religious writer, Hannah More. These plays were given at the end of school terms by fond parents with that appreciation of the histrionic ability of their daughters still to be seen on such occasions.

No such objection as Mrs. Burr made to this lady's "Annales" was possible in regard to another French book, by Berquin. Entitled "Ami des Enfans," it received under the Rev. Mr. Cooper's translation the name "The Looking Glass for the Mind." This collection of tales supposedly mirrored the frailties and virtues of rich and poor children. It was often bound in full calf, and an edition of seventeen hundred and ninety-four contains a better engraved frontispiece than it was customary to place in juvenile publications. For half a century it was to be found in the shop of all booksellers, and had its place in the library of every family of means. There are still those among us who have not forgotten the impression produced upon their infant minds by certain of the tales. Some remember the cruel child and the canary. Others recollect their admiration of the little maid who, when all others deserted her young patroness, lying ill with the smallpox, won the undying gratitude of the mother by her tender nursing. The author, blind himself to the possibilities of detriment to the sick child by unskilled care, held up to the view of all, this example of devotion of one girl in contrast to the hard-heartedness of many others. This book seems also to have been called by the literal translation of its original title, "Ami des Enfans;" for in an account of the occupations of one summer Sunday in seventeen hundred and ninety-seven, Julia Cowles, living in Litchfield, Connecticut, wrote: "Attended meeting all day long, but do not recollect the text. Read in 'The Children's Friend.'" Many children would not have been permitted to read so nearly secular a book; but evidently Julia Cowles's parents were liberal in their view of Sunday reading after the family had attended "meeting all day long."

In addition to the interest of the context of these toy-books of a past generation, one who handles such relics of a century ago sees much of the fashions for children of that day. In "The Looking Glass," for instance, the illustrations copied from engravings by the famous English artist, Bewick, show that at the end of the eighteenth century children were still clothed like their elders; the coats and waistcoats, knee breeches and hats, of boys were patterned after gentlemen's garments, and the caps and aprons, kerchiefs and gowns, for girls were reproductions of the mothers' wardrobes.

Again, the fly-leaf of "The History of Master Jacky and Miss Harriot" arrests the eye by its quaint inscription: "Rozella Ford's Book. For being the second speller in the second class." At once the imagination calls up the exercises in a village school at the end of a year's session: a row of prim little maids and sturdy boys, standing before the school dame and by turn spelling in shrill tones words of three to five syllables, until only two, Rozella and a better speller, remain unconfused by Dilworth's and Webster's word mysteries. Then the two children step forward with bow and curtsey to receive their tiny gilt prizes from a pile of duodecimos upon the teacher's desk. Indeed, the giving of rewards was carried to such an extent as to become a great drain upon the meagre stipend of the teacher. Thus when in copper-plate handwriting we find in another six-penny volume the inscription: "Benjamin H. Bailey, from one he esteems and loves, Mr. Hapgood," we read between its lines the self-denial practised by Mr. Hapgood, who possibly received, like many other teachers, but seventy-five cents a week besides his board and lodging.

Other books afford a glimpse of children's life: the formal every-day routine, the plays they enjoyed, and their demonstration of a sensibility as keen as was then in fashion for adults. The "History of a Doll," lying upon the writer's table, is among the best in this respect. It was evidently much read by its owner and fairly "loved to pieces." When it reached this disintegrated stage, a careful mother, or aunt, sewed it with coarse flax thread inside a home-made cover of bright blue wall-paper. Although the "History of the Pedigree and Rise of the Pretty Doll" bears no date, its companion story in the wall-paper wrapper has the imprint seventeen hundred and ninety-one, and this, together with the press-work, places it as belonging to the eighteenth century. It offers to the reader a charming insight into the formality of many an old-fashioned family: the deportment stiff with the starched customs of that day, the seriousness of their fun, and the sensibility among little maidens akin to that exhibited in the heroines of fiction created by Richardson and Fielding.

The chapter concerning "The Pedigree of the Doll" treats of finding a branch of a tree by a carver, who was desired by Sir John Amiable to make one of the best dolls in his power for his "pretty little daughter who was as good as she was pretty." The carver accordingly took the branch and began carving out the head, shoulders, body, and legs, which he soon brought to their proper shape. "He then covered it with a fine, flesh-colored enamel and painted its cheeks in the most lively manner. It had the finest black and sparkling eyes that were ever beheld; its cheeks resembled the blushing rose, its neck the lilly, and its lips the coral." The doll is presented, and the next chapter tells of "an assembly of little female gossips in full debate on the clothing of the doll." "Miss Polly having made her papa a vast number of courtesies for it, prevailed on her brother to go round to all the little gossips in the neighborhood, begging their company to tea in the afternoon, in order to consult in what mode the doll should be dressed." The company assembled. "Miss Micklin undertook to make it a fine ruffled laced shift, Miss Mantua to make it a silk sacque and petticoat; and in short, every one contributed, in some measure, to dress out this beautiful creature."

"Everything went on with great harmony till they came to the head-dress of the doll; and here they differed so much in opinion, that all their little clappers were going at once.... Luckily, at this instant Mrs. Amiable happened to come in, and soon brought the little gossips to order. The matter in dispute was, whether it should have a high head-dress or whether the hair should come down on the forehead, and the curls flow in natural ringlets on the shoulders. However, after some pretty warm debate, this last mode was adopted, as most proper for a little miss." In chapter third "The doll is named:--Accidents attend the Ceremony." Here we have a picture of a children's party. "The young ladies and gentlemen were entertained with tea and coffee; and when that was over, each was presented with a glass of raisin wine." During the christening ceremony an accident happened to the doll, because Master Tommy, the parson, "in endeavouring to get rid of it before the little gossips were ready to receive it, made a sad blunder.... Miss Polly, with tears in her eyes, snatched up the doll and clasped it to her bosom; while the rest of the little gossips turned all the little masters out of the room, that they might be left to themselves to inquire more privately into what injuries the dear doll had received.... Amidst these alarming considerations Tommy Amiable sent the ladies word, that, if they would permit him and the rest of the young gentlemen to pass the evening among them in the parlour, he would engage to replace the nose of the doll in such a manner that not the appearance of the late accident should be seen." Permission was accordingly granted for a surgical operation upon the nose, but "as to the fracture in one of the doll's legs, it was never certainly known how that was remedied, as the young ladies thought it very indelicate to mention anything about the matter." The misadventures of the doll include its theft by a monkey in the West Indies, and at this interesting point the only available copy of the tale is cut short by the loss of the last four pages. The charm of this book lies largely in the fact that the owner of the doll does not grow up and marry as in almost every other novelette. This difference, of course, prevents the story from being a typical one of its period, but it is, nevertheless, a worthy forerunner of those tales of the nineteenth century in which an effort was made to write about incidents in a child's life, and to avoid the biographical tendency.

Before leaving the books of the eighteenth century, one tale must be mentioned because it contains the germ of the idea which has developed into Mr. George's "Junior Republic." It was called "Juvenile Trials for Robbing Orchards, Telling Tales and other Heinous Offenses." "This," said Dr. Aikin--Mrs. Barbauld's brother and collaborator in "Evenings at Home"--"is a very pleasing and ingenious little Work, in which a Court of Justice is supposed to be instituted in a school, composed of the Scholars themselves, for the purpose of trying offenses committed at School." In "Trial the First" Master Tommy Tell-Truth charges Billy Prattle with robbing an orchard. The jury, after hearing Billy express his contrition for his act, brings in a verdict of guilty; but the judge pardons the culprit because of his repentant frame of mind. Miss Delia, the offender in case _Number Two_, does not escape so lightly. Miss Stirling charges her with raising contention and strife among her school-fellows over a piece of angelica, "whereby," say her prosecutors, "one had her favorite cap torn to pieces, and her hair which had been that day nicely dressed, pulled all about her shoulders; another had her sack torn down the middle; a third had a fine flowered apron of her own working, reduced to rags; a fourth was wounded by a pelick, or scratch of her antagonist, and in short, there was hardly one among them who had not some mark to shew of having been concerned in this unfortunate affair." That the good Dr. Aikin approved of the punishment decreed, we are sure. The little prisoner was condemned to pass three days in her room, as just penalty for such "indelicate" behaviour.

By the close of the century Miss Edgeworth was beginning to supersede Mrs. Barbauld in England; but in America the taste in juvenile reading was still satisfied with the older writer's little Charles, as the correct model for children's deportment, and with Giles Gingerbread as the exemplary student. The child's lessons had passed from "Be good or you will go to Hell" to "Be good and you will be rich;" or, with the Puritan element still so largely predominant, "Be good and you will go to Heaven." Virtue as an ethical quality had been shown in "Goody Two-Shoes" to bring its reward as surely as vice brought punishment. It is to be doubted if this was altogether wholesome; and it may well be that it was with this idea in mind that Dr. Johnson made his celebrated criticism of the nursery literature in vogue, when he said to Mrs. Piozzi, "Babies do not want to be told about babies; they like to be told of giants and castles, and of somewhat which can stretch and stimulate their little minds."[141-A]

The learned Doctor, having himself been brought up on "Jack the Giant Killer" and "The History of Blue Beard," was inclined to scorn Newbery's tales as lacking in imaginative quality. That Dr. Johnson was really interested in stories for the young people of his time is attested by a note written in seventeen hundred and sixty-three on the fly-leaf of a collection of chap-books: "I shall certainly, sometime or other, write a little Story-Book in the style of these. I shall be happy to succeed, for he who pleases children will be remembered by them."[141-B]

In America, however, it is doubtful whether any true critical spirit regarding children's books had been reached. Fortunately in England, at the beginning of the next century, there was a man who dared speak his opinion. Mrs. Barbauld and Mrs. Trimmer (who had contributed "Fabulous Histories" to the juvenile library, and for them had shared the approval which greeted Mrs. Barbauld's efforts) were the objects of Charles Lamb's particular detestation. In a letter to Coleridge, written in 1802, he said:

"Goody Two Shoes is almost out of print. Mrs. Barbauld's stuff has banished all the old classics of the nursery, and the shopman at Newbery's hardly deigned to reach them off an old exploded corner of a shelf, when Mary asked for them. Mrs. Barbauld's and Mrs. Trimmer's nonsense lay in piles about. Knowledge insignificant and vapid as Mrs. Barbauld's books convey, it seems, must come to a child in the shape of knowledge; and his empty noddle must be turned with conceit of his own powers when he has learned that a horse is an animal and Billy is better than a horse, and such like, instead of that beautiful interest in wild tales, which made the child a man, while all the time he suspected himself to be no bigger than a child. Science has succeeded to poetry no less in the little walks of children than of men. Is there no possibility of arresting this force of evil? Think what you would have been now, if instead of being fed with tales and old wives' fables in childhood, you had been crammed with geography and natural history. Hang them! I mean the cursed Barbauld crew, those blights and blasts of all that is human in man and child."[142-A]

To Lamb's extremely sensitive nature, the vanished hand of the literary man of Grub Street could not be replaced by Mrs. Barbauld's wish to instruct by using simple language. It is possible that he did her some injustice. Yet a retrospective glance over the story-book literature evolved since Newbery's juvenile library was produced, shows little that was not poor in quality and untrue to life. Therefore, it is no wonder that Lamb should have cried out against the sore evil which had "beset a child's mind." All the poetry of life, all the imaginative powers of a child, Mrs. Barbauld, Mrs. Trimmer, and Mr. Day ignored; and Newbery in his way, and the old ballads in their way, had appealed to both.

In both countries the passion for knowledge resulted in this curious literature of amusement. In England books were written; in America they were reprinted, until a religious revival left in its wake the series of morbid and educational tales which the desire to write original stories for American children produced.

FOOTNOTES:

[123-A] Miss Hewins, _Atlantic Monthly_, vol. lxi, p. 112.

[123-B] Brynberg. Wilmington, 1796.

[128-A] Miss Repplier, _Atlantic Monthly_, vol. lvii, p. 509.

[141-A] Hill, _Johnsonian Miscellany_, vol. i, p. 157.

[141-B] _Ibid._

[142-A] Welsh, _Introduction to Goody Two Shoes_, p. x.