CHILDREN'S BOOKS. Children's "books" in Europe, like other books, were in use before the invention of printing. Such works as Gesta Romanorum, the riddles and scholastic exer cises of Aelfric and Alcuin, versions of Aesop's Fables, etc., were all used by elder children. They are, however, a piece of social history rather than of specialized literature. The early printed (and ms.) "books of courtesy"—meant to make a boy either a "litel clergeon, seven year of age," or a squire "curteys, lowly, and servisable"—are also social documents, and may be set apart with abecedaria, horn-books, battledores and pure school-books. They lived a changed life later in works like Francis Osborne's Advice to a Son (1656), Halifax "the Trimmer's" Lady's Gift (1688), and above all in Chesterfield's Letters, to which the Blue-stockings provided many antidotes. The later Puritans wrote fierce moral text-books for children as children, not as nascent knights, or monks, or men of fashion. But the greatest of all Puritans was one of the first to see that something less stark was needed. John Bunyan's Book for Boys and Girls; or, Country Rhimes for Children (1686; later renamed Divine Emblems), popular for more than a century, contained rough but kindly "natural history" verses v.nd vigorous "morals." The Fairy Tale.—Meanwhile, oral tradition was preserving vernacular folk-lore, destined to be the bed-rock of children's literature. The lore of "rewards and fairies," in the phrase of Bishop Richard Corbet (1582-1635), is plain in Chaucer and Shakespeare, as also in the interminable mediaeval romances like Guy of Warwick. There was no printed version, however, before the vilely-printed chapbooks which spread over England in the late 17th and early 18th centuries—the library of Steele's little godson (Tatler, No. 95). But the fairy-tale invaded Eng land from Court—Louis XIV.'s—when Perrault's Histoires ou Contes du Temps Passé (1696 in French, probably 1729 in Eng lish; better known as Mother Goose's Fairy Tales), and the Comtesse D'Aulnoy's tales (1707) were translated.
But this was not enough to make a literature. Other develop ments were needed. Isaac Watts created one with his moral but technically excellent verses. But the real beginning lay in four volumes and in the personality of one man. A few well-known rhymes had appeared incongruously in severer treatises; but the nursery-rhyme was first thoroughly collected in Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book (i 744), The Top Book of All, Mother Goose's Melody, and Gammer Gurton's Garland (all ascribed to 176o).
The man was John Newbery, who in 1744 published his first children's book, The Little Pretty Pocket Book. Before his death in 1767, this friend of Goldsmith had built up a business which itself lasted into the 2oth century, and had founded a new branch of the book trade. There is no space here to enumerate even the chief of his "pretty gilt toys for girls and boys" (so called from their gay Dutch-paper bindings). In form (strongly bound, not ill-printed, before long quite tolerably illustrated) as well as in substance, they decided the nature of children's books for three or four generations, even though fashion in expression changed.
This new freedom infected even the infant South Kensington, and "Felix Summerly" (Sir Henry Cole, an adviser of the Prince Consort) was fain to introduce the Seven Champions and other fabulous monsters into his chaste and well-produced Home Treas ury; an irony similar to that which had made Mary Howitt (with her industrious brother, an able purveyor of matter-of-fact) the translator of Andersen. There followed what may be called the Parley epoch, in which a number of Peter Parleys—the chief an American, S. G. Goodrich—vied in amassing instruction in easy going form. Their output, at its best, was common-sense rea sonably expressed; at its worst, the merest unctuous Gradgrindery.
Facts are known to be stubborn, and they persist for girls and boys to-day in many admirable works of popular science, often tinged by humanity, as in nature study and tales of discovery and invention. But as the substance of true children's books they were killed for ever by the two Alice volumes (1865 or 1866, and 1872) of Lewis Carroll (C. L. Dodgson), with whom is for ever indissolubly associated John Tenniel. Those inspired tales passed at once not only into the affections of the whole English speaking world, but also into its arsenal of quotations. They made possible the success of the good modern fairy-tale (the poor one is a perpetual trap for inexperienced writers), like those of Kings ley, George Macdonald and Mrs. Molesworth ; of such books as Mrs. Ewing's Lob-lie-by-the-Fire; of the better grotesques, like the Golliwog books of Miss Upton; even of the magical Peter Pan, and of such delicate modern art as A. A. Milne's and Kenneth Grahame's.
Nothing can be said here of the illustrators, so numerous and gifted, from Bewick onwards. Nor can methods of book pro duction be treated here, beyond the bare mention of the movable heads in books of 1810 or so, of "cut-out" (odd-shaped) books, panoramas, "rag" books, and so on ; few of them are really novel to-day. Neither has it been possible to pursue into detail a most important point—the sub-division of young readers into boys, girls (i.e., adolescents, each for 4o years past provided with specialist writers like Henty and Charlotte Yonge), and "children" (which includes "babies"). Lastly, the nursery has "annexed" scores of grown-up books, from The Pilgrim's Progress onwards.
The development of children's books in the United States fol lows two distinct trends:— 0) In colonial times, England supplied her American Colonies not only with her current books for children, but with the religious, ethical and didactic ideas that entered into the first juvenile books printed in her Colonies. Since that period, the leading English books for children have continued to form the nucleus of chil dren's libraries in the United States. Changes in British literary taste have influenced the production of the best American "juveniles." The preceding English section of this article covers this ground for the United States as well.
(2) American life and environment, the influx of foreigners from all lands, the spread of the democratic idea, the emphasis on things material and active, are developing a composite indigenous literature for American children, modified by Anglo-Saxon stand ards of life, language and liberty. This admixture is still in the crucible, but its component parts may easily be separated. It is chiefly this evolving "American spirit" that is discussed here.
Colonial Period to 1800.—The Puritan conception of sin and preparedness for death found expression in John Cotton's Spiritual Milk Drawn out of the Breasts of Both Testaments, chiefly for the Spiritual Nourishment of Boston Babes in either England (1646). This little catechism is thought to have been the first book for children printed in British colonial America. The famous New England Primer, "The Little Bible of New England" (c. 1690), combining lay instruction with religion, was issued in many edi tions. From time to time it changed its text, softening its re ligious teachings and, in revolutionary days, expressing patriotic sentiments purely American. Here we have the beginnings of the American spirit in children's books. A glance backward, before the close of the i8th century, shows us an output of small story books grim and sombre in their Puritan emphasis. About the middle of the century, Newbery's gilt toy books (see preceding article) were imported, and even pirated, by American book sellers, lending a lighter touch to the reading of American children. Little chap-books, probably versions of Cinderella, Tom Thumb, and other fairy tales, gave delight. In 1751, Mrs. Benjamin Franklin was ordering from London for Sally Franklin, "One good Quarto Bibel," "2 Doz. Select Tales and Fables" and other books. In 1741, little George Washington was revelling in a "pretty picture book." In 1759, Washington was ordering from his London agent, for his step-children, "6 little books for children beginning to read and a fashionable dressed baby to cost i o shillings," and, later, two small Bibles bound in turkey and two small prayer books. At the close of the i8th century there was a drawing away from the dismal narrative towards the tale with a stately moderated spirit of child happiness. But the new century was to bring oddly assorted groupings of American books for chil dren, embodying changes in the American spirit.
1800-1900.—This was the American children's century. The Puritan argument that a child is a small-sized adult more prone to sin, possibly, than his parents, and that his mind should be stuffed with facts and his imagination suppressed, gradually lost its hold on education in the United States. Towards the end of the 19th century, the kindergarten movement and the impetus given child study rediscovered the play life of little children and the unfolding of their faculties, thus affecting the writing of children's books. The changes, however, were progressive. The 19th century was marked by three distinct attitudes toward child life—the religious, the didactic and the sympathetic.
The moral and religious tale of England (see preceding article) crossing the Atlantic, developed into a class of pious books inter preting American religious experiences. These books became an aid in the wide-spread Sunday school movement, having their out let through the Sunday school library. Again American children were subjected to the religious controversies of their elders, and fed on a diet of reading more or less emotional and stern. A legion of inferior Sunday school books were written by authors now forgotten. There were, however, high lights in this intro spective gloom. Two leading writers of the Sunday school library period were Catharine Maria Sedgwick (1789-1867) and Susan Warner (1819-1885), author of The Wide, Wide World (1850). Mrs. S. J. Hale (179o-1879) is 'remembered for her popular American nursery rhyme, "Mary had a little lamb." Towards the end of the century, the U.S. public libraries began to organize children's departments for the free distribution of juvenile books. The Sunday school libraries, unable to compete with these, died out. The advent of the children's free libraries, supported like the public schools by taxation, created a demand for books with out religious teachings, books that met the changing requirements of democratic life in the United States.
At the beginning of the 19th century the instructional book was in full force, but C. C. Moore's jolly Christmas ballad, "A Visit from St. Nicholas" (1823), was followed by many happy-hearted tales. Toward the close of the century an important influence was the kindergarten movement for "children's rights," with stress on ethical instruction. Leading kindergarten writers of story-books for children were A. E. Poulsson (In the Child's World, 1893), Elizabeth Harrison (In Storyland, 1899) and K. D. Wiggin (Birds' Christmas Carol, 1888). Mrs. Wiggin's Polly Oliver's Problem (1893) had a remarkable effect. It suggested the starting of library story hours at the Carnegie library of Pittsburgh (1899), a movement which has since spread over the United States, and which has resulted in the publication of many collections of stories appropriate for telling.
This whole period produced a group of American authors whose works stand side by side with the best English books for children. In the field of verse were Alice Cary (182o-71), Phoebe Cary (1824-71), Lucy Larcom (1826-93), Eugene Field (1850-95), Celia Thaxter (1836-94), John B. Tabb (1845-1909) and J. W. Riley (1849-1916). In the field of narrative among the leaders were Nathaniel Hawthorne, Grandfather's Chair (1841 and 1842), The Wonder Book (1851), Tanglewood Tales (1853) ; Mary Mapes Dodge, Hans Brinker; or, The Silver Skates (1865); T. B. Aldrich, Story of a Bad Boy (1870) ; Howard Pyle, Story of Jack Ballister's Fortunes (1895) ; Brander Matthews, Tom Paulding (1892) ; F. C. Baylor, Juan and Juanita (1897) ; John Bennett, Master Skylark (1897). There were besides such favourite names as Frank R. Stockton (1834-1902), J. T. Trowbridge (1827– 1916) and, of course, Charles Edward Carryl, who modelled his Davy and the Goblin (1884) after Alice's Adventures in W onder land, and Joel Chandler Harris (1848-1908), who collected the Uncle Remus tales of the American negro. Little Women (1868; second part, 1869) by Louisa M. Alcott (1832-88) is animated by a high type of the American spirit. Miss Alcott, in her numerous volumes, added a refreshing note of human nature to children's books. She has had many imitators. Boys' books by W. T. Adams (known as Oliver Optic, 1822-97), Horatio Alger (1832-99) and Edward S. Ellis (184o-1916), have passed under the ban of juvenile book critics, in some cases rightly, in others questionably.
Children's magazines of the i9th century stimulated the writers of American juvenile fiction. The Juvenile Miscellany founded by Lydia Maria Child (1826) and The Youth's Companion (1827) were followed by Our Young Folks (c. 1865), Wide Awake (1875), Harper's Young People (1879), which later became Harper's Round Table (1895) and St. Nicholas, founded in by Mary Mapes Dodge.
The American spirit is taking a vital turn, which is modifying juvenile fiction. The tides of immigration which threaten to sub merge the cherished Anglo-Saxon foundation civilization of the United States are being stemmed by the public schools. In marvel lous ways the schools are moulding the children of foreign-born into American citizens. There is, of course, some shift of point of view. The racially mixed people turn reminiscent eyes toward the old home. This creates an international sympathy which is welcoming translations of the best children's books of other lands. Many of these foreign tales have depth, reverence for things Christian, and simple domestic settings—wholesome in gredients in the reading of American children. Excellent examples of translations, are Hans Aanrud's Lisbeth Longfrock (Nor wegian) ; Laura Fitinghoff's Children of the Moor (Swedish) ; Eugenie Foa's (pen-name of Eugenie Rebecca Rodrigues-Gradis) Little Robinson Crusoe of Paris, and Mystery of Castle Pierre fitte (French) ; Hector Malot's Nobody's Boy, and Nobody's Girl (Sans Famille, and En Famille. French) ; Johanna Spyri's Cornelli, Heidi, Vinzi, and many stories of child-life (Swiss) ; Zacharias Topelius's Canute Whistlewinks (Swedish-Finnish) ; Dikken Zwilgmeyer's Johnny Blossom, and What Happened to Inger Johanne (Norwegian).
As said before, the American spirit in children's books is ele mental and is still in the crucible. Its elements, rich and active, have been assembled from the best in the world. They promise astonishing results when once fused into a whole. But we wonder what will be the character of this national compound which is to produce a loth century American juvenile literature of living worth.