Among the many other writers of this school, mention must be made of Mrs. Sher wood, for her 'Fairchild Family) (1818-47), including (Little Henry and His Beaver,' 'The Child's Pilgrim's Progress,' etc. A distant fol lower in America was Elizabeth Wetherell, author of (Queechy) and 'The Wide Wide World,' works far above the average religious or Sunday School story written in America during the last century—such as are exempli fied by the Elsie and the Pansy books. In the better stories of this class, though there is an unmistakable religious background, the picture of life is generally vivid and the narrative of considerable interest. The stories of Charlotte Yonge are among the very best religious tales extant.
(3) With the gradual advance made in the literary qualities of children's books, special attention tojuvenile poetry came as a matter of course. One of the first writers to pen a volume of verses specially for children was Isaac Watts (q.v.), a man belonging to an earlier age than we are now considering. His name must be mentioned here as a worthy predecessor of the better known children's poets to be spoken of presently. The verses of Dr. Watts—and such a charming hymn as 'Holy Angels Guard Thy Bed' is among the best in the language — show the truest under standing of childhood, childhood seen in retro spect and with an adult's sadness over the lost joys of innocence.
Much more didactic were the Taylor sisters, Jane and Ann, whose poetry makes a far greater appeal to juvenile readers than any thing Watts ever penned. Their 'Original Poems for Infant Minds) (1804), containing verses of real merit, seek to emphasize such social virtues as generosity, honesty and truth fulness—an emphasis no longer religious, it will be noticed, but distinctly ethical. Their aim was to interpret the world through the eyes of childhood, an ambitious undertaking in which they hardly succeeded.
Far more successful in this respect were the children's verses of William Blake, whose 'Songs of (1787), though chrono logically belonging to the 18th century, is of the 19th century in form and spirit. So happily are the modern regard for childhood and the latter's responsiveness to adult sympathy blended in Blake's verses that they suggest the best children's lyrics of Wordsworth and Chris tina Rossetti. Indeed, nothing finer than his 'Songs of Innocence,' with its remarkable imagery and grace, was added to children's verse before Robert Louis Stevenson's delight fully reminiscent 'Child's Garden of Verses) (1885), which has been the forerunner and inspiration of a great many volumes of poetry for children.
(4) The literary heights reached in chil dren's verse during the 19th century marked but one of the important phases of the rapid development of modern children's literature.
Another—perhaps an outgrowth of the
the new and increasing zeal for putting the classics within the reach of the young. By the middle of the last century four most noteworthy and very successful manifestations of this salutary tendency appeared. Kingsley's 'Greek Heroes' (1856), Lamb's 4 Adventures of
(1808) and Hawthorne's
Book) (1852) and
From the early times when children's books were yet non-existent — when children and adults heard the same tales with a common naiveté—to the present fine spe cialization in books intended for the young, millions of volumes have been published under the general head of Juvenile Literature. With this multiplicity has come also great diversity, so that it is no mean task merely to classify satisfactorily this wealth of material. The task becomes the more difficult in that there are no definite types of children's literature more than of any other, and this, naturally, makes for greater variety. For these and other reasons no adequate classification of children's books will here be attempted. Only a few of the more common types can be considered, and under these general headings: (1) Fairy Tales, Myths and Fables i (2) Historical, Biographical and Other Narratives; (3) Children's Poetry; and (4) Juvenile Fiction. Nor can the treat ment even of these be more than summary in the present article. For a fuller study of the subject, the reader is referred to the bibliog• raphy appended to this article.