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What Shall We Read
to the Children?
By
Clara Whitehill Hunt
Boston and New York
Hougliton Mifflin Company
niUcun&c prcoa Cambridge
1915
COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY CLARA W. HUNT
ALL RIGHTS RESERVBD
Published October
Cl'i *>
PBOPER17 OF T
TO
MY FATHER AND MOTHER
" Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high
Can keep my own away from me."
WHEN MOTHER READS ALOUD
When mother reads aloud, the past
Seems real as every day;
I hear the tramp of armies vast,
I see the spears and lances cast,
I join the thrilling fray;
Brave knights and ladies fair and proud
I meet, when mother reads aloud.
When mother reads aloud, far lands
Seem very near and true;
I cross the desert's gleaming sands,
Or hunt the jungle's prowling bands,
Or sail the ocean blue;
Far heights, whose peaks the cold mists shroud,
I scale, when mother reads aloud.
When mother reads aloud, I long
For noble deeds to do
To help the right, redress the wrong;
It seems so easy to be strong,
So simple to be true.
Oh, thick and fast the visions crowd
My eyes, when mother reads aloud!
AUTHOR UNKNOWN.
CONTENTS
I. Fathers and Mothers and Chil-
dren's Books .... 1
II. The Poetry Habit ... 10
III. Nature Poetry . . . .24
IV. Picture Books . . . .39
V. Fairy Tales . . . .51
VI. Bible Stories . . . .63
VII. Stories that might be True : Some
"Don'ts" .... 73
VIII. Stories that might be True: How
to Choose Them . . .82
IX. Travel and History Stories . . 98
X. Nature Books . . . .107
XI. Books of Occupations and Games 117
XII. Buying the Library . . . 129
XIII. When the Little Children grow
Big . . . 146
What Shall We Read to
the Children?
CHAPTER I
FATHERS AND MOTHERS AND CHILDREN'S
BOOKS
THE book agent was a very persuasive
talker. She was, moreover, an attractive
young thing to look upon, the blues in her
tasteful gown and hat emphasizing the
color of her pretty eyes and setting off the
gold of her soft hair. When one adds that
she seemed really fond of children, and
that four- and five-year-old Teddy and
Frances were soon leaning confidingly
against her knee, listening to the story of
a picture in the wonderful subscription
set offered on such reasonable terms, it is
not surprising that this gifted agent car-
2 READING TO THE CHILDREN
ried away an order for the ten volumes of
Blank's "History of the World," to be de-
livered within a week at the home of the
ambitious little mother of four growing
children.
When Ted Senior came home from the
office a teasing twinkle answered his wife's
account of her purchase; and when the
volumes arrived, a swift examination of
the pulpy paper, cheap half-tones and
stilted language put the finishing touches
to Mrs. Ted's misgivings about the won-
derful "Home Educator" which she had
far-sightedly provided for her young.
The children, however, from baby
Teddy to seven- and nine-year-old Dick
and Tom, promptly showed their lack
of sympathy with the grown-ups' dis-
approval of the new acquisition. Three
minutes after the unpacking, four round
heads were bent over four stout volumes,
and a stillness like unto that of sermon
PARENTS AND CHILDREN'S BOOKS 3
time settled upon the sitting-room of the
house of Jones, let us call it. Were
there not pictures, scattered generously
through the thick books, every few
pages a picture: a picture that told a
story a story of strange people doing
thrillingly interesting things that Father
and Mother would have to explain, even-
ings and rainy days and Sundays?
The explanations began that very even-
ing.
"Father, what does it say under this
picture?"
Father emerged from his newspaper
long enough to read: "Marie Antoinette
and her husband holding court under
Louis XV."
"Who was Marie Antoinette, Father?"
After a pause: "She was a beautiful
and unfortunate queen."
'Why was she unfortunate, Father?
What happened to her? Was she real or
4 READING TO THE CHILDREN
just a story queen? Did she have any little
princes? Did she have a coach and six and
outriders and gold dishes and tell me,
Father!"
The newspaper slid to the floor and was
not picked up till Mother came to shoo
the reluctant history class to bed.
This was the beginning of a series of
impromptu talks on general history, ex-
tending over a number of years and ex-
hibiting the somewhat unusual spectacle
of pupils so athirst for information as to
be obliged to prod their teacher in order
to satisfy their cravings.
The other day some of the grown-up
relatives of that family of children were
speaking of the old " History of the World '
and its effect upon the children's develop-
ment in breadth of interest. ;< Positively,
our Dick at seven years of age knew more
about the French Revolution than I did
at seventeen," said one of Dick's aunts.
PARENTS AND CHILDREN'S BOOKS 5
"And the best of it was, he wanted to
know, he did not have his information
jammed into an obstinate noddle by a
suffering teacher."
Now the moral I wish to draw from the
above essentially true story is not that
one should indulge in subscription sets
if attractive and intelligent agents offer
them at one's door. On the contrary, I
would never make such a purchase with-
out expert advice. But the experience of
the Jones family offers a number of sug-
gestions worth noting by buyers of a
young child's library, as for example:
That children and grown people fre-
quently differ as to what is interesting to
children;
That a healthy child is a live interroga-
tion-point;
That this curiosity is not limited to
babyish things;
That no parent need have the slightest
6 READING TO THE CHILDREN
fear of forcing his child into an attack of
brain-fever by answering fully the spon-
taneous questions of his small son or
daughter;
That the library in which a child
''tumbles about" before he is seven will
have a tremendous influence upon the
interests and tastes of that child to the
end of his life;
That it is worth while to choose such a
library as will make those interests and
tastes the best possible;
That it is woeful waste to leave to
teacher and librarian that is, to leave
until the child, at seven or eight, learns
to read the influencing of the reading
tastes of one's boys and girls.
One of the most surprising observations
of my library experience is the lack of re-
spect for their children's mental powers
shown by devoted parents.
"What!" exclaims the long-suffering
PARENTS AND CHILDREN'S BOOKS 7
friend of a fond parent, "the father who
thinks no child before his ever cut a tooth
so cleverly, who is sure when his boy first
articulates * Pa-pa,' that the youngster is
destined to become a Demosthenes, do
you mean to say you think that parent is
inclined to belittle his child's gifts?"
After years of acquaintance with all
sorts I assert that the parents who do not,
consciously or unconsciously, hold back
their children's intellectual development
are so uncommon as to be noticeable; and
I am not thinking of the fathers and
mothers who are themselves unable to
read or write, but of those from our in-
telligent and materially prosperous classes.
The anxious care with which parents keep
their eager-minded children on literary
bottle diet, until only the most intensely
active-brained escape the stunting effect
on their interests, this habit of mothers
who would cheerfully lay their heads on
8 READING TO THE CHILDREN
the block for the good of their young, - - 1
sometimes think must be due to the truly
awful and of course truly proper -
emphasis laid upon the care necessary for
the perfect physical development of the
baby.
Young mothers to-day are so appall-
ingly wise! They know to a day when it
is time to add to the quantity or variety
of the little one's food; they are fully alive
to the importance of outdoor play in mak-
ing healthy bodies; they have heard sad
tales of the early graves of young prodi-
gies, forced by parents less wise than am-
bitious. Perhaps, too, out of their respect
for the opinion of the specialist in one line,
that of the child's physical care, - - the
mother acquires a feeling that it is best to
leave to the expert in another the guid-
ance of the child's reading.
So it happens that we librarians often
find the children of intelligent parents
PARENTS AND CHILDREN'S BOOKS 9
strangely narrow in their reading tastes,
since we catch the children too late to have
the necessary influence upon them. And
so it happens that I am writing to urge
fathers and mothers, while they are per-
fecting themselves in the knowledge of
the care and feeding of children's bodies,
to give more study than has been custom-
ary to the care and feeding of the young
minds.
CHAPTER II
THE POETRY HABIT
WHEN I was a little girl I had the good
fortune to live in a city where there were
no bridge crushes and police-patrol gongs,
barrack-built flats and brown-stone rows,
to frighten away the birds and crowd out
the flowers and play-spaces; but where
fathers, even on moderate salaries, could
own little houses with big piazzas and gen-
erous yards. We boys and girls raised jack-
o'-lantern pumpkins in those yards, and
cheerful morning-glories and downy chick-
ens. We plucked juicy plums and cherries
and grapes from our own trees and vines.
We played in safe, shady streets without
fear of trolleys or motors; for our city was
so charmingly behind the times that the
jingling horse-car did not readily give place
THE POETRY HABIT 11
to the clanging electric. In spring we
tapped the maple trees in front of our
houses, ^macking our lips over the few
spoonfuls of sap that dripped as musically
into our suspended pails as if this were a
'truly " maple-sugar camp in the country.
After school hours, in the rapidly gather-
ing dusk of short autumn days, we raked
gorgeous leaves into huge piles and danced
wild Indian dances around bonfires that
blazed like beacons up and down the
length of streets unpaved with forbidden
asphalt. We made snow-forts and snow-
men and Eskimo huts, we wallowed in
clean snowdrifts, we coasted down long,
hilly streets on our big brothers' "bobs."
Yet how all these pleasures of the school
year were as drab to scarlet contrasted
with the radiance of vacations on grand-
mother's beautiful farm! How we hated
to take off our clothes at night for fear
troublesome buttons would make us miss
12 READING TO THE CHILDREN
something in the mornings when we woke
far too early to bother poor mother to help
us dress. How, beneath all the childish,
physical delights of wading and huckle-
berrying and riding a-top the loaded hay-
wagon and playing " I spy " in the shadowy
barn, there flowed the deep current of joy
in the beauty of earth and sky! When,
barefooted under the willows, we tugged
at heavy rocks which we perspiringly
erected into lighthouses and forts to guard
our homes along the brook, I should say
the seashore, we were only dimly con-
scious that the song of the brook and the
carpet of dancing light and shade under
our feet, the feel of the flower-scented
breeze on our hot little faces, the mur-
mur and hum of the insects in the waving
meadow grass over the stone wall, the
vivid blue of the sky which an old black
crow "caw caw'd" for us to look up and
notice, that all these beauties of Mother
THE POETRY HABIT 13
Earth were a deep part of the happiness
of our free play in the outdoors, whose
largeness was answering to a craving of
the child-soul, that feels the cramp of the
city more than does the adult.
To-day I watch the children at play as
I walk to my office along streets of highly
respectable apartment-houses. How cru-
elly narrow the range for the imagination
of the young child ! The very "respectabil-
ity " of a neighborhood which exacts a
rent that often eats up all country vacation
money - - is against the child. How can
a youngster possibly have a good time if he
is not allowed to muss up the front steps
and get his clothes dirty? Yet it is not the
physical handicap of the city child that
most stirs my pity, for his health record
is steadily improving. It is the little one's
missing experiences in beauty, it is the
robbery of his imagination, effected by
paved streets, that I deplore.
14 READING TO THE CHILDREN
There is no possible help for these chil-
dren except as they shall get their expe-
riences vicariously through father and
mother and books. For our comfort we
know how marvelously books can be made
to supply what father's salary cannot.
Only we need to remember how and when
to apply the various books. There is a best
time for introducing poetry and myth and
heroes of history; and a lifelong loss may
be that child's whose parents know not
when to feed a certain interest.
The baby's first taste of poetry should
be given not later than a month after he
alights, trailing his clouds of glory and with
the music of his heavenly home attuning
his ears to a delight in rhyme and rhythm
long before mother's songs convey word
meanings to his mind. There never was a
normal baby born into this world who did
not bring with him a love for poetry ; and
the fact that so few adults retain a trace
THE POETRY HABIT 15
of this most pure delight points to the need
of conscious effort on the parent's part to
foster the child's natural gift.
So the first book I would put into the
baby's library would be a collection of the
loveliest lullabies and hymns and sweet
old story songs. I know that doctors and
nurses frown upon rocking the baby to
sleep, but if I were a young mother I'd
rock and sing to that baby after he waked
up! I would sing Tennyson's "Sweet and
low," and Holland's "Rockaby, lullaby,
bees in the clover," and Field's " Wynken
and Blynken and Nod"; the little Ger-
man slumber song -
Sleep, baby, sleep,
The large stars are the sheep;
and the Gaelic lullaby
Hush, the waves are rolling in
White with foam, white with foam.
I would sing "O little town of Bethle-
hem," and "It came upon the midnight
16 READING TO THE CHILDREN
clear," and 'While shepherds watched
their flocks by night." I would sing the
"Crusader's Hymn," and Luther's "A
mighty fortress is our God," and New-
man's "Lead, Kindly Light," and Pleyel's
"Children of the Heavenly King," and
Baring-Gould's "Now the day is over."
I would sing "Annie Laurie," and "Home,
sweet home," and "Flow gently, sweet
Afton," and "The Swanee River."
Choosing songs so beautiful and so ap-
pealing to a child's heart, I should make
sure that when the little one began to try
to imitate mother, he would sing of winds
that ruffle the waves of dew, of pleasant
banks and green valleys and clear, wind-
ing rills, of the Heavenly Father's care, of
the enduringness of home love. I should
know that, though the words at first called
up no clear mental pictures, they would
spell love and beauty and happy feeling,
and that life would, little by little, unfold
THE POETRY HABIT 17
to the child the full meanings of these
lovely songs.
Before the baby is a year old he will en-
joy action rhymes like 'This little pig
went to market," "Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake,
baker's man." By the time he is two, he
will be trying to repeat the gay Mother
Goose jingles with their irresponsible
nonsense and their catching rhyme and
rhythm. When he is three he will be enjoy-
ing Stevenson's "I have a little shadow
that goes in and out with me," and other
posies from 'The Child's Garden of
Verses."
Now the important thing is for the
baby to acquire the poetry habit. A few
years later, this child, if he has not lis-
tened to verse nearly every day of his life,
may begin to be bored by the language
of poetry, so dear to one who comprehends
quickly, so tiresome to one who, for lack
of right preparation, must dig out the
18 READING TO THE CHILDREN
meanings as he works at a translation
from a dead language.
At first we need to repeat nursery
jingles and the simplest child verses, be-
cause these are the bottom steps of the
"golden staircase" to real poetry. If,
however, we try to get firmly lodged in
mind the fact that children enjoy an in-
finite number of things which they do not
understand; that they understand far
more than they can express; that their
understanding grows by leaps and bounds
if we foolish adults do not interfere, -
we shall stop trying to stint their active
imaginations by keeping them so long on
baby rhymes.
The child will most easily climb the
staircase to real poetry by way of story-
telling poems. Sentimental and martial,
merry and sad, the story interest and the
music of the old English and Scotch bal-
lads fit them exactly to the liking of chil-
THE POETRY HABIT 19
dren, little and big. Browning and Ten-
nyson, Matthew Arnold and Scott and
Longfellow give to the children 'The
Pied Piper," "The Lady of Shalott"
"The Forsaken Merman," "Jock of
Hazeldean," "The Bell of Atri." A
number almost without end of stirring
romances in verse will reward a search
through our "adult" poetry library, after
we have exhausted the lovely children's
collections like "The Blue Poetry Book,"
"Golden Numbers," "The Golden Stair-
case," and others.
Each poem may be made to introduce
many others, if we take advantage of the
child's delight in the association of ideas
he has acquired. For example, the little
one has loved to hear mother sing "Annie
Laurie " and " The Blue Bells of Scotland"
and ' ' The Campbells are comin ' . " He has
mourned brave Sir Patrick Spens, has
galloped with Lochinvar, and "wi' Wai-
20 READING TO THE CHILDREN
lace bled" in defense of Scotland's free-
dom. Scotland to him has become a land
of romance, dear to his heart. One day,
after he has been lustily singing 'The
Campbells are comin', Oho! Oho!"
mother tells him how the dying English,
penned up in Lucknow, sprang to their
feet laughing and crying with joy as they
heard, faint and far away, the bagpipes
playing 'The Campbells are comin'."
Now is the time to read Whittier's "The
Pipes at Lucknow," as Bayard Taylor's
"Song of the Camp" will touch the chil-
dren after they have joined in singing
"Annie Laurie." Taylor's poem, and the
bit of explanation about the Crimean
War which it involves, will introduce
"The Charge of the Light Brigade,"
another stirring poem of the same war.
A whole cycle of Southern and Civil
War songs and poems may follow the
reading of the Uncle Remus stories, -
THE POETRY HABIT 21
"Dixie," and "Maryland, my Maryland,"
"My Old Kentucky Home," "Sheridan's
Ride," and "Oh, Captain, my Captain!"
Somehow the child will enter into the
heart of the North and the South, the
soldier and the slave, and he will be a
better American in this reunited country
for loving the songs of both sections that
gave their best for what they believed to
be the right.
Make it an unvarying practice to link
poetry with the children's every happy
experience, every celebration, family or
national or religious. Read the "Concord
Hymn" and "Paul Revere's Ride" on
the Fourth of July, "The Landing of the
Pilgrims" at Thanksgiving, "The Flag
goes by " and " The Commemoration Ode "
on Memorial Day. Weeks before Christ-
mas begin to read and sing every beauti-
ful poem and song you can find. There
are so many, we have no excuse for de-
22 READING TO THE CHILDREN
scending to doggerel. On New Year's
Eve read Tennyson's "Death of the Old
Year"; on a gusty winter evening read
"Old Winter is a sturdy one"; on the
baby's birthday, 'Where did you come
from, Baby dear?" Before taking a
journey hunt up poems of places the chil-
dren will visit. After an exciting trip to
the Zoo read Blake's "Tiger, tiger, burn-
ing bright," and Taylor's "Night with a
Wolf."
When the children have enjoyed the
Norse stories, read them Longfellow's
"Skeleton in Armor." After hearing the
stories of Tarpeia and Curtius and other
Roman legends, they will be ready for
Macaulay's "Lays."
Does any father or mother think I am
going too fast? Prove it by experiment!
I am suggesting a poetry course, not for
the "exceptional child," but for real little
bread-and-butter boys and girls of happy
THE POETRY HABIT 23
birth and home environment. There are
only three rules necessary to follow if you
would delight your soul with watching
your children's poetry taste grow with
their growth. These are
Begin early.
Read poetry every day.
Read the right poem at the right time.
CHAPTER III
NATURE POETRY
IT has been a comparatively simple task
to keep alive the baby's poetry taste
while we have confined ourselves to stories
in verse. To kindle a love for nature
poetry in the child who walks along paved
streets lined with high brick walls, will be
more difficult. The question of preparing
the w T ay and of choosing the time the
"psychological moment" for reading
will now be even more important than it
has hitherto been.
The city lies gasping in the heat. The
tiny square of grass in the yard is burned
to a crisp. The dusty leaves on the few
neighboring trees hang limp with thirst.
The pavements almost scorch the feet.
Suddenly clouds roll up, black and lower-
NATURE POETRY 25
ing. Torrents of rain beat against the
window. The choked sewers make rivers
of the streets, rivers in which gleeful boys
sail quickly improvised boats.
Little Wonder Eyes, too young to go to
school, flattens his nose against the pane,
watching, fascinated, for a long, long time,
this glorious rain. Mother does not in-
terrupt. She makes ready to vivify this
experience by reading at bedtime Long-
fellow's "Rain in Summer":
How beautiful is the rain !
After the dust and heat,
In the broad and fiery street,
In the narrow lane,
How beautiful is the rain!
How it clatters along the roofs,
Like the tramp of hoofs!
How it gushes and struggles out
From the throat of the overflowing spout !
Across the window-pane
It pours and pours;
26 READING TO THE CHILDREN
And swift and wide,
With a muddy tide,
Like a river down the gutter roars
The rain, the welcome rain!
From the neighboring school
Come the boys,
With more than their wonted noise
And commotion;
And down the wet streets
Sail their mimic fleets,
Till the treacherous pool
Ingulfs them in its whirling
And turbulent ocean.
In the country, on every side,
Where far and wide,
Like the leopard's tawny and spotted hide,
Stretches the plain,
In the dry grass and the drier grain,
How welcome is the rain !
In the furrowed land
The toilsome and patient oxen stand;
Lifting the yoke-encumbered head,
With their dilated nostrils spread,
They silently inhale
The clover-scented gale,
NATURE POETRY 27
And the vapors that arise
From the well-watered and smoking soil.
For this rest in the furrow after toil
Their large and lustrous eyes
Seem to thank the Lord,
More than man's spoken word.
Does any one question the child's en-
joying this "grown-ups'" poem, heard in
the freshness of a vivid experience? Of
course, if we wait till next winter for our
first reading, we need not wonder if the
interest be languid.
Even city children have the sky. Don't
always put the little one to bed by day-
light. On some beautiful evening when
the silvery radiance of the moon touches
the prosaic city with magic, carry him
out on the roof, and letting the marvel-
ous splendor of the sky sink into his heart,
repeat softly Addison's "Hymn":
Soon as the evening shades prevail,
The moon takes up the wondrous tale;
28 READING TO THE CHILDREN
And nightly to the listening Earth
Repeats the story of her birth:
Whilst all the stars that round her burn,
And all the planets in their turn,
Confirm the tidings as they roll,
And spread the truth from pole to pole.
What though in solemn silence all
Move round the dark terrestrial ball:
What though nor real voice nor sound
Amidst their radiant orbs be found?
In Reason's ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice;
Forever singing as they shine,
"The Hand that made us is divine."
Make the most of afternoons in the
park, of Saturdays by lake or sea or river.
A mother with an imagination can con-
struct a whole forest out of a single tree.
An inland mother can give the very tang
of the sea by means of vivid stories and
pictures pictures of giant waves and
storm-driven ships, of lighthouses, strange
sea monsters, coral islands. Visits to the
museum, a murmuring shell, the effects of
NATURE POETRY 29
an inland storm, all these together will
prepare a child to love Mary Howitt's
"Sea-Gull":
...
For the Sea-Gull, he is a daring bird,
And he loves with the storm to sail;
To ride in the strength of the billowy sea,
And to breast the driving gale!
The little boat, she is tossed about,
Like a seaweed, to and fro;
The tall ship reels like a drunken man,
As the gusty tempests blow.
But the Sea-Gull laughs at the fear of man,
And sails in a wild delight
On the torn-up breast of the night-black sea,
Like a foam-cloud, calm and white.
The waves may rage and the winds may roar,
But he fears not wreck nor need;
For he rides the sea, in its stormy strength,
As a strong man rides his steed !
Oh, the white Sea-Gull, the bold Sea-Gull!
He makes on the shore his nest,
And he tries what the inland fields may be;
But he loveth the sea the best !
And away from land a thousand leagues,
He goes 'mid surging foam;
What matter to him is land or shore,
For the sea is his truest home !
30 READING TO THE CHILDREN
If the child is actually to visit the shore
next summer, save until he has gathered
driftwood, until he has seen the light-
house gleam through the fog and the
little sandpiper flit along the beach, Celia
Thaxter's "Sandpiper":
Across the narrow beach we flit,
One little sandpiper and I,
And fast I gather, bit by bit,
The scattered driftwood bleached and dry.
The wild waves reach their hands for it,
The wild wind raves, the tide runs high,
As up and down the beach we flit, -
One little sandpiper and I.
Above our heads the sullen clouds
Scud black and swift across the sky;
Like silent ghosts in misty shrouds
Stand out the white lighthouses high.
Almost as far as eye can reach
I see the close-reefed vessels fly,
As fast we flit along the beach, -
One little sandpiper and I.
I watch him as he skims along,
Uttering his sweet and mournful cry;
NATURE POETRY 31
He starts not at my fitful song,
Or flash of fluttering drapery.
He has no thought of any wrong;
He scans me with a fearless eye :
Staunch friends are we, well tried and strong,
The little sandpiper and I.
Read Le Gallienne's "Child's Even-
song" 1 at bedtime after a summer after-
noon in park or field: -
The sun is weary, for he ran
So far and fast to-day;
The birds are weary, for who sang
So many songs as they?
The bees and butterflies at last
Are tired out, for just think too
How many gardens through the day
Their little wings have fluttered through.
And so, as all tired people do,
They Ve gone to lay their sleepy heads
Deep, deep in warm and happy beds.
The sun has shut his golden eye
And gone to sleep beneath the sky,
And birds and butterflies and bees
Have all crept into flowers and trees,
1 From English Poems, by Richard Le Gallienne,
published by John Lane Company, New York.
32 READING TO THE CHILDREN
And all lie quiet, still as mice,
Till morning comes - - like father's voice.
So Geoffry, Owen, Phyllis, you
Must sleep away till morning too.
Close little eyes, down little heads,
And sleep sleep sleep in happy beds.
Try to make it possible for the children
to notice, by a country day in spring,
Mother Nature's waking the alders and
the willows, the grass and the violets, the
frogs and the birds; and then read them
Celia Thaxter's "Spring":
The alder by the river
Shakes out her powdery curls;
The willow buds in silver
For little boys and girls.
The little birds fly over,
And oh, how sweet they sing!
To tell the happy children
That once again 't is spring.
The gay green grass comes creeping
So soft beneath their feet;
The frogs begin to ripple
A music clear and sweet.
NATURE POETRY 33
And buttercups are coming,
And scarlet columbine;
And in the sunny meadows
The dandelions shine.
And just as many daisies
As their soft hands can hold
The little ones may gather,
All fair in white and gold.
Here blows the warm red clover,
There peeps the violet blue;
O happy little children,
God made them all for you !
Helen Hunt Jackson's "September"
will be enjoyed after country walks in
fall:
The golden rod is yellow,
The corn is turning brown,
The trees in apple orchards
With fruit are bending down;
The gentian's bluest fringes
Are curling in the sun;
In dusty pods the milkweed
Its hidden silk has spun;
34 READING TO THE CHILDREN
The sedges flaunt their harvest
In every meadow nook,
And asters by the brookside
Make asters in the brook;
From dewy lanes at morning
The grapes' sweet odors rise,
At noon the roads all flutter
With yellow butterflies
By all these lovely tokens
September days are here,
With summer's best of weather
And autumn's best of cheer. 1
Do you notice the poets we have drawn
upon, the real poets, not the obscure
verse-grinders?
Have you ever thought what a child
poem is that pearl of Shelley's, 'The
Cloud"? A child is most at home playing
magic. He loves to pretend he is a lion, a
mouse, a giant, a dragon. Shelley is play-
ing the cloud is a magician, changing his
1 Reprinted by permission of the publishers, Messrs.
Little, Brown & Co.
NATURE POETRY 35
form at pleasure. Do not read the poem
until you are sure the child has noticed,
with or without your gentle suggestions,
the different manifestations of the clouds,
in summer, in winter, by day, by night.
He need not be a high-school pupil, com-
petent to dissect the poem before he will
love the imagery of
>
I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams;
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet buds every one,
When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
As she dances about in the sun.
I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plains under,
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.
I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast;
And all the night 't is my pillow white,
While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
30 READING TO THE CHILDREN
Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers,
Lightning my pilot sits;
In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,
It struggles and howls at fits;
Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,
Over the lakes and the plains,
Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,
The Spirit he loves remains;
And I all the while bask in Heaven's blue smile,
Whilst he is dissolving in rains.
That orbed maiden with white fire laden,
Whom mortals call the Moon,
Glides glimmering o*er my fleece-like floor,
By the midnight breezes strewn;
And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,
Which only the angels hear,
May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof,
The stars peep behind her and peer;
And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,
Like a swarm of golden bees,
When I widen the rent of my wind-built tent,
Till the calm rivers, lakes and seas,
Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
Are each paved with the moon and these.
The country mother will see how easy is
her task compared with that of the city
NATURE POETRY 37
mother. Not alone in youth but for a life
time is one's appreciation of poetry largely
affected by country experiences in child-
hood. I had quite grown up when I first
chanced upon
The breezy call of incense-breathing morn.
Instantly I became an eager little girl on
grandmother's doorstone, poised a mo-
ment to drink in the deliciousness of the
day's beginning before I flew on to the
barn to inspect the milking. Again and
again have exquisite lines recalled to me
thrilling moments of childhood summers
in the country. Do you remember Alfred
Noyes's " Pirates "? How the man, dream-
ing of a long dead comrade with whom he
had played in years gone by, says
Ah, that tree: I have sat in its boughs and looked
seaward for hours;
I remember the creak of its branches; the scent of
the flowers
38 READING TO THE CHILDREN
That climbed round the mouth of the cave; it is
odd I recall
Those little things best, that I scarcely took heed
of at all.
Those last lines express the feeling com-
mon to all grown people who feel at all.
Oh, let us put the country into the
memories of the men and women to be.
No matinees nor museums, no beautiful
clothes nor pampered stomachs, no elec-
trical house appliances nor twentieth-
century schools can ever make up to the
man the loss from a childhood spent
wholly in a great city. Not for the sake of
literary taste in itself, but because the
love for, or lack of response to, certain
fine things in literature are indications of
vital possessions or vital needs of the
heart, do I urge that skimping be prac-
ticed in almost any direction other than
that of denying children the country.
CHAPTER IV
PICTURE BOOKS
NOT long ago, in an afternoon's ramble
among the paintings of the Metropolitan
Museum, I became interested in watching
an eager, black-eyed boy who, like my-
self, was spending his holiday in the gal-
lery. Catching sight of Winslow Homer's
"Gulf Stream" the lad's eyes fairly de-
voured the picture, so intense was his in-
terest in it. Seizing his father's hand, he
dragged the man over to the painting
and urged, "Papa, what does it mean?
What does it mean?"
The father, it was plain, had neither
the information nor the imagination to
guess what it "meant," so he answered
evasively, "Oh nothing. It's only a
picture."
40 READING TO THE CHILDREN
Only the feeling that if I offered ex-
planations I should belittle the father's
intelligence in the child's eyes kept me
from telling the bright lad what he wanted
to know and what I ached to explain. The
subject of the picture is horrible, to be
sure, but a sturdy eight-year-old likes
horrors, and if I had had a chance that
boy would have gone away full of ship-
wrecks and derelicts and sea monsters,
water spouts and tropic heat and the
courage of men who go down to the sea in
ships. Furthermore he would have per-
suaded his indulgent father the man
was the kindest of parents in intent, one
could see to go to the nearest children's
library and get "The Sea and its Won-
ders," "The Book of the Ocean," and
other books which would have interested
the boy for weeks.
This lad was years older than the baby
I have in mind in this chapter, but the
PICTURE BOOKS 41
story illustrates some points I wish to
make on the subject of picture books.
Your baby is a live bundle of curiosity.
If you begin now to answer his questions
as fully as he desires, you will be opening
avenues of interest that will give him de-
light during his whole life. Besides, you
will save time for him. A few years hence
he will, without the slightest sign of brain
fag, outstrip those of his age in school.
Further, if you do not answer his ques-
tions, if through ignorance or impatience
you snub his eager interests at the time
they are first manifested, you may try in
vain years later to bring back to the big
boy that appetite for learning which is
insatiable in the little one.
Again: Your baby is beginning to imi-
tate everything he sees. Of course you
wish to protect him as long as possible
from seeing bad, and you will place before
him a great many good and interesting
42 READING TO THE CHILDREN
things to imitate, knowing that thus you
will be helping the child to become good
and happy and intelligent.
Let us see how the above knowledge is
applied by the majority of adults when
they select picture books for children.
Is it good for children to torture animals,
to ridicule the maimed, the aged, the poor,
to play sly tricks on silly parents, to
mock at politeness, to tease servants, to
destroy property, to make fun of those of
different race or creed than one's own?
Is it good for children to get their first
acquaintance with beautiful old tales of
loyalty and courage and perseverance in
pictures of mocking caricature? Is it
good to paint upon the child's retentive
mind hideous daubs of color and false
distortion of line in short, to show him
the worst in art and ethics at an age
when discrimination is at zero and inter-
est in every detail is at 100?
.PICTURE BOOKS 43
Of course this is bad, parents answer
promptly. Yet in how many good homes
one finds books patterned after the comic-
supplement notion that, so long as a child
is amused by a picture, it is of no con-
sequence that he laughs at the representa-
tion of coarse and vulgar practical jokes,
that he is seeing life distorted, is becom-
ing familiar with bad art, and is imbibing
the idea that to be virtuous is to be ridicu-
lous.
There are parents thoughtful enough
to keep out the bad who do not go far
enough in providing the really worth
while. The commonest fault of children's
books in good homes is insipidity. We try
so hard to stunt the children's mental
growth! We have our fixed ideas as to
the interests proper to childhood and we
firmly lock away subjects presumably
belonging to adults only.
There is a wonderful book by a French
44 READING TO THE CHILDREN
artist picturing in splendid line and color
the life and times of Joan of Arc. A cer-
tain five-year-old of my acquaintance
for weeks made it his regular occupation,
in the last hour before dinner of dark
winter afternoons, to get out this book,
spread it open on the sitting-room table,
and, climbing upon a high chair to kneel,
elbows on table, to pore over the pictures.
The France of the fifteenth century in
palace and cottage, in camp and cathe-
dral, the dress of the people, the heraldic
trappings, the stately ceremonials, the
walled cities and methods of warfare
not a detail in this carefully studied and
wonderfully executed representation of
the times was lost on the small boy, who
had no idea that he was gaming a back-
ground for such an appreciation of mediae-
val history as few big boys acquire.
In the art reference room of our public
library I recently had occasion to ex-
PICTURE BOOKS 45
amine the volumes on the Middle Ages of
an expensive French work by Parmentier
called "Album historique." As I looked
up my subject, I thought, "What a pic-
ture book, this, for a child's library!"
Here one saw, from prints of carvings
on Chartres Cathedral, exactly how the
carpenter, the baker, the butcher, the
blacksmith of the twelfth century worked
at their daily tasks. One could enter the
house of a tenth-century family by way
of an illustration from a precious man-
uscript in the Bibliotheque Nationale.
The children's toys and games, the dresses
and jewels and combs and lamps, all the
domestic and public life of the times were
profusely illustrated from original sources.
Now, of Bourse, such a "picture book"
for a child would need the running com-
ment of an imaginative and pretty well-
informed parent, but there are scores of
parents able to supply the information to
46 READING TO THE CHILDREN
one who would conceive the subject as
within the child's range.
I don't seem to be getting to that baby,
but I am really on the way. I am eager to
emphasize the idea that w r e need not dole
out to little children tiny sugar pellets of
information on rigidly limited subjects,
but that if we choose pictures of vivid
story-telling quality we can use them as
points of departure for all sorts of broad
and worth-while interests.
We know that babies are very early in-
terested in Mother Goose jingles and in
animals. As the months pass they watch
earnestly, then imitate the people about
them children at play, grown people
at work driving horses, unloading coal,
sweeping streets, making bread.
We have found that the youngest chil-
dren like pictures large in figure, strong
and simple in coloring, and well-defined
in outline.
PICTURE BOOKS 47
Every one at all acquainted with chil-
dren knows that story-telling pictures,
having much action and a good deal of
clear detail, are the sort that appeal to
little folks.
Here, then, are clues to the selection of
the first picture books for the child. We
shall not, after the first years, confine our
choice to books strictly in the "picture
books for children" class, but will fol-
low the lead of the small boy's and girl's
questions as fast as our slow brains can
keep up with their nimble wits.
I would, then, during the baby's first
three or four years, buy Randolph Calde-
cott's spirited pictures illustrating the old
nursery rhymes, and Kate Greenaway's
quaint little "Mother Goose"; Beatrix
Potter's tiny "Peter Rabbit," "Benjamin
Bunny," and others of the series which
small children literally love to pieces;
Leslie Brooke's droll animals in "Johnny
48 READING TO THE CHILDREN
Crow's Garden/' whose fun tickles grown-
ups as much as it does the children; also
Brooke's "Three Bears" and "Three
Little Pigs," the enormous popularity of
these latter among our public library chil-
dren, by the way, suggesting that other
makers of children's picture books would
do well to study the style of Brooke's
illustrations. I would include Felicite
Le Fevre's "The Cock, the Mouse and
the Little Red Hen "; and Boyd Smith's
"Chicken World." In the animal picture
books above, the artists, while giving
human touches and sometimes human
clothes and attitudes to the creatures,
have kept their animals essentially true
in delineation to real bears and pigs and
rabbits. Kate Greenaway's 'Under the
Window," Parkinson's "Dutchie Doings"
(an ugly name for a delightful book about
Holland), Lucas and Bedford's 'Four
and Twenty Toilers ' (one of the most
PICTURE BOOKS 49
perfect of all on this list), Boyd Smith's
"Farm Book" and "Seashore Book,"
with a few of the best foreign books whose
stories are so plainly told by their pictures
that the lack of English text will not
matter these are some of the fine pic-
ture books which we should like to have
every little child own.
By means of the above we shall answer
questions and raise more questions about
the country and the sea, about ships and
trains and the work of all sorts of useful
" toilers. " We shall see the quaint villages
in which little English and French and
German children live, the canals and
dykes and windmills and wooden shoes of
the country of the "Dutchie Doings";
we shall establish the best feeling toward
all sorts of animal friends; we shall have
gay laughs over the mishaps of Benjamin
Bunny and Johnny Crow's guests and
little Dutch Jan; and all this variety will
50 READING TO THE CHILDREN
have been given in pictures so good, albeit
so simple, that the seeds for that subtle
growth, good taste in art, will have been
sow r n.
CHAPTER V
FAIRY TALES
ROBERT, aged two and a half, was play-
ing take a journey in a boat. The parlor
rug was the boat and the surrounding
floor the water. In a moment of forget-
fulness Robert stepped off the rug, - - into
the water, I should say. So vivid was the
little boy's feeling of being wet to the
skin that he was inconsolable until mother
brought a bath towel to dry the unlucky
feet.
Charles is another small boy of my ac-
quaintance. One day he was a coal man,
busily shoveling blocks into a tiny cart
and dumping them kerplunk into the bin
in the corner of grandma's room. Acci-
dentally Charles leaned against grand-
ma's bed. Hastily drawing away his hand
52 READING TO THE CHILDREN
he exclaimed, "Oh, grandma, see that
great black spot on the counterpane!' 1
Grandma, absorbed in her work, absent-
mindedly replied, "I don't see any spot,
Charles." 'Why, grandma!" in accents
of deep reproach, "I'm a coal man and
my hands are all black!"
Three-year-old Harriet is one of my
dearest friends. She and her mother come
to "spend the day" at my house some-
times. On one of these happy occasions
Harriet, after playing in another room for
a while, came hurriedly to her mother,
anxiety written over her small face, and
exclaimed, "Oh, mamma, I'm afraid my
baby has pneumonia! Won't you please
come and tell me what to do for her?"
Mamma promptly laid aside her sew-
ing and went to the patient's bedside.
She gravely felt Dolly's pulse, took her
temperature, listened to her breathing,
and finally said to the worried parent,
FAIRY TALES 53
"No, Mrs. Brown, it is not pneumonia,
but your baby has a very bad cold. She
has quite a fever, so don't put many
coverings over her. We will give her very
little medicine, but you must have plenty
of fresh air in the room night and day.
Keep the child out of the draft, but don't
shut the window. And it would be a
good thing to bring in a gas plate and
keep some lime-water boiling on it con-
stantly.
"Good-morning, Mrs. Brown. Don't
worry about the baby. I'll look in again
to-morrow."
The little mother listened with an in-
tensity of concentration worthy a nurse
on a critical case, and then proceeded to
carry out orders with a fidelity to detail
which doctors would be fervently thank-
ful to see imitated by parents of real
patients.
Amused and interested I asked Harriet's
54 READING TO THE CHILDREN
mother, "Do you always 'make-believe'
as seriously and sensibly as this?"
'Yes," was the reply; "it is just as easy
to tell the child true things as to make up
a lot of nonsense. Because her play is
very real to her, she is vividly interested,
and will remember every word I say. The
knowledge she gets may be very useful to
her sometime."
When I have something important to
tell a person, I address him in a language
he will understand. If he and I have no
common speech, I use signs or pictures
or some other device to convey my mean-
ing-
Harriet and Charles and Robert and
other little people of their age are living
in the wonder years, when the language
surest of appeal to their hearts, surest of
making a vivid impression, is the language
of fancy, of : ' make-believe." The time
will come when these children will begin
FAIRY TALES 55
to ask, "Is that story true? Tell me a
true story now!" The time may even
come when they will be interested in the
scientific study of those natural phenom-
ena with which the fairy tale takes such
liberties.
At first it is the Wonderland animal
that interests the child, tales of Benjamin
Bunny, Brer Fox, the Wee Small Bear,
the Little Red Hen, Johnny Crow. Later,
true stories of brave dogs and cunning
foxes and fierce lions become more in-
teresting than the fanciful tales which
the child gradually finds do not agree
with fact. Last of all comes the study of
zoology as a science.
Every now and then the Gradgrinds
come to the fore and argue with heat
against telling a child lies, that is,
fairy tales. These literal-minded people
have no conception of the importance of
allowing a child to develop in nature's
56 READING TO THE CHILDREN
way, nor of the difference between lying
- the intent to deceive - - and imagining
the "let's pretend " faculty, more valu-
able to the adult, even, than to the child.
What is the most natural way for the
child to explain certain of nature's mani-
festations?
"Come, little Leaves," said the Wind one day,
"Come over the meadow with me and play;
Put on your dresses of red and gold
For Summer has gone and the days grow cold."
Soon as the Leaves heard the Wind's loud call
Down they came fluttering one and all;
Over the brown fields they danced and flew,
Singing the soft little songs they knew.
Of course the child thinks of the leaves
as little live creatures putting on gayly
colored garments, frolicking with their
big unseen playmate, the Wind, and
finally going to sleep under a soft white
blanket which Winter spreads over them.
Of course he thinks of Jack Frost as paint-
FAIRY TALES 57
ing the windows, nipping noses and fingers,
icing over the streams; of the stars as
winking at little boys down below; of the
crescent moon as a golden boat; of the
breezes as whispering to him ; of the shad-
ows as playing with him; of all nature, in
short, as being alive in a vividly personal
way.
Now, this is exactly the way the child's
remote ancestors felt, ages and ages back.
The myths record these fancies of primi-
tive peoples; the hero tales and folk tales
and legends grew out of the myths; the
fairy tale is a modern invention after the
fashion of the folk tale; and all the stories
of this sort are the special literary form of
the child, answering to a deep and right
craving of his nature.
Apart from the joy-giving value of the
fairy tale there is a use in it which even
the Gradgrinds ought to respect. When
the Great Teacher told the parables of the
58 READING TO THE CHILDREN
sower, the house built upon a rock, the
wise and foolish virgins, we understand
that he was inventing stories to make
clear to his hearers certain spiritual truths.
Here we have the story not true to fact,
but true to truth.
The fairy tale has been called a poetic
presentation of a spiritual truth. When
we tell our little ones of a brave and
gentle prince who, aided by fairies and
gnomes and friendly talking beasts, rides
through space on North Wind's shoulder,
slays a terrible dragon, and releases the
beautiful princess from the wicked ma-
gician's castle, what is the staying part
of the story we have told in this fanciful
language? Is it not that courage and
gentleness and truth make one strong to
fight and to overcome evil? Surely the
sooner we get such an idea rooted in the
child's heart the nobler child he will be;
and if the way to his heart is through his
FAIRY TALES 59
fancy, why stupidly try a path that forbids
rather than invites the child to walk in it?
The little boy who uses his father's cane
for a horse, who is now a hunter in a deep
forest, a minute later a roaring lion, and
next is playing with the fishes at the
bottom of the ocean, this boy we do not
call a liar. No more need we fear the
effect of fairy tales upon his character if
we choose those in which the child's sym-
pathies are enlisted for the brave and pure
and faithful and friendly, and his con-
tempt is aroused against the coward, the
sneak, the lazy, the ugly in character.
Of course we must never spoil these
artistic stories by rubbing in their les-
son. Let the children have the pure joy
of their playful fancy without our tag-
ging on at the end, "Now the moral of
this story is - The fable, however, can
sometimes be tellingly used for pointing
a moral to a naughty small person.
60 READING TO THE CHILDREN
One day when I was a tiny girl, with
toys from my emptied play cupboard
strewn about me, my baby sister, creep-
ing near, began playing with a toy I had
not thought of wanting that morning. I
snatched the toy away from little sister
just as my dear mother passed through
the room. Not in a frowning way, but
with a gentle, humorous twinkle, mother
let fall the remark, "Dog in the manger!"
I dropped that toy as if it had scorched,
for did I not see myself as the ugly, snarl-
ing dog who could not eat hay himself,
yet would not allow the patient, hungry
cow to come near her well-earned supper?
I have spoken of the joy value and the
ethical value of the fairy tale. I wish I
could make all the world feel its value to
the imagination - - the importance of an
imagination in this day of worship of the
material. It takes imagination to believe
in God, in the soul, in immortality. Peo-
FAIRY TALES 61
pie without imagination or with starved
imaginations lack the fineness and the
infinite variety that make life interesting
to them, and themselves interesting to
others. Imagination is needed not only by
the poet, the artist, the musician, but is
essential to the leader in practical lines
in business management, bridge-building,
railroading. How could one build a bridge
without first having a picture of the struc-
ture in his mind imagining it, in short?
There is another argument for the
wonder stories in the joy they will give
the man, years hence, when he looks at
pictures, listens to music, reads poems
which demand for their complete apprecia-
tion an understanding of the old myths to
which they allude. No grubbing through
classical dictionaries will make up to the
man for the joy he will miss if these allu-
sions do not call up to him beautiful old
stories beloved in his childhood.
62 READING TO THE CHILDREN
There is still more to be said for the
wonder stories. The picturesque vocabu-
lary of little children fed on the best; the
engaging brightness of mind that makes
their talk a delight to an adult not too
dull to appreciate its poetry; the happy
effect upon their play shown when the
children dramatize the fanciful tales -
these are other worthwhile results of fa-
miliarizing children with the literature of
Wonderland.
In closing, a word or two of caution.
We must remember that there are many
unwholesome fairy tales, just as there are
bad pictures; that we must shield a high-
strung child from the too fearful; that
we must be watchful lest the excessively
imaginative child be allowed a too-ex-
clusive diet of wonder stories, just as we
would wish to steep in fanciful literature
the occasional youngster of the very mat-
ter-of-fact type.
CHAPTER VI
BIBLE STORIES
Two small boys had been spending the
week-end at grandma's their first over-
night visit away from mother. As they
were being put to bed on Sunday night,
one of the aunties remarked, "I've a nice
story to read to you after you are tucked
in.'
The youngsters looked a bit suspi-
ciously at the Bible in auntie's hand.
That book was associated with long
sitting still in church, with texts to be
committed, with moral and religious talks
given by not always skillful Sunday-
School teachers. However, auntie's ideas
of a good story always had coincided ex-
actly with their own, so they were ready
to give the Bible a hearing at least.
64 READING TO THE CHILDREN
Auntie opened to the Book of Esther.
Pencil marks here and there indicated
for omission some unimportant parts ; this
in order that, at one not too long reading,
the whole of the story might be given.
Here is the way auntie began to read :
Now it came to pass in the days of Ahasu-
erus . . . when the king Ahasuerus sat on the
throne of his kingdom, which was in Shushan
the palace, in the third year of his reign, he
made a feast unto all his princes and his serv-
ants; the power of Persia and Media, the
nobles and princes of the provinces being be-
fore him . . .
When he showed the riches of his glorious
kingdom and the honour of his excellent
majesty many days, even an hundred and
fourscore days.
And when these days were expired, the
king made a great feast unto all the people
that were present in Shushan the palace,
both unto great and small, seven days, in the
court of the garden of the king's palace;
Where were white, green and blue hangings
fastened with cords of fine linen to purple and
BIBLE STORIES 65
silver rings and pillars of marble; the beds
were of gold and silver, upon a pavement of
red and blue and white and black marble.
And they gave them drink in vessels of gold
- the vessels being diverse one from another
- and royal wine in abundance, according to
the state of the king.
At the beginning of the reading there
had been a good deal of rustling in the
bed. It was difficult to fall in at once with
the notion that the Bible could be inter-
esting enough for close attention! Soon,
however, the moving about ceased and to
the end of the story such stillness reigned
as made auntie glance up once in a while
to see if the boys had dropped off to
Dreamland. Not a bit of it! Who could
think of sleep while such pictures of
Oriental magnificence were being woven
before one's eyes by those splendidly
colorful words ? A long sigh of complete
satisfaction, the same sign of reluctant
coming back to earth as greeted auntie's
66 READING TO THE CHILDREN
most successful fairy tales, was evidence
of the boys' entire approval of the reading.
Now, let us put beside the above the
Old Testament's own language unaltered
except by omission, the following version,
which, be it noted, is exceptionally good
among the children's retold Bibles which
flood the market:
There was a gentle Jewish girl named
Esther who had been left an orphan very
young and was brought up by her kind rela-
tion Mordecai, who was one of the Jews who
had not gone back to Jerusalem, but still
lived in Persia.
One day there came a messenger from the
king to carry away poor Esther from home.
The king wanted all the maidens in his land
to be brought together, that he might choose
the most beautiful of them all for his queen,
and the others would be kept for slaves. All
the other maidens dressed themselves up, and
painted themselves to try to look beautiful;
but Esther did not ask for any ornaments,
she only put on what she was ordered to wear.
Yet she looked so much the most lovely of
BIBLE STORIES 67
them all, in her modest quietness, that the
king chose her and married her, and set the
crown on her head, and made her his queen.
But she had a sad life though she,was queen.
She was always shut up and could not see her
kind friend Mordecai, and she could not even
go to her husband without his leave, or she
would have been put to death.
How tame, how colorless, how lacking
in vividness, in poetry, in 'magnificence is
this gentle simplification! And why was
it attempted? Because a child is not able
to define every word in the original? Who
cares if he is n't? Not he, certainly. His
enjoyment does not depend upon defini-
tions. The words he does understand, and
the sound of those he does not, paint for
him pictures the more alluring for a vague-
ness that leaves all sorts of splendors to
the imagination.
'An hundred and fourscore days"
what a very, very long feast, and how rich
and mighty must have been the king who
68 READING TO THE CHILDREN
could feed and amuse his guests so long
and so magnificently ! Is our small boy at
all bothered that he does not know ex-
actly how many "fourscore" days were?
It is not the purpose of this chapter to
discuss the Bible as a theological work
or religious guide. For such use I would
refer parents to Mrs. Louise Seymour
Houghton's "Telling Bible Stories to
Children" and Dean Hodges's books for
parents and children. Of course, some
will think one or both of these writers
too modern, while others will complain
of their being too traditional. They \vill
at least be suggestive to adults puzzled
about what to teach the children, since
modern scholarship has changed our un-
derstanding of some parts of the Bible.
Whatever our viewpoint on Biblical
doctrine, we are waking up to the idea that,
since the Bible is woven into the litera-
ture and history of our race, familiarity
BIBLE STORIES 69
with it is exceedingly important to our
young people, if we would have them ap-
preciate to the full the best things in the
life of the mind and spirit. If we can, by
the interest we kindle in little children,
prepare them to grow up loving those
best things, by all means we will do
this.
We all agree that the Bible contains a
wonderful collection of stories suited to
the taste of young and old. We know
that no finer literature exists, that poetry
and pathos, grandeur and tender beauty,
all the thoughts of the human heart and
the glory of earth and heaven are ex-
pressed in language matchlessly vivid and
simple. Will any one give a good reason
why this language should be turned into
commonplace English for children who
particularly delight in rhythmical, poetic
sound? Only the tiny children need the
Bible simplified, except by omission.
70 READING TO THE CHILDREN
Do you know why librarians often find
the children of clever parents reading
inane and foolish stories, counting as
too great a mental effort the books their
fathers and mothers adored in their early
youth ? It is largely because of this mania
for simplification that has fallen upon the
land in our time. It is very illogical for us
to be disappointed in a twelve-year-old
who turns from books rich in allusion,
style, and breadth, if, for the greater part
of those twelve years, we have carefully
guarded him from mental stretching,
which an unspoiled, active-minded child
really enjoys. In our mistaken kindness
we make healthy minds become soft for
lack of exercise.
No great book has yet been written
in "first-reader" English -- nor yet in
"second-reader" or :< third -reader." Let
the little ones grow up in hearing of a rich
and varied speech and the big ones will
BIBLE STORIES 71
not be discouraged with the first pages of
a nobly written book.
For every reason make the Bible lov-
ingly familiar to the children. Choose
those of the stories best suited to their
liking. Make the reading a special treat,
never a compulsory duty. Do not let the
children go to Sunday-School until you
have satisfied yourself that their love for
the Book will be enhanced, not killed by
unskillful teaching.
And carry to the consideration, not only
of this but of all other splendidly written
stories, the conviction that children enjoy
much and get much from many things
which they do not wholly understand at
the first hearing; and that the relation be-
tween the reading taste of six and twelve
years may be as definite as is the relation
between the brains, skill, and industry of
the farmer and the kind of crops he raises.
There is some uncertainty about results
72 READING TO THE CHILDREN
in both fields, I admit, but in crops and
children it is far more often bad manage-
ment than bad luck that is responsible for
poor products.
CHAPTER VII
STORIES THAT MIGHT BE TRUE:
SOME "DON'TS'
THUS far I have tried to make rny sugges-
tions follow the principle that the best
way to keep out the bad is to fill up mind
space with good. I have used the positive
rather than the negative, the "Do" in-
stead of the "Don't" method in offering
advice.
This, however, must be a chapter of
"Don'ts." We are to take up the "Story
that might be true," child fiction corre-
sponding to the realistic novel of the
adult.
In their stories of real boys and girls
who have no dealings with fairies, but
who do (supposedly) possible and proba-
ble things, our small people live through,
74 READING TO THE CHILDREN
in imagination, many new experiences.
They adopt the ideas of their story boy or
girl, they become interested in the things
that interest the story children.
Now, what sort of things are many
writers to-day making interesting to chil-
dren?
Foremost among the stories which most
people pronounce "safe" and many call
"charming" is the type dubbed by an
"Outlook" writer "the little child shall
lead them" story.
I have in mind one in which a mother-
less eight-year-old, brought up in a board-
ing-house, manages her father's affairs
and the landlady's and the boarders'
with an executive ability that would put
many a grown woman to blush. She
divides her father's weekly salary into
neat piles of board money, clothes money,
money to go into the bank, etc. She
coaxes the irate cook into good humor,
STORIES THAT MIGHT BE TRUE 75
placates the grouchy boarder and soothes
the worried landlady into grateful relief.
When her father is unmanned by an ac-
cusation of forgery, this capable child bids
him put on his hat and accompany her to
the lawyer where she ably states the case
for her parent. She is the means by which
this same unappreciated poet father finds
the road to fame, and the story ends with
a picture of our heroine of eight embark-
ing for Europe amid such an avalanche
of flowers that other passengers, seeing
the floral tributes coming aboard, wonder
if a famous opera singer is traveling on the
steamer.
Another story is of an eight-year-old
boy whose career is one round of sen-
sational benevolence. Out of a list of
shining deeds too long to quote in full I
instance the hero's effecting a reconcili-
ation between a father and son long es-
tranged, his patching up a lover's quarrel,
76 READING TO THE CHILDREN
bringing a neglected actor to the atten-
tion of an important manager, averting a
factory strike, and saving from a burning
building a roomful of children.
There are stories of children who bring
together father and mother who have
separated; who win to devoted mother-
hood women too absorbed in society
to remember their children's existence.
There is a tale of a four-year-old who is
the unconscious means of bringing to his
better senses a man who, having been
jilted by the child's mother years before,
had buried himself from the world with a
pistol handy for the sucide he kept in
mind as a possible means of escape from
his thoughts.
You are horrified that parents buy such
books. You would be more astonished if
I were to tell you not only who buy but
who write stories like these. I refuse to
advertise the stuff by naming titles, but
STORIES THAT MIGHT BE TRUE 77
most of the above are the work of authors
in excellent standing.
Let the children have real fairy tales,
by all means. But by all means insist that
their stories of real life be true to life, to
the wholesome, natural, simple life you
are trying to insure to your children.
There is much evil in this good world of
ours. Our children need to know what is
bad in order to avoid it. They must be
helped to grow strong to resist temptation.
The stories in which they live vicariously
the life of the heroes or heroines may be
of immense help in illustrating the brave
way to face and conquer difficulties.
There are many sorts of evil, however,
from the knowledge of which little chil-
dren should be shielded if possible. The
misfortunes or wickednesses of adult life,
unhappy marriages, false lovers, brutal
fathers, silly mothers, jealousy, forgery,
burglaries you will probably think it
78 READING TO THE CHILDREN
absurd for me to beg you to protect chil-
dren from stories in which these things
figure. But since writers of children's
stories will drag in such themes, and
since friends and relatives more generous
than wise will continue to choose your
children's Christmas books by covers
rather than contents, this warning is not
unnecessary.
Books about child characters who are
naughty in childlike ways, these are
in a different class; but even here be care-
ful. To tell a story because there are so
many interesting and happy things in the
world to bring to children, this should
be the reason for writing a child's book.
Neither the story that paints a naughty
child as a solemn warning for the young,
nor the one (so amusing to the adult) that
describes the pranks of the picturesque
bad boy of the town is desirable reading
for little children.
STORIES THAT MIGHT BE TRUE 79
There are many other "Don'ts" for us
to remember. The Sunday-School story
of a generation ago is dying out. Do
not revive it under the impression that
the priggish' heroine will be a wholesome
example for your child. Remember, too,
that many books do not practice what
they preach. There are authors who
write against snobbishness and money
worship who yet make very evident their
sense of the superiority of those elect be-
ings who, from silken heights, graciously
bestow alms upon the child in the gutter.
Avoid stories in which children begin
early to lead the life of society women; in
which the author, pretending to write for
children, gives the impression that she
is winking at an adult over the child's
"cute" blunders of speech and under-
standing.
Do not choose stories of swift and start-
ling action such will cultivate the taste
80 READING TO THE CHILDREN
for the sensational, the newspaper head-
line sort of writing.
And finally, do not be too literal in
applying the above "Don'ts." We some-
times find in a story, beautiful on the
whole, a minor episode which we wish the
author had left out. We must learn to
judge the effect of the book as a whole, to
have a sense of proportion which will tell
us whether the final impression of the
story upon the child will be good and
true or whether its less desirable features
will make the stronger impression.
The largest number of all the not
worth-while books for children are those
in which one cannot point out features so
plainly objectionable that any thoughtful
parent would recognize their harmfulness.
The soft, "safe," inane, sugar-and-water
story that leads nowhere, that has no
positive qualities, bad or good, that con-
sumes good time, that opens no windows
STORIES THAT MIGHT BE TRUE 81
in the child's mind, this story also let
us avoid. Our children are too good for
such mental pap. They deserve the best,
the stories of "some particular good"
rather than those of "no particular harm"
this latter being the stock defense put
up against the librarian who objects to
spending public money on books that
waste time and atrophy the mind. When
she contemplates buying a chair or a
carpet or a tablecloth does any woman
accept indifferently a "not-bad" article if
the very best of its kind is within reach
of her purse? How is it that we seem so
indifferent to the furnishing of our chil-
dren's minds and hearts when we spend
so much care upon the furnishing of their
physical surroundings? When the child
reads to himself we cannot prevent his
devouring some commonplace books, but
while his reading is in our hands let us see
that he knows the best and only the best.
CHAPTER VIII
STORIES THAT MIGHT BE TRUE:
HOW TO CHOOSE THEM
IT will be a relief to return to the empha-
sis of the good after having dwelt so long
upon depressing "Don'ts."
To bring out the positive qualities
which we should like to find in every
story for little children I can think of no
better plan than, first, to quote bodily a
chapter from a book which possesses prac-
tically everything desirable, and next, to
call attention to the book's good features
point by point.
The story I have in mind is called "The
Dutch Twins." After a little introduc-
tion of Kit and Kat, the Twins, the
author begins:
STORIES THAT MIGHT BE TRUE 83
CHAPTER ONE
THE DAY THEY WENT FISHING *
ONE summer morning, very early, Vrouw
Vedder opened the door of her little Dutch
kitchen and stepped out.
She looked across the road which ran by
the house, across the canal on the other side,
across the level green fields that lay beyond,
clear to the blue rim of the world, where the
sky touches the earth. The sky was very blue;
and the great, round, shining face of the sun
was just peering over the tops of the trees, as
she looked out.
Vrouw Vedder listened. The roosters in
the barnyard were crowing, the ducks in the
canal were quacking, and all the little birds
in the fields were singing for joy. Vrouw
Vedder hummed a slow little tune of her own,
as she went back into her kitchen.
Kit and Kat were still asleep in their little
cupboard bed. She gave them each a kiss.
The Twins opened their eyes and sat up.
"O Kit and Kat," said Vrouw Vedder,
"the sun is up, the birds are all awake and
1 Copyright, 1911, by Lucy Fitch Perkins.
84 READING TO THE CHILDREN
singing, and grandfather is going fishing to-
day. If you will hurry, you may go with him!
He is coming at six o'clock; so pop out of bed
and get dressed. I will put some lunch for you
in the yellow basket, and you may dig worms
for bait in the garden. Only be sure not to
step on the young cabbages that father
planted."
Kit and Kat bounced out of bed in a min-
ute. Their mother helped them put on their
clothes and new wooden shoes. Then she
gave them each a bowl of bread and milk
for their breakfast. They ate it sitting on
the kitchen doorstep.
This is a picture of Kit and Kat digging
worms. You see they did just as their mother
said, and did not step on the young cabbages.
They sat on them, instead. But that was an
accident.
Kit, dug the worms, and Kat put them into
a basket, with some earth in it to make them
feel at home.
When grandfather came, he brought a large
fishing-rod for himself and two little ones for
the Twins. There was a little hook on the end
of each line.
Vrouw Vedder kissed Kit and Kat good-bye.
STORIES THAT MIGHT BE TRUE 85
"Mind grandfather, and don't fall into the
water," she said.
Grandfather and the Twins started off to-
gether down the long road beside the canal.
The house where the Twins lived was right
beside the canal. Their father was a gardener,
and his beautiful rows of cabbages and beets
and onions stretched in long lines across the
level fields by the roadside.
Grandfather lived in a large town, a little
way beyond the farm where the Twins lived.
He did not often have a holiday, because he
carried milk to the doors of the people in the
town, every morning early. Sometime I will
tell you how he did it; but I must not tell you
now, because if I do, I can't tell you about
their going fishing.
This morning, grandfather carried his rod
and the lunch-basket. Kit and Kat carried
the basket of worms between them, and their
rods over their shoulders, and they were all
three very happy.
They walked along ever so far, beside the
canal; then turned to the left and walked
along a path that ran from the canal across
the green fields to what looked like a hill.
But it was n't a hill at all, really, because
86 READING TO THE CHILDREN
there are n't any hills in Holland. It was a
long, long wall of earth, very high oh, as
high as a house, or even higher! And it had
sloping sides.
There is such a wall of earth all around the
country of Holland, where the Twins live.
There has to be a wall, because the sea is
higher than the land. If there were no walls
to shut out the sea, the whole country would
be covered with water; and if that were so,
then there would n't be any Holland, or any
Holland Twins, or any story. So you see it
was very lucky for the Twins that the wall was
there. They called it a dyke.
Grandfather and Kit and Kat climbed the
dyke. When they reached the top, they sat
down a few minutes to rest and look at the
great blue sea. Grandfather sat in the middle,
with Kit on one side, and Kat on the other;
and the basket of worms and the basket of
lunch were there, too.
They saw a great ship sail slowly by, mak-
ing a cloud of smoke.
"Where do the ships go, grandfather?"
asked Kit.
"To America, and England, and China,
and all over the world," said grandfather.
STORIES THAT MIGHT BE TRUE 87
'Why?" asked Kat. Kat almost always
said "Why?" and when she didn't, Kit
did.
"To take flax and linen from the mills of
Holland to make dresses for little girls in
other countries," said grandfather.
"Is that all? "asked Kit.
"They take cheese and herring, bulbs and
butter, and lots of other things besides, and
bring back to us wheat and meat and all sorts
of good things from the lands across the sea."
" I think I '11 be a sea captain when I 'm big,"
said Kit.
"So will I," said Kat.
"Girls can't," said Kit.
But grandfather shook his head and said:
"You can't tell what a girl may be by the
time she 's four feet and a half high and is
called Katrina. There 's no telling what girls
will do anyway. But, children, if we stay
here we shall not catch any fish."
So they went down the other side of the
dyke and out onto a little pier that ran from
the sandy beach into the water.
Grandfather showed them how to bait
their hooks. Kit baited Kat's for her, be-
cause Kat said it made her all wriggly inside
88 READING TO THE CHILDREN
to do it. She did not like it. Neither did the
worm!
They all sat down on the end of the pier.
Grandfather sat on the very end and let his
wooden shoes hang down over the water; but
he made Kit and Kat sit with their feet stuck
straight out in front of them, so they just
reached to the edge, "So you can't fall in,"
said grandfather.
They dropped their hooks into the water,
and sat very still, waiting for a bite. The sun
climbed higher and higher in the sky, and it
grew hotter and hotter on the pier. The flies
tickled Kat's nose and made her sneeze.
"Keep still, can't you?" said Kit crossly.
' You '11 scare the fish. Girls don't know how
to fish, anyway."
Pretty soon Kat felt a queer little jerk on
her line. She was perfectly sure she did.
Kat squealed and jerked her rod. She
jerked it so hard that one foot flew right up
in the air, and one of her new wooden shoes
went - - splash right into the water!
But that wasn't the worst of it! Before
you could say Jack Robinson, Kat's hook
flew around and caught in Kit's clothes and
pricked him.
STORIES THAT MIGHT BE TRUE 89
Kit jumped and said "Ow!" And then
no one could ever tell how it happened
there was Kit in the water, too, splashing like
a young whale, with Kat's hook still holding
fast to his clothes in the back!
Grandfather jumped then, too, you may
be sure. He caught hold of Kat's rod and
pulled hard and called out, "Steady there,
steady!"
And in one minute there was Kit in the
shallow water beside the pier, puffing and
blowing like a grampus!
Grandfather reached down and pulled him
up.
When Kit was safely on the pier, Kat
threw her arms around his neck, though the
water was running down in streams from his
hair and eyes and ears.
"O Kit," she said, "I truly thought it was
a fish on my line when I jumped!"
"Just like a g-g-girl," said Kit. "They
don't know how to f-f-fish." You see his teeth
were chattering, because the water was cold.
"Well, anyway," said Kat, "I caught more
than you did. I caught you!"
Then Kat thought of something else- She
shook her finger at Kit.
90 READING TO THE CHILDREN
"O Kit," she said, "mother told you not to
fall into the water!"
"T-t-twas all your fault," roared Kit.
'Y-y-you began it! Anyway, where is your
new wooden shoe?"
'Where are both of yours?" screamed Kat.
Sure enough, where were they? No one
had thought about shoes, because they were
thinking so hard about Kit.
They ran to the end of the pier and looked.
There was Kat's shoe sailing away toward
America like a little boat! Kit's were still
bobing about in the water near the pier.
"Oh! Oh! Oh!" shrieked Kat; but the tide
was going out and carrying her shoe farther
away every minute. They could not get it;
but grandfather reached down with his rod
and fished out both of Kit's shoes. Then Kat
took off her other one and her stockings, and
they all three went back to the beach.
Grandfather and Kat covered Kit up with
sand to keep him warm while his clothes were
drying. Then grandfather stuck the Twins*
fish-poles up in the sand and tied the lines
together for a clothes-line, and hung Kit's
clothes up on it, and Kat put their three
wooden shoes in a row beside Kit.
STORIES THAT MIGHT BE TRUE 91
Then they ate their luncheon of bread and
butter, cheese, and milk, with some radishes
from father's garden. It tasted very good,
even if it was sandy. After lunch grandfather
said,
"It will never do to go home without any
fish at all."
So by and by he went back to the pier and
caught one while the Twins played in the
sand. He put it in the lunch-basket to carry
home.
Kat brought shells and pebbles to Kit, be-
cause he had to stay covered up in the sand,
and Kit built a play dyke all around himself
with them, and Kat dug a canal outside the
dyke. Then she made sand-pies in clam-shells
and set them in a row in the sun to bake.
They played until the shadow of the dyke
grew very long across the sandy beach, and
then grandfather said it was time to go home.
He helped Kit dress, but Kit's clothes were
still a little wet in the thick parts. And Kat
had to go barefooted and carry her one
wooden shoe.
They climbed the dyke and crossed the
fields, and walked along the road by the canal.
The road shone, like a strip of yellow ribbon
92 READING TO THE CHILDREN
across the green field. They walked quite
slowly, for they were tired and sleepy.
By and by Kit said, "I see our house";
and Kat said, "I see mother at the gate."
Grandfather gave the fish he caught to Kit
and Kat, and Vrouw Vedder cooked it for
their supper; and though it was not a very
big fish, they all had some.
Grandfather must have told Vrouw Ved-
der something about what had happened;
for that night, when she put Kit to bed, she
felt of his clothes carefully but she did n't
say a word about their being damp. And
she said to Kat: "To-morrow we will see
the shoemaker and have him make you an-
other shoe."
Then Kit and Kat hugged her and said
good-night, and popped off to sleep before
you could wink your eyes.
I want you to notice first the style in
which this chapter is written. So simple,
so clear, so direct, so flexible, so perfectly
adapted to little children that three-year-
olds adore the tale, and yet - - are you
bored by it? Is there any of the first-
STORIES THAT MIGHT BE TRUE 93
reader "This is a cat. The cat has four
legs" English, which would wear you out
if you had to read much of it? How true
the picture painted by the simple words:
"She looked across the road which ran by
the house, across the canal on the other
side, across the level green fields that lay
beyond, clear to the blue rim of the world,
where the sky touches the earth. The sky
was very blue; and the great, round,
shining face of the sun was just peering
over the tops of the trees as she looked
out."
Would you have thought of attempting
to describe the dykes of Holland and its
commerce for tiny children? And yet how
perfectly is brought to their understand-
ing the wall that has to be there to shut
out the sea or "there wouldn't be any
Holland or any Holland Twins or any
story"; and the ships that "take flax and
linen from the mills of Holland to make
94 READING TO THE CHILDREN
dresses for little girls in other countries"
big things, big ideas brought to little
children in the concrete way that is the
way of giving new information to tiny
folk. The author's describing the wall
first making it interesting, making it
important to our little listener who thinks
himself the center of the universe - - and
her keeping the name of the dyke until
the last there again is understanding
of child mind as well as skill in handling
English.
Next note the story's particularity of
detail how youngsters delight in this !
The lunch was put up in the yellow basket
not in a basket, any basket; ''the
grandfather carried his rod and the lunch-
basket, the Twins the basket of worms
between them and their rods over their
shoulders " from beginning to end there
is a most satisfying attention to such im-
portant items as these.
STORIES THAT MIGHT BE TRUE 95
It is a happy home in which the Twins
live. They are wakened in the morning by
mother's kiss. Grandfather thinks it fun
to give his holiday for the small people's
pleasure. Mother does n't punish children
for an accident that means a lost shoe and
a soaking.
The incidents of the story are abso-
lutely natural and childlike; and what a
lot of fun there is! The hook's catching
and pricking Kit, grandfather's fishing
the youngster out of the water, the wet
clothes hung out on the improvised
clothes-line while the naked little twin
plays buried up to his arms in the warm
sand. What gay laughs our small listener
will have over these catastrophes !
And then, this is one of the stories that
'open doors." Most of its incidents and
allusions sound familiar to our little lis-
tener. This is important. We proceed
"from the known to the unknown" in
96 READING TO THE CHILDREN
educating not only children but grown
people. By familiar child life set in novel
surroundings, with the strange scenes not
too swiftly introduced and described, we
have opened a door to a new interest. To
the end of his days quaint little Holland,
the land of dykes and canals and wooden
shoes and Dutch twins, will be no dull
geography lesson, no mere spot on the
map, but a country of vivid personal in-
terest to the big boy and the man who
listened to mother's reading of this story
in childhood.
I have not spoken of the delightful il-
lustrations of "The Dutch Twins" be-
cause it would be piling on impossible
demands to say that every author should
illustrate her own books as profusely and
effectively as has Mrs. Perkins. Would n't
it be ideal if such a demand could be met?
You will notice, if you make the test,
that this story has a positive, a good
STORIES THAT MIGHT BE TRUE 97
quality for every "Don't" of the preced-
ing chapter. Try by this test every book
you read to your children. You will not
long need the simple language of the
"Twins," because children who listen
daily to good reading grow with astonish-
ing rapidity in vocabulary and mental
grasp.
The thought of choosing books which
will open doors to new interest leads us
directly into the subject of the next
chapter, travel and history stories for lit-
tle people.
CHAPTER IX
TRAVEL AND HISTORY STORIES
ONE day when I was eleven or twelve
years of age, strolling into my best friend's
house I caught sight of a green-and-gold
covered book bearing the fascinating title
'The Prince and the Pauper." Opening
to the frontispiece I beheld a silk-and-
jewel clad prince approaching a tattered
lad of his own age, while a big man-at-
arms at rigid attention stood near.
A second later and I was three thousand
miles and more than three hundred years
away from my apparent surroundings,
following with breathless absorption the
fortunes of the boy King Edward VI of
England, fortunes so strangely inter-
woven by the wonderful story-teller with
those of his ragged subject Tom Canty.
TRAVEL AND HISTORY STORIES 99
I have no idea how many times I have
read that entrancing story, but I know
I shall never outgrow its effect. I smile
at the memory of my girlish indignation
when I opened my first English history
textbook and found the reign of my boy
king disposed of in three brief pages ! All
other history might be dull, but anything,
anywhere, about Edward and his father
Henry VIII, and his sisters Elizabeth and
Mary, about Lady Jane Grey his cousin
and Hertford Lord Protector, about Lon-
don of the sixteenth century and the cus-
toms and institutions of the times, con-
nect a character or an occurrence with this
story and immediately it took on vivid
interest. When I began to study general
history, I mentally dated important Eu-
ropean events as so many years before or
after the reign of Edward. This early
awakened interest in the Tudor period
follows me even now. Only lately, for ex-
100 READING TO THE CHILDREN
ample, I discovered Harrison Ainsworth's
nice, old-fashioned novels, because, hap-
pening to glance into "The Tower of Lon-
don," I noticed "Lady Jane Grey" on the
first page. That settled my carrying the
book to the charging desk, and going back
shortly for "Windsor Castle," a story of
Henry VIII.
When I took my first wonderful trip
abroad a few years since, it was natural
enough though unpremeditated that
the English part of the trip should become
a sort of "Prince and the Pauper" pil-
grimage; but I also learned some new
things about the influence of a child's
story books on an adult's likings.
From the minute I took my first walk
upon the walls of an ancient city, and
when I crossed a grassy moat to step under
the portcullis of a grim feudal castle, from
those first hours in old England to the day
before my return sailing, when, in Paris,
TRAVEL AND HISTORY STORIES 101
the name Rue Roget de Lisle on a street
corner sent the shivers along my spi-
nal column as I thought of the stirring
happenings which the singing of the
"Marseillaise" has always occasioned in
France, all through my happy travels
I kept finding that the things I enjoyed
most were those I had known about and
loved when I was a child. In the tired dog
dragging a milk-cart through the streets
of Brussels, I beheld the original of "The
Dog of Flanders." Each German castle
crowning a rocky height made me picture
within its walls the gentle "Dove" who
came to live in just such an "Eagle's
Nest " of robber barons hundreds of years
ago. After a long day's ride across Ger-
many I chuckled with glee when sweet-
faced Schwester Augusta left me in a
room having a tall white porcelain stove
in one corner. It was a warm July day and
I had no occasion whatever for needing a
102 READING TO THE CHILDREN
fire, but was not a porcelain stove, even
one of plain white tiles, at least a distant
cousin to the wonderful Hirschvogel in
the story of "The Niirnberg Stove"?
Comparing notes with many others I
find that my experience is typical of that
of most adults who spent many childish
hours in story books. You will not won-
der, therefore, that I believe firmly in the
romantic story as a starting-point for a
child's interest in history and travel. Ad-
mirable accounts of historical events,
descriptions of the customs or scenery of
a country pale before the story of a hero
or heroine who lives in the midst of those
events or scenes.
Little "Heidi" of the Swiss Alps,
" Peep-in- the-World" who spent such a
delightful holiday in Germany, funny
"Donkey John" the little wood carver
of the "Toy Valley" in the Tyrol, if
all children grew up with such stories as
TRAVEL AND HISTORY STORIES 103
these, we librarians should not encounter
the narrow reading interests common to
many of our boys and girls to-day. A lit-
tle girl, glancing into a book called "Two
Royal Foes," remarked to the children's
librarian, "You'd know that book was no
good because the minute you look into it
you see the word 'Prussia'!" (This inci-
dent took place years before the great
war. The child was merely voicing her
colossal indifference to anything that bore
a foreign name.) Two big boys return-
ing from a trip around the world were
asked by a Scotch friend of mine, "Well,
boys, how did you like my Edinburgh?"
"Edinburgh? Edinburgh?" said one of
the boys, wrinkling his forehead: then
turning to his brother, he asked, "Say,
Jack, that's the place we bought those
golf stockings, is n't it? ''
The trouble with those children was
that their fathers and mothers did not
104 READING TO THE CHILDREN
early choose songs and pictures and stories
that would have made foreign names rich
with possibilities of interest. A young
child who hears his mother sing the ten-
der and stirring Scotch ballads, who lives
in the pictures of Caldecott and Green-
away, Oscar Pletsch and Boutet de Mon-
vel, who listens to tales of Curtius and
Joan of Arc, Tell and Bruce and Hia-
watha, becomes a heart-dweller in these
lands of song and picture and story; and
this love for the picturesque in history
and travel is the first step on the road to
an interest in facts and dates and philo-
sophical history and in descriptions of
others lands and peoples.
After you have kindled their interest,
the children will show what next to do,
because they will be so full of questions
that you will have but to follow their
lead. If there is a good public library in
your town, the reference librarian will be
TRAVEL AND HISTORY STORIES 105
your best friend. Are the children living
in the. Rome of faithless Tarpeia and faith-
ful Damon and Pythias, of Romulus and
Remus and Androcles the lion's friend?
Bring home volumes from the shelves of
Roman history and antiquities, books
whose illustrations will give the houses
and the amphitheaters and the temples,
warriors in full armor, triumphal prog-
resses, vestal virgins and galley slaves,
ships and market-places and sumptuous
Roman feasts. You have only to remark
that these books contain pictures of an-
cient Rome which may be seen by any
child who has clean hands and who will
turn the leaves carefully, and you will be
kept busy for days answering questions;
and some years hence the Roman history
lessons of your high-school son and daugh-
ter will be a happy renewal of acquaint-
ance with old friends, instead of a text-
book grind.
100 READING TO THE CHILDREN
Perhaps at this point I ought to say
that I do not advise reading "The Prince
and the Pauper" to little children, for
fear that its richness of allusion might be
confusing even to those used to the best
reading. Firmly as I believe that we more
often err in holding back than by pushing
ahead bright-minded children, it is pos-
sible to go too fast; and it would be al-
most a tragedy to give a child a lasting
dislike for a thing so beautiful as the
above, by choosing the wrong time for the
first reading. The mother herself, from
her familiarity with her child and the
book under consideration, must decide
when the right time has come to introduce
the new story.
CHAPTER X
NATURE BOOKS
A COMFORTABLE old horse was jogging
along a country road bearing villageward
a lad of nine, his mother and aunt, who
had been spending a day at a friend's
lakeside bungalow. It was the twilight
hour and over the lonely stretch of woods
through which they were passing the very
spirit of peace seemed to brood.
Suddenly the boy's mother drew rein
exclaiming, " Hark ! There 's a wood thrush
singing his evening song."
From the depths of the woods came
the notes, so thrillingly sweet, so poign-
antly sad, that one can scarcely hear
them without a lump in the throat. We
listened, almost breathless, till the lovely
song ended, and then drove on, our boy
108 READING TO THE CHILDREN
- a youngster still in the primitive sav-
age stage of development as silent as
we grown-ups in the sweet hush of the
hour.
Months later, in their city home, I
was reading to the children our favor-
ite country story, "Jolly Good Times," a
wonderfully perfect picture of child life
on a New England farm. We came to
this description of the close of one of
Millie's and Teddy's summer days: -
Later, when Lois and Chettie had gone
home, Millie went with Teddy to drive the
cows to pasture. The sun had set, but all the
low-lying clouds along the western mountains
were still bright with rosy light. Belated
birds were flying in all directions, seeking
their homes for the night. Their songs had
ceased. There was only a faint, chippering,
twittering sound, as they subsided into their
nests.
Suddenly Teddy caught Millie's arm.
"Stop ! " he said, " Hark, a minute I There 's
my bird."
NATURE BOOKS 109
Way off, from the woods across the river
came the sweet, melancholy notes of a wood
thrush. They listened as the twilight seemed
to throb and quiver with the melody. . . .
I looked up, smiling, into the eyes of
our nine-year-old. How those eyes glowed
back into mine as our young savage
breathed a long "Ah-h-h! That's slick"!
"Slick" I perfectly understood to be
"boy" for the beauty and the feeling and
the poetry which I knew to be buried
deep in the heart of this most unroman-
tic appearing youngster.
If I were able to dictate the "bringing-
up" of a child which would insure his
becoming deeply interested in the won-
derland of nature, I should arrange for
his having a mother like the one possessed
by the above fortunate children, a woman
having the scientist's enthusiasm and ex-
act habits of observation, a deep reverence
for God's wonderful works, and the under-
110 READING TO THE CHILDREN
standing tact of a loving student of child
nature.
The family may be seated at the din-
ner table when this mother exclaims,
11 Children, I verily believe I see a parula
warbler!" The "parula warbler," it ap-
pears, is a very rare visitor in these parts,
so unusual, indeed, as to justify the fam-
ily's leaving the table, getting out the
bird glasses, and taking a good look at the
stranger. After the children resume their
seats the mother reads from her Blanchan
and Chapman descriptions of the new
bird ; and when dessert is finally over the
little daughter, who ''takes music les-
sons," gets the book on "Wild Birds and
their Music" to see if Mr. Matthews tells
her how to reproduce parula warbler's
notes on the piano. This time the book
disappoints her, for the new acquaint-
ance is so insignificant a songster that
his notes are not given.
NATURE BOOKS 111
Out in the garden, poking about among
her beloved growing things, the mother
calls, " Children, come here and see this
little creature." The children leave the
swing, or the tea party on the back porch,
or the "shoot the shute" in the maple
tree, and eagerly stoop close to notice a
caterpillar that lives on the parsley and
carrot leaves. The little creature is so
marked with green, white, and yellow,
resembling the green, lacy foliage with
the sunshine and shadows falling be-
tween the narrow fringes of the leaves,
that he is almost indistinguishable. This,
mother tells, is an example of nature's
protective coloring, and the fascinating
subject is pursued in books that tell about
animals who wear coats of snow color in
winter and woods colors in summer and
about many other wonderful provisions
of Mother Nature.
Strolling along a country road bordered
112 READING TO THE CHILDREN
by delightful wild growth the mother
points out a "jewel casket that has no
lock and key, but if you touch its secret
spring the jewels will fly out for you."
This starts the children on the search for
all sorts of curious seed travelers, seeds
with wings and seeds with sails, prickly
seeds that cling to animals who thus
carry them to new planting ground, and
so on.
After a rain the children have a clear
little illustration of the action of water in
carving the earth's surface. Deep val-
leys and canyons are shown to have been
formed in the same way, on a large scale,
as the little valleys and canyons in the
children's own yard.
And, perhaps, of all the natural sci-
ences this mother thinks most of the
study of astronomy, for, believing that
facts stored in the mind are of little im-
portance as compared with the effect of
NATURE BOOKS 113
knowledge upon the heart and soul, she
thinks the study of the heavens pecul-
iarly fitted to give the child thoughts
that reach up to God.
If you ask me to suggest a book that
will be certain to kindle a child's interest
in the people of Switzerland, I can safely
answer, "Read Johanna Spyri's 'Heidi.'
If you ask how to make nature lovers and
observers of children, I must answer that
no book or books can be depended upon
to accomplish this. A mother or other
sympathetic adult who has at least an
elementary acquaintance with the nat-
ural sciences, and who is willing to study
enough to keep ahead of her children,
must, in ways like the above, rouse the
children's interest in the animals, the
plants, the stars themselves. After this,
and always along with this personal in-
troduction, books will be perfect mines
of delight. Not "juvenile" books so
114 READING TO THE CHILDREN
much as the mother's own reference li-
brary, however.
A list called "Some Nature Books for
Mothers and Children" is published by
the Children's Museum of the Brooklyn
Institute of Arts and Sciences. About
ninety titles are given, and one may find
not one but a number of books on rep-
tiles, on shells, on fishes, pond life, moths,
wasps, spiders, ferns, mushrooms, garden
vegetables, trees in winter as well as in
summer, and so on. Mothers and fathers
outside of Brooklyn will at any time be
helped with advice if they apply to the
above unique and interesting museum.
An adult beginner who wishes a com-
pact, authoritative, fairly popular and
not very expensive book on each of a
half-dozen subjects most likely to appeal
to children will make no mistake in add-
ing to her library the following:
NATURE BOOKS 115
On Birds
Chapman, F. M. Handbook of Birds of Eastern
North America. Appleton. $3.50.
Bailey, Mrs. F. M. Handbook of Birds of the West-
ern United States. Houghton. $3.50.
On Insects
Comstock, J. H. Insect Life. Appleton. $1.75.
On Wild Flowers
Dana, Mrs. F. T. How to Know the Wild Flowers.
Scribner. $2.
On Trees
Keeler, H. L. Our Native Trees and How to Iden-
tify Them. Scribner. $2.
On Geology
Brigham, A. P. Textbook of Geology. Appleton.
$1.40 net.
On Astronomy
Clarke, E. C. Astronomy from a Dipper. Hough-
ton. $.60.
In a later chapter, among books rec-
ommended for the children's own library,
I will give a few titles of "juvenile" na-
ture books interesting enough for gen-
116 READING TO THE CHILDREN
eral reading even if one has no leaning
to the subject. Judging by what we have
to choose from, it is uncommon for the
person who is an authority on a branch
of science to possess also an understand-
ing of children and a gift of style. Unless
it is as well done as in the case of 'The
Prince and His Ants," a writer only con-
fuses children and makes his information
useless by attempting to give his facts
in the guise of a fairy tale. Look for
books that give information in clear,
straightforward language, with such oc-
casional bits of imagination and compari-
son with familiar human life as will help
to capture and hold the interest of little
children.
Seek books whose science is accurate,
yet remember always that to kindle a
child's love for the Heavenly Father's
creatures is far more important than to
teach him to dissect and name their parts.
CHAPTER XI
BOOKS OF OCCUPATIONS AND GAMES
ON one of the lovely bays that indent the
coast of the "Country of the Pointed
Firs" there is a sheltered nook so beau-
tiful that I withhold its name lest fashion
come to appropriate and spoil the place
for a little group who annually fly from
the city's work to recuperate spirit and
body in the heavenly loveliness of earth
and sea and sky.
Among the attractions of the spot to
those fortunate enough to be invited
within the circle are the charming girls
and boys whose fathers and mothers
have found this summer home.
i
Dearly as we Americans love our chil-
dren, there is no denying the fact that
most of us have not yet learned how not
118 READING TO THE CHILDREN
to spoil them. If the agent of a summer
resort were to advertise as a chief attrac-
tion the presence of numbers of children
between the ages of six and twelve, who
might be counted upon to accompany
adult visitors on all sailing trips and pic-
nics and country tramps; who would join
in conversations and games and fireside
concerts; one can imagine that that
vacation place would be given a wide
berth, not merely by those who frankly
dislike children, but by the very people
who are devoting their lives to making
conditions happier and better for the
little ones they love.
Unhappily familiar as we all are with
the enfant terrible whose sacred right to
develop freely is interpreted by most
parents as an inalienable right to trample
upon the liberties of adults, it is most re-
freshing to find one spot where boys and
girls, trained by fathers and mothers pos-
BOOKS OF OCCUPATIONS 119
sessing a genius for parenthood, enter so
happily into the life of the community
that departing visitors, without stretch-
ing the truth, assure the parents that their
vacation pleasures have been enhanced
many fold by the presence of the charm-
ing children.
One of the causes contributing to the
above delightful result is that these chil-
dren have been trained to a resourceful-
ness truly remarkable. The youngsters
can "do" more things with their bodies
and brains than most people would be-
lieve possible to be done by children of
their ages. They were all born, too, be-
fore America went into hysterics over the
teachings of a certain foreign lady, hailed
as a prophet by women who seem to have
lost the art of their grandmothers in
bringing up children.
A year or two ago one of the boys of
Cove stood watching his mother
120 READING TO THE CHILDREN
as she deftly concocted one of his favorite
dishes. Presently he exclaimed, "Mother,
I'd like to learn to make muffins!"
There is one kind of mother who would
have answered the lad, "Oh, you'd get
flour and grease all over the kitchen. I
can't have you messing round my stove.
It's too much trouble to teach you. I'd
rather do the work myself."
A mother of a more indulgent sort
would have submitted to the "messing,"
complying part way with the boy's desire
by allowing him to help, but by no means
to learn the whole interesting process.
Still another mother would have ex-
claimed, "What, a boy in the kitchen
baking! This is women's and girls' work,
not boys', and men's. You don't want
to be a girly boy ! "
Arthur's mother was different. She
knew that it was a trouble to teach a be-
ginner, and that messing the kitchen was
BOOKS OF OCCUPATIONS 121
an inevitable stage in a young cook's
progress. She, however, believed in the
all-round training of every human; she
knew that the very best time for teaching
any new thing is the time when the child
himself wants to learn it; and she looked
into the future, to emergencies when the
boy's and man's ability to cook might
be vitally useful to himself and to others
dependent upon him.
So Arthur learned to make first-rate
muffins. And now, on many a summer
morning, the children steal softly and
gleefully down the bare, sweet-smelling
stairs, and while Arthur acts as chef, lit-
tlest sister sets the table, nine-year-old
brings on the luscious blueberries, the
country cream and the shredded wheat.
By the time father comes to make the
coffee, breakfast is ready in the beauti-
ful bungalow living-room, flooded with
morning sunshine and sweet with odors
122 READING TO THE CHILDREN
of pine and sea; and mother is proudly
escorted to her place by the family who
delight to hear her exclaim at their allow-
ing her to be so lazy as to sleep until this
late hour.
Of course it is good for children, the
untrammeled life in a summer home,
where sailing, rowing, motor-boating, ca-
noeing, and swimming may be daily en-
joyed; where one may collect specimens
from the beach at low tide, or from woods
and fields skirting the rocky shore; where
to familiarity with sea life is added the
charm of being at home in farm and gar-
den; where one assists at clam-bakes and
making hot bacon sandwiches, at con-
structing a dressing-table and building an
ice-house; where one moulds dishes from
one's own claybank and bakes the same
in a miniature oven built just above high-
water mark ; where the sea provides neck-
laces for doll children and the roadside
BOOKS OF OCCUPATIONS 123
burrs to make doll furniture; where but
there is positively no limit to the possi-
bilities of educating those children to use
every faculty God has given them.
The girls swim as well as the boys, and
handle the boats as skillfully. The boys
have never heard that for a male creature
to touch a needle is evidence of weakness.
The same manly boy of eleven whose cool-
ness and courage saved a boatful of peo-
ple from disaster, with a twinkle of fun
contributed an excellent piece of embroid-
ery to the "fair" annually held in the
tiny church on the hill. Simple "first aid "
lessons have been absorbed to such pur-
pose that when one of the little girls cut
her finger rather badly, none of the grown-
ups being near, a twelve-year-old used the
peroxide, the absorbent cotton and the
surgical tape as cleverly as his mother
would have done.
In parlor games as well as out of doors,
l->4 READING TO THE CHILDREN
these children, by intimate association
with adults, learn initiative, resourceful-
ness, and mental quickness, to be equally
free from self -consciousness and from for-
wardness, to take defeat like good sports-
men. They are learning, in short, how
to become delightful contributing mem-
bers of social gatherings.
Xow the time to begin training a child
to enjoy himself without constant tend-
ing is in his earliest years. Too many
American mothers needed Montessori to
tell them that a child wants to do things
for himself, that he feels baffled, defraud-
ed, when impatient or misunderstanding
adults take the shoe-tying out of his
bungling fingers, and at the same time take
away opportunities for the child to learn
control of his muscles and control of his
will.
Any mother with the best will in the
V
world to employ the busy little minds and
BOOKS OF OCCUPATIONS 125
fingers would run out of ideas if she could
not draw upon others' experiences for help.
We were never so fortunate as to-day in
the number of excellent books of occupa-
tions and games available. While most of
these are written for children above eight
or nine years of age, there are a few well
adapted for the use of mothers of the
younger children.
A book which tells one how to get
hours and hours of fun out of material
usually treated as waste is twice valuable
it saves the dollars for parents who
have not many to spend, and it shows the
children that a department store and a
full purse are not necessary for amusement
if one is a person of ideas. Such a book is
one by Bertha Johnston, called "Home
Occupations for Little Children." How
to make a toy fence out of a strawberry-
box, how to make a potato horse, a corn-
cob house, a seed necklace, a clothes-pin
126 READING TO THE CHILDREN
doll, a cork table; about collecting and
classifying pebbles, leaves, etc., about
games and celebrations of festival days -
these are hints of the suggestions for
mothers which this little book gives; in a
way, too, to make one think of the prin-
ciples underlying the choice of occupa-
tions and materials. This book should be
on the mother's shelf when the little one
is hardly out of babyhood.
To supplement the above, as the baby
grows to be five or six years old, choose
Beard's "Little Folks' Handy Book."
The profuse illustrations and clear dia-
grams help to exp,lain how to make paper
jewelry, old envelope toys, visiting card
houses, Christmas tree decorations, In-
dian costumes of newspapers, and many
other things.
One of the best on its subject for the
younger children is Lucas's " Three Hun-
dred Games and Pastimes, or, What
BOOKS OF OCCUPATIONS 127
shall we do now." Here are games old
and new, games for the fireside and for the
garden, games to play in the train, on a
picnic, at the seaside, even games to play
alone and in bed. There are suggestions,
too, about things to make and do, and
this book will entertain the children for
their evenings and rainy days until they
grow old enough to borrow "harder"
books from the public library.
Rich's "When Mother Lets Us Make
Paper-Box Furniture" is particularly sat-
isfactory. The pictures show exactly the
necessary stages in the transformation of
a box into a doll's piano, a bookcase, a
chiffonier, a stove, as the case may be.
The directions tell just what kind of boxes
to use and what outfit of tools is neces-
sary. Materials are so inexpensive and
results so satisfactory that this little vol-
ume pays its way many times over.
There are two housekeeping books,
128 READING TO THE CHILDREN
clear, simple, and attractive enough to be
used even with seven-year-olds. These are
Johnson's "When Mother Lets Us Help,"
and Ralston 's "When Mother Lets Us
Sew." TJiese will make housework look
interesting to any child. No wonder it
becomes monotonous to "help" always
and only by wiping the spoons, dusting
the chair-legs, and similar over-and-over
practices. Such employment is about as
educative as piece-work in a factory. Let
the children learn whole processes, and
once more, do not be afraid of their be-
ginning early.
If one is lucky enough to have an "out-
doors," Mary Duncan's "When Mother
Lets Us Garden" is as inviting as it is
practical and helpful. From the happy
occupation of coaxing things to grow in
one's own little patch of ground it is an
easy step to making friends with all of
Mother Nature's children.
CHAPTER XII
BUYING THE LIBRARY
IT is now time for the list of books which
are to be bought for the nursery bookshelf.
Used as I am to the task, it is always diffi-
cult to come down to the positiveness of
a short list, because of the necessary ex-
clusion of fine books which it hurts one to
leave out. The list must be short to be
practical, since the average father of these
expensive children will be unable to spend
many dollars a year on their library, and
of course those dollars must be made to
buy the richest library possible. I shall
name more titles than this "average"
family could afford, but few people are
entirely out of reach of public libraries,
which will lend what one cannot own.
Suppose one has a number of poetry
130 READING TO THE CHILDREN
collections from which to choose. All are
so well selected that it is hard to say that
one is better than another in quality.
We must first see whether these collec-
tions practically duplicate one another,
or whether it is necessary to buy two or
more in order to cover all the varieties of
poetry we wish to give the children.
We will next let the price question help
us decide. Here is Number One costing
$2 and very similar, except for unneces-
sarily costly make-up, to Number Two
at $1.25. Number Three is as well se-
lected as Number Two and is, moreover,
a larger collection. But Number Three
is printed on poorer paper than Number
Two (and will therefore wear out faster),
its type is rather forbiddingly fine, and
there are no illustrations. A poetry col-
lection does not need illustrations, but
those in Number Two are quaint and
interesting so that they really add to the
BUYING THE LIBRARY 131
value of the book. Collection Number
Four costs only 75 cents, but it has less
than half as many poems as Number
Two, at $1.25; Number Five is too
bulky; Number Six is very poorly illus-
trated. Finally we decide to buy Num-
ber Two.
This may illustrate slightly the method
by which we arrive at a decision to in-
clude one title and reject another. The
result does not mean necessarily that the
title included is the one good book of its
kind, but rather that, all things consid-
ered, it is best for our purpose.
Where there are several good editions
of a book obtainable I have named those
of different prices unless I have felt that
a certain one is decidedly better than the
others, "all things considered." If you
can afford to get all the best editions of
all these books, your children are fortu-
nate; but I should prefer to buy all the
132 READING TO THE CHILDREN
titles, rather than get a $2.50 "Golden
Staircase" and no "Posy Ring."
A beautifully made volume is an edu-
cation in taste, and a very unattractive
edition may prejudice a child against a
classic. At the same time, the literary
content of the book is the only real essen-
tial; and if you teach your children to
think that anything between two covers
may be a shining delight, you may bring
home a shop-worn bargain, - - a ten-cent
:< JSsop " or a twenty-five cent " Alice,"
and be thankful for the chance, if it is a
question of the cheap book or none at all.
I dislike to make graded lists, since one
of my pet hobbies is that each individual
child should be allowed to develop as fast
as his own nature impels him. I know a
little girl who at two years and seven
months wanted Kipling's "Just So Sto-
ries" read (not told) to her every night.
I know another who knew "The Jungle
BUYING THE LIBRARY 133
Book" almost by heart at the age of four.
A boy of seven delighted in Clodd's
"Childhood of the World," a serious
though clearly written account of prehis-
toric man; and another lad of the same
age adored Lamb's "Adventures of Ulys-
ses," which is practically Chapman's
translation of Homer's Odyssey, unal-
tered except by omissions. If I were to
grade the above books according to pub-
lic-school standards, I should not dare
list the three last below the grammar
grades. Neither should I think it reason-
able to say that all children should be
given them at ages when they were liked
by the children mentioned, even though
those were perfectly normal, healthy
youngsters, no one of whom could be
called precocious.
I do not believe in any Procrustean
method of supplying books to children
when we know that even those of the
134 READING TO THE CHILDREN
same family and the same environment
develop differently.
However, the lists will be thought un-
satisfactory if I do not suggest some sort
of an age guide. I will therefore grade
them according to my observation of the
likings of children of my acquaintance,
brought up by parents unafraid of fling-
ing the fodder high for their bright young-
sters to reach.
I suggest buying the books listed below
in the order given; for example, Calde-
cott's nursery rhymes first of the picture
books, ; 'Dutchie Doings" one or two
years later making sure of getting some
titles from each group of subjects.
BOOKS FOR CHILDREN UNDER THREE
YEARS OF AGE
Poetry
Stevenson, Robert Louis. A Child's Garden of
Verses.
Among many good editions are those illus-
trated by Storer (Scribner. $1.50) and by Mars
and Squire (Rand. $.50).
BUYING THE LIBRARY 135
Picture Books; Mother Goose; Fairy Tales.
Caldecott, Randolph. Hey Diddle Diddle. Warne.
$.25.
The House that Jack Built. Warne. $.25.
Sing a Song for Sixpence. Warne. $.25.
Potter, Beatrix. Tale of Peter Rabbit. Warne.
$.50.
Also Tales of Benjamin Bunny, Jemima
Puddleduck, Mr. Jeremy Fisher, Squirrel Nut-
kin, Tom Kitten, and others, at $.50 each.
Brooke, L. Leslie. Johnny Crow's Garden. Warne.
$1.
Greenaway, Kate. Mother Goose. Warne. $.60.
Under the Window. Warne. $1.50.
Lefevre, Felicite. The Cock, the Mouse and the
Little Red Hen. Jacobs. $1.
Smith, E. Boyd. The Chicken World. Putnam.
$1.50.
Parkinson, Ethel. Dutchie Doings. Dodge. $1.
Lucas, E. V., and Bedford, F. D. Four and
Twenty Toilers. McDevitt- Wilson. $1.75.
Brooke, L. Leslie. The Three Bears. Warne. $.40.
The Three Little Pigs. Warne. $.40.
^Esop. Fables.
The following are good editions :
Baby's Own Msof. Illustrated by Crane.
Warne. $1.50.
Book of Fables. Chosen by Scudder. Hough-
ton. $.50.
136 READING TO THE CHILDREN
Fables. Illustrated by Rackham. Double-
day. $1.50.
Kipling, Rudyard. Just So Stories. Scribner.
$1.50.
Stories that might be true
Perkins, Lucy Fitch. The Dutch Twins. Hough-
ton. $.50.
The Japanese Twins. Houghton. $.50.
Hopkins, W. J. The Sandman; His Farm Stories.
Page. $1.50.
The Sandman; More Farm Stories. Page.
$1.50.
BOOKS FOR CHILDREN THREE TO FIVE
YEARS OLD
Poetry
Our Children's Songs. Harper. $1.25.
Wiggin, Kate Douglas, and Smith, Nora A. The
Posy Ring. Doubleday. $1.25.
Picture Books
Smith, E. Boyd. The Farm Book. Houghton.
$1.50.
The Seashore Book. Houghton. $1.50.
Moffat, A. E. Our Old Nursery Rhymes. Illus-
trated by Le Mair. McKay. $1.50.
Little Songs of Long Ago. Illustrated by Le
Mair. McKay. $1.50.
BUYING THE LIBRARY 137
Fairy Tales
Lorenzini, Carlo. Adventures of Pinocchio. Ginn.
$.40.
An edition illustrated by Copeland (Ginn.
$1) is good. So also is one illustrated by Folk-
ard (Button. $ .50).
Kingsley, Charles. Water Babies. Ginn. $.35.
Also an edition illustrated by Goble (Mac-
millan. $2).
Grimm, J. L. K. and W. K. Fairy Tales. Illus-
trated by Rackham. Doubleday. $1.50.
Household Stories. Illustrated by Crane.
Macmillan. $1.50.
Houghton publishes a 40-cent edition.
Kipling, Rudyard. Jungle Book. Century. $1.50.
Second Jungle Book. Century. $1.50.
Bible
Moulton, R. G. Bible Stories: Old Testament. Mac-
millan. $.50.
Kelman, J. H. Stories from the Life of Christ.
Button. $.50.
Stories that might be true
Abbott, Jacob. Franconia Stories (part). Harper.
$.60 each.
Malleville. Caroline.
Beechnut. Agnes.
Stuyvesant.
138 READING TO THE CHILDREN
Ward, Mrs. Humphry. Milly and Oily. Double-
day. $1.20.
BOOKS FOR CHILDREN FIVE TO SEVEN
YEARS OLD
Picture Books
Boutet de Monvel, L. M. Joan of Arc. Century.
$3.
Poetry
Chisholm, Louey. The Golden Staircase. Putnam.
Editions at $1, $1.75, and $2.50.
Bible
The Bible for Young People. Century. $1.50.
Fairy Tales; Other Famous Stories
Harris, Joel Chandler. Uncle Remus; His Songs
and His Sayings. Appleton. $2.
Andersen, Hans Christian. Fairy Tales. Illus-
trated by Stratton. Lippincott. $1.25.
Kingsley, Charles. The Heroes; or, Greek Fairy
Tales. Ginn. $.30.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Wonder-Book. Houghton.
$7c
. 10.
Tanglewood Tales. Houghton. $.75.
Many editions obtainable.
Dodgson, C. L. (Lewis Carroll, pseud.) Alice's
Adventures in Wonderland and Through the
Looking-Glass. Illustrated by Tenniel. Mac-
millan. $.50.
BUYING THE LIBRARY 139
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Illus-
trated by Rackham. Doubleday. $1.40.
Craik, D. M. (Mulock). Little Lame Prince. Il-
lustrated by Dunlap. Rand. $1.25.
Howells, W. D. Christmas Every Day. Harper.
$1.25.
Pyle, Howard. Pepper and Salt. Harper. $1.50.
Wonder Clock. Harper. $2.
Cervantes-Saavedra. Don Quixote. Retold by
Parry; illustrated by Crane. Lane. $1.50.
Pyle, Howard. Merry Adventures of Robin Hood.
Scribner. $3.
Stories that might be true
Wyss, J. D. The Swiss Family Robinson. Illus-
trated by Rhead. Harper. $1.50.
There is a 65-cent edition published by Ginn.
Smith, M. P. (Wells). Jolly Good Times. Little.
$1.25.
Four on a Farm. Little. $1.50.
Jackson, Helen Hunt. Nelly's Silver Mine. Little.
$1.50.
Sherwood, M. M. (Butt). The Fairchild Family.
Illustrated by Florence Rudland. Stokes. $1.50.
Morley, Margaret W. Donkey John of the Toy
Valley. McClurg. $1.25.
Crichton, F. E. Peep-in-the-World. Longmans.
$1.25.
Spyri, Johanna. Heidi. Ginn. $.40.
140 READING TO THE CHILDREN
Nature Books
Wood, Theodore. Natural History for Young
People. Dutton. $2.50.
Bertelli, Luigi. Tfie Prince and his Ants. Holt.
$1.35.
Kirby, Mary and Elizabeth. The Sea and its Won-
ders. Nelson. 5s.
Mitton, G. E. The Children's Book of Stars. Mao
millan. $2.
Parsons, F. T. Plants and their Children. American
Book Co. $.65.
History
Tales and Talks from History. Caldwell. $1.
O'Neill, Elizabeth. Nursery History of England.
Stokes. $2.
Tappan, Eva M. Story of the Greek People. Hough-
ton. $.65.
Grierson, Elizabeth W. The Children's Book of the
English Minsters. Macmillan. $2.
Lang, Mrs. Andrew. Book of Princes and Prin-
cesses. Longmans. $1.
Travel
Mitton, G. E. The Children's Book of London.
Macmillan. $2.
Schwatka, Frederick. Children of the Cold. Ed.
Pub. Co. $1.25.
Finnemore, John. Peeps at Switzerland. Macmil-
lan. $.55.
BUYING THE LIBRARY 141
Occupations
Johnston, Bertha. Home Occupations for Little
Children. Jacobs. $.50.
Beard, Lina and A. B. Little Folks' Handy Book.
Scribner. $.75.
Duncan, Frances. When Mother Lets Us Garden.
Moffat. $.75.
Lucas, E. V. and Elizabeth. Three Hundred
Games and Pastimes. Macmillan. $2.
Johnson, Constance. When Mother Lets Us Help.
Moffat. $.75.
Ralston, Virginia. When Mother Lets Us Sew.
Moffat. $.75.
Rich, G. E. When Mother Lets Us Make Paper-
Box Furniture. Moffat. $.75.
A SUPPLEMENTARY LIST
FOR CHILDREN OVER SEVEN AND FOR THE
YOUNGER CHILDREN WHO DEVELOP RAPIDLY
Fairy Tales and Other Classics
Arabian Nights.
The following editions are good :
Arabian Nights. Edited by Olcott. Holt.
$1.50.
Arabian Nights. Illustrated by Parrish.
Scribner. $2.50.
Arabian Nights' Entertainments. Edited by
Lang. Longmans. $2.
142 READING TO THE CHILDREN
Stories from the Arabian Nights. Illustrated
by Dulac. Hodder. $1.50.
Stones from the Arabian Nights. Houghton.
$.40.
Baldwin, James. Story of Siegfried. Scribner.
$1.50.
Stockton, F. R. Fanciful Tales. Scribner. $.50.
MacDonald, George. At the Back of the North
Wind. Illustrated by Pap6 and Hughes. Dodge.
$1.50.
Ruskin, John. King of the Golden Hirer. Heath.
$.20.
Lamb, Charles. Adventures of Ulysses. Heath.
$.25.
Pyle, Howard. Story of King Arthur and his
Knights. Scribner. $2.50.
Story of Sir Launcelot and his Companions.
Scribner. $2.50.
Story of the Champions of the Round Table.
Scribner. $2.50.
Story of the Grail and the Passing of Arthur.
Scribner. $2.50.
Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe.
An edition illustrated by Rhead (Harper.
$1.50) and one illustrated by Smith (Houghton.
$1.50) are good. Houghton publishes a 60-cent
edition.
Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver's Travels.
An edition illustrated by Rhead (Harper.
BUYING THE LIBRARY 143
$1.50) and one illustrated by Staynes (Holt.
$2.25) are good. Houghton publishes a 40-cent
edition.
Lamb, Charles and Mary. Tales from Shake-
speare.
An edition illustrated by Price (Scribner.
$2.50) is beautiful. Houghton publishes a 50-
cent edition.
Chaucer. Tales of the Canterbury Pilgrims. Re-
told by Darton; illustrated by Thomson.
Stokes. $1.50.
Poetry
Wiggin, Kate Douglas, and Smith, Nora A.
Golden Numbers. Doubleday. $2.
Lang, Andrew. Blue Poetry Book. Longmans. $1.
Repplier, Agnes. Book of Famous Verse. Hough-
ton. $.75.
Some Fine Historical Stories
Clemens, S. L. (Mark Twain, pseud.) The Prince
and the Pauper. Harper. $1.75.
Dix, B. M. Merrylips. Macmillan. $1.50.
Dodge, Mary Mapes. Hans Brinker. Scribner.
The edition illustrated by Doggett costs $1.50.
There is an edition without illustrations at 50
cents.
Pyle, Howard. Otto of the Silver Hand. Scribner.
$2.
Hi READING TO THE CHILDREN
Stein, Evaleen. Gabriel and the Hour Book. Page.
$1.
Yonge, Charlotte M. The Little Duke. Illustrated
by Millar. Macmillan. $1.25.
Miscellaneous
Clodd, Edward. The Childhood of the World. Mac-
millan. $1.25.
Hill, C. T. Fighting a Fire. Century. $1.50.
Ingersoll, Ernest. Book of the Ocean. Century.
$1.50.
Jewett, Sophie. God's Troubadour (St. Francis of
Assisi). Crowell. $1.25.
Lummis, C. F. Some Strange Corners of our Coun-
try. Century. $1.50.
Price, O. \V. The Land We Lire In. Small. $1.50.
Richman, Julia, and Wallach, I. R. Good Citizen-
ship. American Book Co. $.45.
Syrett, Netta. The Old Miracle Plays of England.
Young Churchman. $.80.
Some Interesting Foreign Picture Books
French
Boutet de Monvel. \os enfants. Hachette.
German
Heubach. Xeue Tierbilder. Carl.
Lefler and Urban. Kling Klang Gloria. Tempsky.
Liebermann. Kinder sang-heimatklang. Scholz.
BUYING THE LIBRARY 145
Olfers. Windchen. Schreiber.
Osswald. Tierbilder. Scholz.
Pletsch. Hausmiitterchen. Hegel.
Was will si du irerden? Hegel.
Swedish
Adelborg. Bilderbok. Bonnier.
Beskow. Puttes dfventyr i blabdrsskogen. Walh-
strom.
Oiks skid/nrd. Wahlstrom.
CHAPTER XIII
WHEN THE LITTLE CHILDREN GROW BIG
To suggest a course of reading for the
child's first seven or eight years has been
the purpose of these chapters. I cannot
close without a word about the older chil-
dren's books. For a fuller treatment of
this latter subject I refer parents to Miss
Frances Jenkins Olcott's admirable book,
"The Children's Reading." The appen-
dices of Miss Olcott's book also "How
to procure Books through the Public Li-
brary" and "How to procure Books by
Purchase" -will be invaluable to par-
ents far removed from good book-stores.
While the child from nine to twelve
years of age is devouring books him-
self, it will be comparatively easy to guide
him along lines already followed. After
BOOKS FOR OLDER CHILDREN 147
a while, however, the curiosity and the
self-assertiveness of the adolescent will
probably lead him into "sprees" of read-
ing stuff that will be your despair. This
is not the time to be too dictatorial about
what the boy or girl shall or shall not
read. Influence rather than authority is
the best method to use with these young
persons, who know more than they will
ever know again in their lives and who
will kick over the traces if we hold the
reins too tightly. Above everything keep
the confidence of these big children. Con-
tinue the evening reading-aloud custom.
Some clever mothers have told me that
reading aloud the very trash brought home
by the children, reading with good-na-
tured fun at the extravagances of the
stories, has resulted in their children's
presently bursting into roars of sheep-
ish laughter and thereafter adopting into
the family-joke vocabulary certain choice
148 READING TO THE CHILDREN
expressions from the absurd tales. Poking
fun is much more effective than solemn
commands to refrain from things consid-
ered wicked - - forbidden fruit is so much
more enticing than an open basket.
I am not half so fearful, for children of
good homes, of the blood-and-thunder
adventure story as of the quantities of
"safe" juvenile books published to-day.
For one thing you know that your child,
brought up as he has been, will never
actually turn pirate or highway robber
for reading some of these gory books,
which perhaps serve as escape valves for
the boy's innate savagery which the con-
ventions of our civilization merely cover
but do not eradicate. The boy who has
had "no bringing up" does imitate, the
police courts tell us, the deeds of violence
of which he reads in the nickel novel ; but
your child's snare is more likely to be the
lazy-minded series habit.
BOOKS FOR OLDER CHILDREN 149
It is curious that so many people think
that if one removes all "swear words,"
all slang, all bowie knives and pistols from
a story, the result will be a ''perfectly
harmless" book. What about the harm
to the character if a child forms the habit
of taking the laziest way in his reading?
The adult who calls the mediocre reading
habit harmless has naturally been influ-
enced by the educational methods of our
time, methods which put most of the work
on the teacher and insure the child's be-
ing shielded from a thing so old-fashioned
as boning down to study actually to
study anything that does not "interest"
him, no matter how vitally important to
his life will be the mastery of certain un-
interesting facts, and above all the mas-
tery of his own will, of his powers of
concentration.
However, I have really not the slight-
est fear that children who have grown up
150 READING TO THE CHILDREN
with the best will ever acquire any lasting
taste for poor books. Their attacks of
reading the latter will leave no deeper
marks upon their minds than mild cases
of chicken-pox or measles leave upon
vigorous young bodies.
I shall have an uneasy conscience if I
do not attempt to show that the pro-
gramme I have suggested may lighten
rather than increase the mother's cares.
When the subject of the small families
of people best fitted to bring up children
is under discussion, we occasionally hear
advanced as an explanation the high cost
of living of our time as compared with
the days of our grandmothers.
Once in a while a valiant soul declares
that to bring into the world ten or a dozen
children to be reared in a city flat ought
to be sufficient cause for arraigning the
parents before the Society for the Pre-
vention of Cruelty to Children.
BOOKS FOR OLDER CHILDREN 151
I have not heard given as a cause for
race suicide the terrifying diffusion of
knowledge of our day.
It is bad enough to go through the
anxiety of having four children operated
on for "adenoids and tonsils." We should
have to build more sanatoria for worn-
out mothers if there were many "old-
fashioned" families of children to put
through this modern ordeal.
To keep enough bottles of boiled water
on the ice for three thirsty youngsters is
no light task. Imagine trying to keep up
with the thirst of thirteen !
If a man on a school-teacher's salary
pays a regular monthly dentist bill of fif-
teen dollars for three children, it might
sometimes be difficult to decide how to
apportion that part of his salary left over
after " straightening " four times as many
mouths.
I can go through the list of my mar-
152 READING TO THE CHILDREN
ried friends, all of whom adore children
and would like to have large families, and
there is not one of these intelligent par-
ents but is paying out to doctors large
sums yearly in order that these well-born
children may grow up physically perfect.
And now I am adding another "ought"
to the daily programme of the devoted
mother.
Let us see if the immediate returns will
not even up for the time and trouble
spent on the reading.
To begin with, every mother knows
that it is not the housework so much as
the managing a bunch of lively young
humans that depletes her strength and
wears out her nerves. Just let a vigorous
father undertake to relieve the mother,
for one holiday, of the care of the kiddies.
Is n't he a perfect wreck by the children's
bedtime? And next day at the office he
confides to his co-workers somewhat
BOOKS FOR OLDER CHILDREN 153
boastfully, because, so long as he does n't
have the care of them, he likes to think
his youngsters are particularly active -
"By Jove! I was more used up after that
day with the kids than I 'd be in a month
at the office!" And his friends who are
fathers echo feelingly, "You're dead right
on that, old man!"
If one can find a scheme that will help
tide over crossness, that will get the chil-
dren into the habit of hurrying instead of
dawdling about dressing and undressing,
that will set them eagerly to tidying up
the playroom, wiping the silver and brush-
ing off the crumbs, - - of being really
helpful to mother without constant prod-
ding, - - will not such a scheme pay its
own way? I know, because I've tried it,
that there is no easier way of getting
magical results in good behavior than the
promise of a story when work is done.
You may call it bribery, but did you never
154 READING TO THE CHILDREN
know a grown person, of good principles,
too, to work a little harder and faster if
he saw a prospect of a better salary for
increased output?
There is another way in which this
reading programme will pay. One of the
deprivations keenly felt even by the
most unselfish mother is that of having
no time to cultivate her own mind. Her
personal reading for years is almost zero.
Now the reading for the children which
I have suggested is so splendid as to be a
means of culture to the adult reader as
well as to the child listener.
So in oiling the wheels of discipline, in
saving time for the reading by securing
the children's ready help, in the satisfac-
tion of broadening one's own mental hori-
zon, in keeping close to the intellectual
and spiritual life of the growing children
so that they will not drift into thinking
of mother as merely a loving caretaker of
BOOKS FOR OLDER CHILDREN 155
the physical needs, because I am certain
of all the above and many more good re-
sults, I feel justified, not only for the
children's but for the mother's sake, in
urging the carrying-out of the course pro-
posed in this book.
My last word is for fathers - - a most
unfairly ignored class of beings in these
days!
Much of the foregoing reading must be
done by the mother because she is with
the children so many more hours than
the father; but there is no reason why
bedtime and Sunday story-hours may
not be the father's share of this pleasur-
able duty. A man may be too clumsy to
help about baths and buttons, but if he
reads a daily paper he cannot deny the
ability to read young people's story-books.
A father ought to be unwilling to leave all
spiritual intimacy with his children to the
mother. By sharing their pleasure in their
156 READING TO THE CHILDREN
books he will be learning wonderfully how
to be a father to the minds and hearts of
his boys and girls as well as a generous
provider for their material needs.
THE END
(Cbe CliUcrs'iDc
CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
U . S . A
