I have been blamed for printing and distributing "Mother Hubbard." My
answer is:--"Old Mother Hubbard" has done more towards the education
of young children than perhaps any piece of reading in existence.
Amongst the hundreds of millions of English speaking people in all
parts of the earth, there are very few but can repeat a part or the
whole of "Mother Hubbard," and I have seen it somewhat asserted that
it is to be found in almost every home in the civilised world. Its
rude style of poetry tells nothing against it. The child knows
nothing of correct metre: as long as there is a jingling rhyme it is
satisfied. The dog is the domestic animal in millions of families,
and in numberless cases is actually a more loved companion then
brothers and sisters. A simple rhyme, therefore, about this attached,
playful, and constant companion is sure to fascinate the young, and
it has fascinated more than a thousand millions of the little dears.
I firmly believe that it would produce grand results if a pretty
illustrated edition of the principal nursery rhymes were made a
text-book in infant schools. You may try, and try, and try again, to
drive an ordinary dry school-book lesson into the infant mind, and
make very little progress--it is up-hill work. But take an
illustrated edition of a nursery rhyme, say the "Death of Cock
Robin," or "Mother Hubbard," and call the little one to you, begin to
teach it--how eagerly, how intently does it begin to learn now! What
animation in its little eyes! What music in its little, joyous,
interested voice! It learns this lesson ten times as fast as the
other one, and gives you ten times the pleasure in teaching it, and
this kind of teaching gradually and insensibly leads the child into a
love of learning: it interests and sets the young inquiring mind at
work. We all know how much easier it is to do a work we are
interested in than a work we are not. It is just so with the child,
and for that reason I would commence to teach the infant mind with
that which pleased it best, and so gradually create a love for
reading. For years I have allowed numbers of little children, of
their own accord, to stand and read nursery rhymes to themselves, and
to teach other youths to read interesting and instructive fiction,
gratis, in the Book Arcade; and I hold that, by its enticingly
creating a love for reading, which will lead to something higher,
time is one of the best and most effective schools in the country.
--E. W. Cole
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