_Introductory_
A shelf full of books belonging to the American children of colonial
times and of the early days of the Republic presents a strangely
unfamiliar and curious appearance. If chronologically placed, the
earliest coverless chap-books are hardly noticeable next to their
immediate successors with wooden sides; and these, in turn, are
dominated by the gilt, silver, and many colored bindings of diminutive
dimensions which hold the stories dear to the childish heart from
Revolutionary days to the beginning of the nineteenth century. Then
bright blue, salmon, yellow, and marbled paper covers make a vivid
display which, as the century grows older, fades into the sad-colored
cloth bindings thought adapted to many children's books of its second
quarter.
An examination of their contents shows them to be equally foreign to
present day ideas as to the desirable characteristics for children's
literature. Yet the crooked black type and crude illustrations of the
wholly religious episodes related in the oldest volumes on the shelf, the
didactic and moral stories with their tiny type-metal, wood, and
copper-plate pictures of the next groups; and the "improving" American
tales adorned with blurred colored engravings, or stiff steel and wood
illustrations, that were produced for juvenile amusement in the early
part of the nineteenth century,--all are as interesting to the lover of
children as they are unattractive to the modern children themselves. The
little ones very naturally find the stilted language of these old stories
unintelligible and the artificial plots bewildering; but to one
interested in the adult literature of the same periods of history an
acquaintance with these amusement books of past generations has a
peculiar charm and value of its own. They then become not merely
curiosities, but the means of tracing the evolution of an American
literature for children.
To the student desiring an intimate acquaintance with any civilized
people, its lighter literature is always a great aid to personal
research; the more trivial, the more detailed, the greater the worth to
the investigator are these pen-pictures as records of the nation he
wishes to know. Something of this value have the story-books of
old-fashioned childhood. Trivial as they undoubtedly are, they
nevertheless often contain our best sketches of child-life in the
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries,--a life as different from that
of a twentieth century child as was the adult society of those old days
from that of the present time. They also enable us to mark as is possible
in no other way, the gradual development of a body of writing which,
though lagging much behind the adult literature, was yet also affected by
the local and social conditions in America.
Without attempting to give the history of the evolution of the A B C
book in England--the legitimate ancestor of all juvenile books--two main
topics must be briefly discussed before entering upon the proper matter
of this volume. The first relates to the family life in the early days
of the Massachusetts Commonwealth, the province that produced the first
juvenile book. The second topic has to do with the literature thought
suitable for children in those early Puritan days. These two subjects
are closely related, the second being dependent upon the first. Both are
necessary to the history of these quaint toy volumes, whose stories lack
much meaning unless the conditions of life and literature preceding them
are understood.
When the Pilgrim Fathers, seeking freedom of faith, founded their first
settlements in the new country, one of their earliest efforts was
directed toward firmly establishing their own religion. This, though
nominally free, was eventually, under the Mathers, to become a theocracy
as intolerant as that faith from which they had fled. The rocks upon
which this religion was builded were the Bible and the Catechism. In
this history of toy-books the catechism is, however, perhaps almost the
more important to consider, for it was a product of the times, and
regarded as indispensable to the proper training of a family.
The Puritan conception of life, as an error to be rectified by suffering
rather than as a joy to be accepted with thanksgiving, made the
preparation for death and the dreadful Day of Judgment the chief end of
existence. The catechism, therefore, with its fear-inspiring description
of Hell and the consequences of sin, became inevitably the chief means of
instructing children in the knowledge of their sinful inheritance. In
order to insure a supply of catechisms, it was voted by the members of
the company in sixteen hundred and twenty-nine, when preparing to
emigrate, to expend "3 shillings for 2 dussen and ten catechismes."[6-A]
A contract was also made in the same year with "sundry intended ministers
for catechising, as also in teaching, or causing to be taught the
Companyes servants & their children, as also the salvages and their
children."[6-B] Parents, especially the mothers, were continually
exhorted in sermons preached for a century after the founding of the
colony, to catechize the children every day, "that," said Cotton Mather,
"you may be continually dropping something of the _Catechism_ upon them:
Some Honey out of the Rock"! Indeed, the learned divine seems to have
regarded it as a soothing and toothsome morsel, for he even imagined that
the children cried for it continuously, saying: _"O our dear Parents,
Acquaint us with the Great God.... Let us not go from your Tender Knees,
down to the Place of Dragons. Oh! not Parents, but Ostriches: Not
Parents, but Prodigies."_[6-C]
Much dissension soon arose among the ministers of the settlements as to
which catechism should be taught. As the result of the discussion the
"General Corte," which met in sixteen hundred and forty-one, "desired
that the elders would make a catechism for _the instruction of youth in
the grounds of religion_."[6-D]
To meet this request, several clergymen immediately responded. Among
them was John Cotton, who presumably prepared a small volume which was
entitled "_Milk for Babes_. Drawn out of the Breast of Both Testaments.
Chiefly for the spiritual nourishment of _Boston_ Babes in either
England: But may be of like use for any children." For the present
purpose the importance of this little book lies in the supposition that
it was printed at Cambridge, by Daye, between sixteen hundred and
forty-one and sixteen hundred and forty-five, and therefore was the
first book of any kind written and printed in America for children;--an
importance altogether different from that attached to it by the author's
grandson, Cotton Mather, when he asserted that "Milk for Babes" would be
"valued and studied and improved till New England cease to be New
England."[7-A]
To the little colonials this "Catechism of New England" was a great
improvement upon any predecessor, even upon the Westminster Shorter
Catechism, for it reduced the one hundred and seven questions of that
famous body of doctrine to sixty-seven, and the longest answer in "Milk
for Babes" contained only eighty-four words.[7-B]
As the century grew older other catechisms were printed. The number
produced before the eighteenth century bears witness to the diverse
views in a community in which they were considered an essential for
every member, adult or child. Among the six hundred titles roughly
computed as the output of the press by seventeen hundred in the new
country, eleven different catechisms may be counted, with twenty
editions in all; of these the titles of four indicate that they were
designed for very little children. In each community the pastor
appointed the catechism to be taught in the school, and joined the
teacher in drilling the children in its questions and answers. Indeed,
the answers were regarded as irrefutable in those uncritical days, and
hence a strong shield and buckler against manifold temptations provided
by "yt ould deluder Satan." To offset the task of learning these
doctrines of the church, it is probable that the mothers regaled the
little ones with old folk-lore tales when the family gathered together
around the great living-room fire in the winter evening, or asked
eagerly for a bedtime story in the long summer twilight. Tales such as
"Jack the Giant Killer," "Tom Thumb," the "Children in the Wood," and
"Guy of Warwick," were orally current even among the plain people of
England, though frowned upon by many of the Puritan element. Therefore
it is at least presumable that these were all familiar to the colonists.
In fact, it is known that John Dunton, in sixteen hundred and
eighty-six, sold in his Boston warehouse "The History of Tom Thumb,"
which he facetiously offered to an ignorant customer "in folio with
Marginal notes." Besides these orally related tales of enchantment, the
children had a few simple pastimes, but at first the few toys were
necessarily of home manufacture. On the whole, amusements were not
encouraged, although "In the year sixteen hundred and ninety-five Mr.
Higginson," writes Mrs. Earle, "wrote from Massachusetts to his brother
in England, that if toys were imported in small quantity to America,
they would sell." And a venture of this character was certainly made by
seventeen hundred and twelve in Boston. Still, these were the exception
in a commonwealth where amusements were considered as wiles of the
Devil, against whom the ministers constantly warned the congregations
committed to their charge.
Home in the seventeenth century--and indeed in the eighteenth
century--was a place where for children the rule "to be seen, not
heard," was strictly enforced. To read Judge Sewall's diary is to be
convinced that for children to obtain any importance in life, death was
necessary. Funerals of little ones were of frequent occurrence, and were
conducted with great ceremony, in which pomp and meagre preparation were
strangely mingled. Baby Henry Sewall's funeral procession, for instance,
included eight ministers, the governor and magistrates of the county,
and two nurses who bore the little body to the grave, into which, half
full of water from the raging storm, the rude coffin was lowered. Death
was kept before the eyes of every member of the colony; even
two-year-old babies learned such mournful verse as this:
"I, in the Burying Place may See
Graves Shorter than I;
From Death's Arrest no age is free
Young Children too may die;
My God, may such an awful Sight
Awakening be to me!
Oh! that by Grace I might
For Death prepared be."
When the younger members of the family are otherwise mentioned in the
Judge's diary, it is perhaps to note the parents' pride in the
eighteen-months-old infant's knowledge of the catechism, an acquirement
rewarded by the gift of a red apple, but which suggests the reason for
many funerals. Or, again, difficulties with the alphabet are sorrowfully
put down; and also deliquencies at the age of four in attending family
prayer, with a full account of punishments meted out to the culprit.
Such details are, indeed, but natural, for under the stern conditions
imposed by Cotton and the Mathers, religion looms large in the
foreground of any sketch of family life handed down from the first
century of the Massachusetts colony. Perhaps the very earliest picture
in which a colonial child with a book occupies the centre of the canvas
is that given in a letter of Samuel Sewall's. In sixteen hundred and
seventy-one he wrote with pride to a friend of "little Betty, who though
Reading passing well, took Three Moneths to Read the first Volume of the
Book of Martyrs" as she sat by the fire-light at night after her daily
task of spinning was done. Foxe's "Martyrs" seems gruesome reading for a
little girl at bedtime, but it was so popular in England that, with the
Bible and Catechism, it was included in the library of all households
that could afford it.
Just ten years later, in sixteen hundred and eighty-one, Bunyan's
"Pilgrim's Progress" was printed in Boston by Samuel Green, and, being
easily obtainable, superseded in a measure the "Book of Martyrs" as a
household treasure. Bunyan's dream, according to Macaulay, was the daily
conversation of thousands, and was received in New England with far
greater eagerness than in the author's own country. The children
undoubtedly listened to the talk of their elders and gazed with
wide-open eyes at the execrable plates in the imported editions
illustrating Christian's journey. After the deaths by fire and sword of
the Martyrs, the Pilgrim's difficulties in the Slough of Despond, or
with the Giant Despair, afforded pleasurable reading; while Mr. Great
Heart's courageous cheerfulness brought practically a new characteristic
into Puritan literature.
To Bunyan the children in both old and New England were indebted for
another book, entitled "A Book for Boys and Girls: or, Country Rhimes
for Children. By J.B. Licensed and Entered according to Order."[11-A]
Printed in London, it probably soon made its way to this country, where
Bunyan was already so well known. "This little octavo volume," writes
Mrs. Field in "The Child and his Book," "was considered a perfect
child's book, but was in fact only the literary milk of the unfortunate
babes of the period." In the light of modern views upon juvenile reading
and entertainment, the Puritan ideal of mental pabulum for little ones
is worth recording in an extract from the preface. The following lines
set forth this author's three-fold purpose:
"To show them how each Fingle-fangle,
On which they doting are, their souls entangle,
As with a Web, a Trap, a Gin, or Snare.
While by their Play-things, I would them entice,
To mount their Thoughts from what are childish Toys
To Heaven for that's prepar'd for Girls and Boys.
Nor do I so confine myself to these
As to shun graver things, I seek to please,
Those more compos'd with better things than Toys:
Tho thus I would be catching Girls and Boys."
In the seventy-four Meditations composing this curious medley--"tho but
in Homely Rhimes"--upon subjects familiar to any little girl or boy,
none leaves the moral to the imagination. Nevertheless, it could well
have been a relaxation, after the daily drill in "A B abs" and
catechism, to turn the leaves and to spell out this:
UPON THE FROG
The Frog by nature is both damp and cold,
Her mouth is large, her belly much will hold,
She sits somewhat ascending, loves to be
Croaking in gardens tho' unpleasantly.
_Comparison_
The hypocrite is like unto this frog;
As like as is the Puppy to the Dog.
He is of nature cold, his mouth is wide
To prate, and at true Goodness to deride.
Doubtless, too, many little Puritans quite envied the child in "The Boy
and the Watchmaker," a jingle wherein the former said, among other
things:
"This Watch my Father did on me bestow
A Golden one it is, but 'twill not go,
Unless it be at an Uncertainty;
I think there is no watch as bad as mine.
Sometimes 'tis sullen, 'twill not go at all,
And yet 'twas never broke, nor had a fall."
The same small boys may even have enjoyed the tedious explanation of the
mechanism of the time-piece given by the _Watchmaker_, and after
skipping the "Comparison" (which made the boy represent a convert and
the watch in his pocket illustrative of "Grace within his Heart"), they
probably turned eagerly to the next Meditation _Upon the Boy and his
Paper of Plumbs_. Weather-cocks, Hobby-horses, Horses, and Drums, all
served Bunyan in his effort "to point a moral" while adorning his tales.
In a later edition of these grotesque and quaint conceptions, some
alterations were made and a primer was included. It then appeared as "A
Book for Boys and Girls; or Temporal Things Spiritualized;" and by the
time the ninth edition was reached, in seventeen hundred and twenty-four,
the book was hardly recognizable as "Divine Emblems; or Temporal Things
Spiritualized."
At present there is no evidence that these rhymes were printed in the
colonies until long after this ninth edition was issued. It is possible
that the success attending a book printed in Boston shortly after the
original "Country Rhimes" was written, made the colonial printers feel
that their profit would be greater by devoting spare type and paper to
the now famous "New England Primer." Moreover, it seems peculiarly in
keeping with the cast of the New England mind of the eighteenth century
that although Bunyan had attempted to combine play-things with religious
teaching for the English children, for the little colonials the first
combination was the elementary teaching and religious exercises found in
the great "Puritan Primer." Each child was practically, if not verbally,
told that
"This little Catechism learned by heart (for so it ought)
The Primer next commanded is for Children to be taught."
The Primer, however, was not a product wholly of New England. In sixteen
hundred and eighty-five there had been printed in Boston by Green, "The
Protestant Tutor for Children," a primer, a mutilated copy of which is
now owned by the American Antiquarian Society. "This," again to quote
Mr. Ford, "was probably an abridged edition of a book bearing the same
title, printed in London, with the expressed design of bringing up
children in an aversion to Popery." In Protestant New England the
author's purpose naturally called forth profound approbation, and in
"Green's edition of the Tutor lay the germ of the great picture alphabet
of our fore-fathers."[14-A] The author, Benjamin Harris, had immigrated
to Boston for personal reasons, and coming in contact with the
residents, saw the latent possibilities in "The Protestant Tutor." "To
make it more salable," writes Mr. Ford in "The New England Primer," "the
school-book character was increased, while to give it an even better
chance of success by an appeal to local pride it was rechristened and
came forth under the now famous title of 'The New England
Primer.'"[14-B]
A careful examination of the titles contained in the first volume of
Evans's "American Bibliography" shows how exactly this infant's primer
represented the spirit of the times. This chronological list of American
imprints of the first one hundred years of the colonial press is largely
a record in type of the religious activity of the country, and is
impressive as a witness to the obedience of the press to the law of
supply and demand. With the Puritan appetite for a grim religion served
in sermons upon every subject, ornamented and seasoned with supposedly
apt Scriptural quotations, a demand was created for printed discourses
to be read and inwardly digested at home. This demand the printers
supplied. Amid such literary conditions the primer came as light food
for infants' minds, and as such was accepted by parents to impress
religious ideas when teaching the alphabet.
It is not by any means certain that the first edition of this great
primer of our ancestors contained illustrations, as engravers were few
in America before the eighteenth century. Yet it seems altogether
probable that they were introduced early in the next century, as by
seventeen hundred and seventeen Benjamin Harris, Jr., had printed in
Boston "The Holy Bible in Verse," containing cuts identical with those
in "The New England Primer" of a somewhat later date, and these pictures
could well have served as illustrations for both these books for
children's use, profit, and pleasure. At all events, the thorough
approval by parents and clergy of this small school-book soon brought to
many a household the novelty of a real picture-book.
Hitherto little children had been perforce content with the few
illustrations the adult books offered. Now the printing of this tiny
volume, with its curious black pictures accompanying the text of
religious instruction, catechism, and alphabets, marked the milestone on
the long lane that eventually led to the well-drawn pictures in the
modern books for children.
It is difficult at so late a day to estimate correctly the pleasure this
famous picture alphabet brought to the various colonial households. What
the original illustrations were like can only be inferred from those in
"The Holy Bible in Verse," and in the later editions of the primer
itself. In the Bible Adam (or is it Eve?) stands pointing to a tree
around which a serpent is coiled. By seventeen hundred and thirty-seven
the engraver was sufficiently skilled to represent two figures, who
stand as colossal statues on either side of the tree whose fruit had
such disastrous effects. However, at a time when art criticism had no
terrors for the engraver, it could well have been a delight to many a
family of little ones to gaze upon
"The Lion bold
The Lamb doth hold"
and to speculate upon the exact place where the lion ended and the lamb
began. The wholly religious character of the book was no drawback to its
popularity, for the two great diaries of the time show how absolutely
religion permeated the atmosphere surrounding both old and young.
Cotton Mather's diary gives various glimpses of his dealing with his own
and other people's children. His son Increase, or "Cressy," as he was
affectionately called, seems to have been particularly unresponsive to
religious coercion. Mather's method, however, appears to have been more
efficacious with the younger members of his family, and of Elizabeth and
Samuel (seven years of age) he wrote: "My two younger children shall
before the Psalm and prayer answer a Quæstion in the catechism; and have
their Leaves ready turned unto the proofs of the Answer in the Bible;
which they shall distinctly read unto us, and show what they prove. This
also shall supply a fresh matter for prayer." Again he tells of his
table talk: "Tho' I will have my table talk facetious as well as
instructive ... yett I will have the Exercise continually intermixed. I
will set before them some sentence of the Bible, and make some useful
Remarks upon it." Other people's children he taught as occasion offered;
even when "on the Road in the Woods," he wrote on another day, "I, being
desirous to do some Good, called some little children ... and bestowed
some Instruction with a little Book upon them." To children accustomed
to instruction at all hours, the amusement found in the pages of the
primer was far greater than in any other book printed in the colonies
for years.
Certain titles indicate the nature of the meagre juvenile literary fare
in the beginning of the new eighteenth century. In seventeen hundred
Nicholas Boone, in his "Shop over against the old Meeting-house" in
Boston, reprinted Janeway's "Token for Children." To this was added by
the Boston printer a "Token for the children of New England, or some
examples of children in whom the fear of God was remarkably budding when
they dyed; in several parts of New England." Of course its author, the
Reverend Mr. Mather, found colonial "examples" as deeply religious as
any that the mother country could produce; but there is for us a grim
humor in these various incidents concerning pious and precocious infants
"of thin habit and pale countenance," whose pallor became that of death
at so early an age. If it was by the repetition of such tales that the
Puritan divine strove to convert Cressy, it may well be that the son
considered it better policy, since Death claimed the little saints, to
remain a sinner.
By seventeen hundred and six two juvenile books appeared from the press
of Timothy Green in Boston. The first, "A LITTLE BOOK for
children wherein are set down several directions for little children:
and several remarkable stories both ancient and modern of little
children, divers whereof are lately deceased," was a reprint from an
English book of the same title, and therefore has not in this chronicle
the interest of the second book. The purpose of its publication is given
in Mather's diary:
[1706] 22d. Im. Friday.
About this Time sending my little son to School, Where ye Child was
Learning to Read, I did use every morning for diverse months, to
Write in a plain Hand for the Child, and send thither by him, _a
Lesson in Verse_, to be not only _read_, but also _Gott_ by Heart.
My proposal was to have the Child improve in goodness, at the same
time that he improved in _Reading_. Upon further Thoughts I
apprehended that a Collection of some of them would be serviceable
to ye Good Education of other children. So I lett ye printer take
them & print them, in some hope of some Help to thereby contributed
unto that great Intention of a _Good Education_. The book is
entituled _Good Lessons for Children_; or Instruction provided for a
little Son to learn at School, when learning to Read.
Although this small book lives only by record, it is safe to assume from
the extracts of the author's diary already quoted, that it lacked every
quality of amusement, and was adapted only to those whom he described,
in a sermon preached before the Governor and Council, as "verie Sharpe
and early Ripe in their capacities." "Good Lessons" has the distinction
of being the first American book to be composed, like many a modern
publication, for a particular young child; and, with its purpose "to
improve in goodness," struck clearly the keynote of the greater part of
all writing for children during the succeeding one hundred and
seventy-five years.
The first glimpse of the amusement book proper appears in that unique
"History of Printing in America," by Isaiah Thomas. This describes,
among other old printers, one Thomas Fleet, who established himself in
Boston about 1713. "At first," wrote Mr. Thomas, "he printed pamphlets
for booksellers, small books for children and ballads" in Pudding
Lane.[19-A] "He owned several negroes, one of which ... was an ingenious
man and cut on wooden blocks all the pictures which decorated the
ballads and small books for his master."[19-B] As corroborative of these
statements Thomas also mentions Thomas Fleet, Sr., as "the putative
compiler of Mother Goose Melodies, which he first published in 1719,
bearing the title of 'Songs for the Nursery.'"
Much discussion has arisen as to the earliest edition of Mother Goose.
Thomas's suggestion as to the origin of the first American edition has
been of late years relegated to the region of myth. Nevertheless, there
is something to be said in favor of the existence of some book of
nonsense at that time. The Boston "News Letter" for April 12-19, 1739,
contained a criticism of Tate and Brady's version of the Psalms, in
which the reviewer wrote that in Psalm VI the translators used the
phrase, "a wretch forlorn." He added: "(1) There is nothing of this in
the original or the English Psalter. (2) 'Tis a low expression and to
add a low one is the less allowable. But (3) what I am most concerned
for is, that it will be apt to make our Children think of the line in
their vulgar Play song; much like it, 'This is the maiden all forlorn.'"
We recognize at once a reference to our nursery friend of the "House
that Jack Built;" and if this and "Tom Thumb" were sold in Boston, why
should not other ditties have been among the chap-books which Thomas
remembered to have set up when a 'prentice lad in the printing-house of
Zechariah Fowle, who in turn had copied some issued previously by Thomas
Fleet? In further confirmation of Thomas's statement is a paragraph in
the preface to an edition of Mother Goose, published in Boston in 1833,
by Monroe & Francis. The editor traces the origin of these rhymes to a
London book entitled, "Rhymes for the Nursery or Lullabies for
Children," "that," he writes, "contained many of the identical pieces
handed down to us." He continues: "The first book of the kind known to
be printed in this country _bears_ [_the italics are mine_] the title,
'_Songs for the Nursery: or Mother Goose's Melodies for Children_.'
Something probably intended to represent a goose, with a very long neck
and mouth wide open, covered a large part of the title-page; at the
bottom of which was: 'Printed by T. Fleet, at his printing house,
Pudding Lane (Boston) 1719.' Several pages were missing, so that the
whole number could not be ascertained." The editor clearly writes as if
he had either seen, or heard accurately described, this piece of
_Americana_, which the bibliophile to-day would consider a treasure
trove. Later writers doubt whether any such book existed, for it is
hardly credible that the Puritan element which so largely composed the
population of Boston in the first quarter of the eighteenth century
would have encouraged the printing of any nonsensical jingles.
Boston, however, was not at this time the only place in the colonies
where primers and religious books were written and printed. In
Philadelphia, Andrew Bradford, famous as the founder of the "American
Weekly Mercury," had in 1714 put through his press, probably upon
subscription, the "Last Words and Dyeing Expressions of Hannah Hill,
aged 11 years and near three Months." This morbid account of the death
of a little Quakeress furnished the Philadelphia children with a book
very similar to Mather's "Token." Not to be outdone by any precocious
example in Pennsylvania, the Reverend Mr. Mather soon found an instance
of "Early Piety in Elizabeth Butcher of Boston, being just 8 years and
11 months old," when she died in 1718. In two years two editions of her
life had been issued "to instruct and to invite little children to the
exercise of early piety."
Such mortuary effusions were so common at the time that Benjamin
Franklin's witty skit upon them is apropos in this connection. In 1719,
at the age of sixteen, under the pseudonym of Mrs. Dogood, he wrote a
series of letters for his brother's paper, "The New England Courant."
From the following extract, taken from these letters, it is evident that
these children's "Last Words" followed the prevailing fashion:
_A Receipt_ to make a _New England_
Funeral _Elegy_.
_For the title of your Elegy_. Of these you may have enough ready
made at your Hands: But if you should chuse to make it yourself you
must be sure not to omit the Words _Aetatis Suae_, which will
beautify it exceedingly.
_For the subject of your Elegy_. Take one of your neighbors who has
lately departed this life; it is no great matter at what age the
Party Dy'd, but it will be best if he went away suddenly, being
_Kill'd_, _Drown'd_ or _Froze to Death_.
Having chosen the Person, take all his Virtues, Excellencies, &c.
and if he have not enough, you may borrow some to make up a
sufficient Quantity: To these add his last Words, dying Expressions,
&c. if they are to be had: mix all these together, and be sure you
strain them well. Then season all with a Handful or two of
Melancholy Expressions, such as _Dreadful, Dreadly, cruel, cold,
Death, unhappy, Fate, weeping Eyes_, &c. Having mixed all these
Ingredients well, put them in an empty Scull of some _young
Harvard_; (but in case you have ne'er a One at Hand, you may use
your _own_,) then let them Ferment for the Space of a Fortnight, and
by that Time they will be incorporated into a Body, which take out
and having prepared a sufficient Quantity of double Rhimes, such as
_Power, Flower; Quiver, Shiver; Grieve us, Leave us; tell you, excel
you; Expeditions, Physicians; Fatigue him, Intrigue him_; &c. you
must spread all upon Paper, and if you can procure a Scrap of Latin
to put at the _End_, it will garnish it mightily: then having
affixed your Name at the bottom with a _Maestus Composuit_, you will
have an Excellent Elegy.
N.B. This Receipt will serve when a Female is the subject of your
Elegy, provided you borrow a greater Quantity of Virtues,
Excellencies &c.
Of other original books for children of colonial parents in the first
quarter of that century, "A Looking-glass" did but mirror more religious
episodes concerning infants, while Mather in his zeal had also published
"An Earnest Exhortation" to New England children, and "The A, B, C, of
religion. Fitted unto the youngest and lowest capacities." To this,
taking advantage of the use of rhymes, he appended further instruction,
including "The Body of Divinity versified." With our knowledge of the
clergyman's methods with his congregation it is not difficult to imagine
that he insisted upon the purchase of these godly aids for every
household.
In attempting to reproduce the conditions of family life in the early
settlements and towns of colonial days, we turn quite naturally to the
newspapers, whose appearance in the first quarter of the eighteenth
century was gladly welcomed by the people of their time, and whose files
are now eagerly searched for items of great or small importance. Indeed,
much information can be gathered from their advertisements, which often
filled the major part of these periodicals. Apparently shop-keepers were
keen to take advantage of such space as was reserved for them, as
sometimes a marginal note informed the public that other advertisements
must wait for the next issue to appear.
Booksellers' announcements, however, are not too frequent in Boston
papers, and are noticeably lacking in the early issues of the
Philadelphia "Weekly Mercury." This dearth of book-news accounts for the
difficulty experienced by book-lovers of that town in procuring
literature--a lack noticed at once by the wide-awake young Franklin upon
his arrival in the city, and recorded in his biography as follows:
"At the time I established myself in Pennsylvania [1728] there was not a
bookseller's shop in any of the colonies to the southward of Boston. In
New York and Phil'a the printers were indeed stationers; they sold only
paper, etc., ballads, and a few books. Those who lov'd reading were
obliged to send for their books from London."
Franklin undertook to better this condition by opening a shop for the
sale of foreign books. Both he and his rival in journalism, Andrew
Bradford, had stationer's shops, in which were to be had besides "Good
Writing Paper; Cyphering Slates; Ink Powders, etc., Chapmens Books and
Ballads." Bradford also advertised in seventeen hundred and thirty that
all persons could be supplied with "Primers and small Histories of many
sorts." "Small histories" were probably chap-books, which, hawked about
the country by peddlers or chapmen, contained tales of "Fair Rosamond,"
"Jane Grey," "Tom Thumb" or "Tom Hick-a-Thrift," and though read by old
and young, were hardly more suitable for juvenile reading than the
religious elegies then so popular. These chap-books were sold in
considerable quantities on account of their cheapness, and included
religious subjects as well as tales of adventure.
One of the earliest examples of this chap-book literature, thought
suitable for children, was printed in the colonies by the press of
Thomas Fleet, already mentioned as a printer of small books. This book
of 1736, being intended for ready sale, was such as every Puritan would
buy for the family library. Entitled "The Prodigal Daughter," it told in
Psalm-book metre of a "proud, vain girl, who, because her parents would
not indulge her in all her extravagances, bargained with the devil to
poisen them." The parents, however, were warned by an angel of her
intentions:
"One night her parents sleeping were in bed
Nothing but troubled dreams run in their head,
At length an angel did to them appear
Saying awake, and unto me give ear.
A messenger I'm sent by Heaven kind
To let you know your lives are both design'd;
Your graceless child, whom you love so dear,
She for your precious lives hath laid a snare.
To poison you the devil tempts her so,
She hath no power from the snare to go:
But God such care doth of his servants take,
Those that believe on Him He'll not forsake.
"You must not use her cruel or severe,
For though these things to you I do declare,
It is to show you what the Lord can do,
He soon can turn her heart, you'll find it so."
The daughter, discovered in her attempt to poison their food, was
reproached by the mother for her evil intention and swooned. Every
effort failed to "bring her spirits to revive:"
"Four days they kept her, when they did prepare
To lay her body in the dust we hear,
At her funeral a sermon then was preach'd,
All other wicked children for to teach....
But suddenly they bitter groans did hear
Which much surprized all that then were there.
At length they did observe the dismal sound
Came from the body just laid in the ground."
The Puritan pride in funeral display is naïvely exhibited in the
portrayal of the girl when she "in her coffin sat, and did admire her
winding sheet," before she related her experiences "among lonesome wild
deserts and briary woods, which dismal were and dark." But immediately
after her description of the lake of burning misery and of the fierce
grim Tempter, the Puritan matter-of-fact acceptance of it all is
suggested by the concluding lines:
"When thus her story she to them had told,
She said, put me to bed for I am cold."
The illustrations of a later edition entered thoroughly into the spirit
of the author's intent. The contemporary opinion of the French character
is quaintly shown in the portrait of the Devil dressed as a French
gentleman, his cloven foot discovering his identity. Whatever
deficiencies are revealed in these early attempts to illustrate, they
invariably expressed the artist's purpose, and in this case the Devil,
after the girl's conversion, is drawn in lines very acceptable to
Puritan children's idea of his personality.
Almanacs also were in demand, and furnished parents and children, in
many cases, with their entire library for week-day reading. "Successive
numbers hung from a string by the chimney or ranked by years and
generations on cupboard shelves."[26-A] But when Franklin made "Poor
Richard" an international success, he, by giving short extracts from
Swift, Steele, Defoe, and Bacon, accustomed the provincial population,
old and young, to something better than the meagre religious fare
provided by the colonial press.
Such, then, were the literary conditions for children when an
advertisement inserted in the "Weekly Mercury" gave promise of better
days for the little Philadelphians.[26-B] Strangely enough, this attempt
to make learning seem attractive to children did not appear in the
booksellers' lists; but crowded in between Tandums, Holland Tapes,
London Steel, and good Muscavado Sugar,--"Guilt horn books" were
advertised by Joseph Sims in 1740 as "for sale on reasonable Terms for
Cash."
[Illustration: _The Devil appears as a French Gentleman_]
Horn-books in themselves were only too common, and not in the least
delightful. Made of thin wood, whereon was placed a printed sheet of
paper containing the alphabet and Lord's Prayer, a horn-book was hardly,
properly speaking, a book at all. But when the printed page was covered
with yellowish transparent horn, secured to the wooden back by strips of
brass, it furnished an economical and practically indestructible
elementary text-book for thousands of English-speaking children on both
sides of the Atlantic. Sometimes an effort was also made to guard
against the inconvenient faculty of children for losing school-books, by
attaching a cord, which, passing through a hole in the handle of the
board, was hung around the scholar's neck. But since nothing is proof
against the ingenuity of a schoolboy, many were successfully disposed
of. Although printed by thousands, few in England or in America have
survived the century that has elapsed since they were used.
Occasionally, in tearing down an old building, one of these horn-books
has been found; dropped in a convenient hole, it has remained secure
from parents' sight, until brought to light by workmen and prized as a
curiosity by grown people of the present generation. This notice of
little gilt horn-books was inserted in the "Weekly Mercury" but once.
Whether the supply was quickly exhausted, or whether they did not prove
a successful novelty, can never be known; but at least they herald the
approach of the little gilt story-books which ten years later were to
make the name of John Newbery well known in English households, and
hardly less familiar in the American colonies.
So far the only attractions to induce children to read have been through
the pictures in the Primer of New England, and by the gilding of the
horn-book. From further south comes the first note of amusement in
reading, as well as the first expression of pleasure from the children
themselves in regard to a book. In 1741, in Virginia, two letters were
written and received by R.H. Lee and George Washington. These letters,
which afford the first in any way authentic account of tales of real
entertainment, are given by Mr. Lossing in "The Home of Washington," and
tell their own tale:
[_Richard Henry Lee to George Washington_]
PA brought me two pretty books full of pictures he got them
in Alexandria they have pictures of dogs and cats and tigers and
elefants and ever so many pretty things cousin bids me send you one
of them it has a picture of an elefant and a little indian boy on
his back like uncle jo's Sam pa says if I learn my tasks good he
will let uncle jo bring me to see you will you ask your ma to let
you come to see me.
RICHARD HENRY LEE.
[_G. Washington to R.H. Lee_]
DEAR DICKEY--I thank you very much for the pretty picture
book you gave me. Sam asked me to show him the pictures and I showed
him all the pictures in it; and I read to him how the tame Elephant
took care of the Master's little boy, and put him on his back and
would not let anybody touch his master's little son. I can read
three or four pages sometimes without missing a word.... I have a
little piece of poetry about the picture book you gave me but I
mustn't tell you who wrote the poetry.
G.W.'s compliments to R.H.L.
And likes his book full well,
Henceforth will count him his friend
And hopes many happy days he may spend.
Your good friend
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
In a note Mr. Lossing states that he had copies of these two letters,
sent him by a Mr. Lee, who wrote: "The letter of Richard Henry Lee was
written by himself, and uncorrected sent by him to his boy friend George
Washington. The poetical effusion was, I have heard, written by a Mr.
Howard, a gentleman who used to visit at the house of Mr. Washington."
It would be gratifying to know the titles of these two books, so
evidently English chap-book tales. It is probable that they were
imported by a shop-keeper in Alexandria, as in seventeen hundred and
forty-one there was only one press in Virginia, owned by William Sharps,
who had moved from Annapolis in seventeen hundred and thirty-six.
Luxuries were so much more common among the Virginia planters, and life
was so much more roseate in hue than was the case in the northern
colonies, that it seems most natural that two southern boys should have
left the earliest account of any real story-books. Though unfortunately
nameless, they at least form an interesting coincidence. Bought in
seventeen hundred and forty-one, they follow just one hundred years
later than the meeting of the General Court, which was responsible for
the preparation of Cotton's "Milk for Babes," and precede by a century
the date when an American story-book literature was recognized as very
different from that written for English children.
FOOTNOTES:
[6-A] _Records of Mass. Bay_, vol. i, p. 37 h.
[6-B] _Ibid._, vol. i, p. 37 e.
[6-C] Ford, _The New England Primer_, p. 83.
[6-D] _Records of Mass. Bay_, vol. i, p. 328.
[7-A] Ford, _The New England Primer_, p. 92.
[7-B] _Ibid._
[11-A] In the possession of the British Museum.
[14-A] Ford, _The New England Primer_, p. 38.
[14-B] _Ibid._
[19-A] Thomas, _History of Printing in America_, vol. iii, p. 145.
[19-B] _Ibid._, vol. i, p. 294.
[26-A] Sears, _American Literature_, p. 86.
[26-B] Although this appears to be the first advertisement of gilt
horn-books in Philadelphia papers, an inventory of the estate of Michael
Perry, a Boston bookseller, made in seventeen hundred, includes sixteen
dozen gilt horn-books.