1800-1825
_Toy-Books in the Early Nineteenth Century_
On the 23d of December, 1823, there appeared anonymously in the "Troy
(New York) Sentinel," a Christmas ballad entitled "A Visit from St.
Nicholas." This rhymed story of Santa Claus and his reindeer, written
one year before its publication by Clement Clarke Moore for his own
family, marks the appearance of a truly original story in the literature
of the American nursery.
We have seen the somewhat lugubrious influence of Puritan and Quaker
upon the occasional writings for American children; and now comes a
story bearing upon its face the features of a Dutchman, as the jolly old
gentleman enters nursery lore with his happy errand.
Up to this time children of wholly English extraction had probably
little association with the Feast of St. Nicholas. The Christmas season
had hitherto been regarded as pagan in its origin by people of Puritan
or Scotch descent, and was celebrated only as a religious festival by
the descendants of the more liberal adherents to the Church of England.
The Dutch element in New York, however, still clung to some of their
traditions; and the custom of exchanging simple gifts upon Christmas Day
had come down to them as a result of a combination of the church legend
of the good St. Nicholas, patron of children, and the Scandinavian myth
of the fairy gnome, who from his bower in the woods showered good
children with gifts.[148-A] But to celebrate the day quietly was
altogether a different thing from introducing to the American public the
character of Santa Claus, who has become in his mythical entity as well
known to every American as that other Dutch legendary personage, Rip Van
Winkle.
In the "Visit from St. Nicholas" Mr. Moore not only introduced Santa
Claus to the young folk of the various states, but gave to them their
first story of any lasting merit whatsoever. It is worthy of remark that
as every impulse to write for juvenile readers has lagged behind the
desire to write for adults, so the composition of these familiar verses
telling of the arrival in America of the mysterious and welcome visitor
on
"The night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse,"
fell at the end of that quarter of the nineteenth century to which we
are accustomed to refer as the beginning of the national period of
American literature.
It is, of course, true that the older children of that period had
already begun to enjoy some of the writings of Irving and Cooper, and to
learn the fortunately still familiar verses by Hopkinson, Key, Drake,
and Halleck. School-readers have served to familiarize generation after
generation with "Hail Columbia," "The Star Spangled Banner," and
sometimes with "The American Flag." It is, doubtless, their authors'
jubilant enthusiasm over the freedom of the young Republic that has
caused the children of the more mature nation to delight in the
repetition of the patriotic verses. The youthful extravagance of
expression pervading every line is reëchoed in the heart of the
schoolboy, who likes to imagine himself, before anything else, a
patriot. But until "Donder and Blitzen" pranced into the foreground as
Santa Claus' steeds, there was nothing in American nursery literature of
any lasting fame. Thereafter, as the custom of observing Christmas Day
gradually became popular, the perennial small child felt--until
automobiles sent reindeer to the limbo of bygone things--the thrill of
delight and fear over the annual visit of Santa Claus that the bigger
child experiences in exploding fire-crackers on the Fourth of July.
There are possibilities in both excitements which appeal to one of the
child's dearest possessions--his imagination.
It is this direct appeal to the imagination that surprises and delights
us in Mr. Moore's ballad. To re-read it is to be amazed that anything so
full of merriment, so modern, so free from pompousness or condescension,
from pedantry or didacticism, could have been written before the latter
half of the nineteenth century. Not only its style is simple in contrast
with the labored efforts at simplicity of its contemporaneous verse, but
its story runs fifty years ahead of its time in its freedom from the
restraining hand of the moralist and from the warning finger of the
religious teacher, if we except Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Wonder Book."
In our examination of the toy-books of twenty years preceding its
publication, we shall find nothing so attractive in manner, nor so
imaginative in conception. Indeed, we shall see, upon the one hand, that
fun was held in with such a tight curb that it hardly ever escaped into
print; and upon the other hand that the imagination had little chance
to develop because of the prodigal indulgence in realities and in
religious experience from which all authors suffered. We shall also see
that these realities were made very uncompromising and uncomfortable to
run counter to. Duty spelled in capital letters was a stumbling-block
with which only the well-trained story-book child could successfully
cope; recreation followed in small portions large shares of instruction,
whether disguised or bare faced. The Religion-in-Play, the
Ethics-in-Play, and the Labor-in-Play schools of writing for children
had arrived in America from the land of their origin.
The stories in vogue in England during this first quarter of the
nineteenth century explain every vagary in America. There fashionable
and educational authorities had hitched their wagon to the literary
star, Miss Edgeworth, and the followers of her system; while the
religiously inclined pinned their faith also upon tracts written by Miss
Hannah More. In this still imitative land the booksellers simply
reprinted the more successful of these juvenile publications. The
changes, therefore, in the character of the juvenile literature of
amusement of the early nineteenth century in America were due to the
adoption of the works of these two Englishwomen, and to the increased
facilities for reproducing toy-books, both in press-work and in
illustrations.
Hannah More's allegories and religious dramas, written to coöperate with
the teachings of the first Sabbath Day schools, are, of course, outside
the literature of amusement. Yet they affected its type in America as
they undoubtedly gave direction to the efforts of the early writers for
children.
Miss More, born in seventeen hundred and fifty-four, was a woman of
already established literary reputation when her attention was attracted
by Robert Raikes's successful experiment of opening a Sunday-school, in
seventeen hundred and eighty-one. During the religious revival that
attended the preaching of George Whitefield, Raikes, already interested
in the hardships and social condition of the working-classes, was
further aroused by his intimate knowledge of the manner of life of some
children in a pin factory. To provide instruction for these child
laborers, who, without work or restrictions on Sundays, sought
occupation far from elevating, Raikes founded the first "Sabbath Day
school."
The movement spread rapidly in England, and ten years later, in seventeen
hundred and ninety-one, under the inspiration of Bishop White, the
pioneer First Day school in America was opened in Philadelphia. The good
Bishop was disturbed mentally by the religious and moral degeneracy of
the poor children in his diocese, and annoyed during church services by
their clamor outside the churches--a noise often sufficient to drown the
prayers of his flock and the sermons of his clergy. To occupy these
restless children for a part of the day, two sessions of the school were
held each Sunday: one before the morning service, from eight until
half-past ten o'clock, and the other in the afternoon for an hour and a
half. The Bible was used as a reader, and the teaching was done regularly
by paid instructors.
The first Sunday-school library owed its origin to a wish to further the
instruction given in the school, and hence contained books thought
admirably adapted to Sunday reading. Among the somewhat meagre stock
provided for this purpose were Doddridge's "Power of Religion," Miss
More's tracts and the writings of her imitators, together with "The
Fairchild Family," by Mrs. Sherwood, "The Two Lambs," by Mrs. Cameron,
"The Economy of Human Life," and a little volume made up of selections
from Mrs. Barbauld's works for children. "The Economy of Human Life,"
said Miss Sedgwick (who herself afterwards wrote several good books for
girls), "was quite above my comprehension, and I thought it unmeaning
and tedious." Testimony of this kind about a book which for years
appeared regularly upon booksellers' lists enables us to realize that
the average intelligent child of the year eighteen hundred was beginning
to be as bored by some of the literature placed in his hands as a child
would be one hundred years later.
To increase this special class of books, Hannah More devoted her
attention. Her forty tracts comprising "The Cheap Repository" included
"The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain" and "The Two Shoemakers," which, often
appearing in American booksellers' advertisements, were for many years a
staple article in Sunday-school libraries, and even now, although pushed
to the rear, are discoverable in some such collections of books. Their
objective point is best given by their author's own words in the preface
to an edition of "The Search after Happiness; A Pastoral Drama," issued
by Jacob Johnson of Philadelphia in eighteen hundred and eleven.
Miss More began in the self-depreciatory manner then thought modest and
becoming in women writers: "The author is sensible it may have many
imperfections, but if it may be happily instrumental in producing a
regard to Religion and Virtue in the minds of Young Persons, and afford
them an innocent, and perhaps not altogether unuseful amusement in the
exercise of recitation, the end for which it was originally composed ...
will be fully answered." A drama may seem to us above the comprehension
of the poor and illiterate class of people whose attention Miss More
wished to hold, but when we feel inclined to criticise, let us not
forget that the author was one who had written little eight-year-old
Thomas Macaulay: "I think we have nearly exhausted the epics. What say
you to a little good prose? Johnson's 'Hebrides,' or Walton's 'Lives,'
unless you would like a neat edition of Cowper's poems or 'Paradise
Lost.'"
Miss More's influence upon the character of Sunday-school books in
England undoubtedly did much to incline many unknown American women of
the nineteenth century to take up this class of books as their own field
for religious effort and pecuniary profit.
Contemporary with Hannah More's writings in the interest of religious
life of Sunday-school scholars were some of the literary products of the
painstaking pen of Maria Edgeworth.
Mention of Miss Edgeworth has already been made. About her stories for
children criticism has played seriously, admiringly, and contemptuously.
It is not the present purpose, however, to do other than to make clear
her own aim, and to try to show the effect of her extremely moral tales
upon her own generation of writers for American children. It is possible
that she affected these authors more than the child audience for whom
she wrote. Little ones have a wonderful faculty for seizing upon what
suits them and leaving the remainder for their elders to discuss.
Maria Edgeworth's life was a long one. Born in seventeen hundred and
sixty-seven, when John Newbery's books were at the height of their fame,
she lived until eighteen hundred and forty-nine, when they were scarcely
remembered; and now her own once popular tales have met a similar fate.
She was educated by a father filled with enthusiasm by the teachings of
Rousseau and with advice from the platitudinous family friend, Thomas
Day, author of "Sanford and Merton." Only the truly genial nature and
strong character of Miss Edgeworth prevented her genius from being
altogether swamped by this incongruous combination. Fortunately, also,
her busy practical home life allowed her sympathies full sway and
counteracted many of the theories introduced by Mr. Edgeworth into his
family circle. Successive stepmothers filled the Edgeworth nursery with
children, for whom the devoted older sister planned and wrote the
stories afterward published.
In seventeen hundred and ninety-one Maria Edgeworth, at her father's
suggestion, began to note down anecdotes of the children of the family,
and later these were often used as copy to be criticised by the little
ones themselves before they were turned over to the printer. Her
father's educational conversations with his family were often committed
to paper, and these also furnished material from which Miss Edgeworth
made it her object in life to interweave knowledge, amusement, and
ethics. Indeed, it has been most aptly said that between the narrow
banks of Richard Edgeworth's theories "his daughter's genius flowed
through many volumes of amusement."
[Illustration: _Jacob Johnson's Book-Store._]
Her first collection of tales was published under the title of "The
Parent's Assistant," although Miss Edgeworth's own choice of a name had
been the less formidable one of "The Parent's Friend." Based upon her
experience as eldest sister in a large and constantly increasing family,
these tales necessarily struck many true notes and gave valuable hints
to perplexed parents. In "The Parent's Assistant" realities stalked full
grown into the nursery as
"Every object in creation
Furnished hints for contemplation."
The characters were invariably true to their creator's original drawing.
A good girl was good from morning to night; a naughty child began and
ended the day in disobedience, and by it bottles were smashed,
strawberries spilled, and lessons disregarded in unbroken sequence. In
later life Miss Edgeworth confessed to having occasionally introduced in
"Harry and Lucy" some nonsense as an "alloy to make the sense work
well;" but as all her earlier children's tales were subjected to the
pruning scissors of Mr. Edgeworth, this amalgam is to-day hardly
noticeable in "Popular Tales," "Early Lessons," and "Frank," which
preceded the six volumes of "Harry and Lucy."
Although a contemporary of Mrs. Barbauld, who had written for little
children "Easy Lessons," Miss Edgeworth does not seem to have been well
known in America until about eighteen hundred and five. Then "Harry and
Lucy" was brought out by Jacob Johnson, a Philadelphia book-dealer.
This was issued in six small red and blue marbled paper volumes,
although other parts were not completed until eighteen hundred and
twenty-three. Between the first and second parts of volume one the
educational hand of Mr. Edgeworth is visible in the insertion of a
"Glossary," "to give a popular meaning of the words." "This Glossary,"
the editor, Mr. Edgeworth, thought, "should be read to children a little
at a time, and should be made the subject of conversation. Afterwards
they will read it with more pleasure." The popular meaning of words may
be succinctly given by one definition: "Dry, what is not wet." Could
anything be more lucid?
Among the stories by Miss Edgeworth are three rarely mentioned by
critics, and yet among the most natural and entertaining of her short
tales. They were also printed by Jacob Johnson in Philadelphia, in
eighteen hundred and five, under the simple title, "Three Stories for
Children." "Little Dog Trusty" is a dog any small child would like to
read about; "The Orangeman" was a character familiar to English
children; and "The Cherry Orchard" is a tale of a day's pleasure whose
spirit American children could readily seize. In each Miss Edgeworth had
a story to tell, and she told it well, even though "she walked," as has
been often said, "as mentor beside her characters."
Of Miss Edgeworth's many tales, "Waste Not, Want Not" was long
considered a model. In it what Mr. Edgeworth styled the "shafts of
ridicule" were aimed at the rich nephew of Mr. Gresham. Mr. Gresham
(whose prototype we strongly suspect was Mr. Edgeworth himself) "lived
neither in idleness nor extravagance," and was desirous of adopting an
heir to his considerable property. Therefore, he invited two nephews to
visit him, with the object of choosing the more suitable for his
purpose; apparently he had only to signify his wish and no parental
objection to his plan would be interposed. The boys arrive: Hal, whose
mama spends her days at Bath over cards with Lady Diana Sweepstake, is
an ill-bred child, neither deferential to his uncle, nor with appetite
for buns when queen-cakes may be had. His cousin Ben, on the contrary,
has been taught those virtuous habits that make for a respectful
attitude toward rich uncles and assure a dissertation upon the
beneficial effect of buns _versus_ queen-cakes. The boys, having had
their characters thus definitely shown, proceed to live up to them in
every particular. From start to finish it is the virtuous Ben--his
generosity, thrift, and foresight are never allowed to lapse for an
instant--who triumphs in every episode. He saves his string, "good
whipcord," when requested by Mr. Gresham to untie a parcel, and it
thereafter serves to spin a fine new top, to help Hal out of a
difficulty with his toy, and in the final incident of the story, an
archery contest, our provident hero, finding his bowstring "cracked,"
calmly draws from his pocket the still excellent piece of cord, and
affixing it to his bow, wins the match. Hal betrays his great lack of
self-control by exclaiming, "The everlasting whipcord, I declare," and
thereupon Patty, Mr. Gresham's only child, who has suffered from Hal's
defects of character, openly rejoices when the prize is given to Ben. As
is usual with Miss Edgeworth's badly behaved children, the reader now
sees the error of Hal's ways, and perceives also that in the lad's
acknowledgment of the truth of the formerly scorned motto, "Waste not,
want not," the era of his reformation has begun.
Perpetual action was the key to the success of Miss Edgeworth's
writings. If to us her fictitious children seem like puppets whose
strings are too obviously jerked, the monotonous moral cloaked in the
variety of incident was liked by her own generation,
Miss Edgeworth not only pleased the children, but received the applause
of their parents and friends. Sir Walter Scott, the prince of
story-tellers, found much to admire in her tales, and wrote of "Simple
Susan:" "When the boy brings back the lamb to the little girl, there is
nothing for it but to put down the book and cry." Susan was the pattern
child in the tale, "clean as well as industrious," while Barbara--a
violent contrast--was conceited and lazy, and a _lady_ who "could
descend without shame from the height of insolent pride to the lowest
measure of fawning familiarity." Therefore it is small wonder that Sir
Walter passed her by without mention.
However much we may value an English author's admiration for Miss
Edgeworth's story-telling gifts, it is to America that we naturally turn
to seek contemporary opinion. In educational circles there is no doubt
that Miss Edgeworth won high praise. That her books were not always easy
to procure, however, we know from a letter written from Washington by
Mrs. Josiah Quincy, whose life as a child during the Revolution has
already been described. When Mrs. Quincy was living in the capital city
in eighteen hundred and ten, during her husband's term as Congressman,
she found it difficult to provide her family with books. She therefore
wrote to Boston to a friend, requesting to have sent her Miss
Edgeworth's "Moral Tales," "if the work can be obtained in one of the
bookstores. If not," she continued, "borrow one ... and I will replace
it with a new copy. Cut the book out of its binding and enclose the
pages in packets.... Be careful to send the entire text and title page."
The scarcity in Washington of books for young people Mrs. Quincy thought
justified the hope that reprinting these tales would be profitable to a
bookseller in whose efforts to introduce a better taste among the
inhabitants she took a keen interest. But Mrs. Quincy need not have sent
to Boston for them. Jacob Johnson in Philadelphia had issued most of the
English author's books by eighteen hundred and five, and New York
publishers probably made good profit by printing them.
Reading aloud was both a pastime and an education to families in those
early days of the Republic. Although Mrs. Quincy made every effort to
procure Miss Edgeworth's stories for her family because, in her opinion,
"they obtained a decided preference to the works of Hannah More, Mrs.
Trimmer and Mrs. Chapone," for reading aloud she chose extracts from
Shakespeare, Milton, Addison, and Goldsmith. Indeed, if it were possible
to ask our great-grandparents what books they remembered reading in
their childhood, I think we should find that beyond somewhat hazy
recollections of Miss Edgeworth's books and Berquin's "The Looking Glass
for the Mind," they would either mention "Robinson Crusoe," Newbery's
tales of "Giles Gingerbread," "Little King Pippin," and "Goody
Two-Shoes" (written fifty years before their own childhood), or
remember only the classic tales and sketches read to them by their
parents.
Certainly this is the case if we may take as trustworthy the
recollections of literary people whose childhood was passed in the first
part of the nineteenth century. Catharine Sedgwick, for instance, has
left a charming picture of American family life in a country town in
eighteen hundred--a life doubtless paralleled by many households in
comfortable circumstances. Among the host of little prigs and prudes in
story-books of the day, it is delightful to find in Catharine Sedgwick
herself an example of a bookish child who was natural. Her reminiscences
include an account of the way the task of sweeping out the schoolhouse
after hours was made bearable by feasts of Malaga wine and raisins.
These she procured from the store where her father kept an open account,
until the bill having been rendered dotted over with such charges "per
daughter Catharine," these treats to favorite schoolmates ceased. Also a
host of intimate details of this large family's life in the country
brings us in touch with the times: fifteen pairs of calfskin shoes
ordered from the village shoemaker, because town-bought morocco slippers
were few and far between; the excitement of a silk gown; the distress of
a brother, whose trousers for fête occasions were remodelled from an
older brother's "blue broadcloth worn to fragility--so that Robert [the
younger brother] said he could not look at them without making a rent;"
and again the anticipation of the father's return from Philadelphia with
gifts of necessaries and books.
After seventeen hundred and ninety-five Mr. Sedgwick was compelled as a
member of Congress to be away the greater part of each year, leaving
household and farm to the care of an invalid wife. Memories of Mr.
Sedgwick's infrequent visits home were mingled in his daughter's mind
with the recollections of being kept up until nine o'clock to listen to
his reading from Shakespeare, Don Quixote, or Hudibras. "Certainly,"
wrote Miss Sedgwick, "I did not understand them, but some glances of
celestial light reached my soul, and I caught from his magnetic sympathy
some elevation of feeling, and that love of reading which has been to me
an 'education.'" "I was not more than twelve years old," she continues,
"I think but ten--when one winter I read Rollin's Ancient History. The
walking to our schoolhouse was often bad, and I took my lunch (how well
I remember the bread and butter, and 'nut cake' and cold sausage, and
nuts and apples that made the miscellaneous contents of that enchanting
lunch-basket!), and in the interim between morning and afternoon school
I crept under my desk (the desks were so made as to afford little close
recesses under them) and read and munched and forgot myself in Cyrus'
greatness."
It is beyond question that the keen relish induced by the scarcity of
juvenile reading, together with the sound digestion it promoted,
overbalanced in mental gain the novelties of a later day.
The Sedgwick library was probably typical of the average choice in
reading-matter of the contemporary American child. Half a dozen little
story-books, Berquin's "Children's Friend" (the very form and shade of
color of its binding with its green edges were never forgotten by any
member of the Sedgwick family), and the "Looking Glass for the Mind"
were shelved side by side with a large volume entitled "Elegant
Extracts," full of ballads, fables, and tales delightful to children
whose imagination was already excited by the solemn mystery of Rowe's
"Letters from the Dead to the Living." Since none of these books except
those containing an infusion of religion were allowed to be read on
Sunday, the Sedgwick children extended the bounds by turning over the
pages of a book, and if the word "God" or "Lord" appeared, it was pounced
upon as sanctified and therefore permissible.
Where families were too poor to buy story-books, the children found what
amusement they could in the parents' small library. In ministers'
families sermons were more plentiful than books. Mrs. H.B. Stowe, when a
girl, found barrels of sermons in the garret of her father, the Rev. Dr.
Beecher, in Litchfield, Connecticut. Through these sermons his daughter
searched hungrily for mental food. It seemed as if there were thousands
of the most unintelligible things. "An appeal on the unlawfulness of a
man's marrying his wife's sister" turned up in every barrel by the
dozens, until she despaired of finding an end of it. At last an ancient
volume of "Arabian Nights" was unearthed. Here was the one inexhaustible
source of delight to a child so eager for books that at ten years of age
she had pored over the two volumes of the "Magnalia."
The library advantages of a more fortunately placed old-fashioned child
we know from Dr. Holmes's frequent reference to incidents of his
boyhood. He frankly confessed that he read in and not through many of
the two thousand books in his father's library; but he found much to
interest him in the volumes of periodicals, especially in the "Annual
Register" and Rees's "Encyclopedia." Although apparently allowed to
choose from the book-shelves, there were frequent evidences of a
parent's careful supervision. "I remember," he once wrote to a friend,
"many leaves were torn out of a copy of Dryden's Poems, with the comment
'Hiatus haud diflendus,' but I had like all children a kind of Indian
sagacity in the discovery of contraband reading, such as a boy carries
to a corner for perusal. Sermons I had enough from the pulpit. I don't
know that I ever read one sermon of my own accord during my childhood.
The 'Life of David,' by Samuel Chandler, had adventures enough, to say
nothing of gallantry, in it to stimulate and gratify curiosity."
"Biographies of Pious Children," wrote Dr. Holmes at another time, "were
not to my taste. Those young persons were generally sickly, melancholy,
and buzzed around by ghostly comforters or discomforters in a way that
made me sick to contemplate." Again, Dr. Holmes, writing of the revolt
from the commonly accepted religious doctrines he experienced upon
reading the Rev. Thomas Scott's Family Bible, contrasted the gruesome
doctrines it set forth with the story of Christian told in "Pilgrim's
Progress," a book which captivated his imagination.
As to story-books, Dr. Holmes once referred to Mrs. Barbauld and Dr.
Aikin's joint production, "Evenings at Home," with an accuracy bearing
testimony to his early love for natural science. He also paid a graceful
tribute to Lady Bountiful of "Little King Pippin" in comparing her in a
conversation "At the Breakfast Table" with the appearance of three
maiden ladies "rustling through the aisles of the old meeting-house, in
silk and satin, not gay but more than decent."
Although Dr. Holmes was not sufficiently impressed with the contents of
Miss Edgeworth's tales to mention them, at least one of her books
contained much of the sort of information he found attractive in
"Evenings at Home." "Harry and Lucy," besides pointing a moral on every
page, foreshadowed that taste for natural science which turned every
writer's thought toward printing geographical walks, botanical
observations, natural history conversations, and geological
dissertations in the guise of toy-books of amusement. A batch of books
issued in America during the first two decades of the nineteenth century
is illustrative of this new fashion. These books, belonging to the
Labor-in-Play school, may best be described in their American editions.
One hundred years ago the American publishers of toy works were devoting
their attention to the make-up rather than to the contents of their
wares. The steady progress of the industrial arts enabled a greater
number of printers to issue juvenile books, whose attractiveness was
increased by better illustrations; and also with the improved facilities
for printing and publishing, the issues of the various firms became more
individual. At the beginning of the century the cheaper books entirely
lost their charming gilt, flowery Dutch, and silver wrappers, as home
products came into use. Size and illustrations also underwent a change.
[Illustration: _A Wall-paper Book-Cover_]
In Philadelphia, Benjamin and Jacob Johnson, and later Johnson and
Warner, issued both tiny books two inches square, and somewhat larger
volumes containing illustrations as well as text. These firms used
for binding gray and blue marbled paper, gold-powdered yellow cardboard,
or salmon pink, blue, and olive-green papers, usually without
ornamentation. In eighteen hundred J. and J. Crukshank, of the same
town, began to decorate with copper-plate cuts the outside of the white
or blue paper covers of their imprints for children. Other printers
followed their example, especially after wood-engraving became more
generally used.
In Wilmington, Delaware, John Adams printed and sold "The New History of
Blue Beard" in both peacock-blue and olive-green paper covers; but Peter
Brynberg, also of that town, was still in eighteen hundred and four
using quaint wall-paper to dress his toy imprints. Matthew Carey, the
well-known printer of school-books for the children of Philadelphia,
made a "Child's Guide to Spelling and Reading" more acceptable by a
charming cover of yellow and red striped paper dotted over with little
black hearts suggestive of the old Primer rhyme for the letter B:
"My Book and Heart
Shall never part."
In New York the dealers in juvenile books seem either to have bound in
calf such classics as "The Blossoms of Morality," published by David
Longworth at the Shakespeare Gallery in eighteen hundred and two, or in
decorated but unattractive brown paper. This was the cover almost
invariably used for years by Samuel Wood, the founder of the present
publishing-house of medical works. He began in eighteen hundred and six
to print the first of his many thousands of children's religious,
instructive, and nursery books. As was the custom in order to insure a
good sale, Wood first brought out a primer, "The Young Child's A B C."
He decorated its Quaker gray cover with a woodcut of a flock of birds,
and its title-page with a picture, presumably by Alexander Anderson, of
a girl holding up a dove in her left hand and holding down a lamb with
her right.
In New England, Nathaniel Coverly of Salem sometimes used a watered pink
paper to cover his sixteen page toy-books, and in Boston his son, as
late as eighteen hundred and thirteen, still used pieces of large
patterned wall-paper for six-penny books, such as "Tom Thumb," "Old
Mother Hubbard," and "Cock Robin."
The change in the appearance of most toy-books, however, was due largely
to the increased use of illustrations. The work of the famous English
engraver, Thomas Bewick, had at last been successfully copied by a
physician of New York, Dr. Alexander Anderson.
Dr. Anderson was born in New York in seventeen hundred and seventy-five,
and by seventeen hundred and ninety-three was employed by printers and
publishers in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, and even Charleston to
illustrate their books. Like other engravers, he began by cutting in
type-metal, or engraving upon copper. In seventeen hundred and
ninety-four, for Durell of New York, he undertook to make illustrations,
probably for "The Looking Glass for the Mind." Beginning by copying
Bewick's pictures upon type-metal, when "about one-third done, Dr.
Anderson felt satisfied he could do better on wood."[166-A] In his diary
we find noted an instance of his perseverance in the midst of
discouragement: "Sept. 24. This morning I was quite discouraged on
seeing a crack in the wood. Employed as usual at the Doctor's, came home
to dinner, glued the wood and began again with fresh hopes of producing
a good wood engraving." September 26 found him "pretty well satisfied
with the impression and so was Durell." In eighteen hundred he engraved
all the pictures on wood for a new edition of the same book, and from
this time he seems to have discontinued the use of type-metal, which he
had employed in his earlier work as illustrator of the "Pilgrim's
Progress" issued by Hugh Gaine, and of "Tom Thumb's Folio" printed by
Brewer. After eighteen hundred and twelve Anderson almost gave up
engraving on copper also, and devoted himself to satisfying the great
demand for his work on wood. For Durell of New York, an extensive
reprinter of English books, from toy-books to a folio edition of
Josephus, he reproduced the English engravings, never making, according
to Mr. Lossing, more than a frontispiece for the larger volumes.
Although Samuel Wood and Sons of New York also gave Dr. Anderson many
orders for cuts for their various juvenile publications, he still found
time to engrave for publishers of other cities. We find his
illustrations in the toy-books printed in Boston and Philadelphia; and
for Sidney Babcock, a New Haven publisher of juvenile literature, he
supplied many of the numerous woodcuts required. The best of Anderson's
work as an engraver coincided with the years of Babcock's very extensive
business of issuing children's books, between 1805 and 1840. His cuts
adorned the juvenile duodecimos that this printer's widely extended
trade demanded; and even as far south as Charleston, South Carolina,
Babcock, like Isaiah Thomas, found it profitable to open a branch shop.
Anderson's illustrations are the main features of most of Babcock's
little blue, pink, and yellow paper-covered books; especially of those
printed in the early years of the nineteenth century. We notice in them
the changes in the dress of children, who no longer were clothed exactly
in the semblance of their elders, but began to assume garments more
appropriate to their ages, sports, and occupations. Anderson also
sometimes introduced into his pictures a negro coachman or nurse in the
place of the footman or maid of the English tale he illustrated.
While the demand for the engraver's work was constant, his remuneration
was small, if we are to judge by Babcock's payment of only fifty
shillings for fifteen cuts.
For these toy-books Anderson made many reproductions from Bewick's cuts,
and although he did not equal the Englishman's work, he so far surpassed
his pupils and imitators of the early part of the century that his
engravings are generally to be recognized even when not signed. In
eighteen hundred and two Dr. Anderson began to reproduce for David
Longworth Bewick's "Quadrupeds," and these "cuts were afterwards made
use of, with the Bewick letter-press also, for a series of children's
books."[168-A]
In eighteen hundred and twelve, for Munroe & Francis of Boston, Dr.
Anderson made after J. Thompson a set of cuts, mainly remarkable "as
the chief of his few departures from the style of his favorite,
Bewick."[169-A]
The custom of not signing either text or engravings in the children's
books has made it difficult to identify writers and illustrators of
juvenile literature. But some of the best engravers undoubtedly
practised their art on these toy-books. Nathaniel Dearborn, who was a
stationer, printer, and engraver in Boston about eighteen hundred and
eleven, sometimes signed the full-page illustrations on both wood and
copper, and Abel Bowen, a copper-engraver, and possibly the first
wood-engraver in Boston, signed a very curious publication entitled "A
Metamorphosis"--a manifold paper which in its various possible
combinations transformed one figure into another in keeping with the
progress of the story.
C. Gilbert, a pupil of Mason, who had introduced the art of
wood-engraving in Philadelphia from Boston, engraved on wood certainly
the two full-page illustrations for "A Present for a Little Girl,"
printed in eighteen hundred and sixteen for a Baltimore firm, Warner &
Hanna.
Adams and his pupils, Lansing and Morgan, also did work on children's
books. Adams seems to have worked under Anderson's instruction, and
after eighteen hundred and twenty-five did cuts for some books in the
juvenile libraries of S. Wood and Mahlon Day of New York.
Of the engravers on copper, many tried their hands on these toy-books.
Among them may be mentioned Amos Doolittle of New Haven, James Poupard,
John Neagle, and W. Ralph of Philadelphia, and Rollinson of New York,
who is credited with having engraved the silver buttons on the coat
worn by Washington on his inauguration as President.
But of the copper-plate engravers, perhaps none did more work for
children's books than William Charles of Philadelphia. Charles, who is
best known by his series of caricatures of the events of the War of 1812
and of local politics, worked upon toy-books as early as eighteen
hundred and eight, when in Philadelphia he published in two parts "Tom
the Piper's Son; illustrated with whimsical engravings." In these books
both text and pictures were engraved, as will be seen in the
illustration. Charles's plates for a series of moral tales in verse were
used by his successors, Mary Charles, Morgan & Yeager, and Morgan &
Sons, for certainly fifteen years after the originals were made. To
William Charles the children in the vicinity of Philadelphia were also
probably indebted for the introduction of colored pictures. It is
possible that the young folks of Boston had the novelty of colored
picture-books somewhat before Charles introduced them in Philadelphia,
as we find that "The History and Adventures of Little Henry exemplified
in a series of figures" was printed by J. Belcher of the Massachusetts
town in 1812. These "figures" exhibited little Henry suitably attired
for the various incidents of his career, with a movable head to be
attached at will to any of the figures, which were not engraved with the
text, but each was laid in loose on a blank page. William Charles's
method of coloring the pictures engraved with the text was a slight
advance, perhaps, upon the illustrations inserted separately; but it is
doubtful whether these immovable plates afforded as much entertainment
to little readers as the separate figures similar to paper dolls
which Belcher, and somewhat later Charles also, used in a few of their
publications.
[Illustration: _Tom the Piper's Son_]
The "Peacock at Home," engraved by Charles and then colored in
aqua-tint, is one of the rare early colored picture-books still extant,
having been first issued in eighteen hundred and fourteen. The coloring
of the illustrations at first doubled the price, and seems to have been
used principally for a series of stories belonging to what may be styled
the Ethics-in-Play type of juvenile literature, and entitled the
"History and Adventures of Little William," "Little Nancy," etc. These
tales, written after the objective manner of Miss Edgeworth, glossed
over by rhyme, contained usually eight colored plates, and sold for
twenty-five cents each instead of twelve cents, the price of the
picture-book without colored plates. Sometimes, as in the case of
"Cinderella," we find the text illustrated with a number of "Elegant
Figures, to dress and undress." The paper doll could be placed behind
the costumes appropriate to the various adventures, and, to prevent the
loss of the heroine, the book was tied up with pink or blue ribbon after
the manner of a portfolio.
With engravers on wood and copper able to make more attractive the
passion for instruction which marked the first quarter of the nineteenth
century, the variety of toy-book literature naturally became greater.
Indeed, without pictures to render somewhat entertaining the
Labor-in-Play school, it is doubtful whether it could have attained its
widespread popularity.
It is, of course, possible to name but a few titles typical of the
various kinds of instruction offered as amusement. "To present to the
young Reader a Little Miscellany of Natural History, Moral Precept,
Sentiment, and Narrative," Dr. Kendall wrote "Keeper's Travels in Search
of his Master," "The Canary Bird," and "The Sparrow." "The Prize for
Youthful Obedience" endeavored to instill a love for animals, and to
promote obedient habits. Its story runs in this way:
"A kind and good father had a little lively son, named Francis; but,
although that little boy was six years old, he had not yet learned to
read.
"His mama said to him, one day, 'if Francis will learn to read well, he
shall have a pretty little chaise.'
"The little boy was vastly pleased with this; he presently spelt five or
six words and then kissed his mama.
"'Mama,' said Francis, 'I am delighted with the thoughts of this chaise,
but I should like to have a horse to draw it.'
"'Francis shall have a little dog, which will do instead of a horse,'
replied his mama, 'but he must take care to give him some victuals, and
not do him any harm.'"
The dog was purchased, and named Chloe. "She was as brisk as a bee,
prettily spotted, and as gentle as a lamb." We are now prepared for
trouble, for the lesson of the story is surely not hidden. Chloe was
fastened to the chaise, a cat secured to serve as a passenger, and
"Francis drove his little chaise along the walk." But "when he had been
long enough among the gooseberry trees, his mama took him in the garden
and told him the names of the flowers." We are thus led to suppose that
Francis had never been in the garden before! The mother is called away.
We feel sure that the trouble anticipated is at hand. "As soon as she
was gone Francis began whipping the dog," and of course when the dog
dashed forward the cat tumbled out, and "poor Chloe was terrified by the
chaise which banged on all sides. Francis now heartily repented of his
cruel behaviour and went into the house crying, and looking like a very
simple boy."
[Illustration: _A Kind and Good Father_]
"I see very plainly the cause of this misfortune," said the father, who,
however, soon forgave his repentant son. Thereafter every day Francis
learned his lesson, and was rewarded by facts and pictures about
animals, by table-talks, or by walks about the country.
Knowledge offered within small compass seems to have been a novelty
introduced in Philadelphia by Jacob Johnson, who had a juvenile library
in High Street.
In eighteen hundred and three he printed two tiny volumes entitled "A
Description of Various Objects." Bound in green paper covers, the
two-inch square pages were printed in bold type. The first volume
contained the illustrations of the objects described in the other. The
characterizations were exceedingly short, as, for example, this of the
"Puppet Show:" "Here are several little boys and girls looking at a
puppet show, I suppose you would like to make one of them."
Four years later Johnson improved upon this, when he printed in better
type "People of all Nations; an useful toy for Girl or Boy." Of
approximately the same size as the other volumes, it was bound with
stiff sides and calf back. The plates, engraved on copper, represent men
of various nationalities in the favorite alphabetical order. A is an
American. V is a Virginian,--an Indian in scant costume of feathers
with a long pipe,--who, the printed description says, "is generally
dressed after the manner of the English; but this is a poor African, and
made a slave of." An orang-outang represents the letter O, and according
to the author, is "a wild man of the woods, in the East Indies. He
sleeps under trees, and builds himself a hut. He cannot speak, but when
the natives make a fire in the woods he will come and warm himself." Ten
years later there was still some difficulty in getting exact
descriptions of unfamiliar animals. Thus in "A Familiar Description of
Beasts and Birds" the baboon is drawn with a dog's body and an uncanny
head with a snout. The reader is informed that "the baboon has a long
face resembling a dog's; his eyes are red and very bright, his teeth are
large and strong, but his swiftness renders him hard to be taken. He
delights in fishing, and will stay for a considerable time under water.
He imitates several of our actions, and will drink wine, and eat human
food."
Another series of three books, written by William Darton, the English
publisher and maker of toy-books, was called "Chapters of Accidents,
containing Caution and Instruction." Thrilling accounts of "Escapes from
Danger" when robbing birds'-nests and hunting lions and tigers were
intermingled with wise counsel and lessons to be gained from an "Upset
Cart," or a "Balloon Excursion." With one incident the Philadelphia
printer took the liberty of changing the title to "Cautions to Walkers
on the Streets of Philadelphia." High Street, now Market Street, is
represented in a picture of the young woman who, unmindful of the
warning, "Never to turn hastily around the corner of a street," "ran
against the porter's load and nearly lost one of her eyes." The
change, of course, is worthy of notice only because of the slight effort
to locate the story in America.
[Illustration: _a Virginian_]
[Illustration: _A Baboon_]
An attempt to familiarize children with flowers resulted in two tales,
called "The Rose's Breakfast" and "Flora's Gala," in which flowers were
personified as they took part in fêtes. "Garden Amusements, for
Improving the Minds of Little Children," was issued by Samuel Wood of
New York with this advertisement: "This little treatise, (written and
first published in the great emporium of the British nation) containing
so many pleasing remarks for the juvenile mind, was thought worthy of an
American edition.... Being so very natural, ... and its tendency so
moral and amusing, it is to be hoped an advantage will be obtained from
its re-publication in Freedonia."
Dialogue was the usual method of instruction employed by Miss Edgeworth
and her followers. In "Garden Amusements" the conversation was
interrupted by a note criticising a quotation from Milton as savoring
too much of poetic license. Cowper also gained the anonymous critic's
disapproval, although it was his point of view and not his style that
came under censure.
In still another series of stories often reprinted from London editions
were those moral tales with the sub-title "Cautionary Stories in Verse."
Mr. William James used these "Cautionary Verses for Children" as an
example of the manner in which "the muse of evangelical protestantism in
England, with the mind fixed on the ideas of danger, had at last drifted
away from the original gospel of freedom." "Chronic anxiety," Mr. James
continued, "marked the earlier part of this [nineteenth] century in
evangelical circles." A little salmon-colored volume, "The Daisy," is a
good example of this series. Each rhyme is a warning or an admonition; a
chronic fear that a child might be naughty. "Drest or Undrest" is
typical of the sixteen hints for the proper conduct of every-day life
contained in the innocent "Daisy:"
"When children are naughty and will not be drest,
Pray what do you think is the way?
Why, often I really believe it is best
To keep them in night-clothes all day!
"But then they can have no good breakfast to eat,
Nor walk with their mother and aunt;
At dinner they'll have neither pudding nor meat,
Nor anything else that they want.
"Then who would be naughty and sit all the day
In night-clothes unfit to be seen!
And pray who would lose all their pudding and play
For not being drest neat and clean."
Two other sets of books with a like purpose were brought out by Charles
about eighteen hundred and sixteen. One began with those familiar
nursery verses entitled "My Mother," by Ann Taylor, which were soon
followed by "My Father," all the family, "My Governess," and even "My
Pony." The other set of books was "calculated to promote Benevolence and
Virtue in Children." "Little Fanny," "Little Nancy," and "Little Sophie"
were all held up as warnings of the results of pride, greed, and
disobedience.
[Illustration: _Drest or Undrest_]
The difference between these heroines of fiction and the characters
drawn by Maria Edgeworth lies mainly in the fact that they spoke in
rhyme instead of in prose, and that they were almost invariably naughty;
or else the parents were cruel and the children suffered. Rarely do we
find a cheerful tale such as "The Cherry Orchard" in this cautionary
style of toy-book. Still more rarely do we find any suspicion of that
alloy of nonsense supposed by Miss Edgeworth to make the sense work
well. It is all quite serious. "Little Nancy, or, the Punishment of
Greediness," is representative of this sort of moral and cautionary
tale. The frontispiece, "embellishing" the first scene, shows Nancy in
receipt of an invitation to a garden party:
"Now the day soon appear'd
But she very much fear'd
She should not be permitted to go.
Her best frock she had torn,
The last time it was worn;
Which was very vexatious, you know."
However, the mother consents with the _caution_:
"Not to greedily eat
The nice things at the treat;
As she much wished to break her of this."
Arrived at the party, Nancy shared the games, and
"At length was seated,
With her friends to be treated;
So determin'd on having her share,
That she drank and she eat
Ev'ry thing she could get,
Yet still she was loth to forbear."
The disastrous consequences attending Nancy's disregard of her mother's
admonition are displayed in a full-page illustration, which is followed
by another depicting the sorrowful end in bed of the day's pleasure.
Then the moral:
"My young readers beware,
And avoid with great care
Such _excesses_ as these you've just read;
For be sure you will find
It your interest to mind
What your friends and relations have said."
Perhaps of all the toy imprints of the early century none are more
curious in modern eyes than the three or four German translations
printed by Philadelphia firms. In eighteen hundred and nine Johnson and
Warner issued "Kleine Erzählungen über ein Buch mit Kupfern." This seems
to be a translation of "A Mother's Remarks over a Set of Cuts," and
contains a reference to another book entitled "Anecdoten von Hunden."
Still another book is extant, printed in eighteen hundred and five by
Zentler, "Unterhaltungen für Deutsche Kinder." This, according to its
preface, was one of a series for which Jacob and Benjamin Johnson had
consented to lend the plates for illustrations.
Patriotism, rather than diversion, still characterized the very little
original work of the first quarter of the century for American children.
A book with the imposing title of "Geographical, Statistical and
Political Amusement" was published in Philadelphia in eighteen hundred
and six. "This work," says its advertisement, "is designed as an easy
means of uniting Instruction with Pleasure ... to entice the youthful
mind to an acquaintance with a species of information [about the United
States] highly useful."
"The Juvenile Magazine, or Miscellaneous Repository of Useful
Information," issued in eighteen hundred and three, contained as its
only original contribution an article upon General Washington's will,
"an affecting and most original composition," wrote the editor. This was
followed seven years later by the well-known "Life of George
Washington," by M.L. Weems, in which was printed the now famous and
disputed cherry-tree incident. Its abridged form known to present day
nursery lore differs from the long drawn out account by Weems, who, like
Thomas Day, risked being diffuse in his desire to show plainly his
moral. The last part of the story sufficiently gives his manner of
writing:
"Presently George and his hatchet made their appearance. 'George,' said
his father, 'do you know who killed that beautiful little cherry tree
yonder in the garden?' That was a tough question; and George staggered
under it for a moment; but quickly recovered himself, and looking at his
father, with the sweet face of youth brightened with the inexpressible
charm of all conquering truth, he bravely cried out, 'I can't tell a
lie, Pa; you know I can't tell a lie. I did cut it with my hatchet!'
'Run to my arms, you dearest boy,' cried his father in transports, 'run
to my arms; glad am I, George, that you killed my tree; for you have
paid me for it a thousand fold. Such an act of heroism is worth more
than a thousand trees, though blossomed with silver, and their fruits of
purest gold.'"
Franklin's "Way to Wealth" was considered to be perfectly adapted to all
children's comprehension, and was issued by various publishers of
juvenile books. By eighteen hundred and eight it was illustrated and
sold "with fine engravings for twenty-five cents."
Of patriotic poetry there was much for grown folks, but the "Patriotic
and Amatory Songster," advertised by S. Avery of Boston about the time
Weems's biography was published, seems a title ill-suited to the
juvenile public for whom Avery professed to issue it.
Among the books which may be cited as furnishing instructive amusement
with less of the admixture of moral purpose was the "London Cries for
Children," with pictures of street peddlers. This was imitated in
America by the publication of the "Cries of New York" and "Cries of
Philadelphia."
In the Lenox Collection there is now one of the various editions of the
"Cries of New York" (published in 1808), which is valuable both as a
record of the street life of the old-fashioned town of ninety-six
thousand inhabitants, and as perhaps the first child's book of purely
local interest, with original woodcuts very possibly designed and
engraved by Alexander Anderson.
The "Cries of New York" is of course modelled after the "London Cries,"
but the account it gives of various incidents in the daily life of old
New York makes us grateful for the existence of this child's toy. A
picture of a chimney-sweep, for instance, is copied, with his cry of
"Sweep, O, O, O, O," from the London book, but the text accompanying it
is altered to accord with the custom in New York of firing a gun at
dawn:
"About break of day, after the morning gun is heard from Governor's
Island, and so through the forenoon, the ears of the citizens are
greeted with this uncouth sound from figures as unpleasant to the sight,
clothed in rags and covered with soot--a necessary and suffering class
of human beings indeed--spending their childhood thus. And in regard to
the unnecessary bawling of those sooty boys; it is _admirable_ in such a
noisy place as this, where every needless sound should be hushed, that
such disagreeable ones should be allowed. The prices for sweeping
chimneys are--one story houses twelve cents; two stories, eighteen
cents; three stories, twenty-five cents, and so on."
"Hot Corn" was also cried by children, whose business it was to "gather
cents, by distributing corn to those who are disposed to regale
themselves with an ear." Baked pears are pictured as sold "by a little
black girl, with the pears in an earthen dish under her arm." At the
same season of the year, "Here's your fine ripe water-melons" also made
itself heard above the street noises as a street cry of entirely
American origin. Again there were pictured "Oyster Stands," served by
negroes, and these were followed by cries of
"Fine Clams: choice Clams,
Here's your Rock-a-way beach
Clams: here's your fine
Young, sand Clams,"
from Flushing Cove Bay, which the text explains, "turn out as good, or
perhaps better," than oysters. The introduction of negroes and negro
children into the illustrations is altogether a novelty, and together
with the scenes drawn from the street life of the town gave to the
old-fashioned child its first distinctly American picture-book. Indeed,
with the exception of this and an occasional illustration in some
otherwise English reproduction, all the American publishers at this time
seem to have modelled their wares for small children after those of two
large London firms, J. Harris, successor to Newbery, and William Darton.
To Darton, the author of "Little Truths," the children were indebted for
a serious attempt to improve the character of toy-books. A copper-plate
engraver by profession, Darton's attention was drawn to the scarcity of
books for children by the discovery that there was not much written for
them that was worth illustrating. Like Newbery, he set about to make
books himself, and with John Harvey, also an engraver, he set up in
Grace Church Street an establishment for printing and publishing, from
which he supplied, to a great extent, the juvenile books closely
imitated by American printers. Besides his own compositions, he was very
alert to encourage promising authors, and through him the famous verses
of Jane and Ann Taylor were brought into notice. "Original Poems," and
"Rhymes for the Nursery," by these sisters, were to the old-time child
what Stevenson's "Child's Garden of Verses" is to the modern nursery.
Darton and Harvey paid ten pounds for the first series of "Original
Poems," and fifteen pounds for the second; while "Rhymes for the
Nursery" brought to its authors the unusual sum of twenty pounds. The
Taylors were the originators of that long series of verses for infants
which "My Sister" and "My Governess" strove to surpass but never in any
way equalled, although they apparently met with a fair sale in America.
[Illustration: _Little Nancy_]
Enterprising American booksellers also copied the new ways of
advertising juvenile books. An instance of this is afforded by Johnson
and Warner of Philadelphia, who apparently succeeded Jacob and Benjamin
Johnson, and had, by eighteen hundred and ten, branch shops in Richmond,
Virginia, and Lexington, Kentucky. They advertised their "neatly
executed books of amusement" in book notes in the "Young Gentlemen and
Ladies' Magazine," by means of digressions from the thread of their
stories, and sometimes by inserting as frontispiece a rhyme taken from
one used by John Harris of St. Paul's Churchyard:
"At JO---- store in Market Street
A sure reward good children meet.
In coming home the other day
I heard a little master say
For ev'ry three-pence there he took
He had received a little book.
With covers neat and cuts so pretty
There's not its like in all the city;
And that for three-pence he could buy
A story book would make one cry;
For little more a book of Riddles:
Then let us not buy drums and fiddles
Nor yet be stopped at pastry cooks',
But spend our money all in books;
For when we've learnt each bit by heart
Mamma will treat us with a tart."
Later, when engraving had become more general in use, William Charles
cut for an advertisement, as frontispiece to some of his imprints, an
interior scene containing a shelf of books labelled "W. Charles' Library
for Little Folks." About the same time another form of advertisement
came into use. This was the publisher's _Recommendation_, which
frequently accompanied the narrative in place of a preface. The "Story
of Little Henry and his Bearer," by Mrs. Sherwood, a writer of many
English Sunday-school tales, contained the announcement that it was
"fraught with much useful instruction. It is recommended as an excellent
thing to be put in the hands of children; and grown persons will find
themselves well paid for the trouble of reading it."
Little Henry belonged to the Sunday-school type of hero, one whose
biography Dr. Holmes doubtless avoided when possible. Yet no history of
toy-books printed presumably for children's amusement as well as
instruction should omit this favorite story, which represents all others
of its class of Religion-in-Play books. The following incidents are
taken from an edition printed by Lincoln and Edmunds of Boston. This
firm made a special feature of "Books suitable for Presents in
Sunday-School." They sold wholesale for eight dollars a hundred, such
tales as Taylor's "Hymns for Infant Minds," "Friendly Instruction,"
Fenelon's "Reflections," Doddridge's "Principles of the Christian
Religion," "Pleasures of Piety in Youth," "Walks of Usefulness,"
"Practical Piety," etc.
The objective point of little Henry's melancholy history was to prove
the "Usefulness of Female Missionaries," said its editor, Mrs. Cameron,
a sister of the author, who at the time was herself living in India.
Mrs. Sherwood based the thread of her story upon the life of a household
in India, but it winds itself mainly around the conversion of the
faithful Indian bearer who served five-year-old Henry. This small
orphan was one of those morbidly religious children who "never said a
bad word and was vexed when he heard any other person do it." He also,
although himself "saved by grace," as the phrase then ran in evangelical
circles, was chronically anxious lest he should offend the Lord. To
quote verbatim from this relic of the former religious life would savor
too much of ridiculing those things that were sacred and serious to the
people of that day. Yet the main incidents of the story were these:
Henry's conversion took place after a year and a half of hard work on
the part of a missionary, who finally had the satisfaction of bringing
little Henry "from the state of grossest heathen darkness and ignorance
to a competent knowledge of those doctrines necessary to salvation."
This was followed immediately by the offer of Henry to give all his toys
for a Bible with a purple morocco cover. Then came the preparations for
the teacher's departure, when she called him to her room and catechized
him in a manner worthy of Cotton Mather a century before. After his
teacher's departure the boy, mindful of the lady's final admonition,
sought to make a Christian of his bearer, Boosy. Like so many story-book
parents, Henry's mother was altogether neglectful of her child; and
consequently he was left much to the care of Boosy--time which he
improved with "arguments with Boosy concerning the great Creator of
things." But it is not necessary to follow Henry through his ardent
missionary efforts to the admission of the black boy of his sinful
state, nor to the time when the hero was delivered from this evil world.
Enough has been said to show that the religious child of fiction was not
very different from little Elizabeth Butcher or Hannah Hill of colonial
days, whose pious sayings were still read when "Little Henry" was
introduced to the American child.
Indeed, when Mrs. Sherwood's fictitious children were not sufficiently
religious to come up to the standard of five-year-old Henry, their
parents were invariably as pious as the father of the "Fairchild
Family." This was imported and reprinted for more than one generation as
a "best seller." It was almost a modernized version of Janeway's "Token
for Children," with Mather's supplement of "A Token for the Children of
New England," in its frequent production of death-bed scenes, together
with painful object lessons upon the sinfulness of every heart. To
impress such lessons Mr. Fairchild spared his family no sight of horror
or distress. He even took them to see a man on the gallows, "that," said
the ingenuous gentleman, "they may love each other with a perfect and
heavenly love." As the children gazed upon the dreadful object the
tender father described in detail its every phase, and ended by kneeling
in prayer. The story of Evelyn in the third chapter was written as the
result of a present of books from an American _Universalist_, whose
doctrines Mrs. Sherwood thought likely to be pernicious to children and
should be controverted as soon as possible. Later, other things
emanating from America were considered injurious to children, but this
seems to be the first indication that American ideas were noticed in
English juvenile literature.
But all this lady's tales were not so lugubrious, and many were immense
favorites. Children were even named for the hero of the "Little
Millenium Boy." Publishers frequently sent her orders for books to be
"written to cuts," and the "Busy Bee," the "Errand Boy," and the "Rose"
were some of the results of this method of supplying the demand for her
work. Naturally, Mrs. Sherwood, like Miss Edgeworth, had many imitators,
but if we could believe the incidents related as true to life, parents
would seem to have been either very indifferent to their children or
forever suspicious of them. In Newbery's time it had been thought no sin
to wear fine buckled shoes, to be genteelly dressed with a wide
"ribband;" but now the vain child was one who wore a white frock with
pink sash, towards whom the finger of scorn was pointed, and from whom
the moral was unfailingly drawn. Vanity was, apparently, an unpardonable
sin, as when in a "Moral Tale,"
"Mamma observed the rising lass
By stealth retiring to the glass
To practise little arts unseen
In the true genius of thirteen."
The constant effort to draw a lesson from every action sometimes led to
overstepping the bounds of truth by the parents themselves, as for
example in a similar instance of love for a mirror. "What is this I see,
Harriet?" asked a mother in "Emulation." "Is that the way you employ
your precious time? I am no longer surprised at the alteration in your
looks of late, that you have appeared so sickly, have lost your
complexion; in short I have twenty times been on the point of asking you
if you are ill. You look shockingly, child."
"I am very well, Mamma, indeed," cried Harriet, quite alarmed.
"Impossible, my dear, you can never look well, while you follow such an
unwholesome practice. Looking-glasses were never intended for little
girls, and very few sensible people use them as there is something
really poisonous in their composition. To use them is not only
prejudicial to the health but to the disposition."
Although this conception of the use of looking-glasses as prejudicial to
right living seems to hark back to the views expressed in the old story
of the "Prodigal Daughter," who sat before a mirror when the Devil made
his second appearance, yet the world of story-book literature, even
though its creators were sometimes either careless or ignorant of facts,
now also emphasized the value of general knowledge, which it endeavored
to pour in increasing quantity into the nursery. Miss More had started
the stream of goody-goody books, while Miss Edgeworth, Mrs. Barbauld,
and Thomas Day were the originators of the deluge of conversational
bores, babies, boys, and teachers that threatened to flood the family
book-shelves of America when the American writers for children came upon
the scene.
FOOTNOTES:
[148-A] As long ago as seventeen hundred and sixty-two, Garrat Noel, a
Dutch bookseller in New York, advertised that, "according to his Annual
Custom, he ... provided a very large Assortment of Books ... as proper
Presents at Christmas." See page 68.
[166-A] Linton, _Wood Engraving in America_. Boston, 1882.
[168-A] Linton, _Wood Engraving in America_. Boston, 1882.
[169-A] Linton, _Wood Engraving in America_. Boston, 1882.