Whatever change in children’s literature was now to take place was
due entirely to the increasing importance of elementary education. A
long while was to elapse before the author was wholly freed from the
idea that situations could be dealt with, apart from any overbearing
_morale_, and even then he found himself constrained to meet the
problem of giving information--of teaching instead of preaching.
The interest in external nature, the desire to explain phenomena
according to the dictates of belief, infused a new element into
authorship for young people. But those writers brought to meet
this latent stirring of the scientific spirit all the harness of
the old régime. First they thought that they could explain the
evident by parables, but they found that fact was too particular for
generalisations, and the child mind too immature for such symbol. Then
they attempted to define natural objects from a childish plane, making
silly statements take the place of truth. They soon became aware that
their simple style had to deal with a set of details that could not be
sentimentalised.
The truth of the matter is that a new impulse was started; the national
spirit began to move toward a more democratic goal; the rank and file
began to look beyond the narrow hill and dale; women sought wider
spheres; the poor demanded constitutional rights; energy began to stir
from underneath. The word _modern_ was in every one’s mind. The old
order changeth, giving place to new. The child’s intellect must be
furnished with food for its growth; Rousseau’s doctrine of “back to
nature” was found not to have worked; it was realised that special
training must begin early for all the walks of life. Carlyle was
pleading for a _public_ library, education was widening its sphere.
In the preceding pages, we have tried to establish a continuous line of
development in children’s books through several centuries; upon such
a foundation the English story and the American story of to-day are
based. The table of English writers on page 147 contains names of minor
importance, but still forming a part of the past history--foreshadowers
of the new era. For therein you will discover that juvenile literature
first begins to show signs of differing from adult literature only in
its power; that where Macaulay tells the story of England in terms of
maturity, Miss Strickland, Lady Callcott, Miss Tytler, and Miss Yonge
adopt a descending scale. Where children were wont to act in accord
with the catechism, they are now made to feel an interest in their
surroundings. Mrs. Marcet writes for them “talks” on chemistry and
political economy, Mrs. Wakefield on botany and insects. The extension
of schools meant that literature must be supplied those schools;
writers were encouraged in the same way that Miss More was prompted
to produce her “Repository Tracts.” Grammars and histories began to
flood the market, and in the wake of Scott’s novels, taking into
consideration the fact that books were being written for the purpose of
information, the child’s historical story was a natural consequence.
Thus we discover the connection between “Waverley” and Henty. The
death-blow to fairy tales in England, brought about by the didactic
writers, resulted in a deplorable lack of imaginative literature for
children, until a German influence, around 1840–1850, began to take
effect, and the Grimms’ Household Tales afforded a new impulse.[41]
Mrs. Gatty, author of the famous “Parables of Nature,” deigned to
rejoice over the classic nonsense of Lewis Carroll. The line of descent
can be drawn from Perrault to Grimm, from Grimm to Andrew Lang’s
rainbow series of folk-lore.
The table is intended to do no more than indicate the gradual manner
in which this break took effect. The student who would treat the
evolution fully will find it necessary to place side by side with his
discussion of individual books for young people, a full explanation of
those social changes in English history which are the chief causes of
the changes in English literature. Children’s books are subject to just
those modifications which take place in the beliefs, the knowledge,
and the aspirations of the adult person. The difference between the
two is one of intensity and not of kind. The student will discover,
after a study of the development of the common school, how and why the
educational impulse dominated over all elements of pure imagination;
how the retelling craze, given a large literary sanction by such a
writer as Lamb, and so excellently upheld by Charles Kingsley, lost
caste when brought within compass of the text-book. He will finally see
how this educational pest has overrun America to a far greater extent
than England, to the detriment of much that is worthy and of much which
should by rights be made to constitute a children’s reading heritage.