Forgotten Books of the American Nursery Part 1

Forgotten Books of the American Nursery.

by Rosalie V. Halsey.

CHAPTER I

_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 ill.u.s.trations 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 ill.u.s.trations, that were produced for juvenile amus.e.m.e.nt 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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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 Ma.s.sachusetts 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 h.e.l.l 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 G.o.d.... 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 ent.i.tled "_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 a.s.serted 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 t.i.tles 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 t.i.tles 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, amus.e.m.e.nts were not encouraged, although "In the year sixteen hundred and ninety-five Mr.

Higginson," writes Mrs. Earle, "wrote from Ma.s.sachusetts to his brother in England, that if toys were imported in small quant.i.ty 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 amus.e.m.e.nts 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 G.o.d, 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 Ma.s.sachusetts 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 pa.s.sing 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 ill.u.s.trating 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, ent.i.tled "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 ill.u.s.trative of "Grace within his Heart"), they probably turned eagerly to the next Meditation _Upon the Boy and his Paper of Plumbs_. Weather-c.o.c.ks, 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 t.i.tle, 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 t.i.tle of 'The New England Primer.'"[14-B]

A careful examination of the t.i.tles 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 appet.i.te 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 ill.u.s.trations, 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 ill.u.s.trations 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 ill.u.s.trations 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 ill.u.s.trations 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 Quaestion 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 amus.e.m.e.nt found in the pages of the primer was far greater than in any other book printed in the colonies for years.

Certain t.i.tles 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 G.o.d 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 repet.i.tion 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 t.i.tle, 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 ent.i.tuled _Good Lessons for Children_; or Instruction provided for a little Son to learn at School, when learning to Read.