XXX

CHILDREN'S BOOKS.

THERE is a very large class of censorious critics, who plume themselves on their good sense, and here evince the most marked defect of it, who affect to speak of children's books as essentially trifling. They mistake juvenile books for puerile works: an egregious blunder. Robinson Crusoe is a juvenile, in the language of the trade; so is Peter Wilkins, so is Gulliver; yet are they so far from puerile, that to appreciate them fully, the fresh heart of childhood requires also the wise masculine understanding. The best child's books form notoriously the pleasant reading of all ages.

From the reason of this strange misconception, has arisen the idea of the ease with which such books could be composed, and the fact that the majority of the present race of writers for children have done all they could to stultify, enfeeble, and almost debase, the intellect and sentiment of the contemporary generation of children. They seem to think a child's book cannot be too childish; filling the blank pages with as empty prattle and insipid nothingness. Like the imitators of and cavillers at Wordsworth, they mistake folly for simplicity, and substitute inanity for innocence. They write alone to the stupid; a fault almost as culpable as writing over the heads of the majority, to reach the level

of the brilliant and gifted. The cardinal rule should be, to write to the middling order of minds, the sensible and good-natured; those who have right feelings and natural impulses.

We say children's books are, of all kinds, the most popular-more copies are sold, even of the most indifferent productions of this class, than of any other class of books, except school books and religious works. Hence, there has been in this department of literature a great deal of mere manufacturing. Book-making has been most profitable, almost as much so as editing classics, from which source of profit, many a dull pedant has reaped more substantial gains than the original author himself. From Goldsmith down to Hawthorne, (we take pleasure in writing these names in the same sentence,) tales for children, when executed as they, and Tieck and Grimm, and a few others, have composed them, have afforded the most agreeable kind of reading to all classes, ages, professions, and tempers. No man or woman, and certainly no child, with a pure heart, a healthy imagination, and a refined moral sense, can help loving a good fairy tale or romantic legend. Men of genius and practical writers, alone, then, can write proper books for children, which may also enlighten and charm their mothers and grandfathers. The best audience for the finest Poet, would be the spirits of blessed children; and the true writer of genius, is the only fit author to write for a circle of little boys and girls.

Did we reflect but for a moment, it would appear sufficiently reasonable that none but the very best minds should be employed on works of this sort, since the effects of juvenile reading and first studies leave an indelible impression on the character. Some of the greatest men have confessed

in after life, the effect upon their youthful minds, of books read in the early season of life, when the perceptions are quickest and the heart is fresh and joyful. Franklin thought the whole course of his career had been influenced by his perusal of Defoe's Essay on Projects, during his boyhood. The child Cowley devoured Spenser at an age when the music of the stanza alone attracted him. Byron's boyish readings of folios of Turkish History gave a strong oriental bias to his poetic genius. And a hundred similar instances might be readily enumerated, if the point were not sufficiently clear. Childish associations tend much towards coloring the maturer temper. Pleasant family connexions sweeten the mind, as it were, for life; whereas, an unhappy childhood will leave a gloom and distrust in the disposition that can scarcely be eradicated. The companions of our infancy and youth; the sports in which we joined with them; the places of our birth and the scenes where the most important early episodes of our lives occurred; all engrave themselves on the memory and character. With no less force do we remember or are we affected by our first readings. It may serve to change a man's whole course of life, whether he read Cook's voyages, or the life of Colonel Jack, when a boy. Assuredly, whatever he read, became part of himself, and might form either the intelligent navigator or the reckless adventurer. The reading of books of piratical adventures, has made villains out of otherwise tame dullards. Since, then, our first books are so important in their effect for good or evil, we think too diligent a regard cannot be manifested for a delicate choice in the selection of volumes that should compose the child's library.

Most tale-writers are altogether too didactic; so eager to impress truths and facts, that they cannot avoid di

rect teaching, by which they lose all the advantages they expect to gain, since a tale is not a lecture. If it teaches, as it certainly ought, it should do so incidentally. It should not make its advances too palpably, so as to frighten the child into the belief of its learning a task, instead of unconsciously imbibing pure truth, "in fairy fiction dressed." The writer should address the heart and the imagination, leaving the reason to work out her convictions on the basis of their pleasing illusions, as a cynic might term the most real of all things. Children learn by loving; they are informed when they are interested; they delight to be taught what entertains their fancy and captivates their attention in the teaching. You must acquire a hold on their affections, when you may wholly command their devotion. "Here the heart may give an useful lesson to the head:" the child and the sage meet on an equal footing.

A prominent fault in some books of this class, is, the instilling prematurely of merely worldly knowledge; by which, in this particular connection, we mean to imply, a knowledge of evil rather than of good. With many, a knowledge of the world implies an acquaintance with trick and craft, with vice and sin. But, though, to discriminate properly good and evil, not only in the abstract, but more especially in practical life, requires a knowledge of opposites, in the man, yet it is worse than useless in the child, to be taught to go out of his way, gratuitously, to learn evil. Soon enough comes a knowledge and that science, of which it has been said, “the children of this world are wiser in their generation, than the children of light," but after all, much of this boasted worldly shrewdness is worth little enough. It serves as a defensive weapon to withstand the artifices of cunning, and the impostures of wicked men. It is a shield in the Battle of Life.

But it has negative properties only; it does not advance the learner a step in the search after truth. It affords little aid to the poor wanderer in the wilds of error lost. Children, of all human beings, need it least, as they are under protection, can obtain advice, and appeal to superior strength, as well as superior wisdom.

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The notion of popularizing difficult propositions, and explaining in an easy way what is inherently difficult of comprehension, has been proved unwise by fair trial. cessary to stimulate curiosity and encourage labor. no royal road to learning, to quote a trite maxim; none the less true for being trite. Some difficulties must be encountered, if only to harden the mind and strengthen the character. By facilitating acquisition, the mind becomes effeminated, instead of advancing, and is unfitted to contend with difficulties.

By mere dint of memory we master some things that we cannot at first even understand, but which, the oftener they are recalled, the plainer they seem, since the perception generally views the idea in a different manner every time it takes any notice of it, and in this way many stubborn facts are treasured up, and many complicated problems are at last resolved.

A very ordinary but most pernicious fault of all teaching is to rate all minds alike; give lessons of the same length and in the same sciences, to all children of the same age or size; a Procrustes method of gauging the abilities and tastes of children. After a very early age, each child requires an individual treatment suited to none else. Yet this is seldom attended to.

Thus much for the more striking faults of the majority of the new child's books; we must, to obtain the best mental