incushion," who stated her motive to be
"That of providing the young reader with a few pages which should be
innocent of corrupting if they did not amuse."

"The Brother's" and "Sister's Gifts," however, adopt a different plan of
instruction. In "The Brother's Gift" we find a brother solicitous
concerning his sister's education: "Miss Kitty Bland was apt, forward and
headstrong; and had it not been for the care of her brother, Billy, would
have probably witnessed all the disadvantages of a modern education"!
Upon Kitty's return from boarding-school, "she could neither read, nor
sew, nor write grammatically, dancing stiff and awkward, her musick
inelegant, and everything she did bordered strongly on affectation." Here
was a large field for reformation for Billy to effect. He had no doubts
as to what method to pursue. She was desired to make him twelve shirts,
and when the first one was presented to him, "he was astonished to find
her lacking in so useful a female accomplishment." Exemplary conversation
produced such results that the rest of the garments were satisfactory to
the critical Billy, who, "as a mark of approbation made her a present of
a fine pair of stays."

"The Sister's Gift" presents an opposite picture. In this case it is
Master Courtley who, a "youth of Folly and Idleness," received large
doses of advice from his sister. This counsel was so efficient with
Billy's sensitive nature that before the story ends, "he wept bitterly,
and declared to his sister that she had painted the enormity of his
vices in such striking colors, that they shocked him in the greatest
degree; and promised ever after to be as remarkable for generosity,
compassion and every other virtue as he had hitherto been for cruelty,
forwardness and ill-nature." Virtue in this instance was its own reward,
as Billy received no gift in recognition of his changed habits.

To the modern lover of children such tales seem strangely ill-suited to
the childish mind, losing, as they do, all tenderness in the effort of
the authors (so often confided to parents in the preface) "to express
their sentiments with propriety." Such criticism of the style and matter
of these early attempts to write for little people was probably not made
by either infant or adult readers of that old-time public. The children
read what was placed before them as intellectual food, plain and
sweetened, as unconcernedly as they ate the food upon their plates at
meal-time. That