Mr. Day's method, Mrs. Barbauld's plan of simple
conversation in words of one, two, and three syllables seems modern.
Both aimed to afford pleasure to children "learning the elements of
reading." Where Mrs. Barbauld probably judged truly the capacity of
young children in the dialogues with the little Charles of "Easy
Lessons," Mr. Day loaded his gun with flowers of rhetoric and overshot
infant comprehension.

Nevertheless, in spite of the criticism that has waylaid and torn to
tatters Thomas Day's efforts to provide a suitable and edifying variety
of stories, his method still stands for the distinct secularization of
children's literature of amusement. Moreover, as Mr. Montrose J. Moses
writes in his delightful study of "Children's Books and Reading," "he
foreshadowed the method of retelling incidents from the classics and
from standard history and travel,--a form which is practised to a great
extent by our present writers, who thread diverse materials on a slender
wire of subsidiary story, and who, like Butterworth and Knox, invent
untiring families of travellers who go to foreign parts, who see things,
and then talk out loud about them."

Besides tales by English authors, there was a French woman, Madame de
Genlis, whose books many educated people regarded as particularly
suitable for their daughters, both in the original text and in the
English translations. In Aaron Burr's letters we find references to his
interest in the progress made by his little daughter, Theodosia, in her
studies. His zeal in searching for helpful books was typical of the care
many others took to place the best literature within their children's
reach. From Theodosia's own letters to her father we learn that she was
a studious child, who wrote and ciphered from five to eight every
morning and during the same hours every evening. To improve her French,
Mr. Burr took pains to find reading-matter when his law practice
necessitated frequent absence from home. Thus from West Chester, in
seventeen hundred and ninety-six, when Theodosia was nine years old, he
wrote:

I rose up suddenly from the sofa and rubbing my head--"What book
shall I buy for her?" said I to myself. "She reads so much and so
rapidly that it is not easy to find proper and amusing French books
for her; and yet I am so flattered with her progress in that
language, that I am resolved that she shall, at all events, be
gratified." So ... I took my hat a