from the land of their origin.

The stories in vogue in England during this first quarter of the
nineteenth century explain every vagary in America. There fashionable
and educational authorities had hitched their wagon to the literary
star, Miss Edgeworth, and the followers of her system; while the
religiously inclined pinned their faith also upon tracts written by Miss
Hannah More. In this still imitative land the booksellers simply
reprinted the more successful of these juvenile publications. The
changes, therefore, in the character of the juvenile literature of
amusement of the early nineteenth century in America were due to the
adoption of the works of these two Englishwomen, and to the increased
facilities for reproducing toy-books, both in press-work and in
illustrations.

Hannah More's allegories and religious dramas, written to cooeperate with
the teachings of the first Sabbath Day schools, are, of course, outside
the literature of amusement. Yet they affected its type in America as
they undoubtedly gave direction to the efforts of the early writers for
children.

Miss More, born in seventeen hundred and fifty-four, was a woman of
already established literary reputation when her attention was attracted
by Robert Raikes's successful experiment of opening a Sunday-school, in
seventeen hundred and eighty-one. During the religious revival that
attended the preaching of George Whitefield, Raikes, already interested
in the hardships and social condition of the working-classes, was
further aroused by his intimate knowledge of the manner of life of some
children in a pin factory. To provide instruction for these child
laborers, who, without work or restrictions on Sundays, sought
occupation far from elevating, Raikes founded the first "Sabbath Day
school."

The movement spread rapidly in England, and ten years later, in seventeen
hundred and ninety-one, under the inspiration of Bishop White, the
pioneer First Day school in America was opened in Philadelphia. The good
Bishop was disturbed mentally by the religious and moral degeneracy of
the poor children in his diocese, and annoyed during church services by
their clamor outside the churches--a noise often sufficient to drown the
prayers of his flock and the sermons of his clergy. To occupy these
restless children for a part of the day, two sessions of the school were
held each Sunday: one before the morning service, from eight until
half-past ten o'clock, and the o