so another great incentive for writers to work for children.
This was the demand made for stories from the American Sunday School
Union, whose influence upon the character of juvenile literature was a
force bearing upon the various writers, and whose growth was coincident
with the development of the children's periodical literature.

The American Sunday School Union, an outgrowth of the several religious
publication societies, in eighteen hundred and twenty-four began to do
more extensive work, and therefore formed a committee to judge and
pronounce upon all manuscripts, which American writers were asked to
submit.

The sessions of the Sunday-schools were no longer held for illiterate
children only. The younger members of each parish or church were found
upon its benches each Sunday morning or afternoon. To promote and to
impress the religious teaching in these schools, rewards were offered
for well-prepared lessons and regular attendance. Also the scholars were
encouraged to use the Sunday-school library. For these different
purposes many books were needed, but naturally only those stamped with
the approval of the clergyman in charge were circulated.

The board of publication appointed by the American Sunday School
Union--composed chiefly of clergymen of certain denominations--passed
upon the merits of the many manuscripts sent in by piously inclined
persons, and edited such of them as proved acceptable. The marginal
notes on the pages of the first edition of an old Sunday-school favorite
bear witness to the painstaking care of the editors that the leaflets,
tracts, and stories poured in from all parts of the country should
"shine by reason of the truth contained," and "avoid the least
appearance, the most indirect insinuations, of anything which can
militate against the strictest ideas of propriety." The tales had also
to keep absolutely within the bounds of religion. Many were the stories
found lacking in direct religious teaching, or returned because religion
was not vitally connected with the plot, to be rewritten or sent
elsewhere for publication.

The hundreds of stories turned out in what soon became a mechanical
fashion were of two patterns: the one of the good child, a constant
attendant upon Sabbath School and Divine Worship, but who died young
after converting parent or worldly friend during a painful illness; the
other of the unregenerate youth, who turned away from the godly
admonition of mother and cl