ended that a Collection of some of them would be serviceable
to ye Good Education of other children. So I lett ye printer take
them & print them, in some hope of some Help to thereby contributed
unto that great Intention of a _Good Education_. The book is
entituled _Good Lessons for Children_; or Instruction provided for a
little Son to learn at School, when learning to Read.

Although this small book lives only by record, it is safe to assume from
the extracts of the author's diary already quoted, that it lacked every
quality of amusement, and was adapted only to those whom he described,
in a sermon preached before the Governor and Council, as "verie Sharpe
and early Ripe in their capacities." "Good Lessons" has the distinction
of being the first American book to be composed, like many a modern
publication, for a particular young child; and, with its purpose "to
improve in goodness," struck clearly the keynote of the greater part of
all writing for children during the succeeding one hundred and
seventy-five years.

The first glimpse of the amusement book proper appears in that unique
"History of Printing in America," by Isaiah Thomas. This describes,
among other old printers, one Thomas Fleet, who established himself in
Boston about 1713. "At first," wrote Mr. Thomas, "he printed pamphlets
for booksellers, small books for children and ballads" in Pudding
Lane.[19-A] "He owned several negroes, one of which ... was an ingenious
man and cut on wooden blocks all the pictures which decorated the
ballads and small books for his master."[19-B] As corroborative of these
statements Thomas also mentions Thomas Fleet, Sr., as "the putative
compiler of Mother Goose Melodies, which he first published in 1719,
bearing the title of 'Songs for the Nursery.'"

Much discussion has arisen as to the earliest edition of Mother Goose.
Thomas's suggestion as to the origin of the first American edition has
been of late years relegated to the region of myth. Nevertheless, there
is something to be said in favor of the existence of some book of
nonsense at that time. The Boston "News Letter" for April 12-19, 1739,
contained a criticism of Tate and Brady's version of the Psalms, in
which the reviewer wrote that in Psalm VI the translators used the
phrase, "a wretch forlorn." He added: "(1) There is nothing of this in
the original or the English Psalter. (2) 'Tis a low expression and to
add a low one is the less allowabl