ile we smile at
sedulous endeavors of the serious-minded writers to present their
convictions, educational, religious, or moral, in palatable form, and to
consider children always as a race apart, whose natural actions were
invariably sinful, we still read between the lines that these writers
were really interested in the welfare of the American child; and that
they were working according to the accepted theories of the third decade
of the nineteenth century as to the constituents of a juvenile
library which, while "judicious and attractive, should also blend
instruction with innocent amusement."

[Illustration: _The Little Runaway_]

And now as we have reached the point in the history of the American
story-book when it is popular at least in both English-speaking
countries, if not altogether satisfactory to either, what can be said of
the value of this juvenile literature of amusement which has developed
on the tiny pages of well-worn volumes? If, of all the books written for
children by Americans seventy-five years and more ago, only Nathaniel
Hawthorne's "Wonder Book" has survived to the present generation; of all
the verse produced, only the simple rhyme, "Mary had a Little Lamb," and
Clement Moore's "The Night before Christmas" are still quoted, has their
history any value to-day?

If we consider that there is nothing more rare in the fiction of any
nation than the popular child's story that endures; nothing more unusual
than the successful well-written juvenile tale, we can perhaps find a
value not to be reckoned by the survival or literary character of these
old-fashioned books, but in their silent testimony to the influence of
the progress of social forces at work even upon so small a thing as a
child's toy-book. The successful well-written child's book has been
rare, because it has been too often the object rather than the manner of
writing that has been considered of importance; because it has been the
aim of all writers either to "improve in goodness" the young reader, as
when, two hundred years ago, Cotton Mather penned "Good Lessons" for his
infant son to learn at school, or, to quote the editor of "Affection's
Gift" (published a century and a quarter later), it has been for the
purpose of "imparting moral precepts and elevated sentiments, of uniting
instruction and amusement, through the fascinating mediums of
interesting narrative and harmony of numbers."

The result of both intentions has been a coll