hildren came the task of learning to read as soon
as they were given spoon-food.

Even more revolutionary to the custom of an eighteenth century mother
was the admonition that reading "be never made a Task." Locke, however,
was not the man to urge a cure for a bad habit without prescribing a
remedy, so he went on to say that it was always his "Fancy that Learning
be made a Play and Recreation to Children"--a "Fancy" at present much in
vogue. To accomplish this desirable result, "Dice and Play-things with
the Letters on them" were recommended to teach children the alphabet;
"and," he added, "twenty other ways may be found ... to make this kind
of Learning a Sport to them." Letter-blocks were in this way made
popular, and formed the approved and advanced method until in these
latter days pedagogy has swept aside the letter-blocks and syllabariums
and carried the sport to word-pictures.

This theory had a practical result in the introduction to many households
of "The Child's New Play-thing." This book, already mentioned, was
printed in England in seventeen hundred and forty-three, and dedicated to
Prince George. In seventeen hundred and forty-four we find through the
"Boston Evening Post" of January 23 that the third edition was sold by
Joseph Edwards, in Cornhill, and it was probably from this edition that
the first American edition was printed in seventeen hundred and fifty.
From the following description of this American reprint (one of which is
happily in the Lenox Collection), it will be seen that the "Play-thing"
was an attempt to follow Locke's advice, as well as a connecting link
between the primer of the past and the story-book of the near future.

The title, which the illustration shows, reads, "The Child's New
Play-thing being a spelling-book intended to make Learning to read a
diversion instead of a task. Consisting of Scripture-histories, fables,
stories, moral and religious precepts, proverbs, songs, riddles,
dialogues, &c. The whole adapted to the capacities of children, and
divided into lessons of one, two, three and four syllables. The fourth
edition. To which is added three dialogues; 1. Shewing how a little boy
shall make every body love him. 2. How a little boy shall grow wiser than
the rest of his school-fellows. 3. How a little boy shall become a great
man. Designed for the use of schools, or for children before they go to
school."

[Illustration: _Title-page from "The Child's new Play-Thing"_]