ainment of the
child.

A second difficulty in making such a collection is that of getting
unobjectionable rhymes. While the Chinese classics are among the purest
classical books of the world, there is yet a large proportion of the
people who sully everything they take into their hands as well as every
thought they take into their minds. Thus so many of their rhymes have
suffered.

Some have an undertone of reviling. Some speak familiarly of subjects
which we are not accustomed to mention, and others are impure in the
extreme.

A third difficulty in making a collection of Chinese nursery lore is
greater than either the first or the second,--I refer to the difficulty
of a metrical rendition of the rhymes. I have no doubt my readers can
easily find flaws in my translations of Chinese Mother Goose Rhymes
published during the past year. It is much easier for me to find the
flaws than the remedies. Many of the words used in the original have no
written character or hieroglyphic to represent them, while many others,
though having a written form, are, like our own slang expressions, not
found in the dictionary.

Now let us turn to a more pleasant feature of this unwritten nursery
literature. The language is full of good rhymes, and all objectionable
features can be cut out without injury to the rhyme, as it was not a
part of the original, but added by some more unscrupulous hand.

Among the nursery rhymes of all countries many refer to insects, birds,
animals, persons, actions, trades, food or children. In Chinese rhymes
we have the cricket, cicada, spider, snail, firefly, ladybug and
butterfly and others. Among fowls we have the bat, crow, magpie, cock,
hen, duck and goose. Of animals, the dog, cow, horse, mule, donkey,
camel, and mouse, are the favorites. There are also rhymes on the snake
and frog, and others without number on places, things and
persons,--men, women and children.

Those who hold that the Chinese do not love their children have never
consulted their nursery lore. There is no language in the world, I
venture to believe, which contains children's songs expressive of more
keen and tender affection than some of those sung to children in China.

When we hear a parent say that his child

"Is as sweet as sugar and cinnamon too,"

or that

"Baby is a sweet pill,
That fills my soul with joy"

or when we see a father, mother or nurse--for nurses sometimes become
almost as fond of their li