se and numerous like facts serve only to impress
us with the long and honorable history of the nursery rhyme.

_Can nursery rhymes be helpfully classified?_ This question seems of
more consequence to the teacher than the previous ones because it deals
with the practical organization of his material. The most superficial
observer can see that Nos. 3, 36, 46, 59, 62, and 113, on the following
pages, are riddles; that Nos. 22 and 30 are counting-out rhymes; that
Nos. 37, 38, 39, 40, and 41 are replies that might be made to one who
indulged unduly in suppositions; that No. 27 is a face game, No. 75 a
hand game, and No. 108 a toe game; that Nos. 42, 81, 82, 107, and 111
are riding songs; that Nos. 7, 10, 23, 67, and 137 are proverbial
sayings; that Nos. 64 and 89 are charms; and so one might continue with
groupings based on the immediate use made of the rhyme, not forgetting
the great number that lend themselves to the purposes of the crooned
lullaby or soothing song.

Halliwell made the first attempt at any complete classification in his
_Nursery Rhymes of England_ (1842), using eighteen headings: (1)
Historical, (2) Literal, (3) Tales, (4) Proverbs, (5) Scholastic, (6)
Songs, (7) Riddles, (8) Charms, (9) Gaffers and Gammers, (10) Games,
(11) Paradoxes, (12) Lullabies, (13) Jingles, (14) Love and Matrimony,
(15) Natural History, (16) Accumulative Stories, (17) Local, (18)
Relics. Andrew Lang follows Halliwell, but reduces the classes to
fourteen by combining (2) and (5), (7) and (11), (8) and (12), and by
omitting (17). These classifications are made from the standpoint of the
folklore scholar, and are based on the sources from which the rhymes
originally sprang. Professor Saintsbury scouts the value of any such
arrangement, since all belong equally in the one class, "jingles," and
he also rightly points out that "all genuine nursery rhymes . . . have
never become nursery rhymes until the historical fact has been
practically forgotten by those who used them, and nothing but the
metrical and musical attraction remains."

Without denying the great significance of popular rhymes to the student
of folklore, we must look elsewhere for any practical suggestion for the
teacher in the matter of arrangement. Such a suggestion will be found in
the late Charles Welsh's _Book of Nursery Rhymes_, a little volume that
every teacher interested in children's literature must make use of. The
rhymes are grouped into three main divisions: (