t might be said about the
function of rhythm, especially in its more pronounced form of meter,
among a community of children, no matter what the size of the group--how
rhythmic motion, or the flow of measured and beautiful sounds,
harmonizes their differences, tunes them up to their tasks, disciplines
their conduct, comforts their hurts, quiets their nerves; all this apart
from the facts more or less important from the point of view of
literature, that it cultivates their ear, improves their taste, and
provides them a genuinely artistic pleasure."

Professor Saintsbury, as usual, adds a fascinating turn to the
discussion when, after agreeing that we may see in the rhymes, "to a
great extent, the poetical appeal of sound as opposed to that of meaning
in its simplest and most unmistakable terms," he continues: "And we
shall find something else, which I venture to call the attraction of the
inarticulate. . . . In moments of more intense and genuine feeling . . .
[man] does not as a rule use or at least confine himself to articulate
speech. . . . All children . . . fall naturally, long after they are able
to express themselves as it is called rationally, into a sort of pleasant
gibberish when they are alone and pleased or even displeased. . . . It must
be a not infrequent experience of most people that one frequently falls
into pure jingle and nonsense verse of the nursery kind. . . . I should
myself, though I may not carry many people with me, go farther than this
and say that this 'attraction of the inarticulate,' this allurement of
mere sound and sequence, has a great deal more to do than is generally
thought with the charm of the very highest poetry. . . . In the best
nursery rhymes, as in the simpler and more genuine ballads which have so
close a connection with them, we find this attraction of the
inarticulate--this charm of pure sound, this utilizing of alliteration
and rhyme and assonance." Those who have noticed the tendency of
children to find vocal pleasure even of a physical or muscular sort in
nonsense combinations of sounds, and who also realize their own tendency
in this direction, will feel that Professor Saintsbury has hit upon a
suggestive term in his claim for "the attraction of the inarticulate" as
a partial explanation of the Mother Goose appeal.

Through song, game, memorization, and dramatization, traditional or
original, the rhymes may be made to contribute to the child's
satisfaction in all of the