must come to a child in the _shape of
knowledge_, and his empty noodle must be turned
with conceit of his own powers when he has
learnt that a horse is an animal, and Billy is
better than a horse, and such like; instead of
that beautiful interest in wild tales, which
made the child a man, while all the while he
suspected himself to be no bigger than a child.
Science has succeeded to poetry no less in the
little walks of children than with men. Is
there no possibility of averting this sore
evil? Think what you would have been now, if,
instead of being fed with tales and old wives'
fables in childhood, you had been crammed with
geography and natural history!"

The danger Lamb saw was averted. The bibliography on a preceding page
indicates that about the middle of the nineteenth century many writers
of first-rate literary ability began to write for young people. Among
the number were Harriet Martineau, Captain Marryat, Charlotte M. Yonge,
Thomas Hughes, and others. As we pass toward the end of that century and
the beginning of the twentieth, the great names associated with juvenile
classics are very noticeable, and with Miss Alcott, Mrs. Ewing, "Mark
Twain," Stevenson, Kipling, Masefield, and a kindred host, childhood has
come into its own.

SUGGESTIONS FOR READING

For tracing the stages in the development of
writing for children consult the books named in
the General Bibliography (p. 17, II,
"Historical Development.")

378

Among those authors of the past whom the
present still regards affectionately, Oliver
Goldsmith (1728-1774) holds a high place. At
least five of his works--a novel, a poem, a
play, a book of essays, a nursery story--rank
as classics. He had many faults; he was vain,
improvident almost beyond belief, certainly
dissipated throughout a part of his life. But
with all these faults he had the saving grace
of humor, a kind heart that led him to share
even his last penny with one in need, a genius
for friendships that united him with such men
as Burke and Johnson and Reynolds. Always "hard
up," he wrote much as a publisher's "hack" in
order merely to live. It was in this capacity
that he probably wrote the famous sto