by the
same invincible logic!_

_Oh, yes, we allow that instead of being gravely editorial in our
attitude, we have played with the title, as well as with all the
sub-titles and classifications, feeling that it was the next
pleasantest thing to playing with the babies themselves. It was so
delightful to re-read the well-loved rhymes of our own childhood and
try to find others worthy to put beside them; so delicious to imagine
the hundreds of young mothers who would meet their old favorites in
these particular pages; and so inspiring to think of the thousands of
new babies whose first hearing of nursery classics would be associated
with this red-covered volume, that we found ourselves in a joyous mood
which we hope will be contagious. Nothing is surer than that a certain
gayety of heart and mind constitute the most wholesome climate for
young children. "The baby whose mother has not charmed him in his
cradle with rhyme and song has no enchanting dreams; he is not gay and
he will never be a great musician," so runs the old Swiss saying._

_Youthful mothers, beautifully and properly serious about their
strange new duties and responsibilities, need not fear that Mother
Goose is anything but healthful nonsense. She holds a place all her
own, and the years that have rolled over her head (some of the rhymes
going back to the sixteenth century) only give her a firmer footing
among the immortals. There are no real substitutes for her unique
rhymes, neither can they be added to nor imitated; for the world
nowadays is seemingly too sophisticated to frame just this sort of
merry, light-hearted, irresponsible verse which has mellowed with the
years. "These ancient rhymes," says Andrew Lang, "are smooth stones
from the brook of time, worn round by constant friction of tongues
long silent."_

_Nor is your use of this "light literature of the infant scholar" in
the nursery without purpose or value. You are developing ear, mind,
and heart, and laying a foundation for a later love of the best things
in poetry. Whatever else we may do or leave undone, if we wish to
widen the spiritual horizon of our children let us not close the
windows on the emotional and imaginative sides. "There is in every one
of us a poet whom the man has outlived." Do not let the poetic
instinct die of inanition; keep it alive in the child by feeding his
youthful ardor, strengthening his insight, guarding the sensitiveness
and delicacy of his early impressions