Rosalie V. Halsey - Forgotten Books of the American Nursery

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Transcriber's note:

A number of typographical errors have been maintained in the
current version of this book. A complete list is found at the
end of the text.

FORGOTTEN BOOKS OF THE AMERICAN NURSERY

A History of the Development of the American Story-Book

by

ROSALIE V. HALSEY

[Illustration: _The Devil and the Disobedient Child_]

Boston
Charles E. Goodspeed & Co.
1911
Copyright, 1911, by C.E. Goodspeed & Co.
Of this book seven hundred copies were printed in November
1911, by D.B. Updike, at The Merrymount Press, Boston

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Introductory 3

II. The Play-Book in England 33

III. Newbery's Books in America 59

IV. Patriotic Printers and the American Newbery 89

V. The Child and his Book at the End of the Eighteenth Century 121

VI. Toy-Books in the early Nineteenth Century 147

VII. American Writers and English Critics 191

Index 233

ILLUSTRATIONS

_The Devil and the Disobedient Child_ Frontispiece
From "The Prodigal Daughter." Sold at the Printing Office, No. 5,
Cornhill, Boston. [J. and J. Fleet, 1789?]

Facing
Page
_The Devil appears as a French Gentleman_ 26
From "The Prodigal Daughter." Sold at the Printing Office, No. 5,
Cornhill, Boston. [J. and J. Fleet, 1789?]

_Title-page from "The Child's New Play-thing"_ 44
Printed by J. Draper; J. Edwards in Boston [1750]. Now in the
New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations

_Title-page from "A Little Pretty Pocket-Book"_ 47
Printed by Isaiah Thomas, Worcester, MDCCLXXXVII. Now in the New
York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations

_A page from "A Little Pretty Pocket-Book"_ 49
Printed by Isaiah Thomas, Worcester, MDCCLXXXVII. Now in the New
York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations

_John Newbery's Advertisement of Children's Books_ 60
From the "Pennsylvania Gazette" of November 15, 1750

_Title-page of "The New Gift for Children"_ 70
Printed by Zechariah Fowle, Boston, 1762. Now in the Library of
the Historical Society of Pennsylvania

_Miss Fanny's Maid_ 74
Illustration from "The New Gift for Children," printed by Zechariah
Fowle, Boston, 1762. Now in the Library of the Historical Society
of Pennsylvania

_A page from a Catalogue of Children's Books printed by Isaiah
Thomas_ 106
From "The Picture Exhibition," Worcester, MDCCLXXXVIII

_Illustration of Riddle XIV_ 110
From "The Puzzling-Cap," printed by John Adams, Philadelphia, 1805

_Frontispiece from "The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes"_ 117
From one of _The First Worcester Edition_, printed by Isaiah
Thomas in MDCCLXXXVII. Now in the Library of the Historical
Society of Pennsylvania

_Sir Walter Raleigh and his Man_ 125
Copper-plate illustration from "Little Truths," printed in
Philadelphia by J. and J. Crukshank in 1800

_Foot Ball_ 126
Copper-plate illustration from "Youthful Recreations," printed in
Philadelphia by Jacob Johnson about 1802

_Jacob Johnson's Book-Store in Philadelphia about 1800_ 155

_A Wall-paper Book-Cover_ 165
From "Lessons for Children from Four to Five Years Old," printed
in Wilmington (Delaware) by Peter Brynberg in 1804

_Tom the Piper's Son_ 170
Illustration and text engraved on copper by William Charles, of
Philadelphia, in 1808

_A Kind and Good Father_ 172
Woodcut by Alexander Anderson for "The Prize for Youthful
Obedience," printed in Philadelphia by Jacob Johnson in 1807

_A Virginian_ 174
Illustration from "People of all Nations," printed in Philadelphia
by Jacob Johnson in 1807

_A Baboon_ 174
Illustration from "A Familiar Description of Beasts and Birds,"
printed in Boston by Lincoln and Edmands in 1813

_Drest or Undrest_ 176
Illustration from "The Daisy," published by Jacob Johnson in 1808

_Little Nancy_ 182
Probably engraved by William Charles for "Little Nancy, or, the
Punishment of Greediness," published in Philadelphia by Morgan &
Yeager about 1830

_Children of the Cottage_ 196
Engraved by Joseph I. Pease for "The Youth's Sketch Book,"
published in Boston by Lilly, Wait and Company in 1834

_Henrietta_ 200
Engraved by Thomas Illman for "The American Juvenile Keepsake,"
published in Brockville, U.C., by Horace Billings & Co. in 1835

_A Child and her Doll_ 206
Illustration from "Little Mary," Part II, published in Boston by
Cottons and Barnard in 1831

_The Little Runaway_ 227
Drawn and engraved by J.W. Steel for "Affection's Gift," published
in New York by J.C. Riker in 1832

CHAPTER I

_Introductory_

Thy life to mend
This _book_ attend.
_The New England Tutor_
London (1702-14)

To be brought up in fear
And learn A B C.
FOXE, _Book of Martyrs_

_Forgotten Books of the American Nursery_

CHAPTER I

_Introductory_

A shelf full of books belonging to the American children of colonial
times and of the early days of the Republic presents a strangely
unfamiliar and curious appearance. If chronologically placed, the
earliest coverless chap-books are hardly noticeable next to their
immediate successors with wooden sides; and these, in turn, are
dominated by the gilt, silver, and many colored bindings of diminutive
dimensions which hold the stories dear to the childish heart from
Revolutionary days to the beginning of the nineteenth century. Then
bright blue, salmon, yellow, and marbled paper covers make a vivid
display which, as the century grows older, fades into the sad-colored
cloth bindings thought adapted to many children's books of its second
quarter.

An examination of their contents shows them to be equally foreign to
present day ideas as to the desirable characteristics for children's
literature. Yet the crooked black type and crude illustrations of the
wholly religious episodes related in the oldest volumes on the shelf, the
didactic and moral stories with their tiny type-metal, wood, and
copper-plate pictures of the next groups; and the "improving" American
tales adorned with blurred colored engravings, or stiff steel and wood
illustrations, that were produced for juvenile amusement in the early
part of the nineteenth century,--all are as interesting to the lover of
children as they are unattractive to the modern children themselves. The
little ones very naturally find the stilted language of these old stories
unintelligible and the artificial plots bewildering; but to one
interested in the adult literature of the same periods of history an
acquaintance with these amusement books of past generations has a
peculiar charm and value of its own. They then become not merely
curiosities, but the means of tracing the evolution of an American
literature for children.

To the student desiring an intimate acquaintance with any civilized
people, its lighter literature is always a great aid to personal
research; the more trivial, the more detailed, the greater the worth to
the investigator are these pen-pictures as records of the nation he
wishes to know. Something of this value have the story-books of
old-fashioned childhood. Trivial as they undoubtedly are, they
nevertheless often contain our best sketches of child-life in the
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries,--a life as different from that
of a twentieth century child as was the adult society of those old days
from that of the present time. They also enable us to mark as is possible
in no other way, the gradual development of a body of writing which,
though lagging much behind the adult literature, was yet also affected by
the local and social conditions in America.

Without attempting to give the history of the evolution of the A B C
book in England--the legitimate ancestor of all juvenile books--two main
topics must be briefly discussed before entering upon the proper matter
of this volume. The first relates to the family life in the early days
of the Massachusetts Commonwealth, the province that produced the first
juvenile book. The second topic has to do with the literature thought
suitable for children in those early Puritan days. These two subjects
are closely related, the second being dependent upon the first. Both are
necessary to the history of these quaint toy volumes, whose stories lack
much meaning unless the conditions of life and literature preceding them
are understood.

When the Pilgrim Fathers, seeking freedom of faith, founded their first
settlements in the new country, one of their earliest efforts was
directed toward firmly establishing their own religion. This, though
nominally free, was eventually, under the Mathers, to become a theocracy
as intolerant as that faith from which they had fled. The rocks upon
which this religion was builded were the Bible and the Catechism. In
this history of toy-books the catechism is, however, perhaps almost the
more important to consider, for it was a product of the times, and
regarded as indispensable to the proper training of a family.

The Puritan conception of life, as an error to be rectified by suffering
rather than as a joy to be accepted with thanksgiving, made the
preparation for death and the dreadful Day of Judgment the chief end of
existence. The catechism, therefore, with its fear-inspiring description
of Hell and the consequences of sin, became inevitably the chief means of
instructing children in the knowledge of their sinful inheritance. In
order to insure a supply of catechisms, it was voted by the members of
the company in sixteen hundred and twenty-nine, when preparing to
emigrate, to expend "3 shillings for 2 dussen and ten catechismes."[6-A]
A contract was also made in the same year with "sundry intended ministers
for catechising, as also in teaching, or causing to be taught the
Companyes servants & their children, as also the salvages and their
children."[6-B] Parents, especially the mothers, were continually
exhorted in sermons preached for a century after the founding of the
colony, to catechize the children every day, "that," said Cotton Mather,
"you may be continually dropping something of the _Catechism_ upon them:
Some Honey out of the Rock"! Indeed, the learned divine seems to have
regarded it as a soothing and toothsome morsel, for he even imagined that
the children cried for it continuously, saying: _"O our dear Parents,
Acquaint us with the Great God.... Let us not go from your Tender Knees,
down to the Place of Dragons. Oh! not Parents, but Ostriches: Not
Parents, but Prodigies."_[6-C]

Much dissension soon arose among the ministers of the settlements as to
which catechism should be taught. As the result of the discussion the
"General Corte," which met in sixteen hundred and forty-one, "desired
that the elders would make a catechism for _the instruction of youth in
the grounds of religion_."[6-D]

To meet this request, several clergymen immediately responded. Among
them was John Cotton, who presumably prepared a small volume which was
entitled "_Milk for Babes_. Drawn out of the Breast of Both Testaments.
Chiefly for the spiritual nourishment of _Boston_ Babes in either
England: But may be of like use for any children." For the present
purpose the importance of this little book lies in the supposition that
it was printed at Cambridge, by Daye, between sixteen hundred and
forty-one and sixteen hundred and forty-five, and therefore was the
first book of any kind written and printed in America for children;--an
importance altogether different from that attached to it by the author's
grandson, Cotton Mather, when he asserted that "Milk for Babes" would be
"valued and studied and improved till New England cease to be New
England."[7-A]

To the little colonials this "Catechism of New England" was a great
improvement upon any predecessor, even upon the Westminster Shorter
Catechism, for it reduced the one hundred and seven questions of that
famous body of doctrine to sixty-seven, and the longest answer in "Milk
for Babes" contained only eighty-four words.[7-B]

As the century grew older other catechisms were printed. The number
produced before the eighteenth century bears witness to the diverse
views in a community in which they were considered an essential for
every member, adult or child. Among the six hundred titles roughly
computed as the output of the press by seventeen hundred in the new
country, eleven different catechisms may be counted, with twenty
editions in all; of these the titles of four indicate that they were
designed for very little children. In each community the pastor
appointed the catechism to be taught in the school, and joined the
teacher in drilling the children in its questions and answers. Indeed,
the answers were regarded as irrefutable in those uncritical days, and
hence a strong shield and buckler against manifold temptations provided
by "yt ould deluder Satan." To offset the task of learning these
doctrines of the church, it is probable that the mothers regaled the
little ones with old folk-lore tales when the family gathered together
around the great living-room fire in the winter evening, or asked
eagerly for a bedtime story in the long summer twilight. Tales such as
"Jack the Giant Killer," "Tom Thumb," the "Children in the Wood," and
"Guy of Warwick," were orally current even among the plain people of
England, though frowned upon by many of the Puritan element. Therefore
it is at least presumable that these were all familiar to the colonists.
In fact, it is known that John Dunton, in sixteen hundred and
eighty-six, sold in his Boston warehouse "The History of Tom Thumb,"
which he facetiously offered to an ignorant customer "in folio with
Marginal notes." Besides these orally related tales of enchantment, the
children had a few simple pastimes, but at first the few toys were
necessarily of home manufacture. On the whole, amusements were not
encouraged, although "In the year sixteen hundred and ninety-five Mr.
Higginson," writes Mrs. Earle, "wrote from Massachusetts to his brother
in England, that if toys were imported in small quantity to America,
they would sell." And a venture of this character was certainly made by
seventeen hundred and twelve in Boston. Still, these were the exception
in a commonwealth where amusements were considered as wiles of the
Devil, against whom the ministers constantly warned the congregations
committed to their charge.

Home in the seventeenth century--and indeed in the eighteenth
century--was a place where for children the rule "to be seen, not
heard," was strictly enforced. To read Judge Sewall's diary is to be
convinced that for children to obtain any importance in life, death was
necessary. Funerals of little ones were of frequent occurrence, and were
conducted with great ceremony, in which pomp and meagre preparation were
strangely mingled. Baby Henry Sewall's funeral procession, for instance,
included eight ministers, the governor and magistrates of the county,
and two nurses who bore the little body to the grave, into which, half
full of water from the raging storm, the rude coffin was lowered. Death
was kept before the eyes of every member of the colony; even
two-year-old babies learned such mournful verse as this:

"I, in the Burying Place may See
Graves Shorter than I;
From Death's Arrest no age is free
Young Children too may die;
My God, may such an awful Sight
Awakening be to me!
Oh! that by Grace I might
For Death prepared be."

When the younger members of the family are otherwise mentioned in the
Judge's diary, it is perhaps to note the parents' pride in the
eighteen-months-old infant's knowledge of the catechism, an acquirement
rewarded by the gift of a red apple, but which suggests the reason for
many funerals. Or, again, difficulties with the alphabet are sorrowfully
put down; and also deliquencies at the age of four in attending family
prayer, with a full account of punishments meted out to the culprit.
Such details are, indeed, but natural, for under the stern conditions
imposed by Cotton and the Mathers, religion looms large in the
foreground of any sketch of family life handed down from the first
century of the Massachusetts colony. Perhaps the very earliest picture
in which a colonial child with a book occupies the centre of the canvas
is that given in a letter of Samuel Sewall's. In sixteen hundred and
seventy-one he wrote with pride to a friend of "little Betty, who though
Reading passing well, took Three Moneths to Read the first Volume of the
Book of Martyrs" as she sat by the fire-light at night after her daily
task of spinning was done. Foxe's "Martyrs" seems gruesome reading for a
little girl at bedtime, but it was so popular in England that, with the
Bible and Catechism, it was included in the library of all households
that could afford it.

Just ten years later, in sixteen hundred and eighty-one, Bunyan's
"Pilgrim's Progress" was printed in Boston by Samuel Green, and, being
easily obtainable, superseded in a measure the "Book of Martyrs" as a
household treasure. Bunyan's dream, according to Macaulay, was the daily
conversation of thousands, and was received in New England with far
greater eagerness than in the author's own country. The children
undoubtedly listened to the talk of their elders and gazed with
wide-open eyes at the execrable plates in the imported editions
illustrating Christian's journey. After the deaths by fire and sword of
the Martyrs, the Pilgrim's difficulties in the Slough of Despond, or
with the Giant Despair, afforded pleasurable reading; while Mr. Great
Heart's courageous cheerfulness brought practically a new characteristic
into Puritan literature.

To Bunyan the children in both old and New England were indebted for
another book, entitled "A Book for Boys and Girls: or, Country Rhimes
for Children. By J.B. Licensed and Entered according to Order."[11-A]
Printed in London, it probably soon made its way to this country, where
Bunyan was already so well known. "This little octavo volume," writes
Mrs. Field in "The Child and his Book," "was considered a perfect
child's book, but was in fact only the literary milk of the unfortunate
babes of the period." In the light of modern views upon juvenile reading
and entertainment, the Puritan ideal of mental pabulum for little ones
is worth recording in an extract from the preface. The following lines
set forth this author's three-fold purpose:

"To show them how each Fingle-fangle,
On which they doting are, their souls entangle,
As with a Web, a Trap, a Gin, or Snare.
While by their Play-things, I would them entice,
To mount their Thoughts from what are childish Toys
To Heaven for that's prepar'd for Girls and Boys.
Nor do I so confine myself to these
As to shun graver things, I seek to please,
Those more compos'd with better things than Toys:
Tho thus I would be catching Girls and Boys."

In the seventy-four Meditations composing this curious medley--"tho but
in Homely Rhimes"--upon subjects familiar to any little girl or boy,
none leaves the moral to the imagination. Nevertheless, it could well
have been a relaxation, after the daily drill in "A B abs" and
catechism, to turn the leaves and to spell out this:

UPON THE FROG

The Frog by nature is both damp and cold,
Her mouth is large, her belly much will hold,
She sits somewhat ascending, loves to be
Croaking in gardens tho' unpleasantly.

_Comparison_

The hypocrite is like unto this frog;
As like as is the Puppy to the Dog.
He is of nature cold, his mouth is wide
To prate, and at true Goodness to deride.

Doubtless, too, many little Puritans quite envied the child in "The Boy
and the Watchmaker," a jingle wherein the former said, among other
things:

"This Watch my Father did on me bestow
A Golden one it is, but 'twill not go,
Unless it be at an Uncertainty;
I think there is no watch as bad as mine.
Sometimes 'tis sullen, 'twill not go at all,
And yet 'twas never broke, nor had a fall."

The same small boys may even have enjoyed the tedious explanation of the
mechanism of the time-piece given by the _Watchmaker_, and after
skipping the "Comparison" (which made the boy represent a convert and
the watch in his pocket illustrative of "Grace within his Heart"), they
probably turned eagerly to the next Meditation _Upon the Boy and his
Paper of Plumbs_. Weather-cocks, Hobby-horses, Horses, and Drums, all
served Bunyan in his effort "to point a moral" while adorning his tales.

In a later edition of these grotesque and quaint conceptions, some
alterations were made and a primer was included. It then appeared as "A
Book for Boys and Girls; or Temporal Things Spiritualized;" and by the
time the ninth edition was reached, in seventeen hundred and twenty-four,
the book was hardly recognizable as "Divine Emblems; or Temporal Things
Spiritualized."

At present there is no evidence that these rhymes were printed in the
colonies until long after this ninth edition was issued. It is possible
that the success attending a book printed in Boston shortly after the
original "Country Rhimes" was written, made the colonial printers feel
that their profit would be greater by devoting spare type and paper to
the now famous "New England Primer." Moreover, it seems peculiarly in
keeping with the cast of the New England mind of the eighteenth century
that although Bunyan had attempted to combine play-things with religious
teaching for the English children, for the little colonials the first
combination was the elementary teaching and religious exercises found in
the great "Puritan Primer." Each child was practically, if not verbally,
told that

"This little Catechism learned by heart (for so it ought)
The Primer next commanded is for Children to be taught."

The Primer, however, was not a product wholly of New England. In sixteen
hundred and eighty-five there had been printed in Boston by Green, "The
Protestant Tutor for Children," a primer, a mutilated copy of which is
now owned by the American Antiquarian Society. "This," again to quote
Mr. Ford, "was probably an abridged edition of a book bearing the same
title, printed in London, with the expressed design of bringing up
children in an aversion to Popery." In Protestant New England the
author's purpose naturally called forth profound approbation, and in
"Green's edition of the Tutor lay the germ of the great picture alphabet
of our fore-fathers."[14-A] The author, Benjamin Harris, had immigrated
to Boston for personal reasons, and coming in contact with the
residents, saw the latent possibilities in "The Protestant Tutor." "To
make it more salable," writes Mr. Ford in "The New England Primer," "the
school-book character was increased, while to give it an even better
chance of success by an appeal to local pride it was rechristened and
came forth under the now famous title of 'The New England
Primer.'"[14-B]

A careful examination of the titles contained in the first volume of
Evans's "American Bibliography" shows how exactly this infant's primer
represented the spirit of the times. This chronological list of American
imprints of the first one hundred years of the colonial press is largely
a record in type of the religious activity of the country, and is
impressive as a witness to the obedience of the press to the law of
supply and demand. With the Puritan appetite for a grim religion served
in sermons upon every subject, ornamented and seasoned with supposedly
apt Scriptural quotations, a demand was created for printed discourses
to be read and inwardly digested at home. This demand the printers
supplied. Amid such literary conditions the primer came as light food
for infants' minds, and as such was accepted by parents to impress
religious ideas when teaching the alphabet.

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