UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 LIBRARY
 
 What Shall We Read 
 to the Children?
 
 What Shall We Read 
 to the Children? 
 
 By 
 
 Clara Whitehill Hunt 
 
 Boston and New York 
 Houghton Mifflin Company 
 
 (Cfcc ftnicrjjibe prc?g Cambritioc 
 1915
 
 COPYRIGHT, I91S1 BY CLARA W. HUNT 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Published October iqis
 
 f r\ -y rf 
 
 
 TO 
 MY FATHER AND MOTHER 
 
 " Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high 
 Can keep my ovm away from me."
 
 WHEN MOTHER READS ALOUD 
 
 When mother reads aloud, the past 
 
 Seems real as every day; 
 I hear the tramp of armies vast, 
 I see the spears and lances cast, 
 
 I join the thrilling fray; 
 Brave knights and ladies fair and proud 
 I meet, when mother reads aloud. 
 
 When mother reads aloud, far lands 
 
 Seem very near and true; 
 I cross the desert's gleaming sands, 
 Or hunt the jungle's prowling bands, 
 
 Or sail the ocean blue; 
 Far heights, whose peaks the cold mists shroud, 
 I scale, when mother reads aloud. 
 
 When mother reads aloud, I long 
 
 For noble deeds to do 
 To help the right, redress the wrong; 
 It seems so easy to be strong, 
 
 So simple to be true. 
 Oh, thick and fast the visions crowd 
 My eyes, when mother reads aloud ! 
 
 Author Unknown.
 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I. 
 
 Fathers and Mothers and Chil- 
 
 
 dren's Books 1 
 
 II. 
 
 The Poetry Habit ... 10 
 
 III. 
 
 Nature Poetry . . . .24 
 
 IV. 
 
 Picture Books . . . .39 
 
 V. 
 
 Fairy Tales . . . .51 
 
 VI. 
 
 Bible Stories . . . .63 
 
 VII. 
 
 Stories that might be True : Some 
 
 
 "Don'ts" .... 73 
 
 VIII. Stories that might be True: How 
 
 to Choose Them ... 82 
 
 IX. Travel and History Stories . . 98 
 
 X. Nature Books . . . .107 
 
 XI. Books of Occupations and Games 117 
 
 XII. Buying the Library . . .129 
 
 XIII. When the Little Children grow 
 
 Big ... . . .146
 
 What Shall We Read to 
 the Children? 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 FATHERS AND MOTHERS AND CHILDREN'S 
 BOOKS 
 
 The book agent was a very persuasive 
 talker. She was, moreover, an attractive 
 young thing to look upon, the blues in her 
 tasteful gown and hat emphasizing the 
 color of her pretty eyes and setting off the 
 gold of her soft hair. When one adds that 
 she seemed really fond of children, and 
 that four- and five-year-old Teddy and 
 Frances were soon leaning confidingly 
 against her knee, listening to the story of 
 a picture in the wonderful subscription 
 set offered on such reasonable terms, it is 
 not surprising that this gifted agent car-
 
 % READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 ried away an order for the ten volumes of 
 Blank's "History of the World," to be de- 
 livered within a week at the home of the 
 ambitious little mother of four growing 
 children. 
 
 When Ted Senior came home from the 
 office a teasing twinkle answered his wife's 
 account of her purchase; and when the 
 volumes arrived, a swift examination of 
 the pulpy paper, cheap half-tones and 
 stilted language put the finishing touches 
 to Mrs. Ted's misgivings about the won- 
 derful "Home Educator" which she had 
 far-sightedly provided for her young. 
 
 The children, however, from baby 
 Teddy to seven- and nine-year-old Dick 
 and Tom, promptly showed their lack 
 of sympathy with the grown-ups' dis- 
 approval of the new acquisition. Three 
 minutes after the unpacking, four round 
 heads were bent over four stout volumes, 
 and a stillness like unto that of sermon
 
 PARENTS] AND CHILDREN'S BOOKS 3 
 
 time settled upon the sitting-room of the 
 house of Jones, let us call it. Were 
 there not pictures, scattered generously 
 through the thick books, every few 
 pages a picture: a picture that told a 
 story a story of strange people doing 
 thrillingly interesting things that Father 
 and Mother would have to explain, even- 
 ings and rainy days and Sundays? 
 
 The explanations began that very even- 
 ing. 
 
 "Father, what does it say under this 
 picture?" 
 
 Father emerged from his newspaper 
 long enough to read: "Marie Antoinette 
 and her husband holding court under 
 Louis XV." 
 
 "Who was Marie Antoinette, Father?" 
 
 After a pause: "She was a beautiful 
 and unfortunate queen." 
 
 "Why was she unfortunate, Father? 
 What happened to her? A Was she real or
 
 4 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 just a story queen? Did she have any little 
 
 princes? Did she have a coach and six and 
 
 outriders and gold dishes and tell me, 
 
 Father!" 
 
 * The newspaper slid to the floor and was 
 
 not picked up till Mother came to shoo 
 
 the reluctant history class to bed. 
 
 This was the beginning of a series of 
 impromptu talks on general history, ex- 
 tending over a number of years and ex- 
 hibiting the somewhat unusual spectacle 
 of pupils so athirst for information as to 
 be obliged to prod their teacher in order 
 to satisfy their cravings. 
 
 The other day some of the grown-up 
 relatives of that family of children were 
 speaking of the old " History of the World " 
 and its effect upon the children's develop- 
 ment in breadth of interest. "Positively, 
 our Dick at seven years of age knew more 
 about the French Revolution than I did 
 at seventeen," said one of Dick's aunts.
 
 PARENTS AND CHILDREN'S BOOKS 5 
 
 "And the best of it was, he wanted to 
 know, he did not have his information 
 jammed into an obstinate noddle by a 
 suffering teacher." 
 
 Now the moral I wish to draw from the 
 above essentially true story is not that 
 one should indulge in subscription sets 
 if attractive and intelligent agents offer 
 them at one's door. On the contrary, I 
 would never make such a purchase with- 
 out expert advice. But the experience of 
 the Jones family offers a number of sug- 
 gestions worth noting by buyers of a 
 young child's library, as for example: 
 
 That children and grown people fre- 
 quently differ as to what is interesting to 
 children; 
 
 That a healthy child is a live interroga- 
 tion-point; 
 
 That this curiosity is not limited to 
 babyish things; 
 
 That no parent need have the slightest
 
 6 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 fear of forcing his child into an attack of 
 brain-fever by answering fully the spon- 
 taneous questions of his small son or 
 daughter; 
 
 That the library in which a child 
 "tumbles about" before he is seven will 
 have a tremendous influence upon the 
 interests and tastes of that child to the 
 end of his life; 
 
 That it is worth while to choose such a 
 library as will make those interests and 
 tastes the best possible; 
 
 That it is woeful waste to leave to 
 teacher and librarian that is, to leave 
 until the child, at seven or eight, learns 
 to read the influencing of the reading 
 tastes of one's boys and girls. 
 
 One of the most surprising observations 
 of my library experience is the lack of re- 
 spect for their children's mental powers 
 shown by devoted parents. 
 
 "What!" exclaims the long-suffering
 
 PARENTS AND CHILDREN'S BOOKS 7 
 
 friend of a fond parent, "the father who 
 thinks no child before his ever cut a tooth 
 so cleverly, who is sure when his boy first 
 articulates * Pa-pa,' that the youngster is 
 destined to become a Demosthenes, do 
 you mean to say you think that parent is 
 inclined to belittle his child's gifts?" 
 
 After years of acquaintance with all * 
 sorts I assert that the parents who do not, 
 consciously or unconsciously, hold back 
 their children's intellectual development 
 are so uncommon as to be noticeable; and 
 I am not thinking of the fathers and 
 mothers who are themselves unable to 
 read or write, but of those from our in- 
 telligent and materially prosperous classes. 
 The anxious care with which parents keep 
 their eager-minded children on literary 
 bottle diet, until only the most intensely 
 active-brained escape the stunting effect 
 on their interests, this habit of mothers 
 who would cheerfully lay their heads on
 
 8 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 the block for the good of their young, I 
 sometimes think must be due to the truly 
 awful and of course truly proper 
 emphasis laid upon the care necessary for 
 the perfect physical development of the 
 baby. 
 
 Young mothers to-day are so appall- 
 ingly wise! They know to a day when it 
 is time to add to the quantity or variety 
 of the little one's food ; they are fully alive 
 to the importance of outdoor play in mak- 
 ing healthy bodies; they have heard sad 
 tales of the early graves of young prodi- 
 gies, forced by parents less wise than am- 
 bitious. Perhaps, too, out of their respect 
 for the opinion of the specialist in one line, 
 that of the child's physical care, the 
 mother acquires a feeling that it is best to 
 leave to the expert in another the guid- 
 ance of the child's reading. 
 
 So it happens that we librarians often 
 find the children of intelligent parents
 
 PARENTS AND CHILDREN'S BOOKS 9 
 
 strangely narrow in their reading tastes, 
 since we catch the children too late to have 
 the necessary influence upon them. And 
 so it happens that I am writing to urge 
 fathers and mothers, while they are per- 
 fecting themselves in the knowledge of 
 the care and feeding of children's bodies, 
 to give more study than has been custom- 
 ary to the care and feeding of the young 
 minds.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE POETRY HABIT 
 
 When I was a little girl I had the good 
 fortune to live in a city where there were 
 no bridge crushes and police-patrol gongs, 
 barrack-built flats and brown-stone rows, 
 to frighten away the birds and crowd out 
 the flowers and play-spaces; but where 
 fathers, even on moderate salaries, could 
 own little houses with big piazzas and gen- 
 erous yards. We boys and girls raised jack- 
 o'-lantern pumpkins in those yards, and 
 cheerful morning-glories and downy chick- 
 ens. We plucked juicy plums and cherries 
 and grapes from our own trees and vines. 
 We played in safe, shady streets without 
 fear of trolleys or motors; for our city was 
 so charmingly behind the times that the 
 jingling horse-car did not readily give place
 
 THE POETRY HABIT 11 
 
 to the clanging electric. In spring we 
 tapped the maple trees in front of our 
 houses, smacking our lips over the few 
 spoonfuls of sap that dripped as musically 
 into our suspended pails as if this were a 
 "truly" maple-sugar camp in the country. 
 After school hours, in the rapidly gather- 
 ing dusk of short autumn days, we raked 
 gorgeous leaves into huge piles and danced 
 wild Indian dances around bonfires that 
 blazed like beacons up and down the 
 length of streets unpaved with forbidden 
 asphalt. We made snow-forts and snow- 
 men and Eskimo huts, we wallowed in 
 clean snowdrifts, we coasted down long, 
 hilly streets on our big brothers' "bobs." 
 Yet how all these pleasures of the school 
 year were as drab to scarlet contrasted 
 with the radiance of vacations on grand- 
 mother's beautiful farm! How we hated 
 to take off our clothes at night for fear 
 troublesome buttons would make us miss
 
 12 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 something in the mornings when we woke 
 far too early to bother poor mother to help 
 us dress. How, beneath all the childish, 
 physical delights of wading and huckle- 
 berrying and riding a-top the loaded hay- 
 wagon and playing "I spy " in the shadowy 
 barn, there flowed the deep current of joy 
 in the beauty of earth and sky! When, 
 barefooted under the willows, we tugged 
 at heavy rocks which we perspiringly 
 erected into lighthouses and forts to guard 
 our homes along the brook, I should say 
 the seashore, we were only dimly con- 
 scious that the song of the brook and the 
 carpet of dancing light and shade under 
 our feet, the feel of the flower-scented 
 breeze on our hot little faces, the mur- 
 mur and hum of the insects in the waving 
 meadow grass over the stone wall, the 
 vivid blue of the sky which an old black 
 crow "caw caw'd" for us to look up and 
 notice, that all these beauties of Mother
 
 THE POETRY HABIT 13 
 
 Earth were a deep part of the happiness 
 of our free play in the outdoors, whose 
 largeness was answering to a craving of 
 the child-soul, that feels the cramp of the 
 city more than does the adult. 
 
 To-day I watch the children at play as 
 I walk to my office along streets of highly 
 respectable apartment-houses. How cru- 
 elly narrow the range for the imagination 
 of the young child ! The very " respectabil- 
 ity " of a neighborhood which exacts a 
 rent that often eats up all country vacation 
 money is against the child. How can 
 a youngster possibly have a good time if he 
 is not allowed to muss up the front steps 
 and get his clothes dirty? Yet it is not the 
 physical handicap of the city child that 
 most stirs my pity, for his health record 
 is steadily improving. It is the little one's 
 missing experiences in beauty, it is the 
 robbery of his imagination, effected by 
 paved streets, that I deplore.
 
 14 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 There is no possible help for these chil- 
 dren except as they shall get their expe- 
 riences vicariously through father and 
 mother and books. For our comfort we 
 know how marvelously books can be made 
 to supply what father's salary cannot. 
 Only we need to remember how and when 
 to apply the various books. There is a best 
 time for introducing poetry and myth and 
 heroes of history; and a lifelong loss may 
 be that child's whose parents know not 
 when to feed a certain interest. 
 
 The baby's first taste of poetry should 
 be given not later than a month after he 
 alights, trailing his clouds of glory and with 
 the music of his heavenly home attuning 
 his ears to a delight in rhyme and rhythm 
 long before mother's songs convey word 
 meanings to his mind. There never was a 
 normal baby born into this world who did 
 not bring with him a love for poetry; and 
 the fact that so few adults retain a trace
 
 THE POETRY HABIT 15 
 
 of this most pure delight points to the need 
 of conscious effort on the parent's part to 
 foster the child's natural gift. 
 
 So the first book I would put into the 
 baby's library would be a collection of the 
 loveliest lullabies and hymns and sweet 
 old story songs. I know that doctors and 
 nurses frown upon rocking the baby to 
 sleep, but if I were a young mother I'd 
 rock and sing to that baby after he waked 
 up! I would sing Tennyson's "Sweet and 
 low," and Holland's "Rockaby, lullaby, 
 bees in the clover," and Field's " Wynken 
 and Blynken and Nod"; the little Ger- 
 man slumber song 
 
 Sleep, baby, sleep, 
 
 The large stars are the sheep; 
 
 and the Gaelic lullaby 
 
 Hush, the waves are rolling in 
 White with foam, white with foam. 
 
 I would sing "O little town of Bethle- 
 hem," and "It came upon the midnight
 
 16 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 clear," and "While shepherds watched 
 their flocks by night." I would sing the 
 "Crusader's Hymn," and Luther's "A 
 mighty fortress is our God," and New- 
 man's "Lead, Kindly Light," and Pleyel's 
 "Children of the Heavenly King," and 
 Baring-Gould's "Now the day is over." 
 I would sing "Annie Laurie," and "Home, 
 sweet home," and "Flow gently, sweet 
 Afton," and "The Swanee River." 
 
 Choosing songs so beautiful and so ap- 
 pealing to a child's heart, I should make 
 sure that when the little one began to try 
 to imitate mother, he would sing of winds 
 that ruffle the waves of dew, of pleasant 
 banks and green valleys and clear, wind- 
 ing rills, of the Heavenly Father's care, of 
 the enduringness of home love. I should 
 know that, though the words at first called 
 up no clear mental pictures, they would 
 spell love and beauty and happy feeling, 
 and that life would, little by little, unfold
 
 THE POETRY HABIT 17 
 
 to the child the full meanings of these 
 lovely songs. 
 
 Before the baby is a year old he will en- 
 joy action rhymes like "This little pig 
 went to market/' " Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, 
 baker's man." By the time he is two, he 
 will be trying to repeat the gay Mother 
 Goose jingles with their irresponsible 
 nonsense and their catching rhyme and 
 rhythm. When he is three he will be enjoy- 
 ing Stevenson's "I have a little shadow 
 that goes in and out with me," and other 
 posies from "The Child's Garden of 
 Verses." 
 
 Now the important thing is for the 
 baby to acquire the poetry hajbit. A few 
 years later, this child, if he has not lis- 
 tened to verse nearly every day of his life, 
 may begin to be bored by the language 
 of poetry, so dear to one who comprehends 
 quickly, so tiresome to one who, for lack 
 of i aration, must dig out the
 
 18 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 meanings as he works at a translation 
 from a dead language. 
 
 At first we need to repeat nursery- 
 jingles and the simplest child verses, be- 
 cause these are the bottom steps of the 
 "golden staircase" to real poetry. If, 
 however, we try to get firmly lodged in 
 mind the fact that children enjoy an in- 
 finite number of things which they do not 
 understand; that they understand far 
 more than they can express; that their 
 understanding grows by leaps and bounds 
 if we foolish adults do not interfere, 
 we shall stop trying to stint their active 
 imaginations by keeping them so long on 
 baby rhymes. 
 
 The child will most easily climb the 
 staircase to real poetry by way of story- 
 telling poems. Sentimental and martial, 
 merry and sad, the story interest and the 
 music of the old English and Scotch bal- 
 lads fit them exactly to the liking of chil-
 
 THE POETRY HABIT 19 
 
 dren, little and big. Browning and Ten- 
 nyson, Matthew Arnold and Scott and 
 Longfellow give to the children "The 
 Pied Piper," "The Lady of Shalott" 
 "The Forsaken Merman," "Jock of 
 Hazeldean," "The Bell of Atri." A 
 number almost without end of stirring 
 romances in verse will reward a search 
 through our "adult" poetry library, after 
 we have exhausted the lovely children's 
 collections like "The Blue Poetry Book," 
 "Golden Numbers," "The Golden Stair- 
 case," and others. 
 
 Each poem may be made to introduce 
 many others, if we take advantage of the 
 child's delight in the association of ideas 
 he has acquired. For example, the little 
 one has loved to hear mother sing "Annie 
 Laurie " and " The Blue Bells of Scotland" 
 and "The Campbells are comin'." He has 
 mourned brave Sir Patrick Spens, has 
 galloped with Lochinvar, and "wi' Wal-
 
 20 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 lace bled" in defense of Scotland's free- 
 dom. Scotland to him has become a land 
 of romance, dear to his heart. One day, 
 after he has been lustily singing "The 
 Campbells are comin', Oho! Oho!" 
 mother tells him how the dying English, 
 penned up in Lucknow, sprang to their 
 feet laughing and crying with joy as they 
 heard, faint and far away, the bagpipes 
 playing "The Campbells are comin'." 
 Now is the time to read Whittier's "The 
 Pipes at Lucknow," as Bayard Taylor's 
 "Song of the Camp" will touch the chil- 
 dren after they have joined in singing 
 "Annie Laurie." Taylor's poem, and the 
 bit of explanation about the Crimean 
 War which it involves, will introduce 
 "The Charge of the Light Brigade," 
 another stirring poem of the same war. 
 
 A whole cycle of Southern and Civil 
 War songs and poems may follow the 
 reading of the Uncle Remus stories,
 
 THE POETRY HABIT 21 
 
 "Dixie," and "Maryland, my Maryland," 
 "My Old Kentucky Home," "Sheridan's 
 Ride," and "Oh, Captain, my Captain!" 
 Somehow the child will enter into the 
 heart of the North and the South, the 
 soldier and the slave, and he will be a 
 better American in this reunited country 
 for loving the songs of both sections that 
 gave their best for what they believed to 
 be the right. 
 
 Make it an unvarying practice to link 
 poetry with the children's every happy 
 experience, every celebration, family or 
 national or religious. Read the " Concord 
 Hymn" and "Paul Revere's Ride" on 
 the Fourth of July, "The Landing of the 
 Pilgrims" at Thanksgiving, "The Flag 
 goes by " and " The Commemoration Ode " 
 on Memorial Day. Weeks before Christ- 
 mas begin to read and sing every beauti- 
 ful poem and song you can find. There 
 are so many, we have no excuse for de-
 
 22 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 scending to doggerel. On New Year's 
 Eve read Tennyson's "Death of the Old 
 Year"; on a gusty winter evening read 
 "Old Winter is a sturdy one"; on the 
 baby's birthday, "Where did you come 
 from, Baby dear?" Before taking a 
 journey hunt up poems of places the chil- 
 dren will visit. After an exciting trip to 
 the Zoo read Blake's "Tiger, tiger, burn- 
 ing bright," and Taylor's "Night with a 
 Wolf." 
 
 When the children have enjoyed the 
 Norse stories, read them Longfellow's 
 "Skeleton in Armor." After hearing the 
 stories of Tarpeia and Curtius and other 
 Roman legends, they will be ready for 
 Macaulay's "Lays." 
 
 Does any father or mother think I am 
 going too fast? Prove it by experiment! 
 I am suggesting a poetry course, not for 
 the "exceptional child," but for real little 
 bread-and-butter boys and girls of happy
 
 THE POETRY HABIT 23 
 
 birth and home environment. There are 
 only three rules necessary to follow if you 
 would delight your soul with watching 
 your children's poetry taste grow with 
 their growth. These are 
 
 Begin early. 
 
 Read poetry every day. 
 
 Read the right poem at the right time.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 NATURE POETRY 
 
 It has been a comparatively simple task 
 to keep alive the baby's poetry taste 
 while we have confined ourselves to stories 
 in verse. To kindle a love for nature 
 poetry in the child who walks along paved 
 streets lined with high brick walls, will be 
 more difficult. The question of preparing, 
 the way and of choosing the time the 
 "psychological moment" for reading 
 will now be even more important than it 
 has hitherto been. 
 
 The city lies gasping in the heat. The 
 tiny square of grass in the yard is burned 
 to a crisp. The dusty leaves on the few 
 neighboring trees hang limp with thirst. 
 The pavements almost scorch the feet. 
 Suddenly clouds roll up, black and lower-
 
 NATURE POETRY 25 
 
 ing. Torrents of rain beat against the 
 window. The choked sewers make rivers 
 of the streets, rivers in which gleeful boys 
 sail quickly improvised boats. 
 
 Little Wonder Eyes, too young to go to 
 school, flattens his nose against the pane, 
 watching, fascinated, for a long, long time, 
 this glorious rain. Mother does not in- 
 terrupt. She makes ready to vivify this 
 experience by reading at bedtime Long- 
 fellow's "Rain in Summer": 
 
 How beautiful is the rain! 
 
 After the dust and heat, 
 
 In the broad and fiery street, 
 
 In the narrow lane, 
 
 How beautiful is the rain! 
 
 How it clatters along the roofs, 
 
 Like the tramp of hoofs! 
 
 How it gushes and struggles out 
 
 From the throat of the overflowing spout! 
 
 Across the window-pane 
 It pours and pours;
 
 26 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 And swift and wide, 
 
 With a muddy tide, 
 
 Like a river down the gutter roars 
 
 The rain, the welcome rain! 
 
 From the neighboring school 
 
 Come the boys, 
 
 With more than their wonted noise 
 
 And commotion; 
 
 And down the wet streets 
 
 Sail their mimic fleets, 
 
 Till the treacherous pool 
 
 Ingulfs them in its whirling 
 
 And turbulent ocean. 
 
 In the country, on every side, 
 
 Where far and wide, 
 
 Like the leopard's tawny and spotted hide, 
 
 Stretches the plain, 
 
 In the dry grass and the drier grain, 
 
 How welcome is the rain ! 
 
 In the furrowed land 
 
 The toilsome and patient oxen stand; 
 
 Lifting the yoke-encumbered head, 
 
 With their dilated nostrils spread, 
 
 They silently inhale 
 
 The clover-scented gale,
 
 NATURE POETRY 27 
 
 And the vapors that arise 
 
 From the well- watered and smoking soil. 
 
 For this rest in the furrow after toil 
 
 Their large and lustrous eyes 
 
 Seem to thank the Lord, 
 
 More than man's spoken word. 
 
 Does any one question the child's en- 
 joying this "grown-ups'" poem, heard in 
 the freshness of a vivid experience? Of 
 course, if we wait till next winter for our 
 first reading, we need not wonder if the 
 interest be languid. 
 
 Even city children have the sky. Don't 
 always put the little one to bed by day- 
 light. On some beautiful evening when 
 the silvery radiance of the moon touches 
 the prosaic city with magic, carry him 
 out on the roof, and letting the marvel- 
 ous splendor of the sky sink into his heart, 
 repeat softly Addison's "Hymn": 
 
 Soon as the evening shades prevail, 
 The moon takes up the wondrous tale;
 
 28 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 And nightly to the listening Earth 
 
 Repeats the story of her birth: 
 
 Whilst all the stars that round her burn, 
 
 And all the planets in their turn, 
 
 Confirm the tidings as they roll, 
 
 And spread the truth from pole to pole. 
 
 What though in solemn silence all 
 Move round the dark terrestrial ball: 
 What though nor real voice nor sound 
 Amidst their radiant orbs be found? 
 In Reason's ear they all rejoice, 
 And utter forth a glorious voice; 
 Forever singing as they shine, 
 "The Hand that made us is divine." 
 
 Make the most of afternoons in the 
 park, of Saturdays by lake or sea or river. 
 A mother with an imagination can con- 
 struct a whole forest out of a single tree. 
 An inland mother can give the very tang 
 of the sea by means of vivid stories and 
 pictures pictures of giant waves and 
 storm-driven ships, of lighthouses, strange 
 sea monsters, coral islands. Visits to the 
 museum, a murmuring shell, the effects of
 
 NATURE POETRY 29 
 
 an inland storm, all these together will 
 prepare a child to love Mary Howitt's 
 "Sea-Gull": 
 
 For the Sea-Gull, he is a daring bird, 
 
 And he loves with the storm to sail; 
 To ride in the strength of the billowy sea, 
 
 And to breast the driving gale! 
 The little boat, she is tossed about, 
 
 Like a seaweed, to and fro; 
 The tall ship reels like a drunken man, 
 
 As the gusty tempests blow. 
 
 But the Sea-Gull laughs at the fear of man, 
 
 And sails in a wild delight 
 On the torn-up breast of the night-black sea, 
 
 Like a foam-cloud, calm and white. 
 The waves may rage and the winds may roar, 
 
 But he fears not wreck nor need; 
 For he rides the sea, in its stormy strength, 
 
 As a strong man rides his steed ! 
 
 Oh, the white Sea-Gull, the bold Sea-Gull! 
 
 He makes on the shore his nest, 
 And he tries what the inland fields may be; 
 
 But he loveth the sea the best ! 
 And away from land a thousand leagues, 
 
 He goes 'mid surging foam; 
 What matter to him is land or shore, 
 
 For the sea is his truest home !
 
 30 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 If the child is actually to visit the shore 
 next summer, save until he has gathered 
 driftwood, until he has seen the light- 
 house gleam through the fog and the 
 little sandpiper flit along the beach, Celia 
 Thaxter's "Sandpiper": 
 
 Across the narrow beach we flit, 
 
 One little sandpiper and I, 
 And fast I gather, bit by bit, 
 
 The scattered driftwood bleached and dry. 
 The wild waves reach their hands for it, 
 
 The wild wind raves, the tide runs high, 
 As up and down the beach we flit, 
 
 One little sandpiper and I. 
 
 Above our heads the sullen clouds 
 
 Scud black and swift across the sky; 
 Like silent ghosts in misty shrouds 
 
 Stand out the white lighthouses high. 
 Almost as far as eye can reach 
 
 I see the close-reefed vessels fly, 
 As fast we flit along the beach, 
 
 One little sandpiper and I. 
 
 I watch him as he skims along, 
 
 Uttering his sweet and mournful cry ;
 
 NATURE POETRY 31 
 
 He starts not at my fitful song, 
 
 Or flash of fluttering drapery. 
 He has no thought of any wrong; 
 
 He scans me with a fearless eye: 
 Staunch friends are we, well tried and strong, 
 
 The little sandpiper and I. 
 
 Read Le Gallienne's "Child's Even- 
 song" 1 at bedtime after a summer after- 
 noon in park or field : 
 
 The sun is weary, for he ran 
 
 So far and fast to-day; 
 The birds are weary, for who sang 
 
 So many songs as they? 
 The bees and butterflies at last 
 
 Are tired out, for just think too 
 How many gardens through the day 
 
 Their little wings have fluttered through. 
 And so, as all tired people do, 
 
 They 've gone to lay their sleepy heads 
 Deep, deep in warm and happy beds. 
 
 The sun has shut his golden eye 
 And gone to sleep beneath the sky, 
 And birds and butterflies and bees 
 Have all crept into flowers and trees, 
 
 1 From English Poems, by Richard Le Gallienne, 
 published by John Lane Company, New York.
 
 32 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 And all lie quiet, still as mice, 
 
 Till morning comes like father's voice. 
 
 So Geoffry, Owen, Phyllis, you 
 Must sleep away till morning too. 
 Close little eyes, down little heads, 
 And sleep sleep sleep in happy beds. 
 
 Try to make it possible for the children 
 to notice, by a country day in spring, 
 Mother Nature's waking the alders and 
 the willows, the grass and the violets, the 
 frogs and the birds; and then read them 
 Celia Thaxter's "Spring": 
 
 The alder by the river 
 
 Shakes out her powdery curls; 
 
 The willow buds in silver 
 For little boys and girls. 
 
 The little birds fly over, 
 
 And oh, how sweet they sing! 
 
 To tell the happy children 
 That once again 't is spring. 
 
 The gay green grass comes creeping 
 So soft beneath their feet; 
 
 The frogs begin to ripple 
 A music clear and sweet.
 
 NATURE POETRY 33 
 
 And buttercups are coming, 
 
 And scarlet columbine; 
 And in the sunny meadows 
 
 The dandelions shine. 
 
 And just as many daisies 
 As their soft hands can hold 
 
 The little ones may gather, 
 All fair in white and gold. 
 
 Here blows the warm red clover, 
 There peeps the violet blue; 
 
 O happy little children, 
 
 God made them all for you ! 
 
 Helen Hunt Jackson's "September" 
 will be enjoyed after country walks in 
 fall: 
 
 The golden rod is yellow, 
 The corn is turning brown, 
 
 The trees in apple orchards 
 With fruit are bending down; 
 
 The gentian's bluest fringes 
 
 Are curling in the sun; 
 In dusty pods the milkweed 
 
 Its hidden silk has spun;
 
 34 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 The sedges flaunt their harvest 
 
 In every meadow nook, 
 And asters by the brookside 
 
 Make asters in the brook; 
 
 From dewy lanes at morning 
 The grapes' sweet odors rise, 
 
 At noon the roads all flutter 
 With yellow butterflies 
 
 By all these lovely tokens 
 
 September days are here, 
 With summer's best of weather 
 
 And autumn's best of cheer. 1 
 
 Do you notice the poets we have drawn 
 upon, the real poets, not the obscure 
 verse-grinders ? 
 
 Have you ever thought what a child 
 poem is that pearl of Shelley's, "The 
 Cloud"? A child is most at home playing 
 magic. He loves to pretend he is a lion, a 
 mouse, a giant, a dragon. Shelley is play- 
 ing the cloud is a magician, changing his 
 
 1 Reprinted by permission of the publishers, Messrs. 
 Little, Brown & Co.
 
 NATURE POETRY 35 
 
 form at pleasure. Do not read the poem 
 until you are sure the child has noticed, 
 with or without your gentle suggestions, 
 the different manifestations of the clouds, 
 in summer, in winter, by day, by night. 
 He need not be a high-school pupil, com- 
 petent to dissect the poem before he will 
 love the imagery of 
 
 I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, 
 
 From the seas and the streams; 
 I bear light shade for the leaves when laid 
 
 In their noonday dreams. 
 From my wings are shaken the dews that waken 
 
 The sweet buds every one, 
 When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, 
 
 As she dances about in the sun. 
 I wield the flail of the lashing hail, 
 
 And whiten the green plains under, 
 And then again I dissolve it in rain, 
 
 And laugh as I pass in thunder. 
 
 I sift the snow on the mountains below, 
 And their great pines groan aghast; 
 
 And all the night 't is my pillow white, 
 While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
 
 36 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers, 
 
 Lightning my pilot sits; 
 In a cavern under is fettered the thunder, 
 
 It struggles and howls at fits; 
 
 tOver the rills, and the crags, and the hills, 
 Over the lakes and the plains, 
 Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream, 
 
 The Spirit he loves remains; 
 And I all the while bask in Heaven's blue smile, 
 Whilst he is dissolving in rains. 
 
 That orbed maiden with white fire laden, 
 
 Whom mortals call the Moon, 
 Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor, 
 
 By the midnight breezes strewn; 
 And wherever the beat of her unseen feet, 
 
 Which only the angels hear, 
 May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof, 
 ~itg&h The stars peep behind her and peer; 
 
 ,;* And I laugh to see them whirl and flee, 
 
 Like a swarm of golden bees, 
 When I widen the rent of my wind-built tent, 
 
 Till the calm rivers, lakes and seas, 
 Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high, 
 
 Are each paved with the moon and these. 
 
 The country mother will see how easy is 
 her task compared with that of the city
 
 NATURE POETRY 37 
 
 mother. Not alone in youth but for a life 
 time is one's appreciation of poetry largely 
 affected by country experiences in child- 
 hood. I had quite grown up when I first 
 chanced upon 
 
 The breezy call of incense-breathing morn. 
 
 Instantly I became an eager little girl on 
 grandmother's doorstone, poised a mo- 
 ment to drink in the deliciousness of the 
 day's beginning before I flew on to the 
 barn to inspect the milking. Again and 
 again have exquisite lines recalled to me 
 thrilling moments of childhood summers 
 in the country. Do you remember Alfred 
 Noyes's "Pirates"? How the man, dream- 
 ing of a long dead comrade with whom he 
 had played in years gone by, says 
 
 Ah, that tree : I have sat in its boughs and looked 
 
 seaward for hours; 
 I remember the creak of its branches; the scent of 
 
 the flowers 
 
 ' 
 
 4-H9
 
 38 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 That climbed round the mouth of the cave; it is 
 
 odd I recall 
 Those little things best, that I scarcely took heed 
 
 of at all. 
 
 Those last lines express the feeling com- 
 mon to all grown people who feel at all. 
 
 Oh, let us put the country into the 
 memories of the men and women to be. 
 No matinees nor museums, no beautiful 
 clothes nor pampered stomachs, no elec- 
 trical house appliances nor twentieth- 
 century schools can ever make up to the 
 man the loss from a childhood spent 
 wholly in a great city. Not for the sake of 
 literary taste in itself, but because the 
 love for, or lack of response to, certain 
 fine things in literature are indications of 
 vital possessions or vital needs of the 
 heart, do I urge that skimping be prac- 
 ticed in almost any direction other than 
 that of denying children the country.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 PICTURE BOOKS 
 
 Not long ago, in an afternoon's ramble 
 among the paintings of the Metropolitan 
 Museum, I became interested in watching 
 an eager, black-eyed boy who, like my- 
 self, was spending his holiday in the gal- 
 lery. Catching sight of Winslow Homer's 
 "Gulf Stream" the lad's eyes fairly de- 
 voured the picture, so intense was his in- 
 terest in it. Seizing his father's hand, he 
 dragged the man over to the painting 
 and urged, "Papa, what does it mean? 
 What does it mean?" 
 
 The father, it was plain, had neither 
 the information nor the imagination to 
 guess what it "meant," so he answered 
 evasively, "Oh nothing. It's only a 
 picture."
 
 40 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 Only the feeling that if I offered ex- 
 planations I should belittle the father's 
 intelligence in the child's eyes kept me 
 from telling the bright lad what he wanted 
 to know and what I ached to explain. The 
 subject of the picture is horrible, to be 
 sure, but a sturdy eight-year-old likes 
 horrors, and if I had had a chance that 
 boy would have gone away full of ship- 
 wrecks and derelicts and sea monsters, 
 water spouts and tropic heat and the 
 courage of men who go down to the sea in 
 ships. Furthermore he would have per- 
 suaded his indulgent father the man 
 was the kindest of parents in intent, one 
 could see to go to the nearest children's 
 library and get "The Sea and its Won- 
 ders," "The Book of the Ocean," and 
 other books which would have interested 
 the boy for weeks. 
 
 This lad was years older than the baby 
 I have in mind in this chapter, but the
 
 PICTURE BOOKS 41 
 
 story illustrates some points I wish to 
 make on the subject of picture books. 
 
 Your baby is a live bundle of curiosity. 
 If you begin now to answer his questions 
 as fully as he desires, you will be opening 
 avenues of interest that will give him de- 
 light during his whole life. Besides, you 
 will save time for him. A few years hence 
 he will, without the slightest sign of brain 
 fag, outstrip those of his age in school. 
 Further, if you do not answer his ques- 
 tions, if through ignorance or impatience 
 you snub his eager interests at the time 
 they are first manifested, you may try in 
 vain years later to bring back to the big 
 boy that appetite for learning which is 
 insatiable in the little one. 
 
 Again: Your baby is beginning to imi- 
 tate everything he sees. Of course you 
 wish to protect him as long as possible 
 from seeing bad, and you will place before 
 him a great many good and interesting
 
 42 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 things to imitate, knowing that thus you 
 will be helping the child to become good 
 and happy and intelligent. 
 
 Let us see how the above knowledge is 
 applied by the majority of adults when 
 they select picture books for children. 
 
 Is it good for children to torture animals, 
 to ridicule the maimed, the aged, the poor, 
 to play sly tricks on silly parents, to 
 mock at politeness, to tease servants, to 
 destroy property, to make fun of those of 
 different race or creed than one's own? 
 Is it good for children to get their first 
 acquaintance with beautiful old tales of 
 loyalty and courage and perseverance in 
 pictures of mocking caricature? Is it 
 good to paint upon the child's retentive 
 mind hideous daubs of color and false 
 distortion of line in short, to show him 
 the worst in art and ethics at an age 
 when discrimination is at zero and inter- 
 est in every detail is at 100?
 
 PICTURE BOOKS 43 
 
 Of course this is bad, parents answer 
 promptly. Yet in how many good homes 
 one finds books patterned after the comic- 
 supplement notion that, so long as a child 
 is amused by a picture, it is of no con- 
 sequence that he laughs at the representa- 
 tion of coarse and vulgar practical jokes, 
 that he is seeing life distorted, is becom- 
 ing familiar with bad art, and is imbibing 
 the idea that to be virtuous is to be ridicu- 
 lous. 
 
 There are parents thoughtful enough 
 to keep out the bad who do not go far 
 enough in providing the really worth 
 while. The commonest fault of children's 
 books in good homes is insipidity. We try 
 so hard to stunt the children's mental 
 growth! We have our fixed ideas as to 
 the interests proper to childhood and we 
 firmly lock away subjects presumably 
 belonging to adults only. 
 
 There is a wonderful book by a French
 
 44 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 artist picturing in splendid line and color 
 the life and times of Joan of Arc. A cer- 
 tain five-year-old of my acquaintance 
 for weeks made it his regular occupation, 
 in the last hour before dinner of dark 
 winter afternoons, to get out this book, 
 spread it open on the sitting-room table, 
 and, climbing upon a high chair to kneel, 
 elbows on table, to pore over the pictures. 
 The France of the fifteenth century in 
 palace and cottage, in camp and cathe- 
 dral, the dress of the people, the heraldic 
 trappings, the stately ceremonials, the 
 walled cities and methods of warfare 
 not a detail in this carefully studied and 
 wonderfully executed representation of 
 the times was lost on the small boy, who 
 had no idea that he was gaining a back- 
 ground for such an appreciation of mediae- 
 val history as few big boys acquire. 
 
 In the art reference room of our public 
 library I recently had occasion to ex-
 
 PICTURE BOOKS 45 
 
 amine the volumes on the Middle Ages of 
 an expensive French work by Parmentier 
 called "Album historique." As I looked 
 up my subject, I thought, "What a pic- 
 ture book, this, for a child's library!" 
 Here one saw, from prints of carvings 
 on Chartres Cathedral, exactly how the 
 carpenter, the baker, the butcher, the 
 blacksmith of the twelfth century worked 
 at their daily tasks. One could enter the 
 house of a tenth-century family by way 
 of an illustration from a precious man- 
 uscript in the Bibliotheque Nationale. 
 The children's toys and games, the dresses 
 and jewels and combs and lamps, all the 
 domestic and public life of the times were 
 profusely illustrated from original sources. 
 Now, of course, such a "picture book" 
 for a child would need the running com- 
 ment of an imaginative and pretty well- 
 informed parent, but there are scores of 
 parents able to supply the information to
 
 46 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 one who would conceive the subject as 
 within the child's range. 
 
 I don't seem to be getting to that baby, 
 but I am really on the way. I am eager to 
 emphasize the idea that we need not dole 
 out to little children tiny sugar pellets of 
 information on rigidly limited subjects, 
 but that if we choose pictures of vivid 
 story-telling quality we can use them as 
 points of departure for all sorts of broad 
 and worth-while interests. 
 
 We know that babies are very early in- 
 terested in Mother Goose jingles and in 
 animals. As the months pass they watch 
 earnestly, then imitate the people about 
 them children at play, grown people 
 at work driving horses, unloading coal, 
 sweeping streets, making bread. 
 
 We have found that the youngest chil- 
 dren like pictures large in figure, strong 
 and simple in coloring, and well-defined 
 in outline.
 
 PICTURE BOOKS 47 
 
 Every one at all acquainted with chil- 
 dren knows that story-telling pictures, 
 having much action and a good deal of 
 clear detail, are the sort that appeal to 
 little folks. 
 
 Here, then, are clues to the selection of 
 the first picture books for the child. We 
 shall not, after the first years, confine our 
 choice to books strictly in the "picture 
 books for children" class, but will fol- 
 low the lead of the small boy's and girl's 
 questions as fast as our slow brains can 
 keep up with their nimble wits. 
 
 I would, then, during the baby's first 
 three or four years, buy Randolph Calde- 
 cott's spirited pictures illustrating the old 
 nursery rhymes, and Kate Greenaway's 
 quaint little "Mother Goose"; Beatrix 
 Potter's tiny "Peter Rabbit," "Benjamin 
 Bunny," and others of the series which 
 small children literally love to pieces; 
 Leslie Brooke's droll animals in "Johnny
 
 48 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 Crow's Garden," whose fun tickles grown- 
 ups as much as it does the children; also 
 Brooke's "Three Bears" and "Three 
 Little Pigs," the enormous popularity of 
 these latter among our public library chil- 
 dren, by the way, suggesting that other 
 makers of children's picture books would 
 do well to study the style of Brooke's 
 illustrations. I would include Felicite 
 Le Fevre's "The Cock, the Mouse and 
 the Little Red Hen"; and Boyd Smith's 
 "Chicken World." In the animal picture 
 books above, the artists, while giving 
 human touches and sometimes human 
 clothes and attitudes to the creatures, 
 have kept their animals essentially true 
 in delineation to real bears and pigs and 
 rabbits. Kate Greenaway's "Under the 
 Window," Parkinson's "Dutchie Doings" 
 (an ugly name for a delightful book about 
 Holland), Lucas and Bedford's "Four 
 and Twenty Toilers " (one of the most
 
 PICTURE BOOKS 49 
 
 perfect of all on this list), Boyd Smith's 
 "Farm Book" and "Seashore Book," 
 with a few of the best foreign books whose 
 stories are so plainly told by their pictures 
 that the lack of English text will not 
 matter these are some of the fine pic- 
 ture books which we should like to have 
 every little child own. 
 
 By means of the above we shall answer 
 questions and raise more questions about 
 the country and the sea, about ships and 
 trains and the work of all sorts of useful 
 "toilers. " We shall see the quaint villages 
 in which little English and French and 
 German children live, the canals and 
 dykes and windmills and wooden shoes of 
 the country of the "Dutchie Doings"; 
 we shall establish the best feeling toward 
 all sorts of animal friends; we shall have 
 gay laughs over the mishaps of Benjamin 
 Bunny and Johnny Crow's guests and 
 little Dutch Jan; and all this variety will
 
 50 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 have been given in pictures so good, albeit 
 so simple, that the seeds for that subtle 
 growth, good taste in art, will have been 
 sown.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 FAIRY TALES 
 
 Robert, aged two and a half, was play- 
 ing take a journey in a boat. The parlor 
 rug was the boat and the surrounding 
 floor the water. In a moment of forget- 
 fulness Robert stepped off the rug, into 
 the water, I should say. So vivid was the 
 little boy's feeling of being wet to the 
 skin that he was inconsolable until mother 
 brought a bath towel to dry the unlucky 
 feet. 
 
 Charles is another small boy of my ac- 
 quaintance. One day he was a coal man, 
 busily shoveling blocks into a tiny cart 
 and dumping them kerplunk into the bin 
 in the corner of grandma's room. Acci- 
 dentally Charles leaned against grand- 
 ma's bed. Hastily drawing away his hand
 
 52 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 he exclaimed, "Oh, grandma, see that 
 great black spot on the counterpane!" 
 Grandma, absorbed in her work, absent- 
 mindedly replied, "I don't see any spot, 
 Charles." "Why, grandma!" in accents 
 of deep reproach, "I'm a coal man and 
 my hands are all black!" 
 
 Three-year-old Harriet is one of my 
 dearest friends. She and her mother come 
 to "spend the day" at my house some- 
 times. On one of these happy occasions 
 Harriet, after playing in another room for 
 a while, came hurriedly to her mother, 
 anxiety written over her small face, and 
 exclaimed, "Oh, mamma, I'm afraid my 
 baby has pneumonia! Won't you please 
 come and tell me what to do for her?" 
 
 Mamma promptly laid aside her sew- 
 ing and went to the patient's bedside. 
 She gravely felt Dolly's pulse, took her 
 temperature, listened to her breathing, 
 and finally said to the worried parent,
 
 FAIRY TALES 53 
 
 "No, Mrs. Brown, it is not pneumonia, 
 but your baby has a very bad cold. She 
 has quite a fever, so don't put many 
 coverings over her. We will give her very 
 little medicine, but you must have plenty 
 of fresh air in the room night and day. 
 Keep the child out of the draft, but don't 
 shut the window. And it would be a 
 good thing to bring in a gas plate and 
 keep some lime-water boiling on it con- 
 stantly. 
 
 "Good-morning, Mrs. Brown. Don't 
 worry about the baby. I'll look in again 
 to-morrow." 
 
 The little mother listened with an in- 
 tensity of concentration worthy a nurse 
 on a critical case, and then proceeded to 
 carry out orders with a fidelity to detail 
 which doctors would be fervently thank- 
 ful to see imitated by parents of real 
 patients. 
 
 Amused and interested I asked Harriet's
 
 54 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 mother, "Do you always * make-believe' 
 as seriously and sensibly as this?" 
 
 "Yes," was the reply; "it is just as easy 
 to tell the child true things as to make up 
 a lot of nonsense. Because her play is 
 very real to her, she is vividly interested, 
 and will remember every word I say. The 
 knowledge she gets may be very useful to 
 her sometime." 
 
 When I have something important to 
 tell a person, I address him in a language 
 he will understand. If he and I have no 
 common speech, I use signs or pictures 
 or some other device to convey my mean- 
 ing. 
 
 Harriet and Charles and Robert and 
 other little people of their age are living 
 in the wonder years, when the language 
 surest of appeal to their hearts, surest of 
 making a vivid impression, is the language 
 of fancy, of "make-believe." The time 
 will come when these children will begin
 
 FAERY TALES 55 
 
 to ask, "Is that story true? Tell me a 
 true story now!" The time may even 
 come when they will be interested in the 
 scientific study of those natural phenom- 
 ena with which the fairy tale takes such 
 liberties. 
 
 At first it is the Wonderland animal 
 that interests the child, tales of Benjamin 
 Bunny, Brer Fox, the Wee Small Bear, 
 the Little Red Hen, Johnny Crow. Later, 
 true stories of brave dogs and cunning 
 foxes and fierce lions become more in- 
 teresting than the fanciful tales which 
 the child gradually finds do not agree 
 with fact. Last of all comes the study of 
 zoology as a science. 
 
 Every now and then the Gradgrinds 
 come to the fore and argue with heat 
 against telling a child lies, that is, 
 fairy tales. These literal-minded people 
 have no conception of the importance of 
 allowing a child to develop in nature's
 
 56 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 way, nor of the difference between lying 
 
 the intent to deceive and imagining 
 
 the "let 's pretend " faculty, more valu- 
 able to the adult, even, than to the child. 
 
 What is the most natural way for the 
 child to explain certain of nature's mani- 
 festations? 
 
 "Come, little Leaves," said the Wind one day, 
 "Come over the meadow with me and play; 
 Put on your dresses of red and gold 
 For Summer has gone and the days grow cold." 
 
 Soon as the Leaves heard the Wind's loud call 
 Down they came fluttering one and all; 
 Over the brown fields they danced and flew, 
 Singing the soft little songs they knew. 
 
 Of course the child thinks of the leaves 
 as little live creatures putting on gayly 
 colored garments, frolicking with their 
 big unseen playmate, the Wind, and 
 finally going to sleep under a soft white 
 blanket which Winter spreads over them. 
 Of course he thinks of Jack Frost as paint-
 
 FAIRY TALES 57 
 
 ing the windows, nipping noses and fingers, 
 icing over the streams; of the stars as 
 winking at little boys down below; of the 
 crescent moon as a golden boat; of the 
 breezes as whispering to him ; of the shad- 
 ows as playing with him; of all nature, in 
 short, as being alive in a vividly personal 
 way. 
 
 Now, this is exactly the way the child's 
 remote ancestors felt, ages and ages back. 
 The myths record these fancies of primi- 
 tive peoples; the hero tales and folk tales 
 and legends grew out of the myths; the 
 fairy tale is a modern invention after the 
 fashion of the folk tale; and all the stories 
 of this sort are the special literary form of 
 the child, answering to a deep and right 
 craving of his nature. 
 
 Apart from the joy-giving value of the 
 fairy tale there is a use in it which even 
 the Gradgrinds ought to respect. When 
 the Great Teacher told the parables of the
 
 58 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 sower, the house built upon a rock, the 
 wise and foolish virgins, we understand 
 that he was inventing stories to make 
 clear to his hearers certain spiritual truths. 
 Here we have the story not true to fact, 
 but true to truth. 
 
 The fairy tale has been called a poetic 
 presentation of a spiritual truth. When 
 we tell our little ones of a brave and 
 gentle prince who, aided by fairies and 
 gnomes and friendly talking beasts, rides 
 through space on North Wind's shoulder, 
 slays a terrible dragon, and releases the 
 beautiful princess from the wicked ma- 
 gician's castle, what is the staying part 
 of the story we have told in this fanciful 
 language? Is it not that courage and 
 gentleness and truth make one strong to 
 fight and to overcome evil? Surely the 
 sooner we get such an idea rooted in the 
 child's heart the nobler child he will be; 
 and if the way to his heart is through his
 
 FAIRY TALES 59 
 
 fancy, why stupidly try a path that forbids 
 rather than invites the child to walk in it? 
 
 The little boy who uses his father's cane 
 for a horse, who is now a hunter in a deep 
 forest, a minute later a roaring lion, and 
 next is playing with the fishes at the 
 bottom of the ocean, this boy we do not 
 call a liar. No more need we fear the 
 effect of fairy tales upon his character if 
 we choose those in which the child's sym- 
 pathies are enlisted for the brave and pure 
 and faithful and friendly, and his con- 
 tempt is aroused against the coward, the 
 sneak, the lazy, the ugly in character. 
 
 Of course we must never spoil these 
 artistic stories by rubbing in their les- 
 son. Let the children have the pure joy 
 of their playful fancy without our tag- 
 ging on at the end, "Now the moral of 
 this story is " The fable, however, can 
 sometimes be tellingly used for pointing 
 a moral to a naughty small person.
 
 60 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 One day when I was a tiny girl, with 
 toys from my emptied play cupboard 
 strewn about me, my baby sister, creep- 
 ing near, began playing with a toy'I had 
 not thought of wanting that morning. I 
 snatched the toy away from little sister 
 just as my dear mother passed through 
 the room. Not in a frowning way, but 
 with a gentle, humorous twinkle, mother 
 let fall the remark, "Dog in the manger!" 
 I dropped that toy as if it had scorched, 
 for did I not see myself as the ugly, snarl- 
 ing dog who could not eat hay himself, 
 yet would not- allow the patient, hungry 
 cow to come near her well-earned supper? 
 
 I have spoken of the joy value and the 
 ethical value of the fairy tale. I wish I 
 could make all the world feel its value to 
 the imagination the importance of an 
 imagination in this day of worship of the 
 material. It takes imagination to believe 
 in God, in the soul, in immortality. Peo-
 
 FAIRY TALES 61 
 
 pie without imagination or with starved 
 imaginations lack the fineness and the 
 infinite variety that make life interesting 
 to them, and themselves interesting to 
 others. Imagination is needed not only by 
 the poet, the artist, the musician, but is 
 essential to the leader in practical lines 
 in business management, bridge-building, 
 railroading. How could one build a bridge 
 without first having a picture of the struc- 
 ture in his mind imagining it, in short? 
 There is another argument for the 
 wonder stories in the joy they will give 
 the man, years hence, when he looks at 
 pictures, listens to music, reads poems 
 which demand for their complete apprecia- 
 tion an understanding of the old myths to 
 which they allude. No grubbing through 
 classical dictionaries will make up to the 
 man for the joy he will miss if these allu- 
 sions do not call up to him beautiful old 
 stories beloved in his childhood.
 
 62 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 There is still more to be said for the 
 wonder stories. The picturesque vocabu- 
 lary of little children fed on the best; the 
 engaging brightness of mind that makes 
 their talk a delight to an adult not too 
 dull to appreciate its poetry; the happy 
 effect upon their play shown when the 
 children dramatize the fanciful tales 
 these are other worthwhile results of fa- 
 miliarizing children with the literature of 
 Wonderland. 
 
 In closing, a word or two of caution. 
 We must remember that there are many 
 unwholesome fairy tales, just as there are 
 bad pictures; that we must shield a high- 
 strung child from the too fearful; that 
 we must be watchful lest the excessively 
 imaginative child be allowed a too-ex- 
 clusive diet of wonder stories, just as we 
 would wish to steep in fanciful literature 
 the occasional youngster of the very mat- 
 ter-of-fact type.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 BIBLE STORIES 
 
 Two small boys had been spending the 
 week-end at grandma's their first over- 
 night visit away from mother. As they 
 were being put to bed on Sunday night, 
 one of the aunties remarked, "I've a nice 
 story to read to you after you are tucked 
 in." 
 
 The youngsters looked a bit suspi- 
 ciously at the Bible in auntie's hand. 
 That book was associated with long 
 sitting still in church, with texts to be 
 committed, with moral and religious talks 
 given by not always skillful Sunday- 
 School teachers. However, auntie's ideas 
 of a good story always had coincided ex- 
 actly with their own, so they were ready 
 to give the Bible a hearing at least.
 
 64 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 Auntie opened to the Book of Esther. 
 Pencil marks here and there indicated 
 for omission some unimportant parts; this 
 in order that, at one not too long reading, 
 the whole of the story might be given. 
 
 Here is the way auntie began to read : 
 
 Now it came to pass in the days of Ahasu- 
 erus . . . when the king Ahasuerus sat on the 
 throne of his kingdom, which was in Shushan 
 the palace, in the third year of his reign, he 
 made a feast unto all his princes and his serv- 
 ants; the power of Persia and Media, the 
 nobles and princes of the provinces being be- 
 fore him . . . 
 
 When he showed the riches of his glorious 
 kingdom and the honour of his excellent 
 majesty many days, even an hundred and 
 fourscore days. 
 
 And when these days were expired, the 
 king made a great feast unto all the people 
 that were present in Shushan the palace, 
 both unto great and small, seven days, in the 
 court of the garden of the king's palace; 
 Where were white, green and blue hangings 
 fastened with cords of fine linen to purple and
 
 BIBLE STORIES 65 
 
 silver rings and pillars of marble; the beds 
 were of gold and silver, upon a pavement of 
 red and blue and white and black marble. 
 And they gave them drink in vessels of gold 
 
 the vessels being diverse one from another 
 
 and royal wine in abundance, according to 
 the state of the king. 
 
 At the beginning of the reading there 
 had been a good deal of rustling in the 
 bed. It was difficult to fall in at once with 
 the notion that the Bible could be inter- 
 esting enough for close attention! Soon, 
 however, the moving about ceased and to 
 the end of the story such stillness reigned 
 as made auntie glance up once in a while 
 to see if the boys had dropped off to 
 Dreamland. Not a bit of it! Who could 
 think of sleep while such pictures of 
 Oriental magnificence were being woven 
 before one's eyes by those splendidly 
 colorful words ? A long sigh of complete 
 satisfaction, the same sign of reluctant 
 coming back to earth as greeted auntie's
 
 66 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 most successful fairy tales, was evidence 
 of the boys' entire approval of the reading. 
 Now, let us put beside the above the 
 Old Testament's own language unaltered 
 except by omission, the following version, 
 which, be it noted, is exceptionally good 
 among the children's retold Bibles which 
 flood the market: 
 
 There was a gentle Jewish girl named 
 Esther who had been left an orphan very 
 young and was brought up by her kind rela- 
 tion Mordecai, who was one of the Jews who 
 had not gone back to Jerusalem, but still 
 lived in Persia. 
 
 One day there came a messenger from the 
 king to carry away poor Esther from home. 
 The king wanted all the maidens in his land 
 to be brought together, that he might choose 
 the most beautiful of them all for his queen, 
 and the others would be kept for slaves. All 
 the other maidens dressed themselves up, and 
 painted themselves to try to look beautiful; 
 but Esther did not ask for any ornaments, 
 she only put on what she was ordered to wear. 
 Yet she looked so much the most lovelv of
 
 BIBLE STORIES 67 
 
 them all, in her modest quietness, that the 
 king chose her and married her, and set the 
 crown on her head, and made her his queen. 
 But she had a sad life though she ( was queen. 
 She was always shut up and could not see her 
 kind friend Mordecai, and she could not even 
 go to her husband without his leave, or she 
 would have been put to death. 
 
 How tame, how colorless, how lacking 
 in vividness, in poetry, in magnificence is 
 this gentle simplification! And why was 
 it attempted? Because a child is not able 
 to define every word in the original? Who 
 cares if he is n't? Not he, certainly. His 
 enjoyment does not depend upon defini- 
 tions. The words he does understand, and 
 the sound of those he does not, paint for 
 him pictures the more alluring for a vague- 
 ness that leaves all sorts of splendors to 
 the imagination. 
 
 "An hundred and fourscore days" 
 what a very, very long feast, and how rich 
 and mighty must have been the king who
 
 68 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 could feed and amuse his guests so long 
 and so magnificently ! Is our small boy at 
 all bothered that he does not know ex- 
 actly how many "fourscore" days were? 
 
 It is not the purpose of this chapter to 
 discuss the Bible as a theological work 
 or religious guide. For such use I would 
 refer parents to Mrs. Louise Seymour 
 Houghton's "Telling Bible Stories to 
 Children" and Dean Hodges's books for 
 parents and children. Of course, some 
 will think one or both of these writers 
 too modern, while others will complain 
 of their being too traditional. They will 
 at least be suggestive to adults puzzled 
 about what to teach the children, since 
 modern scholarship has changed our un- 
 derstanding of some parts of the Bible. 
 
 Whatever our viewpoint on Biblical 
 doctrine, we are waking up to the idea that, 
 since the Bible is woven into the litera- 
 ture and history of our race, familiarity
 
 BIBLE STORIES 69 
 
 with it is exceedingly important to our 
 young people, if we would have them ap- 
 preciate to the full the best things in the 
 life of the mind and spirit. If we can, by 
 the interest we kindle in little children, 
 prepare them to grow up loving those 
 best things, by all means we will do 
 this. 
 
 We all agree that the Bible contains a 
 wonderful collection of stories suited to 
 the taste of young and old. We know 
 that no finer literature exists, that poetry 
 and pathos, grandeur and tender beauty, 
 all the thoughts of the human heart and 
 the glory of earth and heaven are ex- 
 pressed in language matchlessly vivid and 
 simple. Will any one give a good reason 
 why this language should be turned into 
 commonplace English for children who 
 particularly delight in rhythmical, poetic 
 sound? Only the tiny children need the 
 Bible simplified, except by omission.
 
 70 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 Do you know why librarians often find 
 the children of clever parents reading 
 inane and foolish stories, counting as 
 too great a mental effort the books their 
 fathers and mothers adored in their early 
 youth? It is largely because of this mania 
 for simplification that has fallen upon the 
 land in our time. It is very illogical for us 
 to be disappointed in a twelve-year-old 
 who turns from books rich in allusion, 
 style, and breadth, if, for the greater part 
 of those twelve years, we have carefully 
 guarded him from mental stretching, 
 which an unspoiled, active-minded child 
 really enjoys. In our mistaken kindness 
 we make healthy minds become soft for 
 lack of exercise. 
 
 No great book has yet been written 
 in "first-reader" English nor yet in 
 "second -reader" or "third-reader." Let 
 the little ones grow up in hearing of a rich 
 and varied speech and the big ones will
 
 BIBLE STORIES 71 
 
 not be discouraged with the first pages of 
 a nobly written book. 
 
 For every reason make the Bible lov- 
 ingly familiar to the children. Choose 
 those of the stories best suited to their 
 liking. Make the reading a special treat, 
 never a compulsory duty. Do not let the 
 children go to Sunday-School until you 
 have satisfied yourself that their love for 
 the Book will be enhanced, not killed by 
 unskillful teaching. 
 
 And carry to the consideration, not only 
 of this but of all other splendidly written 
 stories, the conviction that children enjoy 
 much and get much from many things 
 which they do not wholly understand at 
 the first hearing; and that the relation be- 
 tween the reading taste of six and twelve 
 years may be as definite as is the relation 
 between the brains, skill, and industry of 
 the farmer and the kind of crops he raises. 
 There is some uncertainty about results
 
 72 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 in both fields, I admit, but in crops and 
 children it is far more often bad manage- 
 ment than bad luck that is responsible for 
 poor products.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 STORIES THAT MIGHT BE TRUE: 
 SOME "dON'ts" 
 
 Thus far I have tried to make my sugges- 
 tions follow the principle that the best 
 way to keep out the bad is to fill up mind 
 space with good. I have used the positive 
 rather than the negative, the "Do" in- 
 stead of the "Don't" method in offering 
 advice. 
 
 This, however, must be a chapter of 
 "Don'ts." We are to take up the "Story 
 that might be true," child fiction corre- 
 sponding to the realistic novel of the 
 adult. 
 
 In their stories of real boys and girls 
 who have no dealings with fairies, but 
 who do (supposedly) possible and proba- 
 ble things, our small people live through,
 
 74 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 in imagination, many new experiences. 
 They adopt the ideas of their story boy or 
 girl, they become interested in the things 
 that interest the story children. 
 
 Now, what sort of things are many 
 writers to-day making interesting to chil- 
 dren? 
 
 Foremost among the stories which most 
 people pronounce "safe" and many call 
 "charming" is the type dubbed by an 
 "Outlook" writer "the little child shall 
 lead them" story. 
 
 I have in mind one in which a mother- 
 less eight-year-old, brought up in a board- 
 ing-house, manages her father's affairs 
 and the landlady's and the boarders' 
 with an executive ability that would put 
 many a grown woman to blush. She 
 divides her father's weekly salary into 
 neat piles of board money, clothes money, 
 money to go into the bank, etc. She 
 coaxes the irate cook into good humor,
 
 STORIES THAT MIGHT BE TRUE 75, 
 
 placates the grouchy boarder and soothes 
 the worried landlady into grateful relief. 
 When her father is unmanned by an ac- 
 cusation of forgery, this capable child bids 
 him put on his hat and accompany her to 
 the lawyer where she ably states the case 
 for her parent. She is the means by which 
 this same unappreciated poet father finds 
 the road to fame, and the story ends with 
 a picture of our heroine of eight embark- 
 ing for Europe amid such an avalanche 
 of flowers that other passengers, seeing 
 the floral tributes coming aboard, wonder 
 if a famous opera singer is traveling on the 
 steamer. 
 
 Another story is of an eight-year-old 
 boy whose career is one round of sen- 
 sational benevolence. Out of a list of 
 shining deeds too long to quote in full I 
 instance the hero's effecting a reconcili- 
 ation between a father and son long es- 
 tranged, his patching up a lover's quarrel,
 
 76 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 bringing a neglected actor to the atten- 
 tion of an important manager, averting a 
 factory strike, and saving from a burning 
 building a roomful of children. 
 
 There are stories of children who bring 
 together father and mother who have 
 separated; who win to devoted mother- 
 hood women too absorbed in society 
 to remember their children's existence. 
 There is a tale of a four-year-old who is 
 the unconscious means of bringing to his 
 better senses a man who, having been 
 jilted by the child's mother years before, 
 had buried himself from the world with a 
 pistol handy for the sucide he kept in 
 mind as a possible means of escape from 
 his thoughts. 
 
 You are horrified that parents buy such 
 books. You would be more astonished if 
 I were to tell you not only who buy but 
 who write stories like these. I refuse to 
 advertise the stuff by naming titles, but
 
 STORIES THAT MIGHT BE TRUE 77 
 
 most of the above are the work of authors 
 in excellent standing. 
 
 Let the children have real fairy tales, 
 by all means. But by all means insist that 
 their stories of real life be true to life, to 
 the wholesome, natural, simple life you 
 are trying to insure to your children. 
 
 There is much evil in this good world of 
 ours. Our children need to know what is 
 bad in order to avoid it. They must be 
 helped to grow strong to resist temptation. 
 The stories in which they live vicariously 
 the life of the heroes or heroines may be 
 of immense help in illustrating the brave 
 way to face and conquer difficulties. 
 
 There are many sorts of evil, however, 
 from the knowledge of which little chil- 
 dren should be shielded if possible. The 
 misfortunes or wickednesses of adult life, 
 unhappy marriages, false lovers, brutal 
 fathers, silly mothers, jealousy, forgery, 
 burglaries you will probably think it
 
 78 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 absurd for me to beg you to protect chil- 
 dren from stories in which these things 
 figure. But since writers of children's 
 stories will drag in such themes, and 
 since friends and relatives more generous 
 than wise will continue to choose your 
 children's Christmas books by covers 
 rather than contents, this warning is not 
 unnecessary. 
 
 Books about child characters who are 
 naughty in childlike ways, these are 
 in a different class; but even here be care- 
 ful. To tell a story because there are so 
 many interesting and happy things in the 
 world to bring to children, this should 
 be the reason for writing a child's book. 
 Neither the story that paints a naughty 
 child as a solemn warning for the young, 
 nor the one (so amusing to the adult) that 
 describes the pranks of the picturesque 
 bad boy of the town is desirable reading 
 for little children.
 
 STORIES THAT MIGHT BE TRUE 79 
 
 There are many other "Don'ts" for us 
 to remember. The Sunday-School story 
 of a generation ago is dying out. Do 
 not revive it under the impression that 
 the priggish' heroine will be a wholesome 
 example for your child. Remember, too, 
 that many books do not practice what 
 they preach. There are authors who 
 write against snobbishness and money 
 worship who yet make very evident their 
 sense of the superiority of those elect be- 
 ings who, from silken heights, graciously 
 bestow alms upon the child in the gutter. 
 
 Avoid stories in which children begin 
 early to lead the life of society women ; in 
 which the author, pretending tp write for 
 children, gives the impression that she 
 is winking at an adult over the child's 
 "cute" blunders of speech and under- 
 standing. 
 
 Do not choose stories of swift and start- 
 ling action such will cultivate the taste
 
 80 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 for the sensational, the newspaper head- 
 line sort of writing. 
 
 And finally, do not be too literal in 
 applying the above "Don'ts." We some- 
 times find in a story, beautiful on the 
 whole, a minor episode which we wish the 
 author had left out. We must learn to 
 judge the effect of the book as a whole, to 
 have a sense of proportion which will tell 
 us whether the final impression of the 
 story upon the child will be good and 
 true or whether its less desirable features 
 will make the stronger impression. 
 
 The largest number of all the not 
 worth-while books for children are those 
 in which one cannot point out features so 
 plainly objectionable that any thoughtful 
 parent would recognize their harmfulness. 
 The soft, "safe," inane, sugar-and-water 
 story that leads nowhere, that has no 
 positive qualities, bad or good, that con- 
 sumes good time, that opens no windows
 
 STORIES THAT MIGHT BE TRUE 81 
 
 in the child's mind, this story also let 
 us avoid. Our children are too good for 
 such mental pap. They deserve the best, 
 the stories of "some particular good" 
 rather than those of "no particular harm" 
 this latter being the stock defense put 
 up against the librarian who objects to 
 spending public money on books that 
 waste time and atrophy the mind. When 
 she contemplates buying a chair or a 
 carpet or a tablecloth does any woman 
 accept indifferently a "not-bad" article if 
 the very best of its kind is within reach 
 of her purse? How is it that we seem so 
 indifferent to the furnishing of our chil- 
 dren's minds and hearts when we spend 
 so much care upon the furnishing of their 
 physical surroundings? When the child 
 reads to himself we cannot prevent his 
 devouring some commonplace books, but 
 while his reading is in our hands let us see 
 that he knows the best and only the best.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 STOKIES THAT MIGHT BE TRUE! 
 HOW TO CHOOSE THEM 
 
 It will be a relief to return to the empha- 
 sis of the good after having dwelt so long 
 upon depressing "Don'ts." 
 
 To bring out the positive qualities 
 which we should like to find in every 
 story for little children I can think of no 
 better plan than, first, to quote bodily a 
 chapter from a book which possesses prac- 
 tically everything desirable, and next, to 
 call attention to the book's good features 
 point by point. 
 
 The story I have in mind is called "The 
 Dutch Twins." After a little introduc- 
 tion of Kit and Kat, the Twins, the 
 author begins :
 
 STORIES THAT MIGHT BE TRUE 83 
 CHAPTER ONE 
 
 THE DAY THEY WENT FISHING * 
 
 One summer morning, very early, Vrouw 
 Vedder opened the door of her little Dutch 
 kitchen and stepped out. 
 
 She looked across the road which ran by 
 the house, across the canal on the other side, 
 across the level green fields that lay beyond, 
 clear to the blue rim of the world, where the 
 sky touches the earth. The sky was very blue; 
 and the great, round, shining face of the sun 
 was just peering over the tops of the trees, as 
 she looked out. 
 
 Vrouw Vedder listened. The roosters in 
 the barnyard were crowing, the ducks in the 
 canal were quacking, and all the little birds 
 in the fields were singing for joy. Vrouw 
 Vedder hummed a slow little tune of her own, 
 as she went back into her kitchen. 
 
 Kit and Kat were still asleep in their little 
 cupboard bed. She gave them each a kiss. 
 The Twins opened their eyes and sat up. 
 
 "O Kit and Kat," said Vrouw Vedder, 
 "the sun is up, the birds are all awake and 
 1 Copyright, 1911, by Lucy Fitch Perkins.
 
 84 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 singing, and grandfather is going fishing to- 
 day. If you will hurry, you may go with him ! 
 He is coming at six o'clock; so pop out of bed 
 and get dressed. I will put some lunch for you 
 in the yellow basket, and you may dig worms 
 for bait in the garden. Only be sure not to 
 step on the young cabbages that father 
 planted." 
 
 Kit and Kat bounced out of bed in a min- 
 ute. Their mother helped them put on their 
 clothes and new wooden shoes. Then she 
 gave them each a bowl of bread and milk 
 for their breakfast. They ate it sitting on 
 the kitchen doorstep. 
 
 This is a picture of Kit and Kat digging 
 worms. You see they did just as their mother 
 said, and did not step on the young cabbages. 
 They sat on them, instead. But that was an 
 accident. 
 
 Kit dug the worms, and Kat put them into 
 a basket, with some earth in it to make them 
 feel at home. 
 
 When grandfather came, he brought a large 
 fishing-rod for himself and two little ones for 
 the Twins. There was a little hook on the end 
 of each line. 
 
 Vrouw Vedder kissed Kit and Kat good-bye.
 
 STORIES THAT MIGHT BE TRUE 85 
 
 "Mind grandfather, and don't fall into the 
 water," she said. 
 
 Grandfather and the Twins started off to- 
 gether down the long road beside the canal. 
 
 The house where the Twins lived was right 
 beside the canal. Their father was a gardener, 
 and his beautiful rows of cabbages and beets 
 and onions stretched in long lines across the 
 level fields by the roadside. 
 
 Grandfather lived in a large town, a little 
 way beyond the farm where the Twins lived. 
 He did not often have a holiday, because he 
 carried milk to the doors of the people in the 
 town, every morning early. Sometime I will 
 tell you how he did it; but I must not tell you 
 now, because if I do, I can't tell you about 
 their going fishing. 
 
 This morning, grandfather carried his rod 
 and the lunch-basket. Kit and Kat carried 
 the basket of worms between them, and their 
 rods over their shoulders, and they were all 
 three very happy. 
 
 They walked along ever so far, beside the 
 canal; then turned to the left and walked 
 along a path that ran from the canal across 
 the green fields to what looked like a hill. 
 
 But it was n't a hill at all, really, because
 
 86 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 there are n't any hills in Holland. It was a 
 long, long wall of earth, very high oh, as 
 high as a house, or even higher! And it had 
 sloping sides. 
 
 There is such a wall of earth all around the 
 country of Holland, where the Twins live. 
 There has to be a wall, because the sea is 
 higher than the land. If there were no walls 
 to shut out the sea, the whole country would 
 be covered with water; and if that were so, 
 then there would n't be any Holland, or any 
 Holland Twins, or any story. So you see it 
 was very lucky for the Twins that the wall was 
 there. They called it a dyke. 
 
 Grandfather and Kit and Kat climbed the 
 dyke. When they reached the top, they sat 
 down a few minutes to rest and look at the 
 great blue sea. Grandfather sat in the middle, 
 with Kit on one side, and Kat on the other; 
 and the basket of worms and the basket of 
 lunch were there, too. 
 
 They saw a great ship sail slowly by, mak- 
 ing a cloud of smoke. 
 
 "Where do the ships go, grandfather?" 
 asked Kit. 
 
 "To America, and England, and China, 
 and all over the world," said grandfather.
 
 STORIES THAT MIGHT BE TRUE 87 
 
 "Why?" asked Kat. Kat almost always 
 said "Why?" and when she didn't, Kit 
 did. 
 
 "To take flax and linen from the mills of 
 Holland to make dresses for little girls in 
 other countries," said grandfather. 
 
 "Is that all?" asked Kit. 
 
 "They take cheese and herring, bulbs and 
 butter, and lots of other things besides, and 
 bring back to us wheat and meat and all sorts 
 of good things from the lands across the sea." 
 
 " I think I '11 be a sea captain when I 'm big," 
 said Kit. 
 
 "So will I," said Kat. 
 
 "Girls can't," said Kit. 
 
 But grandfather shook his head and said: 
 
 "You can't tell what a girl may be by the 
 time she 's four feet and a half high and is 
 called Katrina. There 's no telling what girls 
 will do' anyway. But, children, if we stay 
 here we shall not catch any fish." 
 
 So they went down the other side of the 
 dyke and out onto a little pier that ran from 
 the sandy beach into the water. 
 
 Grandfather showed them how to bait 
 their hooks. Kit baited Kat's for her, be- 
 cause Kat said it made her all wriggly inside
 
 88 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 to do it. She did not like it. Neither did the 
 worm! 
 
 They all sat down on the end of the pier. 
 Grandfather sat on the very end and let his 
 wooden shoes hang down over the water; but 
 he made Kit and Kat sit with their feet stuck 
 straight out in front of them, so they just 
 reached to the edge, "So you can't fall in," 
 said grandfather. 
 
 They dropped their hooks into the water, 
 and sat very still, waiting for a bite. The sun 
 climbed higher and higher in the sky, and it 
 grew hotter and hotter on the pier. The flies 
 tickled Kat's nose and made her sneeze. 
 
 "Keep still, can't you?" said Kit crossly. 
 "You'll scare the fish. Girls don't know how 
 to fish, anyway." 
 
 Pretty soon Kat felt a queer little jerk on 
 her line. She was perfectly sure she did. 
 
 Kat squealed and jerked her rod. She 
 jerked it so hard that one foot flew right up 
 in the air, and one of her new wooden shoes 
 went splash right into the water! 
 
 But that wasn't the worst of it! Before 
 you could say Jack Robinson, Kat's hook 
 flew around and caught in Kit's clothes and 
 pricked him.
 
 STORIES THAT MIGHT BE TRUE 89 
 
 Kit jumped and said "Ow!" And then 
 no one could ever tell how it happened 
 there was Kit in the water, too, splashing like 
 a young whale, with Kat's hook still holding 
 fast to his clothes in the back! 
 
 Grandfather jumped then, too, you may 
 be sure. He caught hold of Kat's rod and 
 pulled hard and called out, "Steady there, 
 steady!" 
 
 And in one minute there was Kit in the 
 shallow water beside the pier, puffing and 
 blowing like a grampus ! 
 
 Grandfather reached down and pulled him 
 up. 
 
 When Kit was safely on the pier, Kat 
 threw her arms around his neck, though the 
 water was running down in streams from his 
 hair and eyes and ears. 
 
 "O Kit," she said, "I truly thought it was 
 a fish on my line when I jumped!" 
 
 "Just like a g-g-girl," said Kit. "They 
 don't know how to f-f-fish." You see his teeth 
 were chattering, because the water was cold. 
 
 "Well, anyway," said Kat, "I caught more 
 than you did. I caught you!" 
 
 Then Kat thought of something else. She 
 shook her finger at Kit.
 
 90 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 "O Kit," she said, "mother told you not to 
 fall into the water!" 
 
 "'T-t-twas all your fault," roared Kit. 
 "Y-y-you began it! Anyway, where is your 
 new wooden shoe?" 
 
 "Where are both of yours?" screamed Kat. 
 
 Sure enough, where were they? No one 
 had thought about shoes, because they were 
 thinking so hard about Kit. 
 
 They ran to the end of the pier and looked. 
 There was Kat's shoe sailing away toward 
 America like a little boat! Kit's were still 
 bobing about in the water near the pier. 
 
 "Oh! Oh! Oh!" shrieked Kat; but the tide 
 was going out and carrying her shoe farther 
 away every minute. They could not get it; 
 but grandfather reached down with his rod 
 and fished out both of Kit's shoes. Then Kat 
 took off her other one and her stockings, and 
 they all three went back to the beach. 
 
 Grandfather and Kat covered Kit up with 
 sand to keep him warm while his clothes were 
 drying. Then grandfather stuck the Twins' 
 fish-poles up in the sand and tied the lines 
 together for a clothes-line, and hung Kit's 
 clothes up on it, and Kat put their three 
 wooden shoes in a row beside Kit.
 
 STORIES THAT MIGHT BE TRUE 91 
 
 Then they ate their luncheon of bread and 
 butter, cheese, and milk, with some radishes 
 from father's garden. It tasted very good, 
 even if it was sandy. After lunch grandfather 
 said, 
 
 "It will never do to go home without any 
 fish at all." 
 
 So by and by he went back to the pier and 
 caught one while the Twins played in the 
 sand. He put it in the lunch-basket to carry 
 home. 
 
 Kat brought shells and pebbles to Kit, be- 
 cause he had to stay covered up in the sand, 
 and Kit built a play dyke all around himself 
 with them, and Kat dug a canal outside the 
 dyke. Then she made sand-pies in clam-shells 
 and set them in a row in the sun to bake. 
 
 They played until the shadow of the dyke 
 grew very long across the sandy beach, and 
 then grandfather said it was time to go home. 
 
 He helped Kit dress, but Kit's clothes were 
 still a little wet in the thick parts. And Kat 
 had to go barefooted and carry her one 
 wooden shoe. 
 
 They climbed the dyke and crossed the 
 fields, and walked along the road by the canal. 
 The road shone, like a strip of yellow ribbon
 
 92 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 across the green field. They walked quite 
 slowly, for they were tired and sleepy. 
 
 By and by Kit said, "I see our house"; 
 and Kat said, "I see mother at the gate." 
 
 Grandfather gave the fish he caught to Kit 
 and Kat, and Vrouw Vedder cooked it for 
 their supper; and though it was not a very 
 big fish, they all had some. 
 
 Grandfather must have told Vrouw Ved- 
 der something about what had happened; 
 for that night, when she put Kit to bed, she 
 felt of his clothes carefully but she did n't 
 say a word about their being damp. And 
 she said to Kat: "To-morrow we will see 
 the shoemaker and have him make you an- 
 other shoe." 
 
 Then Kit and Kat hugged her and said 
 good-night, and popped off to sleep before 
 you could wink your eyes. 
 
 I want you to notice first the style in 
 which this chapter is written. So simple, 
 so clear, so direct, so flexible, so perfectly 
 adapted to little children that three-year- 
 olds adore the tale, and yet are you 
 bored by it? Is there any of the first-
 
 STORIES THAT MIGHT BE TRUE 93 
 
 reader "This is a cat. The cat has four 
 legs" English, which would wear you out 
 if you had to read much of it? How true 
 the picture painted by the simple words: 
 "She looked across the road which ran by 
 the house, across the canal on the other 
 side, across the level green fields that lay 
 beyond, clear to the blue rim of the world, 
 where the sky touches the earth. The sky 
 was very blue; and the great, round, 
 shining face of the sun was just peering 
 over the tops of the trees as she looked 
 out." 
 
 Would you have thought of attempting 
 to describe the dykes of Holland and its 
 commerce for tiny children? And yet how 
 perfectly is brought to their understand- 
 ing the wall that has to be there to shut 
 out the sea or "there wouldn't be any 
 Holland or any Holland Twins or any 
 story"; and the ships that "take flax and 
 linen from the mills of Holland to make
 
 94 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 dresses for little girls in other countries" 
 
 big things, big ideas brought to little 
 children in the concrete way that is the 
 way of giving new information to tiny 
 folk. The author's describing the wall 
 first making it interesting, making it 
 important to our little listener who thinks 
 himself the center of the universe and 
 her keeping the name of the dyke until 
 the last there again is understanding 
 of child mind as well as skill in handling 
 English. 
 
 Next note the story's particularity of 
 detail how youngsters delight in this! 
 The lunch was put up in the yellow basket 
 
 not in a basket, any basket; "the 
 grandfather carried his rod and the lunch- 
 basket, the Twins the basket of worms 
 between them and their rods over their 
 shoulders" from beginning to end there 
 is a most satisfying attention to such im- 
 portant items as these.
 
 STORIES THAT MIGHT BE TRUE 95 
 
 It is a happy home in which the Twins 
 live. They are wakened in the morning by 
 mother's kiss. Grandfather thinks it fun 
 to give his holiday for the small people's 
 pleasure. Mother does n't punish children 
 for an accident that means a lost shoe and 
 a soaking. 
 
 The incidents of the story are abso- 
 lutely natural and childlike; and what a 
 lot of fun there is! The hook's catching 
 and pricking Kit, grandfather's fishing 
 the youngster out of the water, the wet 
 clothes hung out on the improvised 
 clothes-line while the naked little twin 
 plays buried up to his arms in the warm 
 sand. What gay laughs our small listener 
 will have over these catastrophes ! 
 
 And then, this is one of the stories that 
 " open doors." Most of its incidents and 
 allusions sound familiar to our little lis- 
 tener. This is important. We proceed 
 "from the known to the unknown" in
 
 96 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 educating not only children but grown 
 people. By familiar child life set in novel 
 surroundings, with the strange scenes not 
 too swiftly introduced and described, we 
 have opened a door to a new interest. To 
 the end of his days quaint little Holland, 
 the land of dykes and canals and wooden 
 shoes and Dutch twins, will be no dull 
 geography lesson, no mere spot on the 
 map, but a country of vivid personal in- 
 terest to the big boy and the man who 
 listened to mother's reading of this story 
 in childhood. 
 
 I have not spoken of the delightful il- 
 lustrations of "The Dutch Twins" be- 
 cause it would be piling on impossible 
 demands to say that every author should 
 illustrate her own books as profusely and 
 effectively as has Mrs. Perkins. Would n't 
 it be ideal if such a demand could be met? 
 
 You will notice, if you make the test, 
 that this story has a positive, a good
 
 STORIES THAT MIGHT BE TRUE 97 
 
 quality for every "Don't" of the preced- 
 ing chapter. Try by this test every book 
 you read to your children. You will not 
 long need the simple language of the 
 "Twins," because children who listen 
 daily to good reading grow with astonish- 
 ing rapidity in vocabulary and mental 
 grasp. 
 
 The thought of choosing books which 
 will open doors to new interest leads us 
 directly into the subject of the next 
 chapter, travel and history stories for lit- 
 tle people.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 TRAVEL AND HISTORY STORIES 
 
 One day when I was eleven or twelve 
 years of age, strolling into my best friend's 
 house I caught sight of a green-and-gold 
 covered book bearing the fascinating title 
 "The Prince and the Pauper." Opening 
 to the frontispiece I beheld a silk-and- 
 jewel clad prince approaching a tattered 
 lad of his own age, while a big man-at- 
 arms at rigid attention stood near. 
 
 A second later and I was three thousand 
 miles and more than three hundred years 
 away from my apparent surroundings, 
 following with breathless absorption the 
 fortunes of the boy King Edward VI of 
 England, fortunes so strangely inter- 
 woven by the wonderful story-teller with 
 those of his ragged subject Tom Canty.
 
 TRAVEL AND HISTORY STORIES 99 
 
 I have no idea how many times I have 
 read that entrancing story, but I know 
 I shall never outgrow its effect. I smile 
 at the memory of my girlish indignation 
 when I opened my first English history 
 textbook and found the reign of my boy 
 king disposed of in three brief pages ! All 
 other history might be dull, but anything, 
 anywhere, about Edward and his father 
 Henry VIII, and his sisters Elizabeth and 
 Mary, about Lady Jane Grey his cousin 
 and Hertford Lord Protector, about Lon- 
 don of the sixteenth century and the cus- 
 toms and institutions of the times, con- 
 nect a character or an occurrence with this 
 story and immediately it took on vivid 
 interest. When I began to study general 
 history, I mentally dated important Eu- 
 ropean events as so many years before or 
 after the reign of Edward. This early 
 awakened interest in the Tudor period 
 follows me even now. Only lately, for ex-
 
 100 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 ample, I discovered Harrison Ainsworth's 
 nice, old-fashioned novels, because, hap- 
 pening to glance into "The Tower of Lon- 
 don," I noticed "Lady Jane Grey" on the 
 first page. That settled my carrying the 
 book to the charging desk, and going back 
 shortly for "Windsor Castle," a story of 
 Henry VIII. 
 
 When I took my first wonderful trip 
 abroad a few years since, it was natural 
 enough though unpremeditated that 
 the English part of the trip should become 
 a sort of "Prince and the Pauper" pil- 
 grimage; but I also learned some new 
 things about the influence of a child's 
 story books on an adult's likings. 
 
 From the minute I took my first walk 
 upon the walls of an ancient city, and 
 when I crossed a grassy moat to step under 
 the portcullis of a grim feudal castle, from 
 those first hours in old England to the day 
 before my return sailing, when, in Paris,
 
 TRAVEL AND HISTORY STORIES 101 
 
 the name Rue Roget de Lisle on a street 
 corner sent the shivers along my spi- 
 nal column as I thought of the stirring 
 happenings which the singing of the 
 "Marseillaise" has always occasioned in 
 France, all through my happy travels 
 I kept finding that the things I enjoyed 
 most were those I had known about and 
 loved when I was a child. In the tired dog 
 dragging a milk-cart through the streets 
 of Brussels, I beheld the original of "The 
 Dog of Flanders." Each German castle 
 crowning a rocky height made me picture 
 within its walls the gentle "Dove" who 
 came to live in just such an "Eagle's 
 Nest" of robber barons hundreds of years 
 ago. After a long day's ride across Ger- 
 many I chuckled with glee when sweet- 
 faced Schwester Augusta left me in a 
 room having a tall white porcelain stove 
 in one corner. It was a warm July day and 
 I had no occasion whatever for needing a
 
 102 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 fire, but was not a porcelain stove, even 
 one of plain white tiles, at least a distant 
 cousin to the wonderful Hirschvogel in 
 the story of "The Niirnberg Stove"? 
 
 Comparing notes with many others I 
 find that my experience is typical of that 
 of most adults who spent many childish 
 hours in story books. You will not won- 
 der, therefore, that I believe firmly in the 
 romantic story as a starting-point for a 
 child's interest in history and travel., Ad- 
 mirable accounts of historical events, 
 descriptions of the customs or scenery of 
 a country pale before the story of a hero 
 or heroine who lives in the midst of those 
 events or scenes. 
 
 Little "Heidi" of the Swiss Alps, 
 " Peep-in-the- World " who spent such a 
 delightful holiday in Germany, funny 
 "Donkey John" the little wood carver 
 of the "Toy Valley" in the Tyrol, if 
 all children grew up with such stories as
 
 TRAVEL AND HISTORY STORIES 103 
 
 these, we librarians should not encounter 
 the narrow reading interests common to 
 many of our boys and girls to-day. A lit- 
 tle girl, glancing into a book called "Two 
 Royal Foes," remarked to the children's 
 librarian, "You'd know that book was no 
 good because the minute you look into it 
 you see the word 'Prussia'!" (This inci- 
 dent took place years before the great 
 war. The child was merely voicing her 
 colossal indifference to anything that bore 
 a foreign name.) Two big boys return- 
 ing from a trip around the world were 
 asked by a Scotch friend of mine, "Well, 
 boys, how did you like my Edinburgh?" 
 "Edinburgh? Edinburgh?" said one of 
 the boys, wrinkling his forehead: then 
 turning to his brother, he asked, "Say, 
 Jack, that's the place we bought those 
 golf stockings, is n't it?" 
 
 The trouble with those children was 
 that their fathers and mothers did not
 
 104 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 early (choose songs and pictures and stories 
 that would have made foreign names rich 
 with possibilities of interest. A young 
 child who hears his mother sing the ten- 
 der and stirring Scotch ballads, who lives 
 in the pictures of Caldecott and Green- 
 away, Oscar Pletsch and Boutet de Mon- 
 vel, who listens to tales of Curtius and 
 Joan of Arc, Tell and Bruce and Hia- 
 watha, becomes a heart-dweller in these 
 lands of song and picture and story; and 
 this love for the picturesque in history 
 and travel is the first step on the road to 
 an interest in facts and dates and philo- 
 sophical history and in descriptions of 
 others lands and peoples. 
 
 After you have kindled their interest, 
 the children will show what next to do, 
 because they will be so full of questions 
 that you will have but to follow their 
 lead. If there is a good public library in 
 your town, the reference librarian will be
 
 TRAVEL AND HISTORY STORIES 105 
 
 your best friend. Are the children living 
 in the Rome of faithless Tarpeia and faith- 
 ful Damon and Pythias, of Romulus and 
 Remus and Androcles the lion's friend? 
 Bring home volumes from the shelves of 
 Roman history and antiquities, books 
 whose illustrations will give the houses 
 and the amphitheaters and the temples, 
 warriors in full armor, triumphal prog- 
 resses, vestal virgins and galley slaves, 
 ships and market-places and sumptuous 
 Roman feasts. You have only to remark 
 that these books contain pictures of an- 
 cient Rome which may be seen by any 
 child who has clean hands and who will 
 turn the leaves carefully, and you will be 
 kept busy for days answering questions; 
 and some years hence the Roman history 
 lessons of your high-school son and daugh- 
 ter will be a happy renewal of acquaint- 
 ance with old friends, instead of a text- 
 book grind.
 
 106 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 Perhaps at this point I ought to say 
 that I do not advise reading "The Prince 
 and the Pauper" to little children, for 
 fear that its richness of allusion might be 
 confusing even to those used to the best 
 reading. Firmly as I believe that we more 
 often err in holding back than by pushing 
 ahead bright-minded children, it is pos- 
 sible to go too fast; and it would be al- 
 most a tragedy to give a child a lasting 
 dislike for a thing so beautiful as the 
 above, by choosing the wrong time for the 
 first reading. The mother herself, from 
 her familiarity with her child and the 
 book under consideration, must decide 
 when the right time has come to introduce 
 the new story.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 NATURE BOOKS 
 
 A comfortable old horse was jogging 
 along a country road bearing villageward 
 a lad of nine, his mother and aunt, who 
 had been spending a day at a friend's 
 lakeside bungalow. It was the twilight 
 hour and over the lonely stretch of woods 
 through which they were passing the very 
 spirit of peace seemed to brood. 
 
 Suddenly the boy's mother drew rein 
 exclaiming, " Hark ! There 's a wood thrush 
 singing his evening song." 
 
 From the depths of the woods came 
 the notes, so thrillingly sweet, so poign- 
 antly sad, that one can scarcely hear 
 them without a lump in the throat. We 
 listened, almost breathless, till the lovely 
 song ended, and then drove on, our boy
 
 108 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 a youngster still in the primitive sav- 
 age stage of development as silent as 
 we grown-ups in the sweet hush of the 
 hour. 
 
 Months later, in their city home, I 
 was reading to the children our favor- 
 ite country story, "Jolly Good Times," a 
 wonderfully perfect picture of child life 
 on a New England farm. We came to 
 this description of the close of one of 
 Millie's and Teddy's summer days: 
 
 Later, when Lois and Chettie had gone 
 home, Millie went with Teddy to drive the 
 cows to pasture. The sun had set, but all the 
 low-lying clouds along the western mountains 
 were still bright with rosy light. Belated 
 birds were flying in all directions, seeking 
 their homes for the night. Their songs had 
 ceased. There was only a faint, chippering, 
 twittering sound, as they subsided into their 
 nests. 
 
 Suddenly Teddy caught Millie's arm. 
 
 "Stop!" he said, "Hark, a minute! There's 
 my bird."
 
 NATURE BOOKS 109 
 
 Way off, from the woods across the river 
 came the sweet, melancholy notes of a wood 
 thrush. They listened as the twilight seemed 
 to throb and quiver with the melody. . . . 
 
 I looked up, smiling, into the eyes of 
 our nine-year-old. How those eyes glowed 
 back into mine as our young savage 
 breathed a long "Ah-h-h! That's slick"! 
 " Slick" I perfectly understood to be 
 " boy " for the beauty and the feeling and 
 the poetry which I knew to be buried 
 deep in the heart of this most unroman- 
 tic appearing youngster. 
 
 If I were able to dictate the "bringing- 
 up" of a child which would insure his 
 becoming deeply interested in the won- 
 derland of nature, I should arrange for 
 his having a mother like the one possessed 
 by the above fortunate children, a woman 
 having the scientist's enthusiasm and ex- 
 act habits of observation, a deep reverence 
 for God's wonderful works, and the under-
 
 110 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 standing tact of a loving student of child 
 nature. 
 
 The family may be seated at the din- 
 ner table when this mother exclaims, 
 " Children, I verily believe I see a parula 
 warbler!" The "parula warbler," it ap- 
 pears, is a very rare visitor in these parts, 
 so unusual, indeed, as to justify the fam- 
 ily 's leaving the table, getting out the 
 bird glasses, and taking a good look at the 
 stranger. After the children resume their 
 seats the mother reads from her Blanchan 
 and Chapman descriptions of the new 
 bird ; and when dessert is finally over the 
 little daughter, who "takes music les- 
 sons," gets the book on "Wild Birds and 
 their Music" to see if Mr. Matthews tells 
 her how to reproduce parula warbler's 
 notes on the piano. This time the book 
 disappoints her, for the new acquaint- 
 ance is so insignificant a songster that 
 his notes are not given.
 
 NATURE BOOKS 111 
 
 Out in the garden, poking about among 
 her beloved growing things, the mother 
 calls, " Children, come here and see this 
 little creature." The children leave the 
 swing, or the tea party on the back porch, 
 or the "shoot the shute" in the maple 
 tree, and eagerly stoop close to notice a 
 caterpillar that lives on the parsley and 
 carrot leaves. The little creature is so 
 marked with green, white, and yellow, 
 resembling the green, lacy foliage with 
 the sunshine and shadows falling be- 
 tween the narrow fringes of the leaves, 
 that he is almost indistinguishable. This, 
 mother tells, is an example of nature's 
 protective coloring, and the fascinating 
 subject is pursued in books that tell about 
 animals who wear coats of snow color in 
 winter and woods colors in summer and 
 about many other wonderful provisions 
 of Mother Nature. 
 
 Strolling along a country road bordered
 
 112 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 by delightful wild growth the mother 
 points out a "jewel casket that has no 
 lock and key, but if you touch its secret 
 spring the jewels will fly out for you." 
 This starts the children on the search for 
 all sorts of curious seed travelers, seeds 
 with wings and seeds with sails, prickly 
 seeds that cling to animals who thus 
 carry them to new planting ground, and 
 so on. 
 
 After a rain the children have a clear 
 little illustration of the action of water in 
 carving the earth's surface. Deep val- 
 leys and canyons are shown to have been 
 formed in the same way, on a large scale, 
 as the little valleys and canyons in the 
 children's own yard. 
 
 And, perhaps, of all the natural sci- 
 ences this mother thinks most of the 
 study of astronomy, for, believing that 
 facts stored in the mind are of little im- 
 portance as compared with the effect of
 
 NATURE BOOKS 113 
 
 knowledge upon the heart and soul, she 
 thinks the study of the heavens pecul- 
 iarly fitted to give the child thoughts 
 that reach up to God. 
 
 If you ask me to suggest a book that 
 will be certain to kindle a child's interest 
 in the people of Switzerland, I can safely 
 answer, " Read Johanna Spyri's 'Heidi.' " 
 If you ask how to make nature lovers and 
 observers of children, I must answer that 
 no book or books can be depended upon 
 to accomplish this. A mother or other 
 sympathetic adult who has at least an 
 elementary acquaintance with the nat- 
 ural sciences, and who is willing to study 
 enough to keep ahead of her children, 
 must, in ways like the above, rouse the 
 children's interest in the animals, the 
 plants, the stars themselves. After this, 
 and always along with this personal in- 
 troduction, books will be perfect mines 
 of delight. Not "juvenile" books so
 
 114 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 much as the mother's own reference li- 
 brary, however. 
 
 A list called "Some Nature Books for 
 Mothers and Children" is published by 
 the Children's Museum of the Brooklyn 
 Institute of Arts and Sciences. About 
 ninety titles are given, and one may find 
 not one but a number of books on rep- 
 tiles, on shells, on fishes, pond life, moths, 
 wasps, spiders, ferns, mushrooms, garden 
 vegetables, trees in winter as well as in 
 summer, and so on. Mothers and fathers 
 outside of Brooklyn will at any time be 
 helped with advice if they apply to the 
 above unique and interesting museum. 
 
 An adult beginner who wishes a com- 
 pact, authoritative, fairly popular and 
 not very expensive book on each of a 
 half-dozen subjects most likely to appeal 
 to children will make no mistake in add- 
 ing to her library the following :
 
 NATURE BOOKS 115 
 
 On Birds 
 
 Chapman, F. M. Handbook of Birds of Eastern 
 North America. Appleton. $3.50. 
 
 Bailey, Mrs. F. M. Handbook of Birds of the West- 
 ern United States. Houghton. $3.50. 
 
 On Insects 
 Comstock, J. H. Insect Life. Appleton. $1.75. 
 
 On Wild Flowers 
 Dana, Mrs. F. T. How to Know the Wild Flowers. 
 Scribner. $2. 
 
 On Trees 
 Keeler, H. L. Our Native Trees and How to Iden- 
 tify Them. Scribner. $2. 
 
 On Geology 
 Brigham, A. P. Textbook of Geology. Appleton. 
 $1.40 net. 
 
 On Astronomy 
 Clarke, E. C. Astronomy from a Dipper. Hough- 
 ton. $.60. 
 
 In a later chapter, among books rec- 
 ommended for the children's own library, 
 I will give a few titles of "juvenile" na- 
 ture books interesting enough for gen-
 
 116 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 eral reading even if one has no leaning 
 to the subject. Judging by what we have 
 to choose from, it is uncommon for the 
 person who is an authority on a branch 
 of science to possess also an understand- 
 ing of children and a gift of style. Unless 
 it is as well done as in the case of "The 
 Prince and His Ants," a writer only con- 
 fuses children and makes his information 
 useless by attempting to give his facts 
 in the guise of a fairy tale. Look for 
 books that give information in clear, 
 straightforward language, with such oc- 
 casional bits of imagination and compari- 
 son with familiar human life as will help 
 to capture and hold the interest of little 
 children. 
 
 Seek books whose science is accurate, 
 yet remember always that to kindle a 
 child's love for the Heavenly Father's 
 creatures is far more important than to 
 teach him to dissect and name their parts.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 BOOKS OF OCCUPATIONS AND GAMES 
 
 On one of the lovely bays that indent the 
 coast of the "Country of the Pointed 
 Firs" there is a sheltered nook so beau- 
 tiful that I withhold its name lest fashion 
 come to appropriate and spoil the place 
 for a little group who annually fly from 
 the city's work to recuperate spirit and 
 body in the heavenly loveliness of earth 
 and sea and sky. 
 
 Among the attractions of the spot to 
 those fortunate enough to be invited 
 within the circle are the charming girls 
 and boys whose fathers and mothers 
 have found this summer home. 
 
 Dearly as we Americans love our chil- 
 dren, there is no denying the fact that 
 most of us have not yet learned how not
 
 118 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 to spoil them. If the agent of a summer 
 resort were to advertise as a chief attrac- 
 tion the presence of numbers of children 
 between the ages of six and twelve, who 
 might be counted upon to accompany 
 adult visitors on all sailing trips and pic- 
 nics and country tramps; who would join 
 in conversations and games and fireside 
 concerts ; one can imagine that that 
 vacation place would be given a wide 
 berth, not merely by those who frankly 
 dislike children, but by the very people 
 who are devoting their lives to making 
 conditions happier and better for the 
 little ones they love. 
 
 Unhappily familiar as we all are with 
 the enfant terrible whose sacred right to 
 develop freely is interpreted by most 
 parents as an inalienable right to trample 
 upon the liberties of adults, it is most re- 
 freshing to find one spot where boys and 
 girls, trained by fathers and mothers pos-
 
 BOOKS OF OCCUPATIONS 119 
 
 sessing a genius for parenthood, enter so 
 happily into the life of the community 
 that departing visitors, without stretch- 
 ing the truth, assure the parents that their 
 vacation pleasures have been enhanced 
 many fold by the presence of the charm- 
 ing children. 
 
 One of the causes contributing to the 
 above delightful result is that these chil- 
 dren have been trained to a resourceful- 
 ness truly remarkable. The youngsters 
 can "do" more things with their bodies 
 and brains than most people would be- 
 lieve possible to be done by children of 
 their ages. They were all born, too, be- 
 fore America went into hysterics over the 
 teachings of a certain foreign lady, hailed 
 as a prophet by women who seem to have 
 lost the art of their grandmothers in 
 bringing up children. 
 
 A year or two ago one of the boys of 
 Cove stood watching his mother
 
 120 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 as she deftly concocted one of his favorite 
 dishes. Presently he exclaimed, "Mother, 
 I'd like to learn to make muffins!" 
 
 There is one kind of mother who would 
 have answered the lad, "Oh, you'd get 
 flour and grease all over the kitchen. I 
 can't have you messing round my stove. 
 It's too much trouble to teach you. I'd 
 rather do the work myself." 
 
 A mother of a more indulgent sort 
 would have submitted to the "messing," 
 complying part way with the boy's desire 
 by allowing him to help, but by no means 
 to learn the whole interesting process. 
 
 Still another mother would have ex- 
 claimed, "What, a boy in the kitchen 
 baking! This is women's and girls' work, 
 not boys', and men's. You don't want 
 to be a girly boy!" 
 
 Arthur's mother was different. She 
 knew that it was a trouble to teach a be- 
 ginner, and that messing the kitchen was
 
 BOOKS OF OCCUPATIONS 121 
 
 an inevitable stage in a young cook's 
 progress. She, however, believed in the 
 all-round training of every human; she 
 knew that the very best time for teaching 
 any new thing is the time when the child 
 himself wants to learn it; and she looked 
 into the future, to emergencies when the 
 boy's and man's ability to cook might 
 be vitally useful to himself and to others 
 dependent upon him. 
 
 So Arthur learned to make first-rate 
 muffins. And now, on many a summer 
 morning, the children steal softly and 
 gleefully down the bare, sweet-smelling 
 stairs, and while Arthur acts as chef, lit- 
 tlest sister sets the table, nine-year-old 
 brings on the luscious blueberries, the 
 country cream and the shredded wheat. 
 By the time father comes to make the 
 coffee, breakfast is ready in the beauti- 
 ful bungalow living-room, flooded with 
 morning sunshine and sweet with odors
 
 YB, READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 of pine and sea; and mother is proudly 
 escorted to her place by the family who 
 delight to hear her exclaim at their allow- 
 ing her to be so lazy as to sleep until this 
 late hour. 
 
 Of course it is good for children, the 
 untrammeled life in a summer home, 
 where sailing, rowing, motor-boating, ca- 
 noeing, and swimming may be daily en- 
 joyed; where one may collect specimens 
 from the beach at low tide, or from woods 
 and fields skirting the rocky shore; where 
 to familiarity with sea life is added the 
 charm of being at home in farm and gar- 
 den; where one assists at clam-bakes and 
 making hot bacon sandwiches, at con- 
 structing a dressing-table and building an 
 ice-house; where one moulds dishes from 
 one's own claybank and bakes the same 
 in a miniature oven built just above high- 
 water mark ; where the sea provides neck- 
 laces for doll children and the roadside
 
 BOOKS OF OCCUPATIONS 123 
 
 burrs to make doll furniture; where but 
 there is positively no limit to the possi- 
 bilities of educating those children to use 
 every faculty God has given them. 
 
 The girls swim as well as the boys, and 
 handle the boats as skillfully. The boys 
 have never heard that for a male creature 
 to touch a needle is evidence of weakness. 
 The same manly boy of eleven whose cool- 
 ness and courage saved a boatful of peo- 
 ple from disaster, with a twinkle of fun 
 contributed an excellent piece of embroid- 
 ery to the "fair" annually held in the 
 tiny church on the hill. Simple "first aid " 
 lessons have been absorbed to such pur- 
 pose that when one of the little girls cut 
 her finger rather badly, none of the grown- 
 ups being near, a twelve-year-old used the 
 peroxide, the absorbent cotton and the 
 surgical tape as cleverly as his mother 
 would have done. 
 
 In parlor games as well as out of doors,
 
 124 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 these children, by intimate association 
 with adults, learn initiative, resourceful- 
 ness, and mental quickness, to be equally 
 free from self-consciousness and from for- 
 wardness, to take defeat like good sports- 
 men. They are learning, in short, how 
 to become delightful contributing mem- 
 bers of social gatherings. 
 
 Now the time to begin training a child 
 to enjoy himself without constant tend- 
 ing is in his earliest years. Too many 
 American mothers needed Montessori to 
 tell them that a child wants to do things 
 for himself, that he feels baffled, defraud- 
 ed, when impatient or misunderstanding 
 adults take the shoe-tying out of his 
 bungling fingers, and at the same time take 
 away opportunities for the child to learn 
 control of his muscles and control of his 
 will. 
 
 Any mother with the best will in the 
 world to employ the busy little minds and
 
 BOOKS OF OCCUPATIONS 125 
 
 fingers would run out of ideas if she could 
 not draw upon others' experiences for help. 
 We were never so fortunate as to-day in 
 the number of excellent books of occupa- 
 tions and games available. While most of 
 these are written for children above eight 
 or nine years of age, there are a few well 
 adapted for the use of mothers of the 
 younger children. 
 
 A book which tells one how to get 
 hours and hours of fun out of material 
 usually treated as waste is twice valuable 
 it saves the dollars for parents who 
 have not many to spend, and it shows the 
 children that a department store and a 
 full purse are not necessary for amusement 
 if one is a person of ideas. Such a book is 
 one by Bertha Johnston, called "Home 
 Occupations for Little Children." How 
 to make a toy fence out of a strawberry- 
 box, how to make a potato horse, a corn- 
 cob house, a seed necklace, a clothes-pin
 
 126 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 doll, a cork table; about collecting and 
 classifying pebbles, leaves, etc., about 
 games and celebrations of festival days 
 these are hints of the suggestions for 
 mothers which this little book gives ; in a 
 way, too, to make one think of the prin- 
 ciples underlying the choice of occupa- 
 tions and materials. This book should be 
 on the mother's shelf when the little one 
 is hardly out of babyhood. 
 
 To supplement the above, as the baby 
 grows to be five or six years old, choose 
 Beard's "Little Folks' Handy Book." 
 The profuse illustrations and clear dia- 
 grams help to explain how to make paper 
 jewelry, old envelope toys, visiting card 
 houses, Christmas tree decorations, In- 
 dian costumes of newspapers, and many 
 other things. 
 
 One of the best on its subject for the 
 younger children is Lucas's " Three Hun- 
 dred Games and Pastimes, or, What
 
 BOOKS OF OCCUPATIONS 127 
 
 shall we do now." Here are games old 
 and new, games for the fireside and for the 
 garden, games to play in the train, on a 
 picnic, at the seaside, even games to play 
 alone and in bed. There are suggestions, 
 too, about things to make and do, and 
 this book will entertain the children for 
 their evenings and rainy days until they 
 grow old enough to borrow "harder" 
 books from the public library. 
 
 Rich's "When Mother Lets Us Make 
 Paper-Box Furniture" is particularly sat- 
 isfactory. The pictures show exactly the 
 necessary stages in the transformation of 
 a box into a doll's piano, a bookcase, a 
 chiffonier, a stove, as the case may be. 
 The directions tell just what kind of boxes 
 to use and what outfit of tools is neces- 
 sary. Materials are so inexpensive and 
 results so satisfactory that this little vol- 
 ume pays its way many times over. 
 
 There are two housekeeping books,
 
 128 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 clear, simple, and attractive enough to be 
 used even with seven-year-olds. These are 
 Johnson's "When Mother Lets Us Help," 
 and Ralston's "When Mother Lets Us 
 Sew." These will make housework look 
 interesting to any child. No wonder it 
 becomes monotonous to "help" always 
 and only by wiping the spoons, dusting 
 the chair-legs, and similar over-and-over 
 practices. Such employment is about as 
 educative as piece-work in a factory. Let 
 the children learn whole processes, and 
 once more, do not be afraid of their be- 
 ginning early. 
 
 If one is lucky enough to have an "out- 
 doors," Mary Duncan's "When Mother 
 Lets Us Garden" is as inviting as it is 
 practical and helpful. From the happy 
 occupation of coaxing things to grow in 
 one's own little patch of ground it is an 
 easy step to making friends with all of 
 Mother Nature's children.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 BUYING THE LIBRARY 
 
 It is now time for the list of books which 
 are to be bought for the nursery bookshelf. 
 Used as I am to the task, it is always diffi- 
 cult to come down to the positiveness of 
 a short list, because of the necessary ex- 
 clusion of fine books which it hurts one to 
 leave out. The list must be short to be 
 practical, since the average father of these 
 expensive children will be unable to spend 
 many dollars a year on their library, and 
 of course those dollars must be made to 
 buy the richest library possible. I shall 
 name more titles than this "average" 
 family could afford, but few people are 
 entirely out of reach of public libraries, 
 which will lend what one cannot own. 
 Suppose one has a number of poetry
 
 130 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 collections from which to choose. All are 
 so well selected that it is hard to say that 
 one is better than another in quality. 
 
 We must first see whether these collec- 
 tions practically duplicate one another, 
 or whether it is necessary to buy two or 
 more in order to cover all the varieties of 
 poetry we wish to give the children. 
 
 We will next let the price question help 
 us decide. Here is Number One costing 
 $2 and very similar, except for unneces- 
 sarily costly make-up, to Number Two 
 at $1.25. Number Three is as well se- 
 lected as Number Two and is, moreover, 
 a larger collection. But Number Three 
 is printed on poorer paper than Number 
 Two (and will therefore wear out faster), 
 its type is rather forbiddingly fine, and 
 there are no illustrations. A poetry col- 
 lection does not need illustrations, but 
 those in Number Two are quaint and 
 interesting so that they really add to the
 
 BUYING THE LIBRARY 131 
 
 value of the book. Collection Number 
 Four costs only 75 cents, but it has less 
 than half as many poems as Number 
 Two, at $1.25; Number Five is too 
 bulky; Number Six is very poorly illus- 
 trated. Finally we decide to buy Num- 
 ber Two. 
 
 This may illustrate slightly the method 
 by which we arrive at a decision to in- 
 clude one title and reject another. The 
 result does not mean necessarily that the 
 title included is the one good book of its 
 kind, but rather that, all things consid- 
 ered, it is best for our purpose. 
 
 Where there are several good editions 
 of a book obtainable I have named those 
 of different prices unless I have felt that 
 a certain one is decidedly better than the 
 others, "all things considered." If you 
 can afford to get all the best editions of 
 all these books, your children are fortu- 
 nate; but I should prefer to buy all the
 
 132 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 titles, rather thrfn get a $2.50 "Golden 
 Staircase" and no "Posy Ring." * 
 
 A beautifully made volume is an edu- 
 cation in taste, and a very ^unattractive 
 edition may prejudice a child against a 
 classic. At the same time, the literary 
 content of the book is the only real essen- 
 tial; and if you teach your children to 
 think that anything between two covers 
 may be a shining delight, you may bring 
 home a shop-worn bargain, a ten-cent 
 " iEsop " or a twenty-five cent " Alice," 
 and be thankful for the chance, if it is a 
 question of the cheap book or none at all. 
 
 I dislike to make graded lists, since one 
 of my pet hobbies is that each individual 
 child should be allowed to develop as fast 
 as his own nature impels him. I know a 
 little girl who at two years and seven 
 months wanted Kipling's "Just So Sto- 
 ries" read (not told) to her every night. 
 I know another who knew "The Jungle
 
 BUYING THE LIBRARY 133 
 
 Book" almost by heart at the age of four. 
 A boy of seven delighted in Clodd's 
 " Childhood of the World," a serious 
 though clearly written account of prehis- 
 toric man; and another lad of the same 
 age adored Lamb's "Adventures of Ulys- 
 ses," which is practically Chapman's 
 translation of Homer's Odyssey, unal- 
 tered except by omissions. If I were to 
 grade the above books according to pub- 
 lic-school standards, I should not dare 
 list the three last below the grammar 
 grades. Neither should I think it reason- 
 able to say that all children should be 
 given them at ages when they were liked 
 by the children mentioned, even though 
 those were perfectly normal, healthy 
 youngsters, no one of whom could be 
 called precocious. 
 
 I do not believe in any Procrustean 
 method of supplying books to children 
 when we know that even those of the
 
 134 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 same family and the same environment 
 develop differently. 
 
 However, the lists will be thought un- 
 satisfactory if I do not suggest some sort 
 of an age guide. I will therefore grade 
 them according to my observation of the 
 likings of children of my acquaintance, 
 brought up by parents unafraid of fling- 
 ing the fodder high for their bright young- 
 sters to reach. 
 
 I suggest buying the books listed below 
 in the order given; for example, Calde- 
 cott's nursery rhymes first of the picture 
 books, "Dutchie Doings" one or two 
 years later making sure of getting some 
 titles from each group of subjects. 
 
 BOOKS FOE CHILDREN UNDER THREE 
 YEARS OF AGE 
 
 Poetry 
 Stevenson, Robert Louis. A Child's Garden of 
 Verses. 
 
 Among many good editions are those illus- 
 trated by Storer (Scribner. $1.50) and by Mars 
 and Squire (Rand. $.50).
 
 BUYING THE LIBRARY 135 
 
 Picture Books; Mother Goose; Fairy Tales. 
 Caldecott, Randolph. Hey Diddle Diddle. Warne. 
 $.25. 
 
 The House that Jack Built. Warne. $.25. 
 Sing a Song for Sixpence. Warne. $.25. 
 Potter, Beatrix. Tale of Peter Rabbit. Warne. 
 $.50. 
 
 Also Tales of Benjamin Bunny, Jemima 
 Puddleduck, Mr. Jeremy Fisher, Squirrel Nut- 
 kin, Tom Kitten, and others, at $.50 each. 
 Brooke, L. Leslie. Johnny Crow's Garden. Warne. 
 
 $1. 
 Greenaway, Kate. Mother Goose. Warne. $.60. 
 
 Under the Window. Warne. $1.50. 
 Lefevre, Felicite. The Cock, the Mouse and the 
 
 Little Red Hen. Jacobs. $1. 
 Smith, E. Boyd. The Chicken World. Putnam. 
 
 $1.50. 
 Parkinson, Ethel. Dutchie Doings. Dodge. $1. 
 Lucas, E. V., and Bedford, F. D. Four and 
 
 Twenty Toilers. McDevitt- Wilson. $1.75. 
 Brooke, L. Leslie. The Three Bears. Warne. $.40. 
 
 The Three Little Pigs. Warne. $.40. 
 JEsop. Fables. 
 
 The following are good editions : 
 
 Baby's Own JEsoy. Illustrated by Crane. 
 Warne. $1.50. 
 
 Book of Fables. Chosen by Scudder. Hough- 
 ton. $.50.
 
 136 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 Fables. Illustrated by Rackham. Double- 
 day. $1.50. 
 Kipling, Rudyard. Just So Stories. Scribner. 
 $1.50. 
 
 Stories that might be true 
 Perkins, Lucy Fitch. The Dutch Twins. Hough- 
 ton. $.50. 
 
 The Japanese Twins. Houghton. $.50. 
 Hopkins, W. J. The Sandman; His Farm Stories. 
 Page. $1.50. 
 
 The Sandman; More Farm Stories. Page. 
 $1.50. 
 
 BOOKS FOR CHILDREN THREE TO FIVE 
 YEARS OLD 
 
 Poetry 
 Our Children's Songs. Harper. $1.25. 
 Wiggin, Kate Douglas, and Smith, Nora A. The 
 Posy Ring. Doubleday. $1.25. 
 
 Picture Books 
 Smith, E. Boyd. The Farm Book. Houghton. 
 $1.50. 
 
 The Seashore Book. Houghton. $1.50. 
 Moffat, A. E. Our Old Nursery Rhymes. Illus- 
 trated by Le Mair. McKay. $1.50. 
 
 Little Songs of Long Ago. Illustrated by Le 
 Mair. McKay. $1.50.
 
 BUYING THE LIBRARY 137 
 
 Fairy Tales 
 Lorenzini, Carlo. Adventures of Pinocchio. Ginn. 
 $.40. 
 
 An edition illustrated by Copeland (Ginn. 
 $1) is good. So also is one illustrated by Folk- 
 ard (Dutton. $ .50). 
 Kingsley, Charles. Water Babies. Ginn. $.35. 
 Also an edition illustrated by Goble (Mac- 
 millan. $2). 
 Grimm, J. L. K. and W. K. Fairy Tales. Illus- 
 trated by Rackham. Doubleday. $1.50. 
 
 Household Stories. Illustrated by Crane. 
 Macmillan. $1.50. 
 
 Houghton publishes a 40-cent edition. 
 Kipling, Rudyard. Jungle Book. Century. $1.50. 
 Second Jungle Book. Century. $1.50. 
 
 Bible 
 
 Moulton, R. G. Bible Stories: Old Testament. Mac- 
 millan. $.50. 
 
 Kelman, J. H. Stories from the Life of Christ. 
 Dutton. $.50. 
 
 Stories that might be true 
 Abbott, Jacob. Franconia Stories (part). Harper. 
 $.60 each. 
 
 Malleville. Caroline. 
 
 Beechnut. Agnes. 
 
 Siuyvesant.
 
 138 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 Ward, Mrs. Humphry. M illy and Oily. Double- 
 day. $1.20. 
 
 BOOKS FOR CHILDREN FIVE TO SEVEN 
 YEARS OLD 
 
 Picture Books 
 Boutet de Monvel, L. M. Joan of Arc. Century. 
 $3. 
 
 Poetry 
 Chisholm, Louey. The Golden Staircase. Putnam. 
 Editions at $1, $1.75, and $2.50. 
 
 Bible 
 The Bible for Young People. Century. $1.50. 
 
 Fairy Tales; Other Famous Stories 
 
 Harris, Joel Chandler. Uncle Remus; His Songs 
 and His Sayings. Appleton. $2. 
 
 Andersen, Hans Christian. Fairy Tales. Illus- 
 trated by Stratton. Lippincott. $1.25. 
 
 Kingsley, Charles. The Heroes; or, Greek Fairy 
 Tales. Ginn. $.30. 
 
 Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Wonder-Book. Houghton. 
 $.75. 
 
 Tanglewood Tales. Houghton. $.75. 
 Many editions obtainable. 
 
 Dodgson, C. L. (Lewis Carroll, pseud.) Alice's 
 Adventures in Wonderland and Through the 
 Looking-Glass. Illustrated by Tenniel. Mac- 
 millan. $.50.
 
 BUYING THE LIBRARY 139 
 
 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Illus- 
 trated by Rackham. Doubleday. $1.40. 
 Craik, D. M. (Mulock). Little Lame Prince. Il- 
 lustrated by Dunlap. Rand. $1.25. 
 Howells, W. D. Christmas Every Day. Harper. 
 
 $1.25. 
 Pyle, Howard. Pepper and Salt. Harper. $1.50. 
 
 Wonder Clock. Harper. $2. 
 Cervantes-Saavedra. Don Quixote. Retold by 
 
 Parry; illustrated by Crane. Lane. $1.50. 
 Pyle, Howard. Merry Adventures of Robin Hood. 
 Scribner. $3. 
 
 Stories that might be true 
 
 Wyss, J. D. The Stoiss Family Robinson. Illus- 
 trated by Rhead. Harper. $1.50. 
 
 There is a 65-cent edition published by Ginn. 
 
 Smith, M. P. (Wells). Jolly Good Times. Little. 
 $1.25. 
 
 Four on a Farm. Little. $1.50. 
 
 Jackson, Helen Hunt. Nelly's Silver Mine. Little. 
 $1.50. 
 
 Sherwood, M. M. (Butt). The Fairchild Family. 
 Illustrated by Florence Rudland. Stokes. $1.50. 
 
 Morley, Margaret W. Donkey John of the Toy 
 Valley. McClurg. $1.25. 
 
 Crichton, F. E. Peep-in-ihe-World. Longmans. 
 $1.25. 
 
 Spyri, Johanna. Heidi. Ginn. $.40.
 
 140 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 Nature Books 
 
 Wood, Theodore. Natural History for Young 
 People. Dutton. $2.50. 
 
 Bertelli, Luigi. The Prince and his Ants. Holt. 
 $1.35. 
 
 Kirby, Mary and Elizabeth. The Sea and its Won- 
 ders. Nelson. 5s. 
 
 Mitton, G. E. The Children's Book of Stars. Mac- 
 millan. $2. 
 
 Parsons, F. T. Plants and their Children. American 
 Book Co. $.65. 
 
 History 
 
 Tales and Talks from History. Caldwell. $1. 
 
 O'Neill, Elizabeth. Nursery History of England. 
 Stokes. $2. 
 
 Tappan, EvaM. Story of the Greek People. Hough- 
 ton. $.65. 
 
 Grierson, Elizabeth W. The Children's Book of the 
 English Minsters. Macmillan. $2. 
 
 Lang, Mrs. Andrew. Book of Princes and Prin- 
 cesses. Longmans. $1. 
 
 Travel 
 
 Mitton, G. E. The Children's Book of London. 
 Macmillan. $2. 
 
 Schwatka, Frederick. Children of the Cold. Ed. 
 Pub. Co. $1.25. 
 
 Finnemore, John. Peeps at Switzerland. Macmil- 
 lan. $.55.
 
 BUYING THE LIBRAKY 141 
 
 Occupations 
 Johnston, Bertha. Home Occupations for Little 
 
 Children. Jacobs. $.50. 
 Beard, Lina and A. B. Little Folks' Handy Book. 
 
 Scribner. $.75. 
 Duncan, Frances. When Mother Lets Us Garden. 
 
 Moffat. $.75. 
 Lucas, E. V. and Elizabeth. Three Hundred 
 
 Games and Pastimes. Macmillan. $2. 
 Johnson, Constance. When Mother Lets Us Help. 
 
 Moffat. $.75. 
 Ralston, Virginia. When Mother Lets Us Sew. 
 
 Moffat. $.75. 
 Rich, G. E. When Mother Lets Us Make Paper- 
 Box Furniture. Moffat. $.75. 
 
 A SUPPLEMENTARY LIST 
 
 FOR CHILDREN OVER SEVEN AND FOR THE 
 YOUNGER CHILDREN WHO DEVELOP RAPIDLY 
 
 Fairy Tales and Other Classics 
 Arabian Nights. 
 
 The following editions are good : 
 
 Arabian Nights. Edited by Olcott. Holt. 
 $1.50. 
 
 Arabian Nights. Illustrated by Parrish. 
 Scribner. $2.50. 
 
 Arabian Nights' Entertainments. Edited by 
 Lang. Longmans. $2.
 
 142 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 Stories from the Arabian Nights. Illustrated 
 byDulac. Hodder. $1.50. 
 
 Stories from the Arabian Nights. Houghton. 
 $.40. 
 Baldwin, James. Story of Siegfried. Scribner. 
 
 $1.50. 
 Stockton, F. R. Fanciful Tales. Scribner. $.50. 
 MacDonald, George. At the Back of the North 
 Wind. Illustrated by Pape and Hughes. Dodge. 
 $1.50. 
 Ruskin, John. King of the Golden River. Heath. 
 
 $.20. 
 Lamb, Charles. Adventures of Ulysses. Heath. 
 
 $.25. 
 Pyle, Howard. Story of King Arthur and his 
 Knights. Scribner. $2.50. 
 
 Story of Sir Launcelot and his Companions. 
 Scribner. $2.50. 
 
 Story of the Champions of the Round Table. 
 Scribner. $2^50. 
 
 Story of the Grail and the Passing of Arthur. 
 Scribner. $2.50. 
 Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe. 
 
 An edition illustrated by Rhead (Harper. 
 $1.50) and one illustrated by Smith (Houghton. 
 $1.50) are good. Houghton publishes a 60-cent 
 edition. 
 Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver's Travels. 
 
 An edition illustrated by Rhead (Harper.
 
 BUYING THE LIBRARY 143 
 
 $1.50) and one illustrated by Staynes (Holt. 
 $2.25) are good. Houghton publishes a 40-cent 
 edition. 
 
 Lamb, Charles and Mary. Tales from Shake- 
 speare. 
 
 An edition illustrated by Price (Scribner. 
 $2.50) is beautiful. Houghton publishes a 50- 
 cent edition. 
 
 Chaucer. Tales of the Canterbury Pilgrims. Re- 
 told by Darton; illustrated by Thomson. 
 Stokes. $1.50. 
 
 Poetry 
 
 Wiggin, Kate Douglas, and Smith, Nora A. 
 Golden Numbers. Doubleday. $2. 
 
 Lang, Andrew. Blue Poetry Book. Longmans. $1. 
 
 Repplier, Agnes. Book of Famous Verse. Hough- 
 ton. $.75. 
 
 Some Fine Historical Stories 
 Clemens, S. L. (Mark Twain, pseud.) The Prince 
 
 and the Pauper. Harper. $1.75. 
 Dix, B. M. Merrylips. Macmillan. $1.50. 
 Dodge, Mary Mapes. Hans Brinker. Scribner. 
 The edition illustrated by Doggett costs $1.50. 
 There is an edition without illustrations at 50 
 cents. 
 Pyle, Howard. Otto of the Silver Hand. Scribner.
 
 144 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 Stein, Evaleen. Gabriel and the Hour Book. Page. 
 
 $1. 
 Yonge, Charlotte M. The Little Duke. Illustrated 
 
 by Millar. Macmillan. $1.25. 
 
 Miscellaneous 
 
 Clodd, Edward. The Childhood of the World. Mac- 
 millan. $1.25. 
 
 Hill, C. T. Fighting a Fire. Century. $1.50. 
 
 Ingersoll, Ernest. Book of the Ocean. Century. 
 $1.50. 
 
 Jewett, Sophie. God's Troubadour (St. Francis of 
 Assisi). Crowell. $1.25. 
 
 Lummis, C. F. Some Strange Corners of our Coun- 
 try. Century. $1.50. 
 
 Price, O.W. The Land We Live In. Small. $1.50. 
 
 Richman, Julia, and Wallach, I. R. Good Citizen- 
 ship. American Book Co. $.45. 
 
 Syrett, Netta. The Old Miracle Plays of England. 
 Young Churchman. $.80. 
 
 Some Interesting Foreign Picture Books 
 
 French 
 Boutet de Monvel. Nos enfants. Hachette. 
 
 German 
 Heubach. Neue Tierbilder. Carl. 
 Lefler and Urban. Kling Klang Gloria. Tempsky. 
 Liebermann. Kinder sang-heimatklang. Scholz.
 
 BUYING THE LIBRARY 145 
 
 Olfers. Windchen. Schreiber. 
 Osswald. Tierbilder. Scholz. 
 Pletsch. Hausmiitterchen. Hegel. 
 
 Was willst du werden? Hegel. 
 
 Swedish 
 Adelborg. Bilderbok. Bonnier. 
 Beskow. Puttes afventyr i blabarsskogen. Walh- 
 strom. 
 
 Olles shidjurd. Wahlstrom.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 WHEN THE LITTLE CHILDREN GROW BIG 
 
 To suggest a course of reading for the 
 child's first seven or eight years has been 
 the purpose of these chapters. I cannot 
 close without a word about the older chil- 
 dren's books. For a fuller treatment of 
 this latter subject I refer parents to Miss 
 Frances Jenkins Olcott's admirable book, 
 "The Children's Reading." The appen- 
 dices of Miss Olcott's book also "How 
 to procure Books through the Public Li- 
 brary" and "How to procure Books by 
 Purchase" will be invaluable to par- 
 ents far removed from good book-stores. 
 While the child from nine to twelve 
 years of age is devouring books him- 
 self, it will be comparatively easy to guide 
 him along lines already followed. After
 
 BOOKS FOR OLDER CHILDREN 147 
 
 a while, however, the curiosity and the 
 self-assertiveness of the adolescent will 
 probably lead him into "sprees" of read- 
 ing stuff that will be your despair. This 
 is not the time to be too dictatorial about 
 what the boy or girl shall or shall not 
 read. Influence rather than authority is 
 the best method to use with these young 
 persons, who know more than they will 
 ever know again in their lives and who 
 will kick over the traces if we hold the 
 reins too tightly. Above everything keep 
 the confidence of these big children. Con- 
 tinue the evening reading-aloud custom. 
 Some clever mothers have told me that 
 reading aloud the very trash brought home 
 by the children, reading with good-na- 
 tured fun at the extravagances of the 
 stories, has resulted in their children's 
 presently bursting into roars of sheep- 
 ish laughter and thereafter adopting into 
 the family- joke vocabulary certain choice
 
 148 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 expressions from the absurd tales. Poking 
 fun is much more effective than solemn 
 commands to refrain from things consid- 
 ered wicked forbidden fruit is so much 
 more enticing than an open basket. 
 
 I am not half so fearful, for children of 
 good homes, of the blood-and-thunder 
 adventure story as of the quantities of 
 "safe" juvenile books published to-day. 
 For one thing you know that- your child, 
 brought up as he has been, will never 
 actually turn pirate or highway robber 
 for reading some of these gory books, 
 which perhaps serve as escape valves for 
 the boy's innate savagery which the con- 
 ventions of our civilization merely cover 
 but do not eradicate. The boy who has 
 had "no bringing up" does imitate, the 
 police courts tell us, the deeds of violence 
 of which he reads in the nickel novel ; but 
 your child's snare is more likely to be the 
 lazy-minded series habit.
 
 BOOKS FOR OLDER CHILDREN 149 
 
 It is curious that so many people think 
 that if one removes all "swear words,'* 
 all slang, all bowie knives and pistols from 
 a story, the result will be a "perfectly 
 harmless" book. What about the harm 
 to the character if a child forms the habit 
 of taking the laziest way in his reading? 
 The adult who calls the mediocre reading 
 habit harmless has naturally been influ- 
 enced by the educational methods of our 
 time, methods which put most of the work 
 on the teacher and insure the child's be- 
 ing shielded from a thing so old-fashioned 
 as boning down to study actually to 
 study anything that does not "interest" 
 him, no matter how vitally important to 
 his life will be the mastery of certain un- 
 interesting facts, and above all the mas- 
 tery of his own will, of his powers of 
 concentration. 
 
 However, I have really not the slight- 
 est fear that children who have grown up
 
 150 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 with the best will ever acquire any lasting 
 taste for poor books. Their attacks of 
 reading the latter will leave no deeper 
 marks upon their minds than mild cases 
 of chicken-pox or measles leave upon 
 vigorous young bodies. 
 
 I shall have an uneasy conscience if I 
 do not attempt to show that the pro- 
 gramme I have suggested may lighten 
 rather than increase the mother's cares. 
 
 When the subject of the small families 
 of people best fitted to bring up children 
 is under discussion, we occasionally hear 
 advanced as an explanation the high cost 
 of living of our time as compared with 
 the days of our grandmothers. 
 
 Once in a while a valiant soul declares 
 that to bring into the world ten or a dozen 
 children to be reared in a city flat ought 
 to be sufficient cause for arraigning the 
 parents before the Society for the Pre- 
 vention of Cruelty to Children.
 
 BOOKS FOR OLDER CHILDREN 151 
 
 I have not heard given as a cause for 
 race suicide the terrifying diffusion of 
 knowledge of our day. 
 
 It is bad enough to go through the 
 anxiety of having four children operated 
 on for "adenoids and tonsils." We should 
 have to build more sanatoria for worn- 
 out mothers if there were many "old- 
 fashioned" families of children to put 
 through this modern ordeal. 
 
 To keep enough bottles of boiled water 
 on the ice for three thirsty youngsters is 
 no light task. Imagine trying to keep up 
 with the thirst of thirteen ! 
 
 If a man on a school-teacher's salary 
 pays a regular monthly dentist bill of fif- 
 teen dollars for three children, it might 
 sometimes be difficult to decide how to 
 apportion that part of his salary left over 
 after " straightening " four times as many 
 mouths. 
 
 I can go through the list of my mar-
 
 152 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 ried friends, all of whom adore children 
 and would like to have large families, and 
 there is not one of these intelligent par- 
 ents but is paying out to doctors large 
 sums yearly in order that these well-born 
 children may grow up physically perfect. 
 
 And now I am adding another " ought " 
 to the daily programme of the devoted 
 mother. 
 
 Let us see if the immediate returns will 
 not even up for the time and trouble 
 spent on the reading. 
 
 To begin with, every mother knows 
 that it is not the housework so much as 
 the managing a bunch of lively young 
 humans that depletes her strength and 
 wears out her nerves. Just let a vigorous 
 father undertake to relieve the mother, 
 for one holiday, of the care of the kiddies. 
 Is n't he a perfect wreck by the children's 
 bedtime? And next day at the office he 
 confides to his co-workers somewhat
 
 BOOKS FOR OLDER CHILDREN 153 
 
 boastfully, because, so long as he does n't 
 have the care of them, he likes to think 
 his youngsters are particularly active 
 "By Jove! I was more used up after that 
 day with the kids than I 'd be in a month 
 at the office!" And his friends who are 
 fathers echo feelingly, "You're dead right 
 on that, old man!" 
 
 If one can find a scheme that will help 
 tide over crossness, that will get the chil- 
 dren into the habit of hurrying instead of 
 dawdling about dressing and undressing, 
 that will set them eagerly to tidying up 
 the playroom, wiping the silver and brush- 
 ing off the crumbs, of being really 
 helpful to mother without constant prod- 
 ding, will not such a scheme pay its 
 own way? I know, because I've tried it, 
 that there is no easier way of getting 
 magical results in good behavior than the 
 promise of a story when work is done. 
 You may call it bribery, but did you never
 
 154 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 know a grown person, of good principles, 
 too, to work a little harder and faster if 
 he saw a prospect of a better salary for 
 increased output? 
 
 There is another way in which this 
 reading programme will pay. One of the 
 deprivations keenly felt even by the 
 most unselfish mother is that of having 
 no time to cultivate her own mind. Her 
 personal reading for years is almost zero. 
 Now the reading for the children which 
 I have suggested is so splendid as to be a 
 means of culture to the adult reader as 
 well as to the child listener. 
 
 So in oiling the wheels of discipline, in 
 saving time for the reading by securing 
 the children's ready help, in the satisfac- 
 tion of broadening one's own mental hori- 
 zon, in keeping close to the intellectual 
 and spiritual life of the growing children 
 so that they will not drift into thinking 
 of mother as merely a loving caretaker of
 
 BOOKS FOR OLDER CHILDREN 155 
 
 the physical needs, because I am certain 
 of all the above and many more good re- 
 sults, I feel justified, not only for the 
 children's but for the mother's sake, in 
 urging the carrying-out of the course pro- 
 posed in this book. 
 
 My last word is for fathers a most 
 unfairly ignored class of beings in these 
 days ! 
 
 Much of the foregoing reading must be 
 done by the mother because she is with 
 the children so many more hours than 
 the father; but there is no reason why 
 bedtime and Sunday story-hours may 
 not be the father's share of this pleasur- 
 able duty. A man may be too clumsy to 
 help about baths and buttons, but if he 
 reads a daily paper he cannot deny the 
 ability to read young people's story-books. 
 A father ought to be unwilling to leave all 
 spiritual intimacy with his children to the 
 mother. By sharing their pleasure in their
 
 156 READING TO THE CHILDREN 
 
 books he will be learning wonderfully how 
 to be a father to the minds and hearts of 
 his boys and girls as well as a generous 
 provider for their material needs. 
 
 THE END
 
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