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knows, are by some common understanding generally considered any one's property, and there is a similar moral blind spot in regard to books. Unless they are plainly and indelibly marked with the owner's name, their first trip into a friend's house is likely to develop into permanent residence there. A book-plated book, at once recording ownership and witnessing the owner's love for the volume, is far more likely to return promptly to its own shelf.

It was about 1450 that printing from type was invented; and as soon as printed books became common, their owners began to have book-plates made to identify them. It is said that the ancient Assyrians, who wrote books in the shape of clay tablets, baking them stiff to make them permanent, attached smaller name-label tablets, which correspond to our book-plates. And it has been claimed that the Japanese, long before printing was discovered in Europe, identified their books by decorative designs. But the history of the book-plate as we know it goes back only to

HER BOOK

INITIALS MAKE RABBIT'S BODY

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the fifteenth century. From the very first, great artists gave their time and genius to the making of the miniature designs. At the head of the list stand the famous Dürer and Holbein, while at the contemporary end are such well-known artists as

the English Frank Brangwyn

and our own Maxfield Parrish. Although the history of book-plates for grown-up people thus spans four centuries, the child's plate seems to be a thing of comparatively recent origin. There may be scattered examples in the collections of antiquarians, but in general it may be said that children's bookplates are a development of the last twenty-five years. In that time, however, their use has grown remarkably, until to-day no child may properly claim to be a book-lover unless his or her volumes are marked with an individual device.

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A NAME

There are certain distinctive features to be noted about a successful juvenile plate, certain qualities that mark it as different from the "grown-up" plate. When a man or woman orders a design, there are three main

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A.MACHETARY

"A DESIGN SUGGESTING ACTION AND ADVENTURE"

good starting-point. And by the way, it would be well to stop off here for a few minutes

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to study the illustrations, with these points in mind, before going on to read about them.

Of course, most of the differences are in the mat

ter of the subjects chosen HER NAME IS OLIVE to be pictured on children's designs. Before speaking

of that, however, it is well to note that the plate of a boy or girl is nearly always smaller than those of older people. This cutting down of dimensions is not altogether a matter of feeling-that the smaller the owner, the smaller the marker should be. On the contrary, there is a very good argument for smallness in the fact that it is difficult for a child to paste in a large label neatly; and by all means the child should be allowed to do his own pasting. Moreover, some children's books are too small to accommodate a larger plate. The fact that other juvenile books are very large suggests the wisdom of having the design printed in two sizes. The additional cost is not great, as most of the expense goes for the making of the original drawing and comparatively little for the reproduction and printing.

The best subjects for children's bookplates are to be found among those objects that have grown dear to them by association. Any attempt to sermonize, or to symbolize the great lessons of life, is almost sure to fail, at least from the child's standpoint. The abstract should be avoided, the concrete

This Book Belongs

things of the child's own life and world being made the basis of design. Mother Goose symbolically leading a child Chandler Withington into the land of DESIGNED BY GARDNER TEALL dreams is likely to

to

be far less of a success than a goose of the common barnyard variety; and a picture of a dog or of a Noah's ark is far more in keeping than an angel of enlightenment.

For very small children the range of subjects is large: cats, dogs, rabbits, indeed any sort of pet,-familiar flowers, characters from fairy stories, semblances of beloved toys. These and many more of the little things of a child's life may be made to yield pleasures of recollection at every fresh opening of a book. These things, too, are decorative. They lend themselves well to treatment as ornament, unlike the landscapes, the biographical data, and the library interiors that grown folk choose for their designs. The art of the book-plate is a conventionalized art, and the child's playthings and the child's ideas, simple in themselves, offer better material for simple, conventional treatment in design.

For older children, it is more difficult to find suitable subjects. Although a favorite pet, or a flower, or a book character may still be chosen as the principal motive, the Jackin-the-box, the Noah's-ark tree, and the old

familiar Mother Goose characters are now out of the question. Of course, purely bookish subjects are always safe, if handled with ingenuity-witness the two Farnham designs, and that for Juddie Stowell, among the illustrations.

At the age from ten to fifteen years, boys and girls are unusually quick to catch and to enjoy any suggestion of cleverness in the handling of a design or in hidden meaningsso much so that this might be called the puzzle age. So a book-plate of the punning or rebus sort will always give an unusual measure of enjoyment. The O. L. G. design, wherein the initials form the rabbit's body, and the Warren O. Church plate, which has the family name in pictorial form only, are good examples of this type. One can imagine the owners showing these designs to their child friends with real pride.

There are differences between boys' bookplates and girls' book-plates, just as there is a difference in atmosphere between a collection of men's designs and a collection of women's designs. Of course this is not always apparent, nor necessarily important. But a comparison of the Malcolm Stone and Helen Bruno plates, shown herewith, will indicate that such a difference of spirit often does exist. The boy's design here is full of spirited action and suggestive of adventure. The whole atmosphere is boyish. In the Helen Bruno plate, on the contrary, the idea and execution alike are properly girlishsuggestive, somehow, of hair-ribbons and white frocks. The designer, by the way, is Margaret Ely Webb, whose pictures need no introduction to girl and boy readers. A second plate which is distinctively boyish is the "R. G. C.-His mark." Surely there is nothing of the "sugar and spice and everything nice" quality about it. Indeed it has that impish quality which fiction writers try to make us believe is boyish rather than girlish.

When children's book-plates fail to satisfy, it is usually because the artist has approached his task from the grown-up point of view. For instance, one can hardly be made to believe that the Kenneth Stone design, with its threatening schoolmaster, its bare room, and its glimpse of the contrasting freedom out-ofdoors, would give a youthful owner any thrill of pleasure. It illustrates a phase of childlife which is always amusing to the grownup, but it is not a good book-plate for a child. The little Robert Gable plate, though not necessarily unsatisfying for the boy-owner,

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The grown-up attitude among many cultured people is that they want to get away from the hackneyed and familiar at any cost a sort of "originality or bust" idea. they do often "bust" artistically is neither here nor there. What is important is that the boy or girl rightly craves the familiar thing. What if Mother Goose's varied family have appeared on a thousand plates? What if cats and dogs and rabbits parade on the plates of every Tom, Dick, and Harry? These subjects are perennially interesting, and the pleasure of meeting them perennially new, to the child.

As to the inscription on a child's plate, there are several appropriate forms. Of course, the ponderous Latin phrase "ex libris"

meaning "from the books"-which appears

on most grown-up designs, is out of place on a child's. Inscriptions taken at random from a collection of young people's designs are: "Rachel Stevens' Book," "John and Jane Their Book," "Bidwell Children's Library," "This is Juddie Stowell's Book," "Carey Children Their Mark," and "This Book Belongs to Shorty." All are simple and direct, as they should be. Occasionally the name is the only lettering on the design, as in the "Jack" plate shown herewith. The use of a monogram or the initials instead of the full name has often been condemned, as being insufficient for identification. But in the case of a child, whose books would travel within a very limited circle, if loaned at all, the initials alone would seem to be allowable.

There was a time when every book-plate must have its motto. But the simplicity of latter-day designs has crowded out all unnecessary wording, and children's plates seldom find place for anything but the ownership legend. Such Latin mottos as that on the Arthur Sproul plate, "Honor ante Omnia," no matter how commendable the sentiment, seem somewhat out of place for children. The "Store up!" of the Hawley Strong plate is wholesomely direct and simple, and in this case the whole design is built around the idea of the motto. This plate is from the pen of Albertine Randall Wheelan, who is well-known to readers of ST. NICHOLAS.

Of the artists whose plates are shown among the illustrations, doubtless the most successful in realizing the distinctive requirements of designs for children is Gardner Teall. He has placed himself in the child's viewpoint most thoroughly, and he has achieved those simple, direct qualities that are so difficult for most designers to obtain. His work is straightforward and clean-cut, and it is full of clever conceits. Many of his plates are hand-colored, and these, of course, it is impossible to reproduce. But the six designs shown here are characteristically successful. Note the decorative quality of the Chandler Withington, the clever arrangement of the portraits in the G. W. and the John and Jane plates, and the bookish yet childish atmosphere of the two Farnham designs. In the Juddie Stowell plate, one of the finest of all, the designer gives ingenious expression to the idea that books are this boy's special hobby. When one looks over a collection of Mr. Teall's book-plates, one regrets that the maker is not a regular designer, but merely a successful author who makes art work a side issue.

Probably no design ever interests small children more than does that used by Rachel Stevens, a plate adapted by Dr. A. W. Clark from a cover by Walter Crane. Above is Mother Goose in her nightcap, while below are all the characters from the beloved Heydiddle-diddle rhyme. The cow is taking a very realistic leap over the moon, the dish is leading away the spoon, and at the sides the cat fiddles and the dog looks on and laughs. Here is the whole of the familiar story in pictures-and what child would not like such friends on a personal marker?

Of clever arrangements of lettering the O. L. G. and Olive designs are notable. The little rabbit, whose back is made up of the initials, must be a perpetual delight to the owner. It was made by Olive Lothrop Grover. The Olive plate is by Olive Percival. It shows what attractive designs can be made of the slightest material-if one has the cleverness to do it. Another design in which the arrangement is half the art of the thing is that for K. D., drawn and engraved on wood by the famous Gordon Craig. Seldom is the character of the cat so happily portrayed as here.

Of the many designs used as illustrations, one, the Arthur E. Sproul, will stand out as entirely different from all the others. It is not suited for a small child, but it is such a book-plate as one might appropriately use from boyhood to old manhood. It is from a copperplate engraving by Sidney L. Smith, the greatest of the living American bookplate artists; and the library interior and the landscape through the window are typical of his delicate workmanship.

It is difficult to define the charm of the little "Jack" plate, but it is certainly very attractive one of the best by that all-around artist-architect, Frank Chouteau Brown. The figure of the piping fairy-boy is tenderly appealing, and the castle in the distance is suggestive. The heavy-line drawing gives an ornamental effect that is very pleasing. Another plate similarly decorative in execution is that of Pauline Stone. This admirable little drawing was made a number of years ago by Violet Holden for a small girl friend. But now the girl has grown up and has herself become an artist. Witness the Tyndall Savage plate, whereon she has pictured a boy generously sharing with a bird the pleasure of his reading.

A plate that seemingly has no relationship to books is the W. A. Brewer, Jr. ship design. But the boy for whom this was made was

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